On the 17 hundredth anniversary of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), orthodox Christians need another ecumenical council. The Council of Nicaea produced the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that articulated orthodox, Christian teaching on the doctrine of God. While the creed has its roots in affirmations of the faith in Christian contexts, such as baptism, it also was a response to the Arian heresy on the doctrine of God, which rejected the full divinity of Jesus Christ.
Today, we need a
catholic (universal) statement by orthodox Christians that pushes back against
the heresies of our times that are dividing the Church. We need a statement on the doctrine of
creation. The challenges we face on the
doctrines of creation and of humanity are several: understanding creation care, diverse cultures, nature,
gender, marriage, sexuality, children, family, work, and sin. Many societies today are governed by a notion
of freedom that is so individualistic that it is anti-natural—opposed to the
Creator—imagining that humanity can create itself by its own standards. Previous societies making such claims for
themselves (the Tower of Babel, the persons in Noah’s day, and the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah) were judged by God.
Our anti-natural society endorses such sins as racial preferencing, human greatness, sexual profligacy, homosexuality,
gender fluidity and multiplicity, infanticide up to the age of birth,
‘transgender’ surgeries, various practices that undermine the family and
assisted suicide.
There ought to
be agreement on the following affirmations by orthodox Christians in various
denominations and churches. A Biblically
established, creedal statement on the doctrine of creation and humanity that
also represents Christian teaching through time might look something like this:
We believe in one God in three Persons: Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit are One God, not three, and were all active in
creation. God is not created but eternal. God alone is to be worshipped.
We believe that God is the origin, the means, and the purpose
of all things, ‘for
from Him and through Him and to Him are all things’.[1] God is the Creator, we are His creation.
We believe that God created our universe and our world
with humans as His stewards over all the earth.
Humans, alone created in God’s image, are a little lower than the angels
and are distinct from the beasts, neither equal to them nor less than they are. Our responsibilities over the world are to
care for it and use it as God intended, not to exploit it as bad caretakers.
We believe that God’s eternal power, divinity, glory,
and truth are clear to see in creation.
We must worship Him alone, not the creature, and live according to
nature, not giving ourselves over to unnatural passions and lusts. We delight in God’s good order, purposes, and
the beauty and good of creation. We gladly
obey His eternal decrees given for our good and happiness.
We believe that all human beings are equal before God, who judges impartially. He made us all, and His plan of salvation is for all people of the earth. We must not brandish our individuality as better than others. Nobody is of less worth or greater worth than another. Neither must we celebrate our group identities as better than others. Nor must we celebrate ourselves by valuing our multicultural identities. As we come to God from the four corners of the earth, our national robes are all exchanged for the white (pure) robes washed in the blood of the Lamb, who alone is our identity. As God created us equal, so Jesus’ atonement is for the sins of the whole world. We should not confuse these affirmations with the necessary regulations of states securing their borders, defining citizenship, and establishing social order.
We believe that God the Creator created two sexes,
male and female. Any claim or inclination to identify oneself differently
is a sin against nature. Gender is not distinguishable from sex, and
any person's internal disorder of passions and desires, external behaviours,
use of drugs, or procurement of a surgeon to alter one's sexuality is
sin. God's decree is that not only those who practice sin, including sins
distinguishing gender from sex, but also those who give their approval, deserve
to die. Yet, by His grace, He not only forgives but transforms the
sinner. We stand by this claim, 'If anyone is in Christ, New Creation!'
We believe that God’s creation of males and females
was to fulfill His mandate to multiply and fill the earth. The place for sex is in the union of a man
and a woman as one flesh in marriage.
We believe that marriage is ordained by God. Husband and wife are joined together as 'one flesh' by God: what God has joined together, let no one separate. When divorce happens not by mere preference but through abuse, abandonment, or sexual immorality, we recognise that God has called us to peace. Both marriage and celibacy are callings of God serving different purposes, one to devotion to spouse and children amidst life's challenges, the other to greater devotion to God with fewer distractions.
We believe in the family, established by parents, a
father and a mother, charged with the responsibility to have and raise their
children. We affirm this ideal while
caring for widows or widowers, orphans, and broken families. Adoption should be into families with a
father and mother. We believe that
children are God’s gifts of life, that parents are stewards of that life from
conception, and that society should protect and value children. We believe that children are to honour their
parents throughout their days. We
believe that the family is the basic unit in society in which the heights and
depths of Godly character are developed and expressed in life-giving and loving
relationships.
We believe in work and rest. We believe that men and women were also made
to be stewards of creation, with work as a divine and human good, and yet God
also calls us and all in our care to rest and to honour and to worship Him in
that regular rest of the Sabbath.
Despite God’s curse for sin making work labourious and painful, we
believe that no human being or animal should be exploited, abused, or enslaved
for work.
We believe that all humanity has sinned in the sin of
Adam and Eve. We also believe that
humans sin in their own thoughts and deeds against God the Creator by usurping
Divine authority, rejecting His Divine Law, and undermining His Holy Word. Any sin against His created order is against
nature, such as when we reject our identity in biological gender, the marital
union between a man and a woman, the confines of sexuality in marriage, and the
institution of the family. Sin against
nature is an internal disorder, not a natural orientation. All sinners, including those internally
disordered, are called to salvation in Christ and transformation by the Holy
Spirit, God’s empowering presence. The
Holy Spirit is transforming us all from one degree of glory to another in the
image of Jesus Christ our Lord.
We believe that God will raise the dead on the last
day, will separate the righteous from the unrighteous in a final judgement, and
will fully restore creation and our relationship with Him for eternity. While
we firmly believe that to be absent from the body in death is to be present
with the Lord in spirit, our final hope is for transformed, resurrection bodies
more glorious than our present bodies.
‘For from him and through him and to him are all
things. To him be glory forever. Amen.’[2]
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