Creed and Conflict

In 1975 the British Council of Churches published a document, The New Black presence in Britain, in which a number of black people set out their experience of living in Britain. By some it was regarded as a controversial, not to say inflammatory, document. Now, as a follow-up to that report, John Davies asks a different question: What is God saying and doing through the state of inter-group conflict in which we live, and what is to be the response of the Christian gospel? This leads him to the core of conventional Christian commitment, the Apostles’ Creed. Most Western interpretations have seen it as a body of ideas - John Davies sees it as an act of commitment to a person. Most interpretations see it in individual terms - John Davies sees it in social and corporate terms. Most think of it as a set of historical doctrines to be understood and recited in church, meaning much the same everywhere - John Davies sees it as a contemporary way of life to be lived in the world and therefore to be interpreted differently for different times and places. In re-examining and rethinking the meaning of the Apostles’ Creed, he also has something to say to the Christian who thinks that a lot of talk about racial and political justice savours more of political bias than commitment to Jesus Christ, and also to the other Christian who is up to his or her eyes in social and political involvement and who wants to feel that everything they do is related to the central themes of Christian commitment.