2025 will mark the 1,700th anniversary of the formulation of the Nicene Creed, the basic statement of Christian orthodoxy. In 325 AD, Christian bishops from across the Roman world (and some from beyond its frontiers) gathered in the city of Nicaea, in present day Turkey, to address a contentious theological dispute: in what sense is Jesus Christ divine? Under the wise, watchful eye of Constantine — the first Christian emperor, eager to preserve his realm from theological division and conflict — the Council of Nicaea resolved to issue a creed proclaiming orthodox Christian belief.

At the heart of the Nicene Creed is the confession that Jesus Christ is truly God. In the words of Archbishop Cranmer’s translation of the Creed in the Book of Common Prayer service of Holy Communion:

“And in one Lord Jesus Christ … God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man”.

Why is Christmas to be celebrated? Why do we sing carols, hear the accounts of the Nativity from Scripture, and gather in churches in the cold and dark of December? Because of what the Nicene Creeds proclaims: Jesus Christ, the One born among us, is very God. Here is the belief which defines what it is to confess the Christian faith: in the words of Michael Ramsey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, “God is Christlike and in him is no unChristlikeness at all”. It is for this reason that all the historic Christian traditions confess the Nicene Creed.

Predictably, some contemporary progressive Christian opinion thinks it knows better. The Nicene Creed fails the various litmus tests of 21st century progressivism: it is dismissed as an imperial project, defined by patriarchal assumptions, inherently elitist, much too exclusivist, with no commitment to “liberation” and “justice”. Contemporary progressive Christian opinion has, therefore, created alternatives — which can be found in tediously edgy contemporary liturgies — to the Nicene Creed.

These tend to be, of course, utterly insipid and vacuous, declaring nothing of substance concerning the Christian faith. Some are embarrassingly ridiculous, not the least of which is the “Sparkle Creed”. Its opening words — “I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic” — tell us all we need to know about how progressive Christian opinion tends to be nothing more than an empty echo of fashionable — and transitory — agendas (and, yes, it does come from the United States).

It is safe to say that 1,700 years from now, absolutely no one will be marking the anniversary of the Sparkle Creed: long before that, it will be a very small, entirely insignificant corner of the ash heap of history. By contrast, and assuming that the end of all things has not come to pass, the Nicene Creed will still be confessed by Christians precisely because of the confession at its heart: Jesus Christ is very God.

It is this truth which has sustained Christianity over the centuries and continues to do so. In the past few weeks we have seen Notre Dame in Paris again become a house of prayer, a sign that even in the centre of secularised Western Europe, in a country in which violent and bloody revolution once sought to extirpate Christianity, the confession of Jesus Christ as very God continues to sustain Christian presence and witness. It is the faith proclaimed by the Nicene Creed which sustains those many Christians across the globe who experience persecution and live under the shadow of terror, particularly the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East. And it is the faith confessed by the Nicene Creed which ensures that even with the profound failures of the Church of England hierarchy, and amidst a deeply secular culture, parishes across this land continue to proclaim the mystery of the Incarnation at Christmastide and throughout the year. 

Without the confession of the Nicene Creed, Christmas becomes merely a mid-Winter holiday

Without the confession that Jesus Christ is very God, the parish church ceases to be “serious house on serious earth”: it becomes merely another sad sign of a time that has passed. Without the confession of the Nicene Creed, invocations of “Christian values” and “Christian culture” become as vacuous as progressive slogans. Without the confession of the Nicene Creed, Christmas becomes merely a mid-Winter holiday, in which the Christ Child, the carols, the readings from the Gospel accounts of the birth of Christ, and the nativity plays inevitably become embarrassments, devoid of meaning, to be sidelined and then forgotten.

The carols many of us have sung in recent days have reminded us that this need not be, that the faith of the Nicene Creed is to be joyously proclaimed, affirming the truth at the living heart of Christianity. Think of how we have heartily sung the words of ‘O Come, all ye faithful’: “God of God, Light of Light / Lo, He abhors not the Virgin’s womb / Very God / Begotten, not created … O come, let us adore Him / Christ the Lord!”. “Hark the herald angels” is another favourite of carol services, and likewise gives voice to the great affirmation of the Nicene Creed: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate Deity”. 

Surrounded by the uncertainties, confusions, and fears of this age, such carols of Christmastide point us to the comfort and joy, grace and truth confessed by the Nicene Creed: that in God there is no unChristlikeness at all because Jesus Christ is very God. May our celebration of the birth of Our Lord Christ, therefore, draw us to behold Him as very God, the One in whom all things hold together and find their true fulfillment.