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WHY THE NEED FOR CREEDS - PART 4

The No-Creed View Can Make Dictators of Pastors

As mentioned above, the anti-creed attitude reflects the spirit of the age, which is dead set against authorities and historical tradition.

However, not having a public creed, which sets the bounds for the essentials of the Faith, then anything goes for the pastor. A popular response might be, “No! Our pastor only preaches the Bible!” The fact is that, their pastor preaches what his personal understanding of what the Bible means.

So, if a church has “No book/creed but the Bible!” and the pastor is the best trained person to interpret the Bible, then what the pastor says the Bible means will be the most authoritative voice in that church. Without a creed, the members of the church have nothing against which they can check whether what their pastor is saying is true or not.

Taken to its logical end, without a public creed, the pastor is the ultimate authority!

If the pastor best knows what the Bible teaches, and there arises a question of doctrine or life, then what the pastor says is the last word on the issue. On the flip side, if a church has a public creed and confession, the other elders or even members of the church have a standard or rule by which they can test the teaching.

In I John 4:1, the apostle John says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits (i.e., teachings, messages) to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (ESV).

In the very next verse (v. 2), the Apostle then goes on to give the standard by which the teachings are to be evaluated. In this, he gives us a creed, a confession!! “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (ESV). This statement functioned as a creed, over against the group in the church known as the Gnostics, which denied that the man Jesus was the Christ. Rather, they taught that the Christ was pure spirit that used the mere human Jesus of Nazareth as a sort of vehicle, as he cruised around teaching those in the know how to escape earthly reality. The Apostle teaches us to reject Gnosticism, since it contradicts our confession of Christ, “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary...etc.,” that is, Christ’s incarnation.

So, just like the apostle John prescribed, public creeds function to test the claims of those who are responsible to teach and rule in the church. 

  

Wrapping It Up

Despite how popular the sloganeering claims of “No creed but...” are in today’s church culture, they are something that may work on a bumper sticker, but cannot stand against logic, the Bible, church history. This attitude also creates dysfunction in the life of the church.

In summary:

            1. “No creed but...” is self-refuting, because “No creed...” is a creed!

2. “No book but the Bible” is a claim that is against the teaching of the Bible, because the Bible is full of creeds and teaches us to maintain them.

3. The fact is that, everyone has a creed, whether it is public or private!

4. The private-creed view can lead to the pastor becoming a dictator, since there is no standard by which to test the pastor’s interpretation of the Bible.

How good is God, that he has graciously worked the thought, circumstances, theology and history of his church to hand down to us—and future generations—the ancient creeds, confessions, and catechisms, which have shaped who we are and remind us of our rich and deep heritage, going back to Christ’s apostles! Let us pray that as he nurtures our appreciation and use of the creeds, he likewise give us the grace to help lead the church in a faithful trip back to the future, and in her seeing the need for creeds!

Why the Need for Creeds - Pt. 3

FACT: Everyone Has a Creed! 

The question is not whether this church or that church has a creed/confession or not. Rather, the real question is this:

“Is this or that church’s creed/confession public or private?”

This is really the only question, because every church, in fact nearly every social group, will have a certain set of core or fundamental convictions and values that bind the members together, and which defines what it means to be a member. Those values and beliefs that unify and have authority over a particular group serve as that groups “constitution” or better “creed/confession.”

Imagine if everyone took their anti-creed attitude to the streets! Imagine further how SCARY it would be if every driver you met on the road had the same attitude, saying,

I’m a free spirit! I’m not going to have any set of so-called “safe driving” conventions and principles determine my driving habits! No! How, when, and at what speed I drive my car is my personal business! “Drive on the right hand side,” they say?!? Ha! I’ll show them; I’ll take my half-out of the middle!  Heck, why should I have to share the road at all?!?

To look at it another way, think about sports. What if at the next Super Bowl, all the team members and coaches got together and decided,

Enough of this smothering “tradition”!! We’ll never be the best players we can be, if we keep playing according to the traditional understanding of what “football” means! If we don’t break loose—in this very game—then the sport will never progress, never move forward.

