BOOK REVIEW:
Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to the Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. By Jaroslav Pelikan. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. liii + 609 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-0300109740. 

In this volume, the late scholar Jaroslav Pelikan accomplishes two purposes: he provides a general historical introduction for his earlier collection Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, which he edited with Valerie Hotchkiss, and he offers a scholarly historical discussion of creeds and confessions that stands on its own (Preface, p. xi). Beginning with definitions and moving through sections on origins, authority, and history of creeds and confessions, he traces continuity and change through twenty centuries of Christian history (p. 34). Pelikan gives equal attention to the themes that abide through the twists and turns of history, and to the peculiar formulations that arise and pass away. Throughout, he argues persuasively that continuity and change are not opposed to one another, but are in fact “mutually supportive and mutually affirming,” and in fact that the continuity of the tradition requires change in particular formulations (p. 29). Early in the volume, he provides luminous discussions of the doctrine of the Trinity and of Christology that illustrate his point about the mutuality of continuity and change.

Pelikan interprets continuity and change in creeds in order to oppose two earlier alternative views: continuity as static and stifling (as he sees in Gibbon), and change as a process of decline that is to be mourned (as he sees in romantic writers like Matthew Arnold). In the face of these negative views of continuity and change, he offers an historical vision that embraces change as the necessary counterpart of living continuity in tradition.

This immense scholarly volume provides a detailed historical survey of creeds and confessions, a reference work that should be required for historical and theological scholars of every Christian tradition. Though most readers will likely use it for reference rather than reading it straight through, Credo speaks in accessible, engaging voice that invites sustained reading.

One strength that marked all of Pelikan’s scholarship was his deep knowledge of original languages, from Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages. This wide-ranging linguistic competence enables him in this work to examine the varying roles of creeds and confessions in churches both East and West, opening up the Eastern church traditions in a way that many Western scholars have not been able to do. In this volume, for instance, his discussion of “Affirmations of Faith in Eastern Orthodoxy” (chapter 14) points out that many earlier scholars misunderstood the role of confessions in Eastern orthodoxy, assuming that they function in a way similar to Western Protestant and Catholic formulations. Pelikan explains that for Eastern churches, the liturgy is the “preeminent confession of faith” (p. 405), far exceeding the importance of confessional doctrinal statements. This is particularly helpful for Western traditions to hear, since we have at times regarded doctrinal formulation as more important than liturgical participation.

Another helpful contribution of this volume is Pelikan’s winsome, concise argument for creeds and confessions.  He explains that confessions of faith are rooted in what he calls “the twofold Christian imperative, to believe and to confess what one believes” (p. 34). Having faith and articulating faith are not optional for Christians, argues Pelikan; they are at the very center of New Testament witness, and they have characterized the tradition ever since. This argument is particularly helpful in responding to those who wonder why creeds and confessions are important or necessary.

In this work, Pelikan offers his readers the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship on creeds and confessions. He illumines why they are necessary, while attending in detail to the varied ways they have functioned in particular times and places. Reading this volume leaves one with deep appreciation for and excitement about the dynamism of creeds and confessions that have sustained and nurtured Christian faith over 2000 years. He concludes his work with an illuminating analogy: creeds and confessions are like CDs, which can be stacked on a shelf, shipped, preserved for generations without ever being played or heard. “Yet it is their very ‘inertness’ and static quality, their continuity, that enables them . . . to become suddenly dynamic in the sound of a Beethoven quartet or Mozart’s Magic Flute . . . Historically, that is precisely what creeds and confessions have repeatedly done through the centuries. And they can go on doing it” (p. 515). Though Jaroslav Pelikan himself now rests from his labors, his work will continue to nourish and inspire scholars and practitioners of the Christian faith for generations to come. 

Martha Moore-Keish
Assistant Professor of Theology
Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING 2008, VOL. 8, #1.