The Creed by Luke Timothy Johnson

...It would be an excellent choice for parish con-tinuing-education groups, for college theology classes, and for any adult Christian interested in deepening his or her sense of the full implications of the Creed we profess...

...holiness, for Johnson, seems to be an ideal to which the church is called, but not one it has ever been known to embody...

...Occasionally, though, he fails to provide necessary explanations...

...A professor of New Testament at Emory University and a former Benedictine monk, Johnson has published a number of books reflecting more broadly on the implications of contemporary biblical interpretation for the church's understanding and practice of the faith, most notably The Real Jesus (1996), a forthright critical response to some forms of "historical Jesus" research...

...Some readers may be disturbed, for example, by his recurrent use of the word "myth" to describe the biblical story of creation and redemption...

...Precisely because the Creed defines the boundaries of what biblical faith does and does not confess about God and our world, it remains indispensable for Christian worship and Christian self-understanding...

...That is certainly a phrase that applies, first of all, to the author.ll, to the author...

...of God's continual call to humanity to form a community of holiness and reconciliation, enlivened by the gift of his Spirit...

...It continually challenges us to affirm the possibility of knowing "the truth about God and about humanity," and to live by the implications of that truth, even though it "expresses a view of reality that is profoundly countercultural, not in some small point of style or other, but in its whole perception of the world and how humans are to act in the world...

...His rhetoric can become overheated, especially in pointing out the church's weaknesses through the centuries...

...Christianity would be healthier and have greater integrity," Johnson writes, "if it paid more attention to the Nicene Creed...

...As Commonweal readers know, Luke Timothy Johnson is a notable exception...

...Despite these imbalances, however, this is an intelligent, engaging, edifying book, as well as "a good read...

...Brian E. Daley One unfortunate aspect of modern academic special-ization is that biblical schol-ars rarely express themselves on theological subjects, and theologians seldom publicly discuss the Bible...

...here a bit more definition at the outset might have been helpful in preventing misunderstanding...

...of the hope for eternal life, whose actual form escapes our present imagination, but which will involve our whole bodily and spiritual being, as well as all creation...

...Johnson does this primarily by showing how the Creed's assertions reflect consistent themes in the Scriptures of Israel and the Christian community...

...Such a summary serves Christian reflection as the indispensable framework for authentic biblical interpretation, Johnson insists...

...As he constructs his interpretations, Johnson's favorite opponents are never wholly out of view: fundamentalists and literalists on the one hand, modernists and historical reductionists (particularly the "Jesus Seminar") on the other...

...One might say that the heart of the book is a dense but detailed biblical commentary on the central doctrines of mainstream Christianity as formulated in the Creed...

...As he explains in the preface, the book's origin lies in several adult courses he has offered to fellow members of Catholic parishes over the last fifteen years...

...of God's redeeming an alienated, sinful humanity through Jesus, his incarnate Son...

...In general, Johnson succeeds in avoiding exegetical or theological jargon...

...Johnson seems to assume, in fact, that aspects of Christian faith and life not explicitly presented in Scripture-the sacramental system, the church's authority structure, Mary's sanctification and continuing role in the church-can never become normative through a process of organic development of doctrine, or be regarded as "essential" to a later stage of authentic Christian faith and practice...

...Occasionally, too, he is a little too quick to dismiss as misguided some major theological debates of the Christian past, such as the East-West controversy over the origin of the Holy Spirit (the Filioque dispute) or the Reformation-era struggles over Christ's presence in the Eucharist...

...Unlike the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Johnson's synthetic use of Scripture always remains exegetical, and manages to avoid the flattening effect of prooftexting...

...His new book on the Creed reveals Johnson at his best in this genre of thoughtful, pastorally applied, intensely argued biblical theology...

...To be a creedal Christian," he writes at the end, "is to be a definite Christian...

...In this respect, his exclusively biblical perspective gives less than full justice to the continuing role of the worshiping and teaching community as the context in which the gospel of the risen Jesus must always be recognized, preached, and applied...

...In these and other works written for a wider audience than the exegetical guild, Johnson combines an unpredictable, common-sense approach to hot-button issues, and a clear, lively, and challenging style, with a passionate commitment to renewal of the church's faith and practice...

...His strength is the ability to draw together a wide variety of scriptural perspectives into a cohesive whole, without reducing the complexity of the Bible's various voices in their historical contexts...

...Johnson's vision of the Christian community is that of a body defiantly ready to let its life be transformed by professing faith in the transcendent, present, saving, yet challenging God of the Bible...

...By keeping its profession clear and reflecting on its contents, and by avoiding the temptation to extend the theological boundaries of recognized orthodoxy beyond the Creed's "blessed simplicity," the church remains vitally linked to the faith of Israel and the Apostles, yet still open to hear the challenges and meet the needs of the contemporary world...

...More recently, in conversation with William S. Kurz, SJ, he authored The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship...

...In The Creed, Johnson argues urgently for the importance of creeds in the life of a Christian community as a summary and reminder of the overarching story affirmed in biblical revelation-the story of a supremely real God who has created all things...

...These courses worked phrase by phrase, and sometimes word by word, through the ancient formula of faith most mainstream Christians profess in their Sunday liturgies: the confession canonized by the Council of Nicaea in 325, and revised by the Council of Constantinople in 381...

...those who set the church's boundaries too narrowly by "confusing the accidental with the essential," whether the issue is scriptural inerrancy or papal infallibility, and those who so prize inclusiveness and individual liberty that the church loses all doctrinal and moral integrity, becoming "a club that one can join on one's own terms...

...Johnson's own strong voice gives the book energy and focus...