“If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules” (2 Tim. 2:5).

Confusion About Creeds

Why should we have church creeds or require anyone to agree with them? A discussion of that question might well begin (as Dr. Martin Woudstra began it in the Oct. 6, 1986 Christian Renewal, reprinted in the Feb. 1987 Outlook) with a look at the widely discussed case of Charles Curran. Curran’s license to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian was revoked because of his wide ranging rejection of the church doctrine on a number of moral issues. That church action was widely deplored as a violation of the professor’s rights. Dr. Woudstra pointed out that, although we do not share some of the Roman Church’s doctrines, its action against an official teacher of that church’s doctrines who flatly contradicted what he was hired to teach deserves praise rather than blame. While we cannot accept that church’s hierarchy, we must approve of its honesty. His article went on to highlight some of our own synod’s recent less-than forthright treatment of such issues, especially in its relations with the Reformed Church (RCA) and in our committee’s courtship of the World Alliance.

The need for a church to say and maintain what it believes was especially eloquently argued in 1949 by the Brittsh novelist, Dorothy L. Sayers in a fascinating 20-page essay entitled “Creed or Chaos?” (It was printed in a book with that title and later in her larger 1969 collection, Christian Letters to a Post–Christian World.) Her point was that the chaotic condition of British society was traceable to the fact that in that “Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches . . .” and that the Churches were “discredited,” not because they were, as alleged, “too bigoted about theology,” but because they had “run away from theology.” Then she went on to argue that to teach any Christian values or morals one simply had to return to true teaching of who Christ is—in other words, “Christology.” Although her analysis of some details of the early controversies is less than accurate, her insistence on their practical importance is valid and refreshing in an atmosphere that still echoes with the foolish motto, “Take away theology and give us some nice religion.” We still have to choose between the alternatives she saw plainly 40 years ago, “creed or chaos?”

The Bible’s Requirement

The Bible insists that we must be prepared to tell the world what we believe and why we believe it. The Apostle Peter directed us to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15). Our creeds (from “Credo” – “I believe”) are simply a carefully formulated collective church effort to give that kind of responsible account of our faith.

That confession is not something for each to determine privately, according to individual likes and dislikes, but is to confess (literally, “say the same thing”) as God has said to us in His Word. As John stated it, “He has born witness concerning His Son . . . the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this that God has given us eternal life, and this life is ‘in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:9–12). In the same vein 2 Peter 1 calls attention to the way God had given the revelation of His Gospel both in the events of our Lord’s coming and the confirmation of HolyScripture, which is never a “matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” In sharp contrast with that Divine revelation, Peter then warned against the “false teachers” who would “secretly introduce destructive heresies (literally, self-chosen opinions from the Greek word ‘to choose’) even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves” and misleading many (2 Peter 1:19–2:2).

Especially the elders who are appointed in each church to lead and teach are admonished to “be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” They must do this the more carefully because “savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28–31). The Lord, in the letters which the Apostle John was instructed to write on His behalf to the seven churches, issues the same kind of warnings. He especially commends the church at Ephesus because it “could not endure evil men” and “put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false” (Rev. 2:2). In the following letters he reprimanded the churches of Pergamum and Thyatira for failing to exercise such discrimination.

Paul in his pastoral letter urged Timothy to “Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. . . . And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 1:13, 14; 2:2). It is highly significant that these church leaders must learn from the example of the military way of life to be “good soldiers of Christ Jesus” (v. 3, 4; compare the lesson the Lord taught from the Roman centurion about the nature of Christian faith in Matt. 8:5-13). Anyone who bas bad any military experience learns that one of its first and most important requirements is discipline. “No one serving as a soldier gets involved” in civilian affairs—may take off to pursue his own hobbies–be has to follow the orders of “his commanding officer.” No army could begin to function if each recruit were free to do whatever he pleased. The “academic freedom” to promote one’s own personal opinions being assumed or demanded in churches amounts, in military language, to “mutiny.” It produces the same kind of anarchy in churches that the attempt to practice it would in an army.

Paul goes on to use another perhaps even more striking example (v. 5). “Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules.” Any game requires that players play by its rules. How long would a basketball player be tolerated on a team if he insisted on his right to throw the ball in the wrong basket? If even in a ball game players have to observe the rules, how could we expect to accomplish anything in the infinitely more serious business of bringing the gospel if we insist on freedom to discard the gospel’s rules? Anyone who is seriously going to bring the gospel has to confess that gospel and be faithful to it. When even that is no longer required or expected in churches, they have obviously reached the point at which our Lord said of them, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness . . . it is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Matt. 5:13).

