The Nicene Creed: The nature of Christian unity and the meaning of gospel words

by Mark Gilbert, Leonardo De Chirico

184 pages, Paperback

Published May 30, 2025

Reviews

[Sandy Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down to 3. Published in the 1700th anniversary of the Council of a Nicea from where the Nicene Creed’s core came, this book is not, primarily, about the Nicene Creed itself - although the authors expound most of the key topic areas faithfully, but all too briefly.

Rather it is a warning, calmly but strongly delivered about how Roman Catholic doctrine believes things additional to what evangelical Protestants see in Scripture in many of these same topic areas. The result is that simply affirming the Nicene Creed may not be enough to assure we understand and trust the same common Christian faith. (And I am not sure how many evangelical Protestants say otherwise, given our additional confessions and articles.) But it is certainly important to know that we don’t always use the same Bible words the same way and that Roman Catholicism can smuggle extra inconsistent ideas in, some of which are deeply problematic. If this is where you need a tutorial then it’s a 4 star book.

But here in this anniversary year, I think the Nicene Creed is underdone here and sold short. It is a wonderful and true creedal statement that is widely affirmed and should be celebrated It helps us especially with biblical trinitarian theology and christology which are crucial and fundamental boundary markers between orthodox Christianity and heretical divergences.

So as someone who loves Mathias Media it pains me to say it feels like the book’s title is not quite accurate or that the first half of many chapters is underdone in expounding on the great truths of the Creed.

[Peter James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the book was very well-written and insightful. The book goes through the words of the Nicene Creed for each chapter, and details the distinctions of belief between Evangelicals and Catholics. Although the writing was polemical, the authors were very charitable. I really enjoyed that because the chapters made me think and reflect in a beneficial way. The writing was fair and deferential to Catholics with common citations to the Catechism and Catholic theologians. The common theme seems to be that we all agree on the words of the Nicene Creed, but we all disagree on the meanings of some of those words. The distinctions/disagreements were a lot more nuanced than I would’ve initially thought. Very good book, and I highly recommend it to anyone seeking to learn more about the beliefs of Evangelicals and or their beliefs in comparison to Catholicism.