The "Anabaptist Comma" to the Apostles' Creed
Or, when is it okay to modify the text of a nearly 2,000 year old doctrinal statement used across the Christian world?
Several years ago I was introduced through our church to a form of the Apostles’ Creed that includes an insertion known as the Anabaptist Comma. The Anabaptist Comma was developed sometime around 2012 by David Augsburger1 and Peace Mennonite Fellowship2 following a conference on church liturgy. Over the past decade the Comma has been unofficially used3 in some liturgical Anabaptist circles as a partial corrective to perceived gaps in the traditional Creed’s text regarding the earthly ministry of Jesus.
The Apostles’ Creed
The traditional text of the Apostles’ Creed, as is likely well known to most of my readers, reviews key elements of Christian orthodoxy regarding the members of the Trinity, the church, and eschatology. Those contents are broad enough that the Creed has enjoyed longevity in various Christian churches that are themselves quite different from one another. Yet the Creed’s essentials are specific enough to act as a helpful standard against which to weigh whether a theological concept or movement fits within orthodox Christian belief.
The Creed’s brevity is a mixed blessing and unfortunately one of its biggest shortcomings occurs in the section on Jesus.4 Here is what the English rendering of the Creed has to say about Jesus:
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.5
I have bolded two lines of the creed to draw your attention to a rather large gap. As you can see, the traditional form of the creed jumps straight from Jesus’s birth to the day of his crucifixion. The cliche at this point would be to say that there’s a whole 33 years missing.6 But truthfully the most glaring omissions are about the ministry that occupied the last few years of Jesus’s life. The Creed makes no mention of his teachings about the kingdom of God, his healing and exorcism ministry that was a sign of God’s favor, his interactions with people of various social classes and moral status, etc.
Such an omission does not mean that his ministry was unimportant to the author's of the Creed. After all, the Gospels were prominently used in early church deliberation. The Creed in its original form was not meant to summarize the orthodox position on various controversies of its time, and so did not trouble itself with stressing that Jesus healed the sick or dined with outcasts. But by skipping over these events the Creed unintentionally relegates Jesus’s earthly ministry to a secondary status, as if it played less of a role in his saving work or was but a preface to the “main event” of his death and resurrection.
The problems posed by this gap have not gone unnoticed. In his book The Nonviolent Atonement, theologian J. Denny Weaver argues that the summary nature of the traditional Apostles’ Creed gives priority to theological and philosophical concerns over ethical matters. According to Weaver, by directing their focus primarily towards such matters the authors of the Apostles’ Creed failed to communicate the ways in which the life of Jesus summoned his followers to resist Imperial Roman values that conflicted with Jesus’s teachings.7 As a result, Jesus’s commands to love one’s enemies, abandon the sword, and care for the poor were de-emphasized and the faith became largely a matter of abstract doctrines that increasingly did not challenge Roman militarization, the exploitation of the provinces, and the persecution of pagans by Christian emperors.
I do not think that the traditional Apostles’ Creed itself is wholly to blame for those developments (nor do I think Weaver suggested such). But I see Weaver’s point. Ever since the adoption of Christianity as the Roman imperial religion, and especially since the Protestant Reformation, there has been a constant temptation to view “Christian belief” as synonymous with mental agreement to a series of doctrines. In this scheme, if you believe in the doctrines of the Trinity and of the final judgment, then you are a Christian. But the idea of “faith” as expressed in the Scriptures is not a matter of doctrinal precision. Biblical faith is understood as a form of trust that is inextricably tied with ethical actions. Or, as James said, “faith without works is dead” (2:14-26).
The Anabaptist Comma
And so we arrive at the Anabaptist Comma. The Comma strives to address the above critiques while affirming the Creed’s theological value. It does so by reformatting the Creed to include reflections on Jesus’s life and ministry in between the statements about his birth and suffering. With the text from the original version of the Creed in bold, the Anabaptist Comma reads as follows:
Born of the virgin Mary. Welcomed by shepherds, Greeted by Magi, Pursued by Herod, Sheltered in Egypt, Taught by Joseph, Baptized by John, Tempted by Satan, Followed by disciples, Heard by multitudes, Understood by simple, Despised by clergy, Praised by lepers, Hosted by outcasts, Seen by the blind, Touched by the ill, Obeyed by psychotics, Rejected by siblings, Rebuked by Martha, Embraced by Mary, Anointed by a prostitute, Cheered by crowds, Loved by John, Hated by the Powers, Abandoned by all, Grieved in Gethsemane, Betrayed by disciple, Denied by Peter, Arrested by Herod. He suffered under Pontius Pilate.8
As you can see, this extra content fills in quite a bit about Jesus’s ministry. These events not only include factual information but also remind us that Jesus lived and worked among the poor, and that he did not pursue power through earthly means. They also remind us that Jesus proclaimed the kingdom to people of various ethnicities, to men and women, and to those with differing physical and mental health conditions.
There are some instances where the wording is imperfect. The Comma only alludes to Jesus’s teachings despite those being a significant part of his ministry.9 Furthermore, there is no mention of the kingdom of God, which is quite central to both his teaching and his actions. There is no direct mention of some of his more significant miracles such as the raising of Lazarus. It is also interesting that in these lines Jesus continues to be a passive recipient rather than an active agent. He is Praised, Touched, Seen, etc. Such makes sense from a grammatical standpoint, as the comments surrounding the Comma themselves present Jesus as the passive recipient of actions (birth and suffering). However, the sustained use of passive voice in the Creed plus Comma forms an odd contrast with the earliest portions of the Creed that portray God the Father as an acting agent.
