Should Southern Baptists Use Creeds?

The Southern Baptist Convention is a confessional network of autonomous local congregations who have generally clustered around mutual affirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a minimum statement of theological belief that permits cooperation, though there are churches that are in cooperation with the SBC (based on CP giving) that do not affirm the BF&M 2000. Many Southern Baptists are clear that they see the Baptist Faith and Message as a confession, which loosely binds, rather than a creed, that more clearly delineates and binds. Thus, affirmation of the BF&M is not required for churches or pastors to affiliate with the SBC.

The BF&M is a helpful document for this particular moment, because it defines the currently debated boundaries of SBC cooperation. It has limitations in two directions: (1) It largely assumes the earlier theological formulations that define orthodoxy, and which are outlined in the ecumenical creeds and other official products of ecumenical councils. (2) Language changes, which means that certain phrases can be filled with new meaning or disputed in their meaning, so that future clarification will be warranted. In other words, there will come a time that the BF&M will need to be revised to ensure it properly delineates the doctrinal categories of the SBC of that present moment.

One way that we can lengthen the time between needed revisions to the BF&M is to do more work in teaching orthodox doctrine through historical formulations, particularly building on the ecumenical creeds.

The use of creeds in worship gatherings and teaching ministries in SBC churches rubs some members the wrong way. Earlier generations, in particular, have built their identity on being “confessional” not “credal” due to the concept of individual soul liberty. There is value in that objection, but I believe that there is warrant to increase our use of creeds in our congregations without diminishing the role of the conscience in arriving at conclusions through careful of study of Scripture.

Within the context of learning and teaching theology, the creeds that were affirmed by the ecumenical councils are faithful summaries of the Christian faith. They do not supplant the careful study of Scripture, but they certainly provide guardrails that can help keep us from drifting into error. As I understand them, the creeds are some of the ways that we connect to the tradition of faithful Christians and prevent our own culture’s assumptions from overrunning the message of Scripture. This makes them invaluable in this time when information from unlimited sources threatens to overrun our churches.

Basis for Didactic Use of Creeds

The presence and use of creeds within SBC life is growing. In my opinion, that is generally a good thing for at least four reasons.

First, recognizing faithful affirmation of statements of faith (like creeds and confessions) as basics of Christian belief connects us to our Baptist heritage.

As Chuck Kelley, Richard Land, and Albert Mohler wrote in the introduction to the LifeWay study on the Baptist Faith and Message in 2007,

“Baptist churches and associations of churches have adopted statements of belief to teach, defend, and perpetuate the faith ‘that was delivered to the saints once for all’ (Jude 3). These statements, most commonly known as confessions of faith, are intended to clarify and publish the most basic beliefs that frame our faith, our witness, and our worship. In the beginning years of the organized Baptist movement, these statements were often intended to demonstrate that Baptists were fully orthodox as Christian believers. Later, such statements were used to establish identity, confront false teaching, and instruct Christians in the faith.” (The Baptist Faith and Message, 5)

Southern Baptists hold the BF&M to be a document that frames our corporate identity, but as noted, that identity is also within the orthodox tradition. The orthodox tradition has been defined, historically, as including acceptance of (though not dogmatically so) the historical creeds of the church. And, though we tend to describe our confession as a voluntary document, that has not been entirely consistent with the Baptist tradition broadly, or the Southern Baptist tradition more narrowly.

As Chute, Finn, and Haykin (all historians and professors in and from an SBC context) note:

“For at least the past century, some Baptists have adopted a negative posture toward confessions. They suggest that any prescriptive use of confession is ‘creedalism,’ or the elevation of a merely human standard above Scripture and an infringement on individual liberty of conscience. While this view is popular in some circles, it reflects a misunderstanding of Baptist history. As Timothy George argues, ‘The idea that voluntary conscientious adherence to an explicit doctrinal standard is somehow foreign to the Baptist tradition is a peculiar notion not borne out by careful examination of our heritage.’” (The Baptist Story, 327)

By affirming the BF&M 2000 as the defining confession of our cooperative network of churches, we are essentially treating it as a creed. As B. H. Carrol asserts: “There was never a man in the world without a creed. A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe.”

In practice, the BF&M 2000 functions as a creed. It is minimalistic (e.g., it holds open diverse eschatological possibilities, multiple arrangements of church government, and a host of other secondary and tertiary documents). However, it is sufficient for a significant body of baptistic Christians to gather around and cooperate within without excessively binding the conscience of anyone.

