The year 2025 marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicean Creed. For those Christians who hold to the ancient statements of faith, this was quite a milestone – and one that deserved to be celebrated.
In my own churches, in South Wales, the creed often forms part of our weekly worship, reminding us of the bigger family of Christians to which we belong, and the ancient roots of our faith and tradition.
To mark the anniversary, I preached through several of the points of the creed, as part of afternoon services. One key part of that series was in four parts: the church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Focusing in on those last two, I wanted to impress upon my congregations that our faith does not merely belong to us. It is the universal faith (katholikos in Greek from which we get ‘catholic’) – the faith of all those who are or who ever have been Christians. And it is the same faith now as was taught, and lived, and entrusted by the Apostles.
Even for a good son of the Reformation – it’s not the Calvinistic Church before it’s the Apostolic church. If we are followers of Calvin, or Cranmer, or Augustine, or anyone else, it is because we think that they understand and model for us something of the Apostolic message contained in the New Testament.
Catholic and Apostolic
The church is Catholic and Apostolic, in these senses. If a church is neither of these things; if it doesn't have the faith that has always been believed, if it isn’t the same faith lived and taught by the apostles, then it isn’t really, truly, fully, a church at all.
Many within the Church in Wales, the autonomous Anglican province that celebrated its centenary of independence from the Church of England back in 2020, have been concerned that it is selling its catholic and apostolic birth-right for a mess of pottage. The latest and perhaps most emotionally charged example of this was the vote on Thursday 16th of April to make permanent the previously experimental prayers of blessing for those in same sex civil marriages or civil partnerships. These were first introduced five years ago as part of a bill that obtained its 2/3rds majority very narrowly. This time round, it was a landslide.
Following the introduction of these prayers, a number of people left the Church in Wales – some for England, some for Gafcon-backed Anglican denominations, some for non-conformity. Some believed that there was no hope for the Church in Wales to retain an Apostolic way of life.
The complaints have often been that doctrinal change in the Church in Wales follows a pattern of changing “facts on the ground” first, making the received doctrinal settlement seem unsustainable. One might recognise that in the way that, of the vanishingly few of these blessings that have been offered over the last five years, most of the anecdotes that we hear have related to clergy who have had them for their own relationships. A report on the findings of the five year "experiment" was requested, but it has not been forthcoming.
Debate
As the debate this April drew near, considerable work went into preparing for the vote. A huge number of amendments were proposed, and many of them were brought forward. The first of these, not strictly an amendment, was the request to allow voting on this matter to be done by secret ballot – thus protecting those on both sides of the debate. This required only a simple majority, but it was lost. It became clear in this moment that the bench of bishops did not want to afford the protection of privacy to those opposing this bill.
There followed a range of additional amendments, some to change the wording of the liturgy, and some to offer protections and assurances to those who were opposed. In the end, very little of the text of the prayers was changed, but some provisions were given to protect the consciences of those who would be unable to offer these prayers. Speaking with evangelicals around Wales since the vote, it is widely thought that the protections do not go far enough – for some in the Church in Wales, it would be hard to imagine how sufficient protections could be offered, as these prayers seem so far downstream of significantly differing hermeneutics and understandings of the Gospel.
It’s unclear what is next for Welsh evangelical Anglicans. We know that these prayers of blessing are a precursor to a vote in 2027 to bring same-sex marriage to the Church in Wales. From this vantage point, it seems that it will be difficult to stop the train before it reaches that destination.
Conscience?
And what of the conscience clauses? These currently only extend to the right not to offer them personally. Clergy will be expected to facilitate a visiting cleric, or the bishop, to come and offer them instead. This raises questions about the ordering of public worship and the teaching of the faith entrusted to our clergy when they take up office – questions which will be answered painfully, and through heartache and disappointment, I’m sure.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that the fellowship of believers, the church, "were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer".
This is my hope for my churches over the coming year, that we might devote ourselves to the apostolic teaching of the New Testament and that we would embrace their way of life. I pray earnestly that, in the final reckoning, the churches that I’ve cared for will be churches after all.
