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Creeds make many UUs nervous. We want them, but we hate the idea of them. Why is that? We want a simple statement of what UUs believe, so that we can tell our children what our faith is about. We want a simple statement of faith so we can explain this religion to our family, our friends, our co-workers, our Aunt Frannie, the fundamentalist.

We want a simple statement of faith to answer simple, reasonable questions reasonable people ask us. Or even unreasonable people. We want to be able to give the short answer when someone asks: what do Unitarian Universalists believe?

Why people want creeds. People have wanted creeds and confessions because they have wanted to be able to figure out what they believe and they want to be able to articulate what they believe.

We want a simple statement of faith because it could be so useful to us– but at the same time– there is a realization, or at least a gnawing concern, that such a simple statement could also be our undoing.

And we are caught in a paradox when it comes to such things. I am reminded of the Hollywood screen-writing creed: "there are no rules in Hollywood, and they are strictly enforced."

So some people would say, that Unitarian Universalism has a creed: our creed is that we have no creed.

Old creeds divide people. We don't like creeds because they are fraught with snares, and a bad history. And while we respect the need for creed, we are wary of being tempted into reducing the UU faith to an absurdity. There is a sense of danger when one talks about Unitarian Universalism and creeds.

In the 2003 movie on the life of Protestant reformer Martin Luther, a superior asks Martin: What is it that you want? Martin replies: to serve God. The superior says: then that is how you will be tempted.

We want a simple statement of faith? Then that is how we will be tempted. We will be tempted to create a creed, and then a creedal test, and then know the saved from the damned. Well, that road is paved with good intentions, isn't it?

The history of western religion– particularly Western Christianity– is the story of creeds, of who is inside the circle and who is out. It is the story of a two-color world: black & white, right & wrong, the elect & the damned, heaven & hell, eternal life or eternal torment & damnation.

In the Athanasian creed, it says "this is the catholic faith. Unless one keeps it in its entirety inviolate, one will assuredly perish eternally" (Credo, 76). Not just perish, but perish eternally.

Ancient creeds attempt to define the person of Jesus for all Christians. It seems to be an act of hubris. Harold Schonberg, in his book The Great Conductors, says that in his last year, French composer Louis Jullien toyed with the notion of setting the Lord's Prayer to music.

The composer's inspiration? The prospect of seeing a title page reading: "THE LORD'S PRAYER. Words by Jesus Christ. Music by Jullien."

A typical Christian creed is found in the Heidelberg Catechism. It is still in use by the Reformed Churches. It is composed of 129 questions, taking up 82 pages. It's content is a primer on why UUs often start out with what they don't believe.

We are told that the only comfort in life and death is that the blood of Christ has paid for our sins, and that not even a hair falls from our head without God's willing it.

We are told that we are prone by nature to hate God and neighbor, but that it is not God's fault, it is Adam & Eve's fault. And that we inherit their sin.

Question 8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness? Answer: Indeed we are [except by God's grace].

Question 9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring from him in his law, that which he cannot perform? Good question!

Answer: Not at all; for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own wilful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.

Where to begin? UUs don't believe God controls individual hair loss. Can I say that? I just did. UUs don't believe that we are "prone by nature to hate God and neighbor." We do believe we can affect and change our own life.

We do believe people can live just lives without belief in a particular God. We do not believe all humans are "wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness?"

Can I say that? Yes. Can I speak for you? Can I make that our creed? No. Maybe, sometimes.

Creeds are problematic in so many ways: they proclaim a truth revealed to others long ago that we are supposed to passively accept. Creeds divide religions, they divide denominations within religions, they create discord and argument. Some creeds end up saying good works are necessary at the same time they say good works get in the way.

Interestingly enough, Jesus had something to say about creeds. There is a parable of Jesus (Mt 21:28-31). Jesus tells of a man with two sons. He asked both to go work in the vineyard. The first son said he wasn’t going to go, but he did. The second son said he would go work, but he didn’t.

Jesus asks which did the will of his father? Obviously, the first son who said one thing, but ended up working in the vineyard did the will of his father more than the 2^nd son who said he’d go but didn’t. In other words: deeds not creeds! There you go! It’s in the bible!

Early creeds are about Jesus. That’s why they are there; it’s why creeds exist. One thing about early creeds is that they are all about the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus asks: who do you say I am? (Mt 16:15). And creeds are an attempt to answer that question.

Trinitarian creeds address Christ as prophet, priest, and king. I think most UUs appreciate Jesus as prophet, and pay far less attention to Jesus as divine priest or heavenly king.

Most Christian creeds are a hindrance to UUs because we care more about the work of Jesus than the origins or destination of Jesus.

But the definition of creed has evolved over the centuries. It’s no longer only about the person of Jesus. Credo vs Doctrine. In the olden days, doctrine dictated what your personal faith was supposed to be. We UUs separate out these two ideas. What we believe as an individual is only loosely coupled with what all UUs believe. And we make no creedal tests for membership.

If you move the definition of creed from a particular and peculiar statement about the person of Christ, and instead define creed as "a set of religious beliefs," then everyone has a creed.

