Historically, Baptists have affirmed the ecumenical creeds as normative in terms of doctrinal congruence with Scripture but have also emphasised liberty of conscience regarding all matters of faith and conduct. Generally, Baptist denominations and associations have been reluctant to impose creeds or confessions on constituent churches and their ministers, and have been equally reluctant to enact punitive measures on member churches and ministers who, on conscience grounds, feel obliged to dissent from affirming credal statements.
However, recently this principle has been overturned in various jurisdictions in response to the practice of ordaining women to pastoral office and the legalisation of same-sex marriage and application for church membership by people identifying as LGBTQ+.Some observers regard such moves as unbaptistic and fomenting unnecessary conflict with the potential of fracturing denominations and forcing the departure of key leaders.
The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA), formed in 1977 by the merger of three predecessor denominations, took a distinctive approach to the creeds. When early discussions to form the UCA were underway in the 1960s, theologian J. Davis McCaughey (the UCA’s chief theological architect) argued that the creeds and confessions of faith should not be used as a “test of orthodoxy” but rather be “received with a commitment to use and study them as a way of identifying with the Church of God over the generations and across the denominations and to learn from them as examples of Christian witness in specific historical situations.”
Paragraph 5 of the UCA’s core statement of doctrine, the Basis of Union, anchors the UCA in Scripture, “in which she hears the Word of God and by which her faith and obedience are nourished and regulated.
Paragraph 9 recognises the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed as documents received “as authoritative statements of the catholic faith, framed in the language of their day and used by Christians in many days, to declare and to guard the right understanding of that faith.”The creeds are to be studied and interpreted, and used for instruction and in worship, as expressions of “unity with the Church throughout the ages, and as “acts of allegiance to the Holy Trinity.”
There is great wisdom in this approach since everyone who affirms the classical creeds does so in response to the knowledge and insight they possess. Sometimes, such assent will have a practical purpose, perhaps spiritual, intellectual or political.
And, while creeds and confessions seek to clarify and summarise the teaching of Scripture as it was understood by those who drafted them, their authority is derivative and necessarily subordinate to the authority of Scripture.
Dr Rod Benson is Research Support Officer at Moore Theological College, Sydney. He previously pastored four Baptist churches in Queensland and NSW, and served for 12 years as an ethicist with the Tinsley Institute at Morling College. This piece was originally published on his blog.
1 thought on “Church traditions and the creeds”
The UCA Basis of Union also “commits UCA ministers and instructors “to careful study of these creeds and to the discipline of interpreting their teaching in a later age”. That’s far more than just standing and reciting them off rote; much more than quoting them as the touchstone of orthodoxy (which, despite McCaughey’s words, some still,do); it is the hard work of understanding meaning, bringing to life and contextualising for the present, living within the ambiguities and richness of the phrases used, and also attending to the large gaps in between those phrases where much more needs to be explored (such as what Jesus actually taught, what Jesus actually did, and the like).