FREE CREDO: HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL GUIDE TO CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION PDF

Jaroslav Pelikan | 672 pages | 12 Dec 2005 | Press | 9780300109740 | English | New Haven, United States Jaroslav Pelikan — The Need for Creeds - The On Being Project

Report a problem. University of Toronto Libraries St. George St. Tell us about a web accessibility problem. About online privacy and data collection. All rights reserved. Terms and conditions. Our membership in ETAS has temporarily doubled our digital collections, adding 3 million additional items. ETAS items are listed as print-only in our catalogue. Still have questions? Toggle navigation. Jaroslav Pelikan. Back 0 Marked Mark Options. Get help. Holdings In. Knox College Caven. Trinity College John W Graham. Subjects subject. Creeds--Comparative Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. Creeds--History and criticism. More Details author. Pelikan, Jaroslav, author. Chapter 1: Definition of creed and confession -- Chapter 2: The genesis of creeds and confessions -- Chapter 3: The authority of creeds and confessions -- Chapter 4: The history of creeds and confessions -- Chapter 5: Bibliography -- Chapter 6: Indexes to creeds and confessions of faith in the Christian tradition -- Chapter 7: Indexes to Credo. Introductory volume to Creeds and confessions of faith in the Christian tradition. Appeared in Choice on Although it can be used independently, Credo serves as both the fourth volume and an introduction and companion to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition 4v. A scholar and teacher of the creeds and their significance for nearly 50 years, Pelikan is devoted to the creedal tradition, as evidenced in this work's thoroughness and erudition. An expansive and fascinating array of topics is covered under four broad headings "Definition," "Genesis," "Authority," "History"and every conceivable perspective and line of discussion appears to be examined. The volume can be consulted as a comprehensive reference text or dived into at any number of points. Pelikan intends his work to Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition Philip Schaff's Creeds of Christendom Extensive bibliographies and indexes cover both this volume and the entire set. The companion CD provides an electronic Macromedia Flash presentation of a selection of some of the original language texts contained in volumes of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. The publishers provide high-quality page images of documents in their original languages, and navigation through the tables of contents and the documents themselves is very easy. Advanced users will regret the lack of search ability, and since the text cannot be cut and pasted from the page images, the print volumes are certain to be used far more heavily than the CD. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and higher. Stewart Princeton Theological Seminary. This item was reviewed in:. To find out how to look for other reviews, please see our guides to finding book reviews in the Sciences or Social Sciences and . Bowker Data Service Summary. Addressing essential questions about the Christian tradition, Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition stands as an independent reference work devoted to the subject of what creeds and confessions are and what their role in history has been. One of the world's leading theologians offers important insights into the history and significance of Christian creeds. An achievement unlikely to be surpassed. McKim, Theological Studies. Eminent theologian Jaroslav Pelikan has been translating, editing, and studying the Christian creeds and confessions of faith for sixty years. This book is the historical and theological distillation of that work. In Credo, Pelikan addresses essential questions about the Christian tradition: the origins of creeds; their function; their political role; how they relate to Christian institutions, worship, and service; and how they help to explain the major divisions of the Christian church and of Christian history. Credo stands as an independent reference work devoted to the subject of what creeds and confessions are and what their role in history has been. It is also the first of the four volumes of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, edited by Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss see below. This information is provided by a service that aggregates data from review sources and other sources that are often consulted by libraries, and readers. 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W hen Jaroslav Pelikan died at age 82 on May 13,the world of Christian scholarship lost its greatest living advocate and the best church historian America has ever produced. The achievements of his life are remarkable: He wrote nearly 40 books and over a dozen reference works on numerous aspects of Christian history. He presented the Gifford Lectures at and the Gilson Lectures at the University of Toronto and Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition awarded honorary degrees from 42 universities around the world. Pelikan loved to quote this line from Goethe, his favorite poet: "What you have received as heritage, take now as task and thus you will make it your own. Both of his parents were born in Europe. Both his father and grandfather were Lutheran pastors. His mother was a schoolteacher who learned English by reading the essays of Emerson. They bequeathed to young Jary both a love for learning and a desire for God. When he was a