Creeds, or statements of faith, function as a teaching tool and a connector to the earliest believers. There are three ecumenical Christian creeds: the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Christians in the global church have occasionally adapted the Apostles’ Creed to fit local understandings of nature, life, and death.
The most famous creed in this style comes from East Africa: the Maasai Creed. About God, this creed states: “We believe in the one High God who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it.” About Jesus’ death, it asserts: “He was buried in the grace, and the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day he rose from the grave.” The Maasai people responded to the story presented to them about God in Christ. It connected to their experience of the Holy in the world. It makes sense for their credo to be grounded in their cultural way of seeing God’s work.
What aspects of your worship life are specific to your cultural or regional context?
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “The Apostles’ Creed” by Julia Seymour in the September 2017 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandra, 373.
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