Despite these flaws, the Comma ties together Jesus’s saving work with the ethical themes that were also major parts of his ministry. Its contents enable the Creed to provide a more holistic vision of the Christian faith while still reinforcing the theological points that have guided the church for centuries.
On Changing Creeds
In light of the above considerations, it has been my personal practice to use the “Creed plus Comma” whenever the occasion permits. I do so with an appreciation for the hesitancy that many folks might have to altering the text of a creed that predates the invention of the printing press by many centuries.
Any changes involve the risk of introducing ideas that reflect cultural biases rather than biblical truth. For this reason, any changes should be done in the context of the believing community, much like how the Creed itself originally came about. The same Spirit who guided the early church to produce the initial form of the Creed has been active in the church family across the centuries since it was written. And so we must consult our fellow Christians who are still living and the works of those who have passed on before we add new content to the Creed. I think the Comma is in large part on solid ground in this regard, as it reflects events recorded in the Scriptures that were themselves handed down by the earliest communities of Jesus followers.
I am also understanding of the psychological aversion that some people experience regarding changes to traditional texts. I personally experienced this when my wife and I were exploring forms of the Lord’s Prayer that could be more relatable (and better understood) by our children. As someone raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, the words “Hallowed be thy Name” are etched into my subconscious at a very deep level. And so I squirmed the first time we as a family uttered the equivalent phrase “Help us honor you”. Eventually I grew (slightly) accustomed to this new version and we as a family have benefited from using it.
The creeds are wonderful summaries of shared Christian belief and helpful tools for determining orthodoxy, but they do not possess an intrinsic authority. They are (or at least ought to be) secondary in status to the Scriptures, and certainly to Jesus himself. Modifying their contents is therefore, in my opinion, permissible, provided that modifications are supported by the witness of the Scriptures and the affirmation of prayerful community. Modifications should also operate in the spirit of the original creeds as corporate declarations of faith meant to be read publicly. Any modifications should not transform creeds into systematic theology textbooks.
Thankfully, the statements included in the Comma are all drawn from stories in the life of Jesus. Although their inclusion emerges from a conscious effort to proclaim a missional perspective on the Christian faith in our time, they do not reflect unscriptural claims about Jesus’s life and ministry. They are included as a presentation of Jesus’s life and a summary of what it means to be his followers today. The Comma, like the creed as a whole, is not authoritative so much as it is descriptive. I hope that churches that utilize this text will be open to further communally prompted modifications as they arise. And in the meantime, may it continue to be used as an expression of Jesus’s holistic ministry to a broken world, and a challenge for churches to take up that ministry today.
David Augsburger is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Peace Mennonite Fellowship is a home church network in Claremont, California. My understanding is that the “Creed plus Comma” has been used as part of their weekly liturgy. For more information on this background, see: https://www.emmanuelmennonite.com/2013/03/02/the-anabaptist-comma
To my knowledge the Anabaptist Comma has not been formally adopted by any Anabaptist/Mennonite denomination for worship purposes. I am also unsure how widespread its adoption is, as a Google search yields only a few results - one of which is an earlier version of this post from my old Wordpress blog!
It is worth noting that in the Creed Jesus receives the most attention out of the members of the Trinity. The reason for this is that many of the earliest controversies in the church revolved around the relationship between Jesus’s divinity and his humanity. The Creed was one of several tools designed to recognize and codify the orthodox view. But even the greater detail provided about him contains significant gaps.
Taken from the 2008 ICET rendering, accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed#Ecumenical_(interdenominational)_versions
As curious as we might be about the nearly 30 years of Jesus’s life that are unrecorded in the Gospels, those events are in a sense “less important” than the others. The Gospels were not designed like modern biographies and therefore did not concern themselves with the entire scope of Jesus’s life. Instead, as good Greco-Roman biographies, they focus on the circumstances of his birth, his major deeds (which appear to have been limited to the time after he was endowed with the Spirit at his baptism), and his death. Added to this is the fact that the Gospels each relied on eyewitness and community memory for their contents, and so likely had far more material about Jesus’s ministry than about his childhood. Regarding Jesus’s youth, the comment in Luke’s Gospel that he “grew in wisdom and stature” (2:52) is sufficient enough.
“A narrative Christology that made visible Jesus' life and teaching would challenge rather than support the ethical stance that developed for the church that proclaimed the formulas of Nicea and Chalcedon as the foundation of faith.” Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement. Second Edition. [Kindle] Kindle Locations 1628-1629.
Weaver suggests a similar issue exists with the Penal Substitutionary Atonement model, which can fail to sufficiently integrate the work of Jesus's ministry with his last few days and subsequent resurrection. Such a failing can lead to a de-emphasis of portions of his teaching that challenge social practices and assumptions. Jesus becomes the savior of individual persons from the effects of individual sins who offers a saving divine verdict with no behavioral demands. And this runs the risk of creating a theological “safe space” for the systemic sins of militarization, racism, and economic exploitation. “It is not that the satisfaction motif promotes violence per se. Rather, this motif lends itself to easy accommodation of violence and projects little that specifically opposes violence.” (Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement. Kindle Locations 1665-1666)
Text taken from: http://www.emmanuelmennonite.com/2013/03/02/the-anabaptist-comma. I have arranged the statements into a paragraph format (as opposed to a list format) for the sake of space.
Creeds are by nature more “narrative” than “discourse”. They tell stories in dramatic summary form. And so I am not sure how a Creed could accurately convey Jesus’s commands to his people. And, to be fair, the narrative actions mentioned in the Comma serve as examples for us to follow.