Christian Creed Analysis in a South African Context Part II: Practical Implications for South African Believers

What does Christian Creed Analysis mean for believers traversing South Africa's complex religious landscape?

We discovered in the preceding blog that it will be a challenging and arduous path to trek along. Total commitment will be required. True and thorough Credal examination and practice is tough! It requires systematised and disciplined routines. Apart from the three general guidelines outlined in our previous related blog—Direct Engagement with Scripture, Commitment to Sola Scriptura, Discerning Teachings and Testing the Spirits—here are further critical aspects to consider and apply:

1.      Engaging with our Creator: As we reflect on the profound significance of biblical creed analysis in both local and global contexts, it becomes clear that this discipline is not merely academic but becomes deeply transformative. It challenges us to engage with our Creator at the highest level of intellectual honesty and spiritual rigor, demanding that we not settle for superficial understanding and limited commitment. 

2.      Develop Biblical Literacy: We cannot discern truth from error if we don't know the Scriptures. Regular, systematic, in-depth Bible study—not just devotional reading—is essential.

3.      Question Inherited Traditions: Just because: "The church has always believed this …", or “Luther [Calvin et al.] taught this …”, doesn't make whatever “this” might be, Biblical! Every credal statement and practice, every doctrinal belief must be examined and refined.

4.      Embrace Unity Without Antinomian Uniformity: Biblical Christianity allows for diversity in non-essential matters [where you congregate; how long services last, etc.] while maintaining unity on core truths [obedience to the Law to demonstrate continued sanctification; supporting the ministry, etc.]. While appreciating different worship styles within scripturally sanctioned and cultural expressions, Scripture insists on doctrinal correctness [e.g., sabbath, baptism] and prescribes moral purity [e.g., pre-marital chastity, conjugal fidelity, honesty].

5.      Combat Syncretism: Other belief systems—whether traditional African religion, Western philosophy, prosperity gospel, or secular humanism—must be identified, examined, and analysed through thorough credal analyses, and biblical teaching, and discarded! Blending biblical truth with pagan and philosophic error remains error! Syncretism is sin!

6.      Address Unique Challenges: How does biblical faith speak to South Africa's

·         Ongoing racial tensions?

·         Economic inequality?

·         Cronyism?

·         Political corruption?

·         Traditional practices [witchcraft, seances, fortune telling, etc.]?

·         Imported Indo-European superstitions?

·         Our HIV/AIDS crisis?

·         Violence, crime, and sickening gangsterism?

·         Drunkenness, debauchery, and drugs?

By what means and in what time frame and by whom [who, how, and when?] will fragmented South Africa be delivered from its junk-status economy? Will it further decay morally; will it socio-economically descend into Venezuelan status, where the populace feeds on dogs, and as the Jews in Jerusalem in 70A.D., fed on dove dung and donkey ears? Will our moral moorings—our credal convictions—contain descent into barbarism?

Biblical analysis must produce practical wisdom for resolving these disturbing considerations and real-life issues. The WAY OF WISDOM to resolve all human problems exists. There is a winning Way forward.

The WAY Forward: Committed to Biblical Wisdom

Man’s ways are of and by themselves contrary to the rigours and demands of the true biblical credo. Hence the observation in Proverbs 21:2: “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but Yehovah ponders [tests] the hearts.” God disassembles and examines the intentions and motivations within the spirit of man. “By their fruits you shall know them,” so, too, God knows man by his thoughts.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes” [Pro 12:15]. Considering the level and frequency of international disputes where all partisans consider themselves right, it appears that there are plenty of fools operating internationally. Result? Wars!

How does South Africa measure up against the Eternal’s canon—His yardstick for wisdom and righteousness? Have South Africa’s religious communities been weighed and found wanting? How thorough are our numerous “Christian” creed analyses? Are our foundational credal criteria compliant with the biblical matrices?  Are they Churchian Creeds or Christian Creeds? Are they braced by institutionalized ecclesiolatry, Mariolatry, and idolatry?

The Role of Creed Analyses for Deepening Spiritual Insight

One might ask, why focus on creed analyses at all? The answer lies in the power of the Creeds themselves. These authoritative statements of faith purportedly encapsulate essential truths. These creeds are intended to serve as both anchors and beacons, grounding believers firmly in the bedrock of doctrinal understanding while guiding them through the complexities of spiritual commitment.

Creed analyses guide the serious of spirit to critically examine how these innumerable conflicting statements of faith have been interpreted, adapted, or even contested, to cause conflict within various ecclesiastical communities. It challenges us to ask: Are these contradictory creeds faithfully representing biblical truth? How do national, racial, historic, political, and cultural influences configure and contort spiritual and doctrinal understanding? How do they impact our actions? What implications do these varied interpretations have for personal spiritual growth and communal harmony?

By engaging in creed analyses, we uncover not only the theological content but also the socio-cultural dynamics, philosophy, and psychology that undergird and overarch the creeds.

