Mark Noll's The Nicene Creed

This book is a paradigm shift in which Mark Noll describes how he came to believe that Christianity is no longer a Western phenomenon. He wrote a “personal narrative to describe the process by which [he] came to share their belief that full attention to the non-Western world had become essential for any responsible grasp of the history of Christianity” (xi). Noll is a historian who currently works at Notre Dame University in Indiana, and has spent his life wresting with the tough questions of how Christianity has shifted from the west to one that is growing in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Through teaching students, he records in amazing detail the incredible breakthroughs he and his students discovered over a lifetime of research into how God is working in every tribe and nation on earth.
Reflection
One way that Noll supports …show more content…
The Nicene Creed has been one of the hallmarks of Christian faith since its inception in the 4th century. This document, instead of moving the reader’s attention away from the Western world, instead moves the author into a deep entanglement of self-reflection. His view of fellowship, worship, and community all change drastically as he perceives the “deeper and wider ramifications of the Nicene Creed” in today’s culture (50). Instead of focusing his narrative on the non-Western world, Noll moves into a reflective section where he reflects on the paradigm shift that occurred in his own Western theology. This shift, while informative, misses the mark in regards to his thesis, as he fails to specifically address how a shift in thought translated into increased attention for non-Western faith. These changes created “an incremental growth in awareness over the years,” but this growth did not in turn lead him to show the reader how Christianity has moved from the traditional west to a non-traditional context