Binding Creeds in Reformed Church History

A study of the early history of the Reformed churches helps us to understand and appreciate their development of confessions and of their requirement that church office holders subscribe to them. Some thirty years ago I made such a study dealing with Calvinist-Anabaptist relations in 16th Century Netherlands. (Thesis in Calvin Library; a summary in Oct. 1964 Torch and Trumpet.) There the Anabaptist movement preceded that of the Calvinists by about 30 years. At first it flourished, but soon waned to be replaced by the Calvinist Reformed. A careful search of the records reveals especially three reasons for that development. The political revolution was not, as has often been alleged, one of them. (1) The Reformed leaders were firmly convinced that their beliefs were the doctrines taught by God’s Word and were prepared to show that to anyone in public debate. (One such debate was prolonged to 124 sessions!) Their creeds were not mere expressions of personal sentiments, but laboriously prepared common statements of what they saw the Bible teaching. Drawing together many kinds of people, they were called “Forms of unity.” (2) In the Dutch Reformation the church leaders were expected to replace the priests in taking responsibility for the operation of the nation’s schools. Christian education in those schools was as great a concern to them as Christian preaching in the churches.

(3) Despite the fact that the Reformed churches in that half century could not get government permission to have a general synod, but had to operate as provincial churches, they succeeded in establishing a Biblical and workable system of church government, something which the often dedicated Anabaptist leaders with their strong emphasis on personal insights and experiences never really succeeded in doing. The latter split into some 40 or 50 separate and often hostile sects as each followed its individual leaders. In this situation, the Reformed “forms of unity” and the common requirement that each church leader commit himself in writing to believe and teach this common Biblical doctrine helped to unite those churches and keep them strong.

That study gained added interest because of the contrast between Calvinist success in the Netherlands and Calvinist failure in the U.S. Consider that while Menno Simons and Arminius kept little following in their home country (the Netherlands), the movements they fathered (Baptist and Methodist) captured the U.S. The study suggested the loss of these reasons for early Calvinist strength, (1) loss ofBiblical confession and convictions, (2) surrender of education to the secularists, and (3) discard of Biblically grounded church order and discipline, contributed to continuing defeats of traditionally Calvinist churches here. “Salt” that has lost its “saltiness” has tended to be discarded-as the Lord said it would be. If we and our churches would see a better future, we will have to pray for and work at (1) regaining the commitment to God’s Word, to (2) educating our children in it and to (3) reactivating its order and discipline. If such a program is to be genuine our leaders will have to hold and be held to that guide which we confess we follow.

Creeds Under Attack

The immediate occasion for this article was a discussion of the overture of Dr. H.R. Boer at the 1973 Synod (Acts 729-731) calling for a new form of subscription. It embodied his charges that the churches’ form was hierarchical in restricting free discussion of proposals to change the creeds inhibited theological and spiritual development, and was far too absolute in its required endorsement of the creeds. The 1973 synod largely gave into these proposals with changes in the church order. The following synod refused to approve the changes, and in 1976 another committee after a more extensive study, pointed out how the criticisms of the form had been unfair to the facts (Acts, p. 562ff.) and had misinterpreted the purpose of the form (p. 571), treating it as a method of changing creeds instead of as the regulation of the ministry and government of the church that it was designed to be. (Boer’s criticism somewhat resembled criticising a court which is supposed to enforce the law for not operating as legislature to rewrite the law!) The amendments to the form “by stressing what 1s a secondary function of the form (at best)” tended “to neglect and obscure the primary purpose of the form” (p. 577). In line with the report, the 1976 synod retained the form of subscription, although it adopted some explanatory guidelines and regulations to eliminate confusion about it.

The difference between Boer’s proposals and the stance of the form concerned the proper approach to the creeds. Boer’s assumption was that the subscription should encourage and provide opportunity to change the creeds. His proposals rather strikingly exemplified what Harry Blamires in The Christian Mind described as prevailing (secular) “ideas that the Christian Faith is something which men have manufactured and which they have the right to alter . . . a set of beliefs fabricated by human brains and therefore able to be altered or improved upon by human brains. Often the assumption appears to be that Christianity represents mankind’s best shot so far at making a religion; that if man had another try, he might do better next time” (p. 115). Blamires stressed the need to begin to correct this error “by taking for granted the authoritative, God-given nature of the Christian Faith.” That is the stance of our creeds and, as we have seen, the direction given the church in the Bible. Boer demanded the right to freely promote criticisms of the creeds throughout the church before the churches made any decision. How can the elders called to “guard the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made them overseers” and warned to guard the church against especially the “savage wolves” who will attack from without, and the perverse teachers who will arise within to mislead it (Acts 20:28–31), responsibly open those churches to attacks on what those churches officially say they believe is God’s truth?

Dr. Boer charged that the form, by its authoritarian strictness, in practice stifled criticisms and stopped theological progress. The fact that he, despite his prolonged public attacks on the Canons of Dordt the Bible (cf. his book, Above the Bible) and the Form of Subscription which he violated, was never deposed, shows the falsity of that charge. The Lynwood, Illinois consistory as his supervising church, for a dozen years tried to carry out its duty under that form to make him conform to the creeds he had promised to support. It was frustrated by the refusal of the larger assemblies to support it. It is an accident that that consistory then initiated the consistorial conferences to consider what churches who want to be faithful to their confessed Christian beliefs must do about their relations with a denomination that refuses to maintain those beliefs. If we are to see any real improvement in our churches, we will have to pray and work at getting back to saying what we really believe and believing what we say.