Some time ago there was a conversation on this site about creeds - their purpose and significance. A creed can be a shorthand for a belief system. It can also reveal a great deal about things to which we attach importance. The ‘apostles creed’ contains a fleeting reference to the Holy Spirit - not much, if, for instance, we view the role of the Spirit in Acts of the Apostles as the formative power behind the life and expansion of the early church.
The Evangelical Alliance, the covering organisation for a broad spectrum of evangelical Christianity in the UK, is introducing a revised statement of faith (below), which is a kind of creed. There is much in it that I personally like: eg statement 4., though I’m wondering if statement 8. conveys a view of ‘justification’ (central to the Protestant Reformation) which has been overtaken by recent historical understanding of the term.
How do participants in OST respond to this revised statement of faith? Are statements of faith, resting so heavily on theological and dogmatic propositions, irrelevant in a post modern environment, where narrative and dynamic expression are the better litmus tests of faith? Or do we still need the ‘hedge’, a summary in shorthand of the key components of orthodoxy? What would OST participants add, subtract, or change - as essential to their own belief systems?
We believe in…
1. The one true God who lives eternally in three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2. The love, grace and sovereignty of God in creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming and judging the world.
3. The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God – fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.
4. The dignity of all people, made male and female in God’s image to love, be holy and care for creation, yet corrupted by sin, which incurs divine wrath and judgement.
5. The incarnation of God’s eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ – born of the virgin Mary, truly divine and truly human, yet without sin.
6. The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil, so reconciling us with God.
7. The bodily resurrection of Christ, the firstfruit of our resurrection; his ascension to the Father, and his reign and mediation as the only Saviour of the world.
8. The justification of sinners solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
9. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who leads us to repentance, unites us with Christ through new birth, empowers our discipleship and enables our witness.
10. The Church, the body of Christ both local and universal, the priesthood of all believers – given life by the Spirit and endowed with the Spirit’s gifts to worship God and proclaim the gospel, promoting justice and love.
11. The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.
On creeds
I’m not sure I agree with the irrelevance of creeds in the postmodern age. I base this solely on the observation that we seem to be in love with catch-phrases and sound bites. Look at the modern categories for the factions within the church: "seeker-sensitive," "pro-life," "megachurch," "young-earth," lots of buzzwords and sound bites.
Yet a creed, in a rough analogy, is a kind of sound bite. A short and memorable summary statement of the central tenets of our faith, intended to categorize or define us in some way. Unfortunately, that requires our creed-fashioners to employ a bit more marketing skill than they are accustomed. But it may take such a perspective to redefine the lines between faith communities (another buzzword) back to more central issues. So how about this as a revision:
1. Our God is a three-for-one special.
2. End to end, age to age, grace and love on every page.
3. The Bible is the big belief boss.
OK, I’m not going to spend any more time on this nonsense. The scary thing is, it just might work.
On a more serious note,
Point 8 definitely reflects the reformation perspective on justification. Not surprising, as the evangelical church still takes Paul’s legal formulations as central to its interpretation. Maybe more surprising is that this document was formed in the UK. I think it would actually fly in the American evangelical movements as well. Generally speaking, U.S. evangelicals snub their noses at the paucity of conservative theology coming out of Europe, but this seems quite conservative.
Well done, I think, as it makes many important affirmations yet leaves a lot of interpretational wiggle room. "Fully trustworthy for faith and conduct" is a long way from inerrant or even infallible.
One significant point of wiggle in point 5 — "truly God and truly man" is substantially different than "fully God and fully man." There’s an open door here for some Christological views that have not been tolerated in 1600 years.
Point 10 — priesthood of all believers. Ah, there will be no evangelicals and catholics together for another long while… :)
A comment on the Evangelic Alliance Statement of Faith
Peter
As you know I am a Quaker and Quakers have a strong aversion to creeds, essentially because they believe they encourage adherence to a set of words rather than a movement of the heart. In this I think they are wrong or, at least, not necessarily right. The word ‘creed’ comes from the Latin ‘cor dare’ meaning to give one’s heart. As such a creed is, or ought to be, more like a statement of why you love someone than a set of propositions whose truth you are required to endorse.
If that approach is the right one, I think the Evangelical Alliance Statement of Faith suffers from being too cool- a little more passion please!
On specifics, I think it leaves out reference to Jesus as the servant king, the kingdom and the people of God- and I think there should be an ecumenical reference in it. I personally could not accept what it says about the Bible and I think it would be desirable to drop "bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost" in para 11 in favour of something which stresses our ignorance of how God’s judgement will pan out.
I was going to add some thoug