Ok, about creeds , common consensus- two quotes, one short, one longer
- This is a short excerpt from a GREAT essay:
"My aversion to human creeds as bonds of Christian union, as conditions of Christian fellowship, as means of fastening chains on men’s minds, constantly gains strength.
My first objection to them is, that they separate us from Jesus Christ. To whom am I to go for my knowledge of the Christian religion but to the Great Teacher, to the Son of God, to him in whom the fulness of the Divinity dwelt? This is my great privilege as a Christian, that I may sit at the feet not of a human but divine Master, that I may repair to him in whom truth lived and spoke without a mixture of error, who was eminently the wisdom of God and the light of the world. And shall man dare to interpose between me and my heavenly guide and Saviour, and prescribe to me the articles of my Christian faith? What is the state of mind in which I shall best learn the truth? It is that in which I forsake all other teachers for Christ, in which my mind is brought nearest to him; it is that in which I lay myself I open most entirely to the impressions of his mind. Let me go to Jesus with a human voice sounding in my ears, and telling me what I must hear from the Great Teacher, and how can I listen to him in singleness of heart? All Protestant sects, indeed, tell the learner to listen to Jesus Christ: but most of them shout around him their own articles so vehemently and imperiously. that the voice of the heavenly Master is well nigh drowned. He is told to listen to Christ, but told that he will be damned if he receives any lessons but such as are taught in the creed. He is told that Christ’s word is alone infallible but that unless it is received as interpreted by fallible men, he will be excluded from the communion of Christians. This is what shocks me in the creed-maker. He interposes himself between me and my Saviour. He dares not trust me alone with Jesus. He dares not leave me to the word of God. This I cannot endure. The nearest possible communication with the mind of Christ is my great privilege as a Christian. I must learn Christ’s truth from Christ himself, as he speaks in the records of his life and in the men whom he trained up and supernaturally prepared to be his witnesses to the world. On what ground I ask, do the creed-makers demand as sent to their articles as condition of church membership or salvation? What has conferred on them infallibility? “Show me your proofs,” I say to them, "of Christ speaking in you. Work some miracle. Utter some prophecy. Show me something divine in you, which other men do not possess. Is it possible that you are unaided men like myself, having no more right to interpret the New Testament than myself. and that you yet exalt your interpretations as infallible standards of truth. and the necessary conditions of salvation? "
2.From ‘God in Search of Man’ by A.J. Heschel. Wonderful book -