16 August 2024

In a recent issue of the Church Times, it was reported that Lutheran Churches are to discourage the use of the filioque clause in their version of the Nicene Creed. When the Creed was first approved by the Council of Nicaea in 325 it included the statement that the Holy Spirit   ‘proceeds from the Father’.

In seventh century Spain, ‘and the Son’ was added to this to read that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son’. It was a local addition and not approved by an Ecumenical Council of the Church. The Pope resisted it until 1030 when it became embedded into Latin Christendom.

According to RW Southern, in 1050 Pope Leo IX ‘defended the orthodoxy of both statements with an illustration: a fruit (he said) may be said to come from the trunk of a tree, or from the branch, or from the trunk through the branch; so the Spirit may be said to come from the Father, or from the Son, or from the Father through the Son.’

It was one significant contributing factor to the Great Schism between the Eastern and the Western Church in 1054. Now the Lutherans are wanting to return to the original form of the Creed before the 1700th anniversary next year. The desire for unity is to be commended for it holds the promise of a more effective witness to the world.

In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus tries to comfort his disciples in his farewell discourse when he says, ‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I  have said to you.’ The absence created by his ascension will be filled with the Spirit who will make things clear.

There is such an intimacy between the Father and the Son. The one is incarnate in the other. The Spirit is sent by the Father in the name of Jesus. So he has something to do with its sending too. But nothing is lost by the removal of ‘and the Son’ from the creed and much is gained. It may lead to unity and the conversion of the world!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  18 August 2024 I am concerned  that when smaller charges are subsumed into larger units, ministry is reduced to  ‘needs must’ and this will prejudice the smaller rural units. They require ministers to have more time to stand and stare, to build up relationships which may or may not lead anywhere  and to work with all ages and all community agencies. The value of this work may be lost without a specialist dedicated to the task. Here are six  areas of specialist training: 1. breaking down the division between secular and sacred – in the rural charge this is much more diffuse and more in keeping with the true nature of the Gospel where God is at work in all places and all people 2. integrating  young and old – in the rural charge people are not so self-conscious of these age differences and work together in community events and initiatives 3. embracing  the pace of the natural world and nature’s discrete  modus operandi – results are not immediate nor immediately recognisable, G
Read more
  15 August 2024 David Fergusson, Regius   Professor of   Divinity at Cambridge University, and Kirk minister has just produced a series of essays on theology, philosophy and the Church. One is entitled, ‘Mapping the Church – Current Challenges of History and Mission’. In it, he tackles the issue of mission in the Church. He begins by acknowledging that mission is a constituent part of the Church’s work not least in handing on the faith to those who are coming after us. But he points out   that the ‘Five Marks of Mission’ which have been embedded into our current thinking are not comprehensive. ‘The church has many functions,’ he writes, ‘the glorifying of God in its worship, the education and nurture of its people, the pastoral care of the sick and the dying, and the bearing witness to the gospel in the life of the world.’ Mission is one of several aspects of being the Body of Christ. He recognises that there is a mistaken view in some quarters that by focusing our attention a
Read more
  10 July 2024 The Revd. Will Pearson-Gee was an Army Chaplain rising to the rank of   major in 1999. He is now the rector of Buckingham where he said that some of the services for which he is responsible were ‘overflowing with widows’. So Kaya Burgess has reported. He has been so concerned about the lack of men in church that he raised it at the Church of England Synod in York. ‘What resources has the church developed to help people think about and practise evangelism among men?’   Two facts justify his concern. Firstly, 59% of worshippers in the Church of England are women. In some kirk congregations, this would be an under-estimate. Secondly, the British Social Attitudes Survey found in 2019 that at every age men were less likely than women to say they had a religion, went to church or believed in God. In his address to the Synod, Will Pearson-Gee argued that men who became Christians were more likely to bring their whole family with them. He also argued that the language of
Read more