In the spirit of the Reformational principal, sola Scriptura, we hold Scripture as the final authority over all faith and practice over the BF&M or any other human declaration. (If the BF&M is the frame of our beliefs, Scripture provides the portrait that the frame outlines.) This practice is consistent with the declaration on the SBC’s webpage that we are “all within the framework of historic biblical orthodoxy,” which statement seems to presume some non-scriptural standard outside of the BF&M that we can be judged by. That is to say, the BF&M necessarily assumes a broader stream of orthodoxy of which the SBC is a part. Using historical creeds like the Nicene Creed supports the BF&M rather than denigrates it by putting it in its context.

Second, evangelical churches (broadly defined) are bleeding young people that are searching for a faith that is rooted deeply in the past. I have seen multiple young Baptists drift into Roman Catholicism because they feel it has deeper roots in history. This is a practical concern, but one that has a theological solution.

While mistaken in their belief that the Roman Catholics are the real church with the deeper tradition, the impetus of those leaving Baptist churches and other evangelical churches is logical as we anticipate the growing cultural storm. In light of growing pressure to affirm counter-scriptural trends in culture, using a statement of faith adopted in the year 2000 is a much less robust shield than in a faith that is described as rooted in the confession of a man who knew Jesus in 33 AD. Churches serve their people well when they help them

Based on this reasoning, I use the historical creeds of the church to teach my children and I share them with Christians in Baptist churches because it connects us to the great cloud of witness that has gone before us. When I read the Apostle’s creed, I am reading the confession that Augustine affirmed, as have millions of faithful Christians in the interim. When I recite the creed, I am joining in a doxological practice that missionaries, martyrs, and ministers have shared for generations.

There is strength in the continuity we can share with those that have come before us. The creeds help us to understand that continuity. Given the ravages of the ecumenical movement of the mid-20th century, I understand reservations toward that sort of universal confession, but I believe it will be important in the coming years. The Nicene Creed is not enough, because it doesn’t take into account theological errors raised since it was authored, which is why the BF&M 2000 is an important document. Connecting people to the historic creeds is a way of showing theological continuity of our present confession with the ancient faith that we believe we are properly representing.

Third, the development of the creeds helps us understand the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. Within the church, pastors and other leaders should be teaching the basis of our doctrinal belief, because it is vitally important to building a robust doctrinal foundation in a post-modern world.

As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote, with characteristic wit,

“Teacher and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy. And heresy is, as I have tried to show, largely the expression of opinion of the untutored average man, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe at the point where they begin to interfere with daily life and thought.” (“Creed or Chaos,” in The Whimsical Christian, 41)

I think Sayers is right. Especially as an ethicist, I believe that we have to understand doctrine in light of the context in which it was expressed (not invented). By rooting our faith, which is founded on Scripture, in the Christian tradition through its connection with the historic creeds, we combat the error that Sayers identified in the 1940s in the rapidly secularizing British culture. To build an ethics that will weather the storms of this life and a faith that will not be carried away, we need to show people that our contemporary orthodoxy is a historical orthodoxy, which was drawn from Scripture in light of particular theological errors that continue to resurface.

Exposing people to ancient creeds that connect faith today to the doctrines delineated more than a millennia ago strengthens the faith of contemporary saints, even as it helps rule out of bounds some doctrinal innovations being promoted by ignorant and malicious teachers in our age. People need to know what good looks like to be able to recognize and avoid bad theology.

Fourth, studying and making people aware of the historical Christian creeds helps prevent the error of believing we can have “no creed but the Bible.”

I am sympathetic to those who try to live by the “no creed but the Bible” statement, but the good intent behind it can lead to significant error because it assumes that we can, without falling into error, read Scripture rightly. For example, “no creed but the Bible” is the essential belief of the Campbellite movement, which has led to their affirmation (in many cases) of baptismal regeneration. When diced in a particular way, Scripture can be seen to support that doctrine, though I believe it to be clearly inconsistent with the holistic message of Scripture.

I affirm the sufficiency, authority, and perspicuity of Scripture. At the same time, I also recognize that there are patterns of thought endemic to my age that will tend to lead to into particular errors. Exposing people to historic creeds helps guard against the blindness of our own age.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation:

“Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the educated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

Church History in general and the creeds specifically are helpful in preventing us from falling into errors of our own age. Lewis is overly optimistic in believing that we won't fall into the opposite error of unquestioningly believing ancient sources, but his point that evaluating our understanding in light of historic thinkers, particularly when we are dealing with timeless truths, is right on the mark.

There are, I am sure, other reasons that I could list for utilizing the creeds as we study Christian doctrine, but these four provide a solid framework. I am hopeful that the creeds that have bounded orthodoxy for generations continue to grow in their use. It will link together faithful believers across traditions and bolster the faith of the members of our congregations trying to stand firm in our cultural moment.