Do We Need Confessions?

INTRODUCTION

You have likely heard the statements, ‘No Creed but Christ’ or ‘No Creed but the Bible.’ Firstly, let us consider the good in these statements. I as a younger Christian would have been heard to say such things, and there would have been a good intention in saying them. For many being Protestant and not being Roman Catholic, this means that Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone is our authority. The Roman Catholic Church admits tradition as binding in a way that only scripture should bind us. So many in a Protestant sense, denying the authoritative role of tradition have intended something good by saying, ‘No Creed but Christ.’ Secondly, every century has seen a number of attacks on the Bible, these have often come from the prevalent philosophies and trends in thought at the time. For example some have suggested that we need the help of evolutionary science to help us understand the Bible, or we need the help of the new schools of psychology to help us have a more informed anthropology. The Bible plus science, psychology, economic theory, political theory, critical race theory, etc. are perennial battles that we face. And I can imagine someone recognizing these attacks defending the sufficiency of scripture by saying ‘No Creed but the Bible.’

However, there is also a naïve endorsement of these sorts of sentiments because there have been many enemies of the truth who by using these very sentiments have sought to undermine the truth of the Bible we seek to defend. For example, the early twentieth century saw the rise of the Ecumenical Movement, this was an attempt to unite all Christian Churches in one Christian organization as a show of unity before a watching world. It was believed that a single united church would be so much more effective in ministry in word and deed. And this would lead to the world seeing our unity and they would believe. No Creed but Christ would serve very well for those who wanted to do away with the difficult doctrines of the Trinity; the inerrant nature of the scriptures; the exclusivity of salvation in Christ; the various supernatural aspects of our beliefs, all things related to end times, not to mention the various distinctives of the various denominations.
Another example is the attempt on the part of Liberals to infect and change the historic beliefs of all the mainline denominations. As Modernism infected the seminaries and many professors stopped believing in the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the inspiration of the scriptures, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and many other central doctrines. There method for carving out a place for themselves in the various seminaries and pulpits was to diminish the grounds of confessional identity, the less the better. This would mean they could change and adapt many doctrines to suit the trends of prevailing thought. ‘No Creed but Christ’ is great cover for this agenda.

These statements can sound like they fit with the fundamentalist nature of the twentieth century church, but they do not. The fundamentalists had 11 fundamental beliefs, a creed, that they all adhered to. There were many wonderful things in the fundamentalist movement, which make me gladly identify as a fundamentalist depending on what you mean. But there is also a naïve, ahistorical, non-self-aware, sectarian, anti-establishmentarian mindset that has infected the church which sees anti-creedalism as a spiritual virtue. And perceives this stance as part of the greater Liberal vs Fundamentalist debate when it is not.

So today I would like to look at some logical, historical and biblical reasons why creeds and confessions are necessary in the church.