The Nicene Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters

• Dates: February 18 – May 13, 2025
• Time: Tuesdays, 6:30 – 8:00pm
• Location: Class sessions will be held at the Emmaus Institute:
  3601 Calvert St, Ste 23
  Lincoln, NE 68506

We recite the Nicene Creed together at every Mass, but it’s not exactly a prayer. So presumably we’re not saying it to God. To whom then are we speaking, and why is it so important to keep saying it?

In this twelve-week course, offered in person, live online, or by recorded video, we will examine each of the “articles” of the Nicene Creed, an early edition of which was drafted at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, then finalized and adopted in full at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. As we pursue our investigation, we’ll consider the following kinds of questions: 1) What does each belief-claim actually mean?; 2) What was going on historically in the Church and in the world that motivated this particular belief-claim and made it so important?; 3) What truth(s) about God was this particular belief-claim written to protect?

Join us as we consider these matters together in a twelve-session trek through history, Scripture, and our common confession about the truths of our faith.

Required Texts:

• Instructor’s notes (provided and included in the registration cost)
• Sacred Scripture, the Bible (preferably RSVCE 2^nd edition or ESVCE)

Chad Steiner Author

About the instructor

Chad completed his undergraduate studies in Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln while studying the biblical languages and biblical introduction and interpretation on the side. Following graduation, he taught with his father at a small Bible institute in Lincoln for a number of years before moving to England with his wife Kacy to begin graduate work in biblical studies. Upon their return to Lincoln in 2005, Chad resumed teaching and writing full time with the institute where he remained until its closure in 2013. His interests lie especially in cultivating Christian unity, and in sharing the task of interpreting Sacred Scripture with Christians across denominational lines. He and his family were received into the Roman Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil at St. Peter in 2011. Since then he has enjoyed singing in the choir and serving as a regular catechist for the OCIA program at the parish. He and Kacy have eight children, a goofy pyredoodle, an opinionated Quaker parrot, an easier-going rabbit, a growing population of fish in multiple aquariums, and an ark under construction.