Today I want to apply the line of thought I began in “A Time for Orthodoxy” (August 17, 2024) to a situation shared by many of my readers to one degree or another. Much of my life’s energy has been devoted to two institutions, the church and the Christian college. I grew up in a conservative wing of what American church historians call the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement [from now on I will abbreviate it as S-CM]. This religious movement began in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Its main aim was to remedy the tendency among Protestant denominations to engage in interminable disputes and divisions over ever more subtle doctrinal points. The early leaders of the movement hypothesized that these disputes were generated by adherence to theological opinions that go beyond the plain meaning of the New Testament texts and get lost in logical labyrinths. Partisans enforced their doctrinal opinions with creeds, confessions of faith, and catechisms and other documents to which they demanded adherence by clergy and laity. These confessions served as the standards of orthodoxy for their party.

The Anti-Creed Stance and Commonsense Philosophy

The leaders in the S-CM combined two strategies already present within Protestantism in their efforts to bring peace to the warring Protestant parties: (1) emphasis on Scripture as the sole authority for Christian doctrine and life and (2) the distinction between essential and indifferent matters. If we follow strictly the words of Scripture, reject all mere human theological constructions (ecclesiastical creeds, confessions of faith, etc.), and require adherence only to a small number of “essential” teachings that are clearly taught in Scripture, all right-thinking believers will agree and unite in the great work of evangelism and service.

This strategy made sense to the first generation of S-CM leaders for two reasons. First, the Bible was viewed by the great majority of nineteenth-century Americans as the final court of appeal in religious disputes. Even denominational creeds and confessions of faith were in theory to be judged by Scripture. Second, along with most Americans the S-CM leaders adhered to commonsense (or Baconian) philosophy, which made a radical distinction between facts and theories in natural science. Applied to biblical interpretation, the Bible could be viewed as containing many plain facts that require no interpretation. Biblical facts (assertions of truths or events) like empirical facts can be known by everyone alike whereas elaborate combinations and logical constructions composed of facts and truths provoke disagreements.

The S-CM leaders hoped to create unity among Christian believers by requiring acceptance of only those doctrines that are plainly taught in Scripture and relegating all theories and speculations to the realm of opinion on which we may allow diversity of thought. That is to say, Scripture itself serves as the confession of faith and makes additional documents superfluous. In its own day this viewpoint possessed some plausibility for the reasons mentioned above.

The Anti-Creed Stance and Postmodern Philosophy

In our day, the naiveness of the anti-creed view has become obvious. The two historical conditions that made it plausible in the nineteenth century have disappeared. We no longer live in a culture where the Bible is widely accepted as true and authoritative. Moreover, our culture has replaced commonsense philosophy with postmodern relativism wherein each individual has their own “truth” and all “facts” are subject to contextualization and interpretation. Taking account of this new historical context explains how someone could expect the argument I discussed in “A Time for Orthodoxy?” to be persuasive:

In a case wherein many thoughtful Christians disagree on an issue, the church ought to tolerate diversity of belief, expression, and practice.

If you combine the anti-creed tradition with postmodern relativism, the argument above makes perfect sense. The Bible may very well be acknowledged as the sole authority for Christian faith and practice, but according to the argument everyone must be left free to interpreted it in their own way. In my previous essay, I made a reductio ad absurdum argument by showing that the argument implies that all views are equally true. And if all views are equally true, the distinction between truth and falsehood is meaningless. The identity of the church is obscured and its unity is shattered.

How can churches and Christian colleges guard their identity and unity in face of this absurd argument? Attempts to reassert the S-CM’s commonsense distinctions between obvious facts and truths and obscure theories won’t persuade the postmodern Christian. And reasserting the necessity of creeds and confessions of faith as standards of orthodoxy will evoke cries of intolerance and authoritarianism. What to do?

The Unfortunate Necessity of Creeds

I do not claim to know a sure-to-work solution. However, I believe that in the current postmodern climate anti-creed churches and Christian colleges must rethink their opposition to creeds and statements of faith. In spite of complaints of intolerance and authoritarianism, we must be willing to state publicly what we believe, practice and teach, and in some cases, what we reject. The details of such statements, the level of conformity expected of community members, and enforcement mechanisms will need to be worked out by those communities. The alternative is gradual erosion of institutional identity and unity. Our age is, I believe, “A Time for Orthodoxy.”