Myron D. Rau in our November issue called attention to a proposal to remove the Reformed creeds from the bases of our Christian schools in an effort to broaden their appeal to non-Reformed people. When a similar proposal was made a decade ago Professor John M. Frame, a delegate to the Christian school convention, alerted the other delegates to its significance, and it was defeated. Professor Frame, now Associate Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at the new Westminster Theological Seminary at Escondido, California, analyzes the new proposal, which ought to be studied and discussed by all who love our schools.

For many years now, voices in the Christian school movement have supported the formulation and adoption of “educational creeds” to replace the historic church creeds as the basis for Christian education. N. H. Beversluis (in The Banner, July 20, 1981) reports that “In the 1920’s Clarence Bouma made an eloquent appeal to the schools to base themselves not on church creeds but on a reformed educational creed” (p. 14). Ten years ago, the National Union of Christian Schools (now Christian Schools International) discussed the adoption of a new “basis article” for its constitution. The original proposal eliminated reference to any church creeds and put in their place a rather skeletal formulation of reformed educational philosophy. The NUCS found this formulation quite inadequate. It was pointed out that this educational creed did not even include a clear statement of biblical authority, but instead referred vaguely to a threefold word of God in creation, Christ and Scripture, with no indication as to how these three “words” related to one another. The NUCS convention meeting in Langley, B.C. decisively rejected this plan. The following year, the NUCS adopted another statement which made clear the continued allegiance of the organization both to Scripture and to the historic Reformed confessions.

But the issue will not go away. It has been raised again by the formation of a CSI task force to study “Strategies in Christian Education for the 1980’s.” The task force has produced a document called Christian Educational Philosophy: A Creedal Summary, a draft which may, after some revision, be proposed as a new basis for CSI schools. Beversluis, chairman of the task force, sees this sort of document as furnishing “an alternative to church-creed subscription” (above-cited Banner article, p. 15). As I see it, four important questions emerge from this project, questions which CSI (and all of us who are concerned about Christian education) must ponder very seriously:

1. How should this issue be resolved?

In 1971, the proposal to revise the NUCS basis was prepared so quietly that much of the membership of the organization scarcely knew what was happening. There had been very little discussion of the document in NUCS or Christian Reformed publications–certainly no comprehensive exposition and analysis of it, certainly no critical discussion pro and con. Members of my own local school board found it difficult even to obtain copies of the document prior to the convention. At the convention itself, I discovered that many of the delegates had not read the proposal at all and were taking its soundness for granted. Most were extremely surprised to discover, during the floor debate, the serious, tragic weaknesses of the new proposed Basis.

One would think that the NUCS (CSI) had learned a lesson in 1971–72. Sadly, however, I read that “meanwhile, our schools are about to begin writing a new chapter and they are going about it in their usual quiet way” (editorial by A. K. in The Banner, Sept. 21, 1981, “Christian Day Schools and Evangelism”). Mr. Myron Rau (“An Ecumenical Christian School Creed,” The Outlook, Nov., 1981) reports that this project has been “quietly done through the school administrators with total disregard to boards and school societies.” Rau says, “I received a copy of the material in question by making inquiry to CSI as a result of The Banner article . . . and not because I happened to be a member of the school board.”

I find it utterly incomprehensible that such a major issue could be treated in secrecy. Imagine what would happen if the Christian Reformed Church were to consider elimination of the Heidelberg Catechism from its constitution. The issue would be so momentous that every classis, every congregation, every family, every publication, every college or seminary professor would be deeply preoccupied with the question. Opinions would be expressed at great length, and doubtless action on the proposal would be postponed again and again until everyone was convinced that the issue had been fully discussed. Now I don’t want to press too far the parallel between CSI and the CRC. But anyone with a grain of sense can understand that creedal revision in any Christian body is a matter of utmost importance, at least for that body. Nothing can be more crucial. This matter must not be voted on until there have been intense discussions both in local school boards and in the annual meeting. There must be thorough analyses presented, both orally and in print. There must be discussion pro and con in all periodicals of the churches and of the Christian education movement.

Brothers and sisters, we are children of the light. Suppression of debate, or restriction of it to an elite, has no place in the body of Christ. All of us have a stake in these matters. If a new idea will not survive close examination by the boards and school societies, then it ought to be defeated. It is our right to demand full information; and we dare not adopt a new proposal without it.

2. Do we need an educational creed?

Let us now look, in a preliminary way, at some of the matters in question. For many, the chief issue seems to be, simply, the desirability of an educational creed. Scripture, after all, says much that is relevant to education, and it stands to reason that a concise summary of this biblical material would be extremely useful. God certainly has not stopped teaching his people since the seventeenth century. The great work of Kuyper and his followers has taught us much about the educational imperatives of Scripture. Thus we cannot remain satisfied with the old creeds; we must press on. We must confess what God has taught us recently in this area; and it is appropriate that such a confession be found in the constitution of a Christian school system.