little boy and couldn't quite reach the dinner table, his parents had him sit on stacked-up volumes of Migne's Patrologiaa collection of patristic writings in the original languages. He later quipped, "I thus absorbed the church fathers a posteriori! Pelikan's deep religious faith was nurtured on Luther's Small Catechismthe great chorales of J. Bach, and, above all, the Bible. Though he became an ordained Lutheran minister, Pelikan spent most of his life in the environs of the secular academy. But he never lost the rich faith he received as a small child. As he once confessed, "I was quite out of step with many in my generation, especially among theological scholars at universities, in never having had fundamental doubts Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition the essential rightness of the Christian faith, but having retained a continuing, if often quite unsophisticated, Slavic piety. A precocious young Pelikan received both his seminary degree and a Ph. His first book, From Luther to Kierkegaardcame out a few years later Soon Pelikan established himself as one of the most prolific Luther scholars of his generation. He was general editor for the volume American edition of Luther's Works and wrote a separate volume on Luther's biblical exposition. Pelikan always had a great interest in ecumenical affairs. His book The Riddle of Roman Catholicismwritten on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, offered an irenic introduction to the world's largest Christian community. It is said that Karl Barth drew up a plan for his "collected works" at age 10! Just so, Pelikan had a clear, detailed plan of what he called his "big book" early in his career. He would write a comprehensive history of Christian doctrine, an account of what "the church of Jesus Christ has believed, taught, and confessed on the basis of the word of God. Only Adolf Harnack, the great scion of German liberal Protestantism, had attempted such a massive project with his three-volume History of Dogma. Harnack, however, for all his erudition, had little sympathy with the doctrinal content of his subject and presented a version of Christianity freed from the dogmatic shackles of the past. Pelikan, working with the same historical rigor, approached his subject with much more sympathy. As he put it, "I found, not in theological liberalism and historical relativism as so many of my predecessors, teachers, contemporaries did but in tradition and orthodoxy, the presupposition from which to interpret any portion or period. Pelikan's magnum opus eventually became five volumes that he called simply The Christian Tradition. Though Pelikan fully recognized the great diversity and varied expressions of Christian teaching across the ages, he also stressed the underlying unity and continuity of what the New Testament calls "the faith once delivered to the saints" Jude 3. Judaism has its shema and Islam its shahadahbut Christians, responding to Jesus' question "Who do you say that I am? Pelikan's collection includes several hundred of these, among them the Masai Creed from Nigeria. This creed Africanizes Christianity by declaring that Jesus "was always on safari doing good. He ascended unto the skies. He is the Lord. This creed was brought to Pelikan's attention by one of his students, a woman who had been a member of a religious order working in a hospital in East Nigeria. Pelikan dealt with many deep and difficult subjects in his scholarly work, but he wrote in a simple, elegant style with a clarity that is compelling. He had a way of capturing profound truths in short, unforgettable statements. Among his most memorable are these: "Jesus Christ is too important to be left to the theologians"; "Everybody else is an expert on the present. I wish to file a minority report on behalf of the past"; and "Tradition is the Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Pelikan remarked that while some might have been shocked by his act, few who knew him well could have been surprised. As he put it, "Any airplane that circled the airport for that long before landing would have run out of gas! I never had Jaroslav Pelikan as a classroom teacher, but I was one of his students, as everyone seriously interested in Christian history has to be. As a young student of historical theology, I once determined to read everything Pelikan had written. It is a daunting task, let me assure you: A bibliography of his works, which does not include his last prolific decade, runs to some 50 printed pages. He was a generous colleague and friend, and a great encourager. Pelikan thrived in the world of the arts and sciences and wrote learnedly about art, politics, law, poetry, educational theory, and public ethics, as well as history and theology. But he did all of this as a scholar who was also a Christian. Jary Pelikan had a love for all things human and humane, and his work will enrich every person who looks at the world with intellectual curiosity and moral imagination. But his legacy will shine especially bright among those who follow Jesus Christ, belong to his church, and see the world through the eyes of the Savior's Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. These are also good grace notes for one of the most diligent and faithful of the "Lord's remembrancers," as Cotton Mather called church historians. Subscribe to CT and get one year free. Sections Home. Elections - Campaign Coronavirus Racism. Subscribe Member Benefits Give a Gift. Subscribers receive full access to the archives. Christian History Archives Eras Home. SHARE tweet link email print. Delighted by doctrine. Current Issue November Subscribe. Read This Issue. Subscribe to Christianity Today and get instant access to past issues of Christian History! Today in Christian History Daily A daily newsletter featuring the most important and significant events on each day in Christian History. Christianity Today Connection Weekly Get the inside story with this official newsletter of the global media ministry. Email Address. Subscribe to the selected newsletters. Get the best from CT editors, delivered straight to your inbox! Support our work Subscribe to CT and get one year free. Tags: Christian History Death Doctrine. Did You Know? Cover Story. How to heal a medical system that abandons the vulnerable. Subscribe to CT to continue reading this article from the archives. Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in to continue reading. Sign up for our Free newsletter. Give Today. Careers Media Room Follow Us. Help Contact Us My Account. Christianity Today strengthens the church by richly communicating the breadth Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition the true, good, and beautiful gospel. Learn more. Delighted by doctrine | Christian History | Christianity Today

In Philip Schaff, a Swiss church historian, to the surprise of his academic colleagues, accepted a position at the German Reformed Seminary in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. At the time the seminary, under the leadership of the Reformed theologian John Nevin, was the center of a movement of renewal within the German Reformed churches in the United States. In this undertaking a first-class historian of Christianity was Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition and Nevin Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition able to persuade Schaff to leave his post in Germany to settle in the United States. While at Union he advanced the program of Mercersburg by making available classical texts from the Christian tradition, most notably the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathersstill the most complete collection of translations of the Church Fathers in English. He also published in three volumes The Creeds of Christendoma comprehensive collection of confessional documents from all periods of church history. Creeds have been and continue to be an integral part of Christian life. Why are creeds necessary? Jesus did not hand on a creed, he only taught the love of God and neighbor. What is the relation between the Bible and creeds, i. Why make such a fuss about the ancient creeds when beliefs change over time? These are only a few of the many topics addressed in Credo. For example, in answer to the question of whether the time for formulating creeds has passed, Pelikan shows that in the past two centuries, national church bodies, denominations, or ecumenical bodies, often stirred by the unprecedented situations in which modern Christians have found themselves, composed new creeds or confessions of faith: a Statement of Faith of the American Baptist Association in ; Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, , and Other States in ; Statement of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar in ; Common Statement of Faith issued by the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches in ; Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in ; and many others. At the other end of the historical spectrum, in answer to the question of why we should have creeds at all, Pelikan shows that formal confessions of faith arise out of the nature of Christianity and the Holy Scriptures. The religion of the Greeks and the Romans was not creedal; it was an affair of rituals and practices. Schaff knew, however, that the making of creeds was not limited to the patristic period; formulas of faith Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition confessions were composed in medieval times in both East and West and especially during the , which led to a surge of new confessions. So in Credo Pelikan skillfully weaves into his narrative a bewildering array of doctrinal and confessional formulations, including the First Helvetic Confession, the Lateran Creed ofthe Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church by Peter Mogila, the First Bohemian Confession of on which Pelikan wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of inthe Tridentine Profession of Faith, and the Fourteen Theses of the Old Catholic Union Conference with Greeks and Anglicans ofto name but a few. He even has a paragraph on the creed of Dante in Canto 24 of his Paradiso. Finally, lest I leave the impression that Credo is chiefly a work of reference to be dutifully catalogued and placed on a shelf in the library, it should be said that amidst all the historical detail and theological exposition Pelikan has written a vigorous defense of the durability of creedal Christianity, though he never quite puts it that way. In his many books and lectures Jaroslav Pelikan has presented, expounded, and interpreted the great central tradition of Christian doctrine, and it is most fitting that after five decades of scholarship he has now given us a work with the title: I believe. Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the at the University of Virginia. Close Login. Web Exclusives First Thoughts. Intellectual Retreats Erasmus Lectures. Video Podcasts. Prev Article. Next Article. Articles by Robert Louis Wilken. America's most influential journal of religion and public life. Sign up for the First Things newsletter. I would like to receive. All rights reserved. View our privacy policy here.