Creeds can unite us. There has been a movement among Unitarian Universalists to claim a common identity. We have always told our history, but we have taken perverse pride in some ways by acting like theological teenagers. Some teens like to dress wildly, play strange music, and really be “different”– just like all the other teens.

UU churches use a common hymnal; most use the flaming chalice; many use the same children’s and adult religious education materials. We sing the same hymns, we speak the same readings, we share some things with other UU churches.

And it does not demean us; it does not make us any less unique, it does not rob us of anything– it allows us to be connected with something larger than our own efforts.

How could creeds be useful? Creeds define us to ourselves and others. That's why they are there. They don't necessarily have to be tyrannical. We don't have to use a creed as a test. We don't have to say that a creed is cut in stone for all eternity. We don't have to use a creed the way the orthodox religions do.

Alan Kimber, a California pastor, says that we use creed-like formulas in our lives all the time. Singing the national anthem at sporting events, corporate mission statements, the Lord's Prayer, wedding vows — all have creedal elements. We may not think too much of the meaning, but their very presence in our lives serves as some kind of social and civic reminder.

Credo means "I believe," a close cousin to that word is "Cordo" which means "I give my heart to." If we are uncomfortable with credo, we may be more comfortable with cordo.

So what is it that we are giving our hearts to? Career? Pride? Unhealthy habits? Leisure toys? Consumerism? Whatever it is, that's our creed.

It is important for us to (a) figure out what we believe; (b) figure out how to act it out in our lives; and (c) speak to others about our beliefs as a way of refining them and testing them.

There are those who insist that we avoid creeds like the plague. They have always been with us, they are with us still, they remind us not to stray too far from religious freedom.

The Rev. Octavius Brooks Frothingham, a 19^th century Unitarian preacher, is a case in point. The UU historian, Conrad Wright tells us:

Frothingham’s concern was to defend the complete intellectual and spiritual freedom of the individual, which institutions invariably compromise. To the extent that he had a concept of religious fellowship, it was a purely spiritual relationship of individual seekers after religious truth, with no necessary embodiment in a covenanted community.

Frothingham represents the individualistic rejection of ecclesiasticism in general and Unitarian denominationalism in particular, characteristic of the so-called Radicals. (Conrad Wright. Congregational Polity: A Historical Survey of Unitarian and Universalist Practice. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1997. Pages 67-68).

Since institution-building was put aside in the name of freedom, Frothingham ended up concentrating on the sermon -- which brought in the crowds -- instead of institution-building, which would assure the continuation of a place for liberal religion in his community.

Frothingham’s preaching was what mattered. He was an effective public speaker with a personal following, enlarged by many curious casual listeners. In 1879, when ill health made it necessary for him to give up his preaching, the church disbanded because nothing remained.

Wright notes we have always had theological boundaries, and these did not become creeds. For example, the

Winchester Confession is best understood as a consensus statement, identifying a normative understanding of the Universalist position of 1803, not as a creedal test to be used for disciplinary purposes. (Wright, 69-70).

Wright and others (including myself), maintain that the wording in the UU creeds and credos like the Winchester Confession, the UU Principles and Purposes, are descriptive, not prescriptive. They tell us what the majority happen to believe; not what the UUs must believe.

The tension between being able to say what most UUs believe and the anathema of creed as litmus test for membership has always been with us.

While one solution to this problem is simply to avoid saying who we are, it remains uncomfortably insufficient and mitigates against us living our beliefs. It means we don’t rise to the challenge, it means that because we may be fearful of tyranny, we abdicate our responsibility entirely.

There will always be a desire to know what is commonly believed among us, Refusing to say what that is does not make the legitimate desire go away. Professor Wright notes that in the 30 year period after the Civil War, the Unitarians were searching for a consensus.

Some Unitarians wanted to draw the line so as to include only those who considered Christianity to be a divinely ordained religion... The Radicals of the denomination protested that such a boundary would exclude them, and they often argued against any limitation whatsoever.

Actually their objection was to the way the boundary would be drawn, not to the idea of boundaries. None of them would have included within the consensus Trinitarians, believers in double predestination, or those who accepted the infallibility of the pope.

If anyone should be found outside the boundary, it would be by is or her own choice, not by any official act of exclusion. (Wright, 87-88).

Professor Wright says 3 things separate “a statement of what we commonly believe” from a true creed. First, such statements have never achieve “the standing of a sacred test that may not be revised or replaced.” Second:

It is left up to the individual to decide whether he or she belongs within the covenant of a particular local religious community, and power is not assigned to ecclesiastical authority to decide whether the applicant is to be allowed in.

And finally,

The definition of the boundary is a result, not of hierarchical control of wayward churches, but of living together, and communicating to one another our deepest and most thoughtful insights as to human experience and the mystery that surrounds it.

In the orthodox traditions, a group of elder scholars, decides upon creeds and catechisms. They decide how to interpret God, scripture, all of reality. It is presumed that you are too ignorant or evil to be able to do this on your own.

Our tradition says the first source of our religion is your own experience. It is up to you to uncover your own credo. It is up to you to look at your own behavior and see your cordo– what it is you give your heart to.

Your homework is to write out your own creed. It may not be the easy way, but it is the UU way!