In a Speaking of Faith episode I expected to be deeply enmeshed with the details of religious practice, I was surprised and delighted to find a connection to one of the concerns in religion I, as a secular humanist atheist, most value: persistence across time and space. Pelikan emphasized the value of strict repetitive tradition — and creeds in particular — as rituals. These rituals — in their very shape — act to bridge the spatial and temporal gaps between wildly separated believers while simultaneously acting as vessel which the believers can fill with the particulars of their own local world.

This view of religion strongly reminded me of the work of Columbia Philosophy professor James P. Carse, whose classic work Finite and Infinite Games covers exactly the centrality of this unique combination of flexibility and continuity to the continued survival, relevance, and goodness of religion (and other human practices such as art). Carse recently gave a terrific talk on the subject at the Long Now Foundation. One really interesting outcropping of Carse's focus of the long term survival strategies of religion is that it also allows him to pinpoint the real evil of groups that perpetrate religion-motivated violence: in addition to committing atrocities, they subjugate an infinite fungible human practice to the vagaries and temporary political and practical needs of a particular temporary institution or group, which lessens the tradition itself.

I am a college student completing a religion class and one of the class’ projects is to listen/read the week’s interview on the Speaking of Faith website and then write a summary. I am very interested in religion — particularly any fresh insights into the meaning of the Holy Bible - and I really enjoyed the broadcast with the late Jaroslav Pelikan. His insights into the importance of creeds because of their specific qualities were most enlightening, and I am glad to have heard it. After learning of Jaroslav Pelikan and his books, I am hoping to read some of his work in the near future.

I have often asked myself of the purpose of these many creeds. It is a question that, I feel, one must ask themselves in order to fully understand the purpose of their religion. It is when you reveal the answer to this endeavor that one can fully reinforce their beliefs and fully invest all of their faith in that religion. When you look at creeds, their meanings and purposes transcend time. They, like the Bible, can relate to so many different people in so many different circumstances. It ties all of the people of one religion together as a whole body. When feeling lost or alone in their faith, the people can look to these creeds knowing that their forefathers sang it long ago, helping them to guide their faith and find the path of righteousness once again.

Even though creeds date back for over a hundred to even thousand years ago they still serve a purpose in the world today. The creeds that are used today allow people to have a purpose in life and provide them a continuous focus on life. Since creeds are never changing but faith is, creeds give us something to hold on to and gain stability from. When things are difficult we can turn to the creeds to help us understand what is going on as well as straighten out the difficult situation we might be facing. Reciting creeds help Christians that are experiencing difficulties a form of affirmation in God. Also, creeds bring communities together whether in church or a study group. Creeds today give us a sense of stability in a crazy world we live in as well as friends that will always be there through the connection of Christ. Not all friends are real but having God as the form of security things can be talked about fr om similar faith points of view. Life is a rollercoaster but with creeds still alive we have something that is never changing.

I believe creeds were a crucial part of the early Christian church. They helped people reinstate their beliefs all the time instead of just during church services. I am part of the Community of Christ religion and we don’t use creeds a whole lot. That doesn’t mean I don’t see their value, but I don’t think they are as needed today was they were before. We still need those answers just as much now as before, but now we have more information, and people, and experience to go off to gain those answers from. So creeds are useful now but I feel like they are more used for the sake of tradition and to keep memories alive for people.

I am a regular reader of the obituaries. Some of my firneds think it strange, but for me it is like reading mini-biographies and sometimes mini how-to manuals. Often, however, I have read an obituary of someone who's life or work (or both) strikes me deeply and I feel the strangest of emotions: both a loss, because I could missed my chance to experience this person when they were alive, and the joy of discovery because my world has been made larger. This was what I felt last night listening to the interview with the late scholar Jaroslav Pelikan. Mind blowing, eye opening, moving. I am impelled to seek out Dr. Pelikan's work. Great and good.

Jary Pelikan was the brother of my Godmother, the late Mildred Pelikan. The last time I saw him in person was at my mother's funeral in Cleveland, Ohio in 1981, but over the years I always followed his books, his thinking and his journey with interest. It was moving to hear his voice and his thoughts again.

First, I have never heard Jaroslav Pelikan or even heard of him before, but he, as they say has "got it goin'on". His brief mentions regarding Judaism and Islam were evidence of deep knowledge. I am not a theologian, but I have been reading Western Theology since 1978. I came to a resting point when, as a Jew, and dismissing the Christology, I discovered and adopted Meister Eckhart's Grund theology.

Very early in his remarks about the numbers of creeds in Christianity, I thought of John 1 and John 3:16. He let us know what the problem was with John 1, which is a shame. But he never spoke of John 3:16 — why not?