It’s always been the same! Tradition has forced us into believing that football is “a game played between two teams of 11 players each in which the ball is in possession of one side at a time and is advanced by running or passing.” No more!! Today, we are going on that field and redefining what football means!  We’ll put out all our players...or maybe just five. I say we dribble instead of carry the ball. Boys, if we throw off the old tradition of what football is and means, anything is possible!!!

That right! And, if anything is possible, then nothing is possible. If the driving example were true, no one would have the guts to drive anywhere; it would be like a war zone! What if the football example were the case? One thing is sure, whatever they’d be doing out there, hoping to make football some greater thing, it would no longer be football at all!!!

Thankfully, whether in driving or sports, people don’t try to apply their anti-creed attitude most of the time. And, thankfully, despite their anti-creed slogans, no one pretends to reinvent Christianity or the meaning of the Bible each and every Sunday! That is because everyone has a creed/confession that governs their understanding of what it means to be worshipping as Christians and what the Bible teaches on all the major points of doctrine.

Do anti-creed churches reinvent what Christianity means each Sunday? No! Why not, though?

Because in reality they have a creed; it’s a private creed rather than a public one. But, what’s the problem with a creed being private? There are a couple of real problems with the private creed approach.

(1) If a church’s creed is private, then it can change without notice. This leads to distrust, uncertainty, and confusion in a church.

(2) If a church’s creed is private, then it can never be challenged, because it isn’t explicitly known. 

Whether it is the Apostles’ Creed, which has been around for almost 1700 years, or it’s the Heidelberg Catechism, which has been around for over 450 years, these creeds have had a long career and have served the church through her history. Being some of the most widely known and confessed documents in the world, they have also been scrutinized and picked-over for centuries, and have withstood the challenges of critics, skeptics, and other opponents. So, despite all the challenges our public creeds have suffered, today with the church all around the world, we still confess, “Credo,” “I BELIEVE ...etc.”

Why the Need for Creeds - Pt. 2

“No Book But The Bible” is Unbiblical!

There are at least two reasons for this.

(1) The Bible itself is full of creeds, confessions, and catechism!

The following passages prove that it is unbiblical to say “No creeds! Or confessions! Or catechism!”

Creeds and Confessions:

Deuteronomy 6:4

Matthew 16:16

Matthew 28:18

Romans 10:9

1 Corinthians 8:6

1 Corinthians 12:3

1 Corinthians 15:3—7

Philippians 2:6—11

Colossians 1:15—20

1 Timothy 3:16

1 John 4:2

Catechesis:

Luke 1:1—4

Acts 18:24—25

Hebrews 6:1—2

(2) The apostles commanded their disciples to preserve the essentials of the Faith for future generations of the church, and they intended this to happen by means of creeds, confessions, and catechism.

Consider these words from the apostle Paul to his beloved disciple Timothy.

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you (2 Timothy 1:13—14 ESV).

The “pattern of sound words” is earlier called “sound doctrine” by Paul.

“Sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (1 Timothy 1:10c-11 ESV).

These “sound words” or “sound doctrine” do not point directly to the Bible, but rather to summaries and core doctrines that express what the Bible teaches on the most important facts of the gospel. These are what early church fathers, like Clement, Irenaeus and Tertullian later called the Regulae Fides, that is the Latin for the “Rule of Faith.” This referred to the summary of the non-negotiable key doctrines of the Christian faith, which have been believed and expressed by all Christians in the Apostles’ Creed for nearly 1700 years.

The apostles, then, commanded the core commitments of the Faith, as faithfully deduced from Scripture, according to the apostles’ understanding of the meaning and purpose of Father’s plan in sending Jesus Christ into the world, whose work is then applied to the church, individually and corporately, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, “No book but the Bible” is actually against the teaching of the Bible!

Satan Claus...Really?!?

