Though the Nicene Creed is regularly recited in weekly church services, few understand its historical origins and connections to Scripture and key Christian doctrines. This volume bridges the gap, providing an accessible introduction that explains how the Creed is anchored in the Bible and how it came to be written and confessed in the early history of the church. The authors show how the Creed reflects the purpose of God in salvation, especially in relation to Christians' divine adoption as sons and daughters, leading to glorification. Each chapter includes sidebars highlighting how the Creed has been received in the church's liturgy. Professors, students, clergy, and religious educators will benefit from this illuminating and edifying guide to the Nicene Creed.

Understand and celebrate what we believe For centuries, the Nicene Creed has been central to the church's confession. The Nicene Creed: An Introduction by Phillip Cary explores the Creed's riches with simplicity and clarity. Cary explains the history of the Creed and walks through its meaning line by line. Far from being abstract or irrelevant, the words of the Creed carefully express what God has done in Christ and through the Spirit. The Nicene Creed gives us the gospel. It gives biblical Christians the words for what we already believe. And when we profess the Creed, we join the global church throughout history in declaring the name and work of the one God—Father, Son, and Spirit. Gain a fresh appreciation for the ancient confession with Phillip Cary's help.

The Nicene Creed's powerful summary of Christian faith has stood the test of time, embodying core truths and distinguishing essential Christian teachings from those of lesser importance. As respected thinker and educator David Willis explores the Nicene Creed in this new book, he provides clues for meaningfully interpreting this most ecumenical of church creeds in the twenty-first century. Writing especially for educated laypeople, advanced students, and theological educators, Willis eloquently links the ancient creed to life today. As he points out, faith is constantly taking different shapes within broad boundaries like the creed's perennial truths, and even these truths need to be reinterpreted in each age to keep them intelligible and compelling. Willis admirably achieves this task for our day by elucidating the creed's statement of faith with analogies drawn from such diverse areas as architecture, graphic art, poetry, sculpture, and psychological theory. Those seeking to delve into the creed or to deepen a lifelong encounter with it will be enriched by Willis's reflections.

"A cogent and persuasive plea for a return to the full catholic tradition which would make a critical contribution to the debate about gender in matters of faith." —The Most Rev. Desmond M. Tutu Writers of scripture and theologians have used scores of images to describe God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Yet only the patriarchal perspective seemed to survive and be taught. In this comprehensive reflection on the Nicene Creed, Geitz looks to the writings of theologians, mystics, and scholars throughout the centuries for a balanced and scholarly approach to an often divisive issue of Christians. Elizabeth Geitz writes, "My desire is to help us move from an initial emotional response to feminine tradition of the church to one that is based on sound biblical, historical and theological principles."

Reprint of the original, first published in 1866.