Here’s a funny exchange from Twitter a few weeks ago. A self-described “heretic” tweeted this, “Jesus was Christ. Buddha was Christ. Muhammad was Christ. Christ is a word for the Universe seeing itself. You are Christ. We are the body of Christ.”

A self-described philosopher theologian then tweeted back, “If you can’t say something Nicaean, then don’t say it at all.” The Nicene Creed was developed in the fourth century to clarify orthodox Christian beliefs, especially about the nature of Christ. It’s widely used to summarize Christian orthodoxy. 

The twitter joke is a good reminder. We’re part of something bigger than us. There’s a history here of conflict and controversy through which Christ followers fought to maintain true belief. 

We’re not the first ones to struggle with new ideas, and we can certainly learn from the past. The historic creeds from the church give us guard rails offering the freedom to move forward today following Christ within established boundaries of the history of the church.