In my church world we can be a little allergic to writing things down.
In my understanding this initially came from a reaction against a sort of formalism that was being clearly rejected. The necessity of relationship was emphasised instead.
I think we’ve lost something that we should recover. There’s a trend, though not a large one yet, to recover the creeds in our worship. I think this is a really good thing. I haven’t been part of a church that regularly recite a creed at any point in my life, but I know of several charismatic churches that are recovering this as part of their liturgy. This is a good thing. Creeds keep us on the straight and narrow, reminding us of the faith of the tradition and that we too are part of the truly catholic church even if we don’t always feel like it.
I have been in several situations where it seems like doctrine that had once been ironclad seems to be up for debate. It makes me long for a confession to adhere to. Then we’d be able to say ‘we believe this’ in a very clear way. Of course, the various restoration movements that over time formed into the various apostolic networks in the UK wanted to recover what the Bible taught and the idea that someone else’s document could be over the Bible would have been anathema.
I understand the impulse, the confession becomes necessary in the third generation when things start to drift and you need to be able to say ‘we believe this and not this.’ There’s also a huge danger in writing your own: I suspect I could write one that only I could sign up to, which rather defeats the point of what are supposed to be unifying documents. Things that have stood the test of time are worthwhile. While I’d personally be happy with the Second London Baptist Confession, it isn’t a charismatic document and that misses something that would be vital to me and the churches I know well.
Not only do they help with doctrinal drift, but they help within a church too. I’ve been an elder in a couple of churches. Neither was the kind of church that applied a doctrinal test to becoming an elder. I don’t mean no one cared, I think they did in both instances, but I mean there was no document with a statement of faith or doctrine that I needed to sign. I wasn’t actually even asked to articulate my agreement with the Ecumenical Creeds.
I don’t think that’s unusual at all. I have been in situations where it would have helped. It’s easy to make assumptions that everyone agrees with you on the thing that you think you all believe, but then much later discover that isn’t the case at all. I think a written document, beyond the basic Creeds that all Christians agree on, that outlines what this church teaches and requires elders to agree to it is a good idea. It highlights potential issues up front.
It also allows you to give it to others that might teach who aren’t elders. Personally, I wouldn’t insist they held to all of it, but I would insist they didn’t teach outside of it and flagged their disagreement with you. That might restrict what you’d have them teach on, but the thinking here is that clarity beforehand means you don’t end up in a situation where you have to get up and contradict what’s just been taught in whatever setting we’re talking about.
On the other end of the spectrum I’m aware of churches that require members to sign a very complex set of doctrines and agree that they believe them. I find this strange. Of course you want to make sure your members are Christians, so you might ask them to articulate agreement with one of the Creeds. If you aren’t asking them to teach then they don’t need to agree with everything this church teaches. Articulating what your doctrine is, so they aren’t surprised, is a good thing, but we don’t have to police people’s minds and hearts. Rather, we teach them the truth as we understand it, with charity towards perspectives which we know are within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy.
Of course, if that person wants to come into your church and advocate for their position, that’s a different ballgame and depending on the circumstances (and the position we’re talking about) could well become a church discipline issue. We shouldn’t tolerate those who come among the flock and teach them error or who use doctrinal disagreement to cause division.
Writing those words
Even so, we find ourselves with a challenge. How do we write those words you want different church officers to agree to? You want it to be short. You want it to be unifying. You want it to be clear. You want it to cover what it needs to cover. It’s honestly difficult.
I’d state a strong preference for using documents that are either old or have been drafted by broad coalitions, because they tend to have most of those features. Obviously, you’d include the Creeds. Here in the UK, you’d probably include the Evangelical Alliance’s statement of faith, which for American readers would include Evangelical statements about the Bible and the Cross that you wouldn’t find in the Creed. That’s still quite broad though. There are lots of positions I think are within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy but disastrous if an eldership team is divided on.
It’s also often difficult to remove someone from a team for doctrinal disagreement if you haven’t been clear up front about these things. Especially if there is employment connected to their position you need to be very clear and check you’re compliant with employment law in the circumstance where they change their views on a key question. Though of course the honourable thing is for them to leave in this circumstance, but that isn’t what always happens. It certainly won’t happen if you aren’t clear about what your church believes.
There are other statements, perhaps you could reach to the very recent Seoul statement of the Lausanne Congress on questions of the theology of the body. You’ll still come to a place where this doesn’t cover everything.
Hopefully your denomination or network helps you out in some way, but if they don’t you’ll have to write something. This is, I fear, a dangerous game. It’s vital too though. Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it clear. You’re looking at setting boundaries, not building cages. Refer to other documents that cover the bases, then write down the handful of things that are specific and important to your church. You’ll have to iterate a few times. You’ll need to figure out what the thing you think is so obvious it doesn’t need saying is, and then say that.
What you’re doing, in my opinion, is safeguarding the future. Our confessional friends might smirk a little at that, but you’re aiming to write a document not necessarily for the people in front of you as part of passing ‘the tradition’ on to those who come later. You’re shepherding the next generation of this church’s flock, and the one after that.
Will later generations change these statements? Perhaps at some point. They will inevitably need clarifying and new issues might arise. However if you, over time, have used them and taught them and taught the ‘why’ of them, you’ll find that it’s much more likely that those future generations improve them rather than throw them away.
Much like good written procedures are written for the worst-case scenario—it’s important that everyone knows the process for firing the employed elders for example, and the safeguards that protect them and others—good theological ‘statements’ are written for the same purposes. It doesn’t mean you need to stick it all on the website, but it does mean that you get to hold some theological standards for your pastors.
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
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