A Defiant Creed

I haven’t posted about it here because it’s a personal matter, and I want to avoid either running down reputations or playing the martyr. So I still won’t post details. But it suffices to say that earlier this year I was completely rejected and shunned by two people whom I thought were significant cohorts. Their chief reason: my faith. I know that because they wrote me to that effect.

I was hurt. But more than that, I was angry. I’m not saying that’s godly or not, but I was angry at their profound prejudice against my beliefs and, yes, against me personally. And one way my anger came out is why I’m mentioning this now:

I found myself saying the Apostle’s Creed with not a little defiance in my voice.

During services, I found myself saying the Creed with a little attitude, something like “This is what I believe. You don’t like it? It disturbs you? Deal with it.” Although I’ve loved the Creed and saying it for some time, I can’t recall ever saying it with such gumption before.

In a way, saying the Creed is an act of defiance. We live in a world that stands “against the Lord and against His Christ.” Not only that, but even insisting on truth as true, period, regardless of what people think, is sneered upon, even in churches and even to the point of complete personal rejection.

In this environment, standing up and confessing “I believe in God” and in all these truths and events as really true and as really real is an – no – the ultimate act of defiance against the world and against the temporary ruler of this world.

And that’s the way it should be.

And I believe what I believe.
It’s what makes me what I am.
I did not make it, no it is making me.
It is the very truth of God and not
The invention of any man.

-- Rich Mullins Creed