In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they dive into the Nicene Creed, as this year marks its 1700th anniversary. As the early church absolutely exploded in growth - from about 7,500 followers in A.D. 100 to around 30 million by A.D. 310 - the challenge and question facing them was this: How would they stay united? How would this fast-growing, quickly expanding movement remain unified in vision and values, mission and purpose? The answer became clear, and led to the Nicene Creed being written in A.D. 325 by the Council of Nicaea.
Episode Links
Modern-day churches are increasingly turning to the words of this ancient creed to ground themselves in the foundations of the Christian faith. In fact, Daniel Silliman recently wrote an article in Christianity Today titled, “How the Nicene Creed Became Cool Again” that you may be interested in reading.
In honor of the Nicene Creed's 1700th anniversary, Dr. White recently kicked off a series at Mecklenburg Community Church titled “Credo,” which is the Latin word for creed. If you're interested in checking out this series, you can find it HERE. It's particularly important in our world today to ground the church in the words of the creed, especially in light of the findings of the most recent “State of Theology” survey showing that culturally, there has been a significant lapse in our understanding of what it means to be a Christian - among Christians. You can find that study HERE.
Finally, if you are interested in doing some additional study about the Nicene Creed, there are a few books that we would recommend on this topic: Mark Noll, Turning Points; Phillip Cary, The Nicene Creed; Jared Ortiz and Daniel A. Keating, The Nicene Creed; and J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines.
For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.