For instance, the Nicene Creed, a cornerstone of orthodox Christianity, was first officially formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. under Emperor Constantine to resolve disputes about the nature of Christ. Later, at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D., it was expanded, clarifying the role of the Holy Spirit and consolidating the trinitarian doctrine. Though this Creed became foundational to Christian orthodoxy across most denominations, it emerged from Constantine’s socio-political agenda, coupled with erroneous Eusebian theological biases.

An honest creed-analytical approach equips seekers of biblical understanding with the tools to discern truth from error, fostering a faith that is both intellectually robust and spiritually vibrant. It is a call to review and realign belief systems, doctrines, and insights; to continue in a faith that advances beyond passive religio-cultural acceptance, moving towards active engagement with the scriptural foundations of Christ's teachings.

But What Creed?

Emperors, kings, ecclesiastical conclaves, denominations, sects, and even individual church leaders, formulate creeds based upon historical dogmas, ideologies inherited from the Pre- and Post-Nicene "fathers". Some selective creeds are "private interpretations" [2 Pet 1:20]; others are incredulously uneducated theories, a heap of dubious and aberrant assumptions; many are “prophetic” visions based upon bizarre apparitional spirit visitations.

Christianity has produced a wide range of creeds (universal statements of faith) and confessions (denominational doctrinal standards) THROUGH CENTURIES OF Synods, Edicts, Canons, Councils, and Confessions. The most famous include the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and later Protestant confessions such as the Augsburg Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, and the Westminster Confession of Faith. If any one of these Creeds contained the full truth of God, was there a need for any others? However, among some conservative elements, it matters very much whether you are a righteous “Dopper” or a raucous “Doper”.

The idle and vigorous speculations about God from theologians, positing myriads of theologisms [theological speculations], which produced thousands of theomachists whose debating delight and dogmatisms emerged from fighting God via their heretical antinomianism.

These Creeds are variously interpreted and applied; whether by the submerged subcultures in the dense, overcrowded, international racial conglomerates, crushing the slimy, slummy, cement summits of Hillbrow; or by the thinly scattered Koi-San linguistically clicking(*) across the far-flung, desiccated Kalahari dunes hugging the "hot-as- hell" town of HOTAZEL; or the leafy-canopied wealthy of Waterkloof or Constantia; or the robust tribal dancers in the Valley of a Thousand Hills … The ecumenically collaborating or dissenting Christian communities construe, integrate, and employ the Creeds according to their cultural customs, tribal traditions, societal superstitions, personal preferences, or egregious ecclesiasticism.

These conflicting Creeds are the constructs of men--humanly designed; conjured by aberrant hearts and imaginative minds with distinguished, divergent, and deviating dogmas. And precisely in those differences lies the lie. Therefore, we conclude that the ONLY CREED serving as the essential foundation of incontrovertible truth is the bible—not just “Christ, and Christ alone” [ a sanctimonious slogan as subjectively characterised as idols crudely carved out on a million crooked crucifixes].

Biblical analyses—not mind-locking Ecclesiastical Creed analyses—are no mere academic exercises. They constitute vital, mental-spiritual encounters with living truths by which to nurture a faith that is authentic and inflexibly biblical.

The profound significance of effectual scriptural creed analyses stretches beyond intellectual scholasticism; it forms a deeply spiritually transformative force. It challenges us to engage with our CREATOR at the highest level of intellectual and spiritual rigor, demanding that we not settle for superficial understanding and limited commitment.

Is it not time to ask ourselves: How well do we know the scriptures that shape our faith? How deeply have we allowed God’s words to penetrate our hearts and minds to direct our steps towards the ideals of God’s Kingdom?

The journey toward deeper biblical understanding and spiritual wisdom—the journey towards discovering the true Godly Creed and the door to the Kingdom—is arduous, demanding, and toilsome because humans have a spiritually resistant arrogance befitting their dark, demonic desires and spiritual stupidity [James 3:15]. “There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” [Prov 14:12].

Man’s mental murkiness, moral dissipation, and psychological perplexity have brought society to the brink of annihilation. And the South African society, no less so!

But there is a Way out of this devastating dilemma. Salvationally, Isaiah explains: “And thine ears shall hear a word [from God] behind thee, saying, ‘This is the way’—one Way, one Creed— ‘walk ye in it!’” [30:21]. 

South Africa’s only deliverance and future hope lies anchored in that WAY. It’s the Way that only the true Messiah can establish. That Messiah is the one who, circa 30A.D., died for the sins of the world, who was buried, who was resurrected after three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, and who will soon return! Only that Messiah is the Way. The only Way. He alone revealed the complete One True Creed.

Let those with the Kingdom calling within this decaying country, through diligent exploration and vigilant investigation, with passion and perseverance, pursue the revelation of the One True Creed, fully enfolded and embedded in the One True Christ.

(*) Their language type is defined as “Click”.

(**) Churchianity: Devotion and commitment to a church rather than to Christ. Idolization of the church, i.e., ecclesiolatry.

South African Population by Religion, source: animalia-life.club

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