The "Sparkle" Creed

 

(This was originally posted on FaceBook on August 15, 2024)

I try to stay away from politics because in terms of acrimony, misunderstanding, and miscommunication, political discourse is a thermonuclear minefield around a sewage treatment plan circling the event horizon of a black hole.
 
However, I am going to take the risk today, if only tangentially, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. This is still mostly about theology. I saw an item yesterday linking Tim Walz, who is an ELCA Lutheran, to a "Sparkle Creed" professed at an ELCA church in Minneapolis. By itself all this does is notice Tim Walz is part of a denomination which can be very liberal in places, without showing he has any personal connection to the congregation in question or any opinion on the theology in question. I have it on good authority - my sister, to be precise - the ELCA is "a hippie commune," so while the "sparkle creed" is more sad than surprising in this context, even that does not indicate every ELCA church would embrace it, or whether Tim Walz's home church has. 
 
Okay, that's enough politics. Back to theology.
 
There are many problems with the Sparkle Creed. On the whole, it is heresy. It is self-involved and insipid. It confuses much and neglects more. It has the form of a Christian creed, but denies its power because it is mostly about certain people and certain issues here and now. A proper creed proclaims what we believe about God and the Gospel. Instead, through what it says and how, the Sparkle Creed seems to proclaim, "What you really need to know about God is: I'm gay." I would be tempted to say the Sparkle Creed is not Christian theology at all, but for the fact every heresy is Christian theology to some extent. Otherwise, it would be apostasy or an entirely different religion. (The statement "Jesus became God" is heresy - specifically adoptionist Arianism. The statement "Jesus was not God" is apostasy when a Christian makes it. The statement "Jesus discovered in himself a divinity we all share" is pan(en)theism.) In any case, the Sparkle creed distorts and deranges "the Faith delivered once for all to saints." It is a false gospel.
 
I will highlight one issue: this false Creed erases the Blessed Virgin Mary. Strange as it sounds, such a choice actually has profound implications for how we understand Jesus. The Ancient Creeds confess the Fatherhood of God, the Sonship and Lordship of Jesus Christ, Jesus's conception by the Holy Ghost, and His birth by the Virgin Mary. Each of these points is essential. Saint Joseph's place in the story is implied rather than stated. As symbols and summaries of faith, the Creeds can't say everything, though the Athanasian Creed seems to try anyway. This false Creed, however, inverts the logic of the Creeds and reduces the Mystery of the Incarnation to "Jesus had two dads." The Gospels only name a handful of women in Christ's lineage. Erasing any of them is a mistake. Erasing Mary risks denying Christ's humanity, Christ's divinity, or both. Erasing Jesus's Mom to make a point about what a family might look like in the twilight of modernity plays false to Scripture and tradition. It is as silly as saying "Jesus had two moms" by stressing the female gender of the words ruach and pneuma, while overlooking God the Father. It would be better to dispense with the creeds entirely, as long as we still hold to their substance, than to hollow a Creed out this way.

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