Be Nicene, It's That Simple
Apologetic Swag with a Gospel Significance
The Christian faith is more than a feel good theology. This design is sure to start a Gospel conversation about the historic foundations and unity of our faith reflected in the Nicene Creed.
Inspiration
2025 marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and there is a desperate need to remind the church of our deep roots. This design has instant appeal to a culture that values kindness, yet it points to the fact that Christianity is more than a call to be nice, we are called to be Nicene. By pointing to this ancient creed, the design is a call to worship the one true God, revealed in the Bible, and manifest in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
This creed is significant because it is the only ancient statement of faith accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches.
Nicene Creed Creed issued in 325 by the First Council of Nicaea, the earliest and one of the shortest of the many Christian creeds approved by councils of bishops in the fourth and fifth centuries. It was the first to use the term homoousios. The emphases of the creed are on: 1. the sonship of Christ as distinct from the Logos. 2. Ousia, or being, shared by the Son and the Father. 3. The use of begotten in contradistinction to the Arian term, made. 4. The use of the words, “and became man.” It had nothing after “and in the Holy Spirit” apart from a series of anathemas against Arius’s errors.1
The Nicene creed was originally in Greek, so in a nod to that heritage the other feature of my design is the Chi Rho (☧) which (taking some artistic license) doubles as the “p” in simple. The Chi Rho is taken from the first two letters of Christ in the Greek, Χριστοῦ. The Chi Rho (or Christogram) is one of the most ancient symbols of our faith and points people to the simple truth that our hope is tied not only to the historic person of Christ but the connection we have to the billions of Christians who’ve lived and died for Jesus over the past 2,000 years.
The Nicene Creed
The A.D 381 version of the creed reads as follows:
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (ages), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father; through whom all things were made; who on account of us men and our Salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of (the) Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and entered into humanity; He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence He shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake through the prophets; in one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism unto remission of sins; we look for a resurrection from the dead, and a life of the world to come. Amen.
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George Thomas Kurian, Nelson’s New Christian Dictionary: The Authoritative Resource on the Christian World (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001).