The Edina Community Lutheran Church in Minnesota begins each service with the woman “pastor,” Anna Helgin, leading the assembly in the recitation of what is called the “Sparkle Creed.” The text is as follows:
“I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads and saw everyone as a sibling-child of God. I believe in the rainbow Spirit, who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity,”
“I believe in the church of everyday saints as numerous, creative and resilient as patches on the AIDS quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder. I believe in the call to each of us that love is love is love, so beloved, let us love. I believe, glorious God. Help my unbelief.”
We’ll make some observations about this blasphemous document later in this piece, but let’s first consider the matter of creeds and other statements of belief in denominationalism.
A Few General Words About Creeds
Creeds are statements of belief which are purely man-made. They aren’t found anywhere in the Bible, but new ones are adopted periodically to determine soundness and bind people together in a common statement of belief. The most well known creeds, are the “Apostle’s Creed” (120-200 A.D.), and the “Nicean Creed” (325 A.D.). Every creed reflects its time, the general outlook of people regarding the Bible, and the social climate of the days in which they were adopted. Creeds are just plain sinful, on every level. Think about the following points:
First, creeds deny truth. The truth is, however, that creeds contain very little truth. Creeds are generally composed by people with an agenda. The agenda is evident throughout the document. In the Bible we have nothing but God’s word, the truth (John 17:17).
Second, creeds divide believers. They claim to promote unity, but their very existence divides. Their stated purpose is to help people “speak the same things” (1 Corinthians 1:10), but they only divide believers into segments of believers.
Third, creeds supersede the Bible. Because we’re supposed to believe the scriptures, not man made doctrines (John 8:24; Romans 10:17; Galatians 1:6-9; Matthew 15:7-9).
Fourth, creeds are superfluous. Advocates say that creeds merely restate the teachings of the Bible, but if that’s so, then they’re pointless and serve no function, because the Bible alone is sufficient to produce faith and morals (2 Peter 1:3; 2 Timothy 3:16).
Fifth, creeds add to or take away from the Bible. Creeds state things that people in a given place or time believe must be missing from the Bible, or which their composers think shouldn’t be in the Bible (Revelation 22:18-19).
Sixth, creeds try to improve the Bible. Creeds purport to “help” the Bible in this way, but the Bible needs no help, because it is the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25).
Seventh, creeds redefine God. While they claim to honor God, every creed ever written is an attempt to explain God and His will in light of contemporary thinking. They essentially say, “The God we serve says …” and then they go off on some contemporary tangent. God is the great “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). He’s greater than man in His ways and thinking (Isaiah 55:8-9), and He’s beyond man’s ability to limit Him (Hebrews 13:8).
Eighth, creeds alter scriptural worship. Creeds are also wrong because they change the worship and work of the church. Nowhere in the New Testament can we find early Christians subscribing to and reciting a man-made statement of faith as part of their worship. They were taught Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). The gospel alone in the pure form it was given by inspiration is powerful for man’s salvation (Romans 1:16).
What About the So-Called “Sparkle Creed”?
The Sparkle Creed is rife with every sinful trait common to all creeds, but its evil eclipses that of the traditional creeds of history. It’s a newfangled document, composed in 2021 by Rachel Small Stokes, a lesbian “pastor” who lives with a “wife.” She is the “pastor” of the Immanuel United Church of Christ in Louisville, KY. If you’ve not yet read the text of the “creed” then please go back to the top and do so now. Then consider the following blasphemies that it contains:
First, the Sparkle Creed blasphemes God making Him a sexually confused being. That the “creed” says God is “non-binary” requires no defense or explanation. Liberal scholars of denominationalism will surely say, “Non-binary simply refers to the fact that one is neither male nor female.” This is a garish attempt to place the Creator of heaven and earth in the playing field of current sexual deviancy. God created man “in His image,” making them “male and female” (Genesis 1:27). God is a spirit, not human, and gender has no application to a spirit (John 4:24). However, the Scriptures consistently refer to God with the masculine “He.” This isn’t a reference to sexuality, but it’s a masculine pronoun. Likewise, Jesus said, “I am He” when a mob arrived to arrest Him (John 18:5).
Second, the Sparkle Creed blasphemes the Holy Spirit and the Son. Further attempts to place God in the framework of modern pro-homosexual and transgender rantings can be seen in describing the Creator as having “plural pronouns.” The Bible says that the Father is God (Ephesians 4:6), the Son is God (Hebrews 1:8), and the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4). All three members of the Godhead possess the “Divine Nature” (Acts 17:29). Additionally, from this the Sparkle Creed claims that Jesus is the product of God whose pronouns are “plural” as in “their” Son. This is so ungodly that it is hard to know which part is worse than the rest. The Scriptures call on men to be like God, and to follow the example of Jesus (Matthew 5:48), but the Sparkle Creed makes God like man.
Third, the Sparkle Creed attacks God’s design for the home. One of the main purposes of the homosexual agenda is to affirm gay marriage, and to destroy the concept of the home built on a male and female married and raising their offspring. Paul commanded, “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2. He added this about children: “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord” (Colossians 3:20). Pro-homosexual and pro-transgender literature effuses about how there are “different ways to do family” — and the Sparkle Creed couldn’t agree more! It says Jesus had two dads. What arrogance! The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus earthly father was Joseph (Luke 2:48), but this is in no way the same as what the sinful world is pushing on us today. They are using this biblical fact to justify homosexual marriages and parenting. Blasphemy seems to be too light a charge to make against this evil.
Fourth, the Sparkle Creed glorifies transgenderism. The line that Jesus wore a “fabulous tunic” is clearly meant to bring cross-dressing to mind and to mainline it. I’m not sure which the so-called “creed” is referring to; that Jesus had a tunic so well made it was not divided (Matthew 27:35), or if the “fabulous tunic” was His human body (Philippians 2:7). It doesn’t really matter in the end. The homosexual agenda wants men to believe in a Savior dressed in “drag.” But again, God created “male and female,” and the Scriptures don’t speak of someone “trading” one existence for the other. God made us for His glory, and we should exist in the gender we are for His glory (Psalm 139:14; Isaiah 43:7).
Sixth, the Sparkle Creed says God takes no account of evil. The line which says God saw “everyone as a sibling-child” is a blatant attempt to eliminate anything as sinful enough to destroy fellowship with God. Yet, the Bible says the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The “sibling-child” line means that everyone is God’s loving child, even those who deny God and His laws. There will never be anyone who hears the Lord say, “Depart from me you who work lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23).
Seventh, the Sparkle Creed is all about the “diversity” of every form of homosexuality and its attendant evils. It says that God’s Spirit shatters “our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity.” Now you know for sure! This is the adoption of the so-called “pride flag” as the marching standard for Christians. We must reject the “white light” of God and of truth, and accept the diversity of all perverse things. We must call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). Sadly, this is being adopted more and more. In fact, even some churches of Christ proudly display their “pride flags” along with their declarations of a capella singing and observing the Lord’s Supper each Sunday!
Conclusion
Believers in God find themselves in 2024 watching the world descend into sin and evil. The homosexual agenda is driving much of the current decay. Its radical agenda promotes “vile passions” as normal (Romans 1:27), and to erase all boundaries against it which are found in the Bible. It wants sin to thrive openly. The more people who mindlessly quote and celebrate the blasphemies of the Sparkle Creed, the more homosexual/transgender advocates have to celebrate.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking it can’t happen among us. You’ve seen too many changes over the years to believe we’re immune from the dangers of the changing views of the world. We must make the Bible, not any creed, our confession of faith. Creeds are sinful, divisive, and blasphemous.
Adapted from David Weaks