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I believe that is a bad idea
During our Sunday School class on the Apostle's Creed, the wife of the President of Garrett said that Perkins makes its students write their own creed. I laughed. The idea of writing a personal creed is so...Protestant (in a bad way, people). The Apostle's Creed was and is used in baptisms as a way to publicly express belief in the essentials of the Christian faith. The creed is a story that tells our salvation history as part of the communion of saints.
Yes, I understand writing your own creed can be a good theological exercise. It is important to explore your own beliefs. But in seminary, it's more important to understand the beliefs of the Christian Church, since you'll be, you know, preaching them. Now obviously I'm being a little harsh on Perkins just to make a point about individualism within Protestantism. And how can we separate our beliefs and the beliefs of the Church? But how about an assignment to explain the Apostle's Creed? Obviously we might interpret parts of it differently, but hopefully not so differently that we reject the core faith as it has been handed down to us throughout the centuries.
What's open to interpretation? Well, that's a good question, but if you write something like "I believe Jesus by virtue of his special relationship with God became the Christ,"* I'd say you're off track. If you want to debate Augustinian vs. Cappadocian interpretations of the Trinity or Barthian vs. Wesleyan soteriology that sounds fun. God, I'm a such a geek.
(I'm fairly certain we didn't do anything like this at Duke. I remember a final paper as part of Church's Ministry 100, which was a class required of all seniors that was supposed to be a capstone of some sort. I think I wrote about the Church as Servant. Other than that, I don't remember anything about the class except that everyone hated it. I don't remember why. I think it was really boring. Perhaps the boredom killed off the brain cells that I would've used to remember the class.)
In a world that celebrates individuality, they are actually doing something together. In an age that avoids commitment, they pledge themselves to a set of convictions and thereby to each other. In a culture that rewards novelty and creativity, they use words written by others long ago. In a society where accepted wisdom changes by the minute, they claim that some truths are so critical that they must be repeated over and over again. In a throwaway, consumerist world, they accept, preserve and continue tradition. Reciting the creed at worship is thus a countercultural act. (I think I already linked to this article; I know others have - but here it is again for you.)
A while ago Pen asked why there isn't any of Jesus' teachings in the creed. The Church, while holding fast to the doctrinal creeds, has committed many acts of violence. Perhaps it would have been wise to include "turn the other cheek" or something in the creed, he suggests. Now we're getting into the relationship between ethics and theology...I'll have to get back to you all.
*a personal belief of my bishop
Both John Calvin & Karl Barth isolate the word "suffered" in the Creed and
use it to refer to Jesus' earthly ministry, including his teaching, healing
and exorcisms. It's still a rather oblique reference to what Jesus taught,
but to encapsulate his whole life in the word "suffered" reminds us that
what he taught didn't go down well with most people.
In the Presbyterian Church (USA) ministers up for ordination and ministers attempting to transfer into new presbyteries must write a faith statement which is evaluated by the whole presbytery as well as its Committee on Ministry. The statement stands or falls (theoretically) on its conformity to the Creeds and Confessions of the Church. It seems to be a useful way of introducing a candidate to the presbytery as well as a useful tool for evaluating their fitnessfor ministry.
But you are right. You wouldn't know how to write a personal theological affirmation without first having a thorough understanding of what the Church believes.
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Hmm, we have "Writing your own creed" as one of our upcoming exercises in
my Education for Ministry class this year. Let me look ahead to see how we
are supposed to do it. It looks as if what we do is, first, write out our
positions, then look at them and ask where we are getting them from - are
they coming from the tradition of the church, from our own experience, or
from our culture? Our our beliefs derived from tradition? At odds with
tradition? Can we give a clear theological basis for them? Etc. And then,
for reasons which aren't clear to me, but may be made clear to me when I
actually do the exercise, we reflect on the Prayer of Manasseh. After
which we get to write statements of our beliefs again, but this time we
have to come to an agreement with someone else on what the statement says.
And then we need to pick a doctrine and come to an agreement as a whole
group.
This is a kind of distance learning course from Sewanee, an Episcopalian seminary. I'm not sure whether it's anything like the writing your creed exercise at Perkins.
Lynn Gazis-Sax [lynngnews@alsirat.com]