Although we never really did the Santa thing, while raising our daughter, I find this an odd choice for a hill to die on for any pastor. When a grievously small portion of the modern evangelical church can recite the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, or the Apostles’ Creed, or even not panic for people watching them scramble when the text for the sermon is called out from one of the Minor Prophets, it seems odd that a pastor would bolt out in making sweeping claims about the satanic nature of the Santa Claus...ehem...I mean “Satan Claus movement.”  Pastor Carry Snellings, the local pastor of Hunting Creek Baptist Church has done two things with his recent rant on the Santa tradition: (1) caused no small stir amongst the villagers, and (2) proven that Baptist fundamentalism hasn’t totally shaken its myopic focus. If the church was ever in need of majoring in the majors and minoring in the minors, it’s today. Here is my response to his post, which he won’t post on his blog.  :,(

I have a hard time seeing the priority of this topic as provocative, granting the state of the church today. Especially here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, the gospel has suffered serious reductionism over the last century. If a Christian in our region can even articulate the gospel, it is usually done in terms of the “ABCs.” “[You] admit that you’re a sinner; [you] believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and [you] confess Jesus before others.” We’re conditioned to believe that the gospel is three things that WE do! This is not at all the gospel of grace revealed in Christ and the Holy Scriptures. Rather, this is our response to the gospel, after one has enjoyed the sovereign, regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit working through the word of the gospel. And, even if a Christian can articulate the gospel, less than one in ten can sufficiently defend it against the onslaught of today’s heresies and secular challenges.

I have a very hard time understanding the centrality of the so-called Satan Claus movement in light of these and a plethora of other crises that are neutralizing the American church.

One of the most revealing weaknesses of this argument is that it is premised on some alphabetical juggling act. I’ve known people to commit the same fallacy with respect to denominations. After all, it is conjectured, “denomination” and “demonination” is just a letter-flip apart! Balderdash. When we consider how Santa might be spelled in the context of the other 6,702 living languages today, the fallacy is more than apparent.

Never mind all this, "Santa" is not a diabolical word morph, it is the Anglicized rendering of santana, which is Spanish for saint or holy. 

Matt Byers made a very valid point in highlighting the arbitrariness of this sort of “picking and choosing.” In fact, a far more potent case could be made against the Christmas tree tradition, if one were really hankering for a hobby horse to ride. The cutting-down and raising-up of conifer trees for religious purposes has deeply imbedded roots (pun? yes) in ancient idolatry, which is condemned on nearly every page of the Old Testament. In fact, one would have a fine proof-text for his cause in this.

Thus says the LORD: "Learn not the way of the nations...for the customs of the peoples are vanity (i.e., idolatry). A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field (Jeremiah 10:2—5a ESV).

Think about it. We do all that the prophet describes above, and then on Christmas morn, we all bow down before the over-dressed Asharoth pole to receive our gifts!

Does this mean that all Christians who honor the Christmas tree tradition—understanding the ever-greenness to signify the renewed, everlasting life brought to us in the incarnation of Christ, and the silver and gold ornaments as reminders of the gifts of the magi brought to the baby King Jesus—are unwittingly worshiping the ancient Canaanite deity Ba’al?!? Good grief, no! Neither is Santa Satanism.

Why not be consistent? Why Christmas at all? December 25^th as the date to celebrate the advent of our Lord came by way of the papal decree of Pope Julius I in the middle of the fourth century A.D. Epiphany (how many Christians even know the term?) was the original commemoration of the early church for the Lord’s advent and revelation.

Perhaps the greatest irony in all this sanctimonious propheteering is that, when I got the end of the post, I was met by a humorous Youtube advertisement promoting New Castle Cabbie, a strong British beer! Lol.

Tom’s comment offers the most wisdom. A family can easily recapture and redeem the historic meaning and trajectory of the Saint Nicholas tradition in the context and rhythm of the church calendar.  And it seems that pastoral wisdom would dictate that an issue involving a clear point of Christian liberty like this would be carefully and prayerfully considered by a church’s broader authority in her elders and deacons, before being globally scathed and broadcast on a blog. But, who knows, maybe it was.