Do I agree with this argument? Of course! It is Scriptural, Reformed, cogent. Do we need an educational creed? Certainly we do.

You see, there is this misconception around that when people oppose the sort of package proposed by Beversluis they are necessarily opposing the idea of an educational creed as such. Thus we (we opponents) are accused of being traditionalists, opposed to progress in understanding, uninterested in the relevance of our confession to the work of education in the 1980’s. Granted, some such reactionary attitudes exist in our circles; but please, do not accuse all of us of harboring such ideas. If someone writes a really Scriptural and helpful educational creed, he will have my enthusiastic support.

9. Must we eliminate the church creeds?

But the real issue here is not the desirability of an educational creed as such. The real issue is whether such a creed ought to replace the church creeds in the Christian schools’ constitution, or only to supplement them. Granted that an educational creed is desirable, should we therefore seek to eliminate the church creeds? Remember, the two issues are distinct. One can, in perfect consistency, advocate educational creeds while also wanting to keep the church creeds. And that, I think, is the best position to take. Let me examine three common arguments against the use of church creeds in Christian schools:

(a) Some have argued that the church creeds are too narrow in their scope to be suitable for use in educational institutions. Cf., e.g., articles by Hendrik Hart and Paul Schrotenboer in the International Reformed Bulletin (Spring-Summer, 1972). The argument goes that “institutional churches” such as the Christian Reformed Church address human life from only one of its “aspects”: these institutional churches deal with us in the area of “confession” or “faith” or “worship.” The churches, therefore, are “worship–organizations,” not educational or labor or political organizations. Therefore the church creeds are relevant to worship or confession, but not to education, labor or politics.

There is some truth in this argument. Certainly a church is not a school, a labor union or a political party. But I think it is unscriptural to represent the church as only one of many “organizations” which equally represent the body of Christ. In Scripture, the church has a special, focal position. The church is the body of Christ. It’s apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers are officers of the body, not merely officers of one “organization.” And the purpose of the church is not narrowly limited to “worship.” Its purpose may be described in terms of “confession” or “faith,” but only if those terms be understood broadly. It is the job of the church to provide motivation and direction for believers in all areas of life, and to bring unbelievers to a knowledge of the Christian life in its fullness.

Thus the historic confessions are not limited to “worship,” or even to “faith” or “confession” if those terms are understood in some narrow sense. Read them! Reformed denominations have generally adopted “directories of worship,” indeed, because their basic confessions (such as the Westminster Confession or the Belgic Confession) said very little about worship. Reformed confessions present the basic biblical gospel of salvation—a gospel which bears equally upon all aspects of life. They (especially the cathechisms) present elaborate discussions of the law of God, of Christian ethics—commandments which we must keep in view all the time. The creeds are not as exhaustive as Scripture itself is, but their scope is just as broad as Scripture. They seek to do nothing less than to summarize that gospel which Scripture itself identifies as its chief content. Every Christian organization needs t o hear the message of the creeds, for it is the same as the message of Scripture.

(b) A second argument one hears is that, granting the general relevance of church creeds to education, many of the details of the creeds are irrelevant. Two observations: First, it is interesting that no one ever says this about the Scriptures, though prima facie there would seem to be large stretches of Scripture, too, that are of relatively little interest to education. The reason is that, of course, we all know that you can’t pick and choose within Scripture. The gospel message is defined by the whole Bible, not by some red–letter sections. To apply the argument to the creeds seems to me a bit more plausible, but equally silly. Second, what doctrines of the creeds are “irrelevant to education?” Christology? Divine sovereignty? The doctrine of the church? It is easy enough to make broad, sweeping claims about the irrelevance of church creeds to education, but it is very difficult to single out specifically which doctrines can be omitted. We shall see below how the task force draft seeks in vain to bypass the Calvinist/Arminian issues. If we seriously intend to base our educational program upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if we sincerely accept our creeds as statements of the gospel, how can anything in those creeds be set aside?

(c) The third argument is that church creeds hinder ecumenicity in education. Beversluis comments (in the above-cited article):

. . . we cannot in good conscience continue to accept the children (in some instances one–third to one half of the school population) and the money of non–Reformed parents, cannot claim to be living in Christian fellowship with them, and then continue to treat them as second-class participants. What alternative to church–creed subscription could there be? (p. 15)

I have some sympathy for this argument. I’m happy to see CSI “reaching out.” As a non-Dutchman and a non-member of the CRC, I have long felt that CSI was rather too provincial both ethnically and ecclesiastically. And I applaud the desire to reach out even beyond the Reformed community. However, I really doubt that the theological differences between Reformed and non-Reformed traditions can be avoