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A Time for Orthodoxy (Part Four)

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Today I will conclude the series urging anti-creedal churches to rethink their opposition to explicit creeds, confessions of faith, and statements of belief.

A Little More History

The Early and Patristic Church

Creeds, confessions of faith and statements of belief served different purposes in different eras of church history. Beginning with the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), early and patristic church leaders met on occasion to deal with controversies. They sometimes issued decrees clarifying controverted issues and condemning erroneous views. For example, the decrees (creeds) from the first two ecumenical Councils, Nicaea and Constantinople (I) built on the list of truths articulated in the early rule of faith. The Councils found it necessary to clarify certain disputed points and condemn certain assertions made by the Arian party, which asserted that the Son of God was not truly God but the first and greatest creature. Wisely, these Councils made no attempt to articulate everything Christians believe and practice. Not only would this have been impossible, it would have engendered fruitless controversies. They left all these things implicit in the tradition of worship and the practical life of the church.

I see much wisdom in the patristic church’s practice. The Christian faith cannot be articulated in all its fulness and richness. As philosopher of science Michael Polanyi observed, “we know more than we can say.” If the church tries to say everything it knows, it will complicate what is simple and oversimplify what is complicated. But there are times when the church must articulate some piece of its tacit knowledge and condemn the worse distortions of its faith.

The Protestant Reformation

When Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and other branches of the Protestant Reformation organized themselves into separate bodies, they promulgated confessions of faith to clarify for the world what they believed and taught and how they differed from the Roman Catholic Church and each other. Among the earliest of these are the Lutheran Augsburg Confession of Faith (1530), the Reformed First (1536) and Second (1566) Helvetic Confessions of Faith, and the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563). These documents were much longer than the Nicene Creed and covered a more extensive catalogue of doctrines. Nevertheless, the Protestant confessions did not attempt to articulate the full depth and riches of the Christian faith. Every later Protestant body explicitly or implicitly followed the same rule.

The proliferation of Protestant confessions of faith was driven by necessity. Given the separation from the Roman Catholic Church and the disputes among themselves Protestants had to make clear how they differed from the RCC and each other. This task remains necessary even for contemporary anti-creedal churches. How else may anti-creedal churches let the world know that they differ from other churches by rejecting creeds?

Contemporary Independent, Community, and Bible Churches

In this list I include every church whose primary leadership and identity rests in the local congregation. Instead of a Protestant confession of faith, they often list their beliefs on their website or in printed material under the rubric “What we Believe.” This list usually includes basic teachings common to all orthodox churches (Trinity, Christ’s Deity, Atonement, Resurrection, etc.), some that are central to Protestantism in general (justification by faith), some that are characteristic of the parent denomination, and some that are important to the identity of that particular congregation. Most of these statements are not too long, at most 20 points. Like the Patristic church and the churches of the Reformation, community and Bible churches do not attempt to put into words everything they teach and practice. You learn these things, if at all, by long years of participation in the life of the church.

The Present Challenge: Progressive “Christianity”

As I explained in the first essay in this series, my faith was nurtured in a conservative wing of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. That is where I serve today and expect to serve for the rest of my life. We like to think we preserve some unique insights within a generally Protestant tradition. To the outside observer, however, we look like most other low church Protestant groups. We cherish the canonical scriptures and adhere (informally) to the orthodox ecumenical faith set out in the ecumenical creeds. But we wished to be guided by Scripture alone apart from detailed Protestant confessions of faith. Our original aim was to protest against the use of minor theological differences to exclude and condemn other believers. We wished to reclaim in practice the biblical doctrine of the unity of the church.

A Different World

Today, however, our anti-creedal stance has made us less able to assert biblical/orthodox teaching even in the most fundamental areas, which in the past we took for granted. Our hesitancy to assert doctrinal truth has opened the door to heresies that never came knocking in the past. We face a decisive moment. Will we assert and enforce the biblical/orthodox faith by making use of the authorities of scripture, tradition, and office or succumb to the spirit of the postmodern age in which everyone is their own judge?

Admittedly, I am speaking here of urban and suburban churches. Rural and small-town churches face other issues. What, then, is the challenge urban and suburban SCM and other independent, community, and Bible churches face? Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I think the greatest challenge to the orthodoxy of those churches is the temptation to assimilate to the progressive sector of modern culture.* That is to say, to adopt an easy-going inclusivism that accepts everyone the way they are. No demand for conversion, repentance, or confession! Sexual promiscuity? No problem! Wish us to affirm your LGBTQ+ way of life? Who are we to judge! Your inner self is the measure of your truth! Want to divorce your spouse because you found someone else? We understand…God wants you to be happy! Abortion…well, at least you struggled with the decision. You think everybody will be saved? Makes sense…God loves everyone! Want a social justice Jesus? So do we!

A Time to Stand

I am speaking to those church leaders and planters who want to preserve the biblical/orthodox faith. I urge you to follow the example of the early and patristic church. State clearly what your church believes and practices. Make it concise, but include the ecumenical faith, other basic teachings, and do not neglect the beliefs challenged by the progressive heresy: affirm the positive teaching of Scripture on these subjects, but also make clear your rejection of the progressive principle of religious and moral relativism and the specific progressive heresies mentioned above.

*Use the search function on my blog to look for essays that deal with “progressive Christianity.”

A Time for Orthodoxy?

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Have you ever heard the following argument:

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

This is an old argument, and it has been applied to many disputes: predestination, the nature of the sacraments, the Trinity, the resurrection of Jesus, divorce, war, and more. I’ve encountered it most recently in discussions of LGBTQ+ affirmation. The church, it is argued, ought to listen to both sides of the issue and make room for a diversity of opinion. And sometimes you hear the additional argument that, because the truth of the matter is uncertain, we ought to risk error on the side that seems most loving, which of course is LGBTQ+ affirming.

Analysis

Let’s think about this argument. First, let us admit that it possesses a certain plausibility both philosophically and theologically. Philosophically, it assumes that disagreement among competent thinkers about a particular truth claim indicates its obscurity of expression or intrinsic unknowability. As an obvious corollary, the argument also assumes that the greater the consensus among competent thinkers the more likely the truth of the conclusion and the greater the division of opinion the less likely its truth. And if human beings were thinking machines, having access to all relevant information and immune to all self-interest and irrational emotions, we might find this argument unobjectionable. But human beings are not thinking machines.

Theologically, too, the argument finds some support in Scripture:

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand (Romans 14:1-4).

Most Christians will agree that there are some obscure and “disputable matters” among issues of theological interest. For there have always been disputed matters, and it would strain credulity to argue that there are no truly disputable (i.e., obscure or intrinsically unknowable) matters among the ones actually disputed. But it would be equally implausible to think that there is a one-to-one correspondence between disputed and disputable matters. That is to say, just because someone somewhere holds a different opinion about an issue does not mean that this view must be tolerated. For there is no Christian doctrine, not even the gospel itself, that someone has not disputed.

The Necessity of Orthodoxy

Clearly, the argument that diversity of opinion demands toleration is too general and can easily be reduced to absurdity. It would lead to theological anarchy, remove the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, destroy the church’s unity, render it unable to confess its faith to the world and teach its young, and discipline its wayward members. Contrary to the diversity-demands-tolerance argument there is no simple rule to distinguish between orthodoxy that must be enforced and disputable matters in which diversity may be tolerated. These distinctions must be hammered out in the heat of controversy. The history of theological development demonstrates the necessity of deciding an issue even in the absence of complete consensus. Some people will be silenced and some who insist on teaching heterodoxy may be excluded as heretics. Even in the absence of absolute certainty, the church must humbly but decisively take this risk. The alternative is gradual or precipitous surrender of its identity and abandonment of its mission.