We believe in God Almighty

The creeds are mission documents. This conviction places Andrew King’s hymn, paraphrase of the Nicene Creed, in this section 6e, though it could readily fit 1a, ‘The eternal Trinity’. Written and sung at Haywards Heath, Sussex, when the author was pastor of the Evangelical Free Church there, it first featured in the supplement he edited in 1994, Praises for the King of Kings. Later he wrote: ‘Nonconformist evangelicals often lack awareness of the history of the early church, of the great hammering out of the fundamental doctrines in the catholic councils, and specifically of the historic creeds … In [PKK] we included the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, as well as some of the classic prayers from the Prayer Book, using them on an occasional basis. But the way to really make this material available to Nonconformists is via music; our hymnbook is our liturgy, and sadly the high level of critique applied to prepared prayers etc is frequently shelved when it comes to songs. So, in a sense, this hymn based on the Nicene Creed was an attempt to make people credally aware via the back door.’ The credal word ‘catholic’ was originally (in PKK) retained in 4.5, and is here replaced by ‘holy’; of the version in Praise!, the first main hymnal to publish the hymn, the author says that the ‘challenge for the person leading the meeting to explain what [catholic] actually means … was declined by our editors! Suffice to say that holy scans far better, and is in any case present in the creed itself, alongside catholic and apostolic’. The hymn has been sung at the summer Evangelical Ministry Assembly in London. In the late-20th c, other authors have also paraphrased the creed(s); these include David Mowbray (1977) who uses the same first line, and Timothy Dudley-Smith with We believe in God the Father (1989). As these three and others use the same metre, they need to be carefully distinguished. They all also use the plural form, familiar in the newer liturgies, rather than the BCP’s ‘I believe …’

Henry Smart’s BETHANY was the tune in the author’s mind at the time of writing; for notes see 115 (it is also at 496), in each case it is in a different key. Others which have been used are 98A, 139 and 488, though the first two of these are in danger of over-exposure.

b Wroughton nr Swindon, Wilts 1961. Raised in the Gospel Standard Strict Baptist tradition in a family circle familiar with its classic hymns; converted at Caterham Baptist Ch in 1971, where he grew to love a fuller range of hymnody. Studied at Dulwich Coll, Sussex Univ (BSc Biology 1982). After working as a sausage salesman with the Walls Meat Company and as a food technologist with Hygrade Foods in Peckham, he assisted the Minister at Grove Chapel, Camberwell, while studying at the London Theological Seminary 1986–88. Pastor/teacher at Haywards Heath Evangelical Free Church in Sussex 1988–2000; where he edited (with others) the words-only hymnal Praises for the King of Kings (see no.12, note) for which he contributed several texts. Enjoyed writing from his youth up, and wrote some 35 texts at Haywards Heath after his first, a version of Ps 2 written at Camberwell soon after his marriage to Cora. For a time he was a member of the modern songs team for Praise! From 2000 he worked in Brazil as a Bible teacher and preacher with UFM Worldwide (the Unevangelised Fields Mission), with a roving commission to train, teach and encourage others in biblical exposition, based on his home in Florianópolis. He returned to England in 2008 and currently (2011) works as a kitchen sales consultant, also running a photography business. His texts have also been published in Australia and New Zealand, with one each in Sing Glory (1999) and the 2004 CH. Nos.12, 306, 598, 631, 686, 795*, 912, 923.