I listened with joy to your replayed interview of this benevolent and thoughtful expert on creeds, and later I learned the author of Whose Bible Is This. I was raised rigidly Roman Catholic, and now listen to your program and read, read, read to find roots for my faith. Prof. Pelikan was a marvel at rooting things in ways that appeal to my heart, mind, and spirit. Alone in my kitchen, I wept when I learned that he has just died. I came to the site to find some connections and proper citations hearing Leann Hanson reporting again, but no spelling.

Thank you for the timely replay of your wonderful interview with a wonderful man. He moved seamlessly from Lutheranism to Eastern Orthodoxy — was it in his genes? I find myself aligned with Luther and Emerson, and puzzle about my own creed as I can still recite the "Apostles' Creed" burned in my brain by Dominican nuns, reinforced by Benedictine priests, and asked to question by Jesuits. I have not stopped yet.

I am amazed that although both the interviewer and interviewee recognized the limitations of Christian creeds, and the resulting proliferation of competing creeds, neither felt compelled to reject them. It is amazing to me that both Jewish and Muslim creeds have remained singular and consistent by quoting sacred texts; Christian departure from their sacred texts have resulted in the proliferation and division of the faith. You have convinced me that I should adopt the Jewish creed and abandon all others. You have made it clear to me in this conversation again that our beliefs rule us and not the other way around.

I've been disappointed in SOF lately. There has been an excellent choosing of topics, but poor selections of whom to interview. The Paganism and the Creed programs are good examples. For Paganism, you interview a professor in New England who seemed to know nothing of the strong tradition of ethics in American Paganism, something Krista could have easily learned about from her co-worker Margot Adler. The Need for Creeds program also focused on a Yale professor's devotion to creedalism and neglected to notice that we are entering a post-denominational era that has abandoned them. In my opinion, presenting these interviews without the context of what is going on currently distorts the listener's understanding of these topics and is not worthy of public radio. Give us more broad-based and researched questioning, please. Thank you.

While there are some who, like the great religionist Jaroslav Pelikan, find their faith paths through creeds, there are also those of us who walk in faith traditions shaped by covenant and not creed. As a Unitarian Universalist, my spiritual life is formed by a promise with others to walk in the ways of God as they are made known to us. This forms the center of spiritual community for us, not the singularity of theological belief espoused in a creed.

My need for God supercedes my need for a statement of theological belief to which I give consent, primarily because as an inheritor of a radically Reformationist perspective, I hold that the relationship between God and individual human being is immediate and prior to any church doctrine or historical creed. And, therefore, that it is the purpose of spiritual fellowship to provide the community where that immediacy can be uncovered, witnessed to, and celebrated. That is my faith, and the revelation of my faith tradition.

My reflection is simple and personal: I would love to be able to recite the Nicene Creed with all my heart and soul. I was raised a Catholic and have tried over my half-century of life to speak the Apostles' Creed with conviction and to hear my voice as one with my fellow parishioners. I can be moved by the simple beauty of the words and can be transformed as I repeat a faith distilled into words and repeated over time and space, as Dr. Pelikan said.

It is soothing, hypnotic, inspiring. But what does one do with the creed when the Immaculate Conception is not believable? Can you be 90% true to your faith and repeat the Creed with conviction, omitting the doubtful section? Can you say the Creed in its entirety, saying to yourself that the idea does not have to be taken truly literally. I think not. So I wish for a way, but I have not found it yet.

I heard your program for the first time yesterday driving from Michigan to Virginia, and think it was on WETA, but I heard it advertised somewhere in Ohio on the way and decided I wanted to listen if I could. I'd never heard of it before, and found Dr. Pelikan completely intriguing, and Ms. Tippett an excellent interviewer. Her low giggle let me know she was listening and as captivated by what he was saying as I was, but she had the good sense not to interrupt!

I think of myself as a religious person, although currently, living in Geneva, Switzerland, I'm not a member of a church there. I miss the intellectual challenge I got from sermons at my Episcopal church here in Arlington, though, and found your program to fill a void. I'll come back online from Switzerland once I'm home.

Thanks a lot for a great idea for a show, and for avoiding having it pretend to substitute for worship, to which I would not have listened for a nanosecond.

As a Reconstructionist Jew, I share with my learned colleague of the Eastern Orthodox persuasion both a specific creed and the need to universalize religion. For this reason, in my recent translation of the Jewish prayer book, the Shema, often called Judaism's creed, is translated, "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord [by however many different names addressed] is One." The creed, then, is this statement of belief that those who worship God by other names, Allah, Guanyin, Durga, Great Spirit or whatever, are united.

Thank you for a most thought-provoking interview with Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan. What a breath of fresh air to hear a brilliant historian scholar speak of the Christian creeds as nourishing and life-giving to many rather than something that is dead weight that needs to be quickly cast aside. I enjoy your program and wish you the very best.

God provides all of my needs, thus I strive to fill each day with thankfulness. God has created all people, thus I strive to treat all people with respect. God has provided all with special gifts, thus I strive to recognize and nurture my special gifts and those of each person I encounter. God loves me unconditionally, thus I strive to feel loved at all times, and to extend unconditional love to others, including my enemies and those who hate me.

I also strive to be non-judgmental and forgiving of myself and in all interactions with others. God is my guiding light, thus I strive to be confident in everything that I do. God desires that I seek justice, thus I strive to seek justice for all within my sphere of influence and concern, truth over untruth. God's work is risky, thus I strive to endure all suffering that results from the striving for justice (truth).

The problem I have with most creeds is that they are statements of belief or faith only and do not state how that belief or faith affects personal behavior. Faith or belief should lead to action — should compel us to act on.

Your guest, in soft-shoeing around the notion of creeds, failed to address the relationship between creeds and authority. For all his attempts to render creeds innocuous—by explaining that there is one way to say, "I love you," that creeds are liturgical tools, and that creeds may be helpful for teaching one's faith to one's children—your guest missed the most toxic component, i.e., that the modern apprehension to creeds is due to the authority that creeds give to church hierarchy. The authority that ordains the creeds is the same authority that pontificates on the geocentric universe, the single-sex clergy, restrictions on birth control, sexual morals, the stature of women in marriage and society, the death penalty, and other stances on divisive social issues. Since the Enlightenment, the modern mind has rejected ex cathedra decrees on truth. Isn't this at the heart of the problem with creeds?

Second, although you inquired, your guest didn't address the faiths that reject creeds. Not just Judaism, but the Baptist Church also purports to be non-creedal, and I'm sure there are others. Rabbi Emanuel Levison has contrasted Christianity's creedal tradition with the Talmudic tradition of Judaism. The Talmudic tradition, rather than establishing a creed, established a sacred dialogue for exploring doctrinal questions. Christianity lacks a similar tradition, in large part due to its impulse toward authoritarian.

As historic matter, it seems to me that Christianity's creedal tradition arises from the historic circumstance that Christianity's earliest adherents did not trust that other communities and religious leaders were acting in good faith, whether it be Peter's rejection of Paul (which the orthodox deny, but which has historic support) or Marcion's rejection of the Jewish God (which is indisputable). This complete lack of trust meant that the disagreements had to be resolved through authority rather than dialogue.

I would have been interested in hearing your guest, particular as a historian, discuss these aspects of creeds.

What an amazing program! I'm the pastor of a United Methodist Church and am awakened every Sunday morning at 7:00 by Krista's voice. What follows is usually nothing short of amazing. This past week's interview with Jaroslav Pelikan was incredible! I often find myself delaying my departure to church so that I can listen to all of Krista's interview. I am terribly appreciative of this program and Krista's considerable gifts.

As a Yale-educated listener, I know it's almost heretical to quarrel with Jaroslav Pelikan. But I was offended, intrigued and finally disappointed by his remarks on creeds. First I was bothered by his remark that, in trying to define the Trinity as one god, "the real Unitarians were the Trinitarians." I would argue that the real Unitarians were the martyrs that the Trinitarians killed, believers in a single god like Michael Servetus who paid the ultimate price for arguing that the Trinity was theologically unsupportable.

Then I was intrigued when Krista Tippett listened to Pelikan's analysis of the Nicene Creed and wondered why we say it at all. I was heartened when Pelikan remarked that Tippett was of a kind with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who argued that each person should be at work creating her or his own statement of beliefs. Yes, I thought! Then I was disappointed by Pelikan's casual dismissal of Emerson, as he said that once you create such a statement, you repeat it and repeat it, and then you teach it to your children, and before you know it, you have another creed.

These remarks make me think that Pelikan, who clearly prides himself on thorough scholarship, knows nothing of how Unitarian Universalist churches conduct themselves. (Nor may Tippett; a search of your site for the word "Unitarian" turns up only half a dozen citations, most of which are listener comments!)

Where Pelikan's dismissal of Emersonian thought runs aground is in his assumption that once you decide what you believe, you'll repeat it again and again to yourself and your children. But Unitarian churches believe that the nature of revelation is ongoing—your beliefs may well and often do change! Thus, Unitarians DON'T repeat the same creed to themselves week after week; they are at liberty to revise their beliefs as experience teaches them.

Moreover, children at Unitarian churches are not so simply taught their parents' beliefs, but rather educated in all the traditions of world faith and urged to make their own decisions. Each spring, in Coming of Age ceremonies, our youth stand up and say what they believe; it's not always what their parents believe, nor even what they may believe next week. But they have done as Emerson suggested, beginning a lifetime of intellectual engagement with questions of faith which is our best legacy.