Walking my way through Marsh’s biography on Bonhoeffer, there is a time in New York where Bonhoeffer attends Union Seminary for a year. He also encounters Reinhold Niebuhr. He leaves after a year of study at Union frustrated because he found their theological approach too weak.

It wasn’t that it was “liberal” theology. It was that it had no base substance. There were students speculating on if they needed to mention Christ in their preaching on Sundays. There was a dismissive attitude toward the basic truths of the historical Christian faith.

This helps me stay awake. I need to be stirred. I am ready to be involved, to take this active faith into the world and let the goodness of the Kingdom be unleashed… but I have to be anchored.

It is important to keep the main thing the main thing, which is why I delight in the saying of the Nicene Creed every week in worship. It is the reminder of what is essential.

THE NICENE CREED:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, visible and invisible.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], †
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.