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 is 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 of 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 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’. 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 genders, male and female, and that these genders are biologically determined and not to be rejected by individuals or society for any reason. Gender has nothing to do with human choice and cannot be changed by someone’s feelings, drugs, or a surgeon’s creativity.
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 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.’
English (US) · 