The Sunday News
I WATCHED with awe as the Catholics in Italy summoned their strength and pushed aside their not- so-Christian behaviour to gather in procession as they celebrated Palm Sunday in their grandiose cathedrals. Here in Milano it was the splendour of the Cathedral in the city, Duomo. Splendid marble structure which was elegant with palm waving and olive branch carrying believers in solemn joy and music accompaniment by the pipe organ. You could believe for sure if someone told you that Jesus was walking in person and all you had to do was greet him!
As I promised today we look at the contentious changes that the Apostles’ Creed has undergone since the entry of Emperor Constantine. It is important for us to realise that the entry of this emperor in more ways than one announced the journey of the Christian faith into Europe. This marked the so-called Westernisation or to be blunt the Romanisation of an otherwise hitherto catholic and universal church. Before you rise up against me please read on.
The Nicene council in 325AD under Emperor Constantine from the Roman Empire made many changes for the Christians of the day, many who were Jewish believers also.
1 They moved the Sabbath day from a Saturday to a Sunday!
2 They moved the head of the church to Rome from Jerusalem.
3 They took away the teachings of the Hebrew Feasts and replaced the feast of Passover with Easter (a Babylonian goddess Ishtra, a pagan goddess of fertility)
4 They allocated 25th December as the birth date of Jesus (with no evidence as such) another pagan feast day.
But yet we can remember our Lord and saviour our messiah Jesus Christ in it all as God’s grace abounds over all. Let us get back to the subject of the day. But rest assured that you have not heard the last of me on that matter.
We take to the two contentious lines in the Apostles’ Creed, namely “. . . and descended into hell/ descended to the dead” together with the one that says “. . . the holy Catholic church.” There is more to say and in my view that is where our expression of the church in Africa needs to be made clear and in line with the rest of the biblical doctrine.
So long in our discussion we have not quoted the creed but just discussed it today let us look at what the Creed says, and make further comments on it.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth;
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
The phrase “descended to the dead” is of special interest to our discussion today. This is so because in part because it used to be translated “descended into hell.” Some medieval theologians came up with elaborate theories about what Jesus did in hell, but this misses the original purpose of the phrase in my view. In all this an African theologian with a strong traditional and Afrocentric worldview would rightly think or assert that Jesus did go to our ancestors who went before us. This then can be the basis of positing that okhokho bethu were visited by Jesus as part of our redemptive process why then should one ignore them in the liturgies and rituals as Christians. It is my question to you dear reader, to say how do you read the phrase? How should it mean?
Irenaeus and Tertullian do not have this phrase; it first appears in the writings of Rufinus, who said that it meant only that Jesus went to the grave, the “place” of the dead. This is in agreement with Scripture, which says that Jesus rose from “the dead” (a plural adjective used as a noun, meaning the situation that all dead people are in, as in Acts 4: 10).
Be that as it may one is left to interrogate the African belief of the life beyond the grave. It is there. The dead are not dead but are living as Prof Mbiti rightly asserts. So Jesus went to the dead or the place of the dead where is the difference? The long and short of it is that he went to the place where the dead are. Who are the dead if that does not include my ancestors the African may ask?
Peter applied the words of Psalm 16 to Jesus: “You will not abandon me to the grave” — to Hades, the realm of the dead. When Jesus was dead, he was in Hades. Some believe he was conscious, and others believe he was not, but either way, he was in Hades, the realm of the dead. The Bible therefore is replete with this thought of the place of the dead especially with reference to the resurrection of the believer. The challenge to the African is how then do you clarify this in light of the Afrocentric thought about death and the faith? One cannot just wish it away using the same Eurocentric mantra that relegates all thought African as pagan and not part of the Christian faith. No there is need for you to tell me something different without insulting my heritage and most of all my God endowed intelligence!
The phrase “descended to the dead” disappeared from the creed for more than 200 years. Saint Augustine (he was African by the way), for one, did not have it. It occurs again in the Gallic Creed of 650 and remained from then on.
Some are troubled by this phrase and its history in the Creed; others are troubled by ancient and modern misinterpretations of the phrase. Some would prefer it be eliminated, since it does not add anything essential to the Creed, and is a point of disagreement rather than agreement.
Wayne Grudem argues that “unlike every other phrase in the Creed, it represents not some major doctrine on which all Christians agree, but rather a statement about which most Christians seem to disagree. It is at best confusing and in most cases misleading for modern Christians. My own judgment is that there would be all gain and no loss if it were dropped from the Creed once for all” (Systematic Theology, Zondervan, 1994, pp 583-594).
Nevertheless, the words are in the Creed, and we cannot change the tradition. However, we can understand the words correctly so we can agree with them. Others may interpret these words differently, but should argue about that?
The Creed ends with a few brief statements. We can easily agree to a belief in the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection and eternal life. (Some may question “resurrection of the body.” First Corinthians 15 says that our body will be transformed to be spiritual rather than fleshly, but it will still be our body.)
Some people are also put off by the words “holy Catholic church.” The word catholic comes from the Greek words kat’ holos, literally meaning “according to the whole,” or in actual use, worldwide or universal. The word catholic became part of the Creed before “catholic” became associated with the Roman church, and many Protestant churches use the Creed with the word catholic in small and not caps.
In the Creed, we do not express faith in a specific denomination, but in the church worldwide that is, that there is one body, united by God’s Spirit. The phrase “communion of saints” implies the same thing that as we all commune or have unity with Christ through the Holy Spirit, we also commune with each other. We will be united to one another forever.
There is a lot we can say Bazalwane but suffice to say there were changes then and there will be changes now as we go forward. The question is would your expression as an African believer be considered? It is not about rewriting the Bible but it is about having an interpretation that takes into consideration that you as an African are part of the Christian faith. You as an African are not a recent entry as the Westerner if the truth be told notwithstanding.
Till next week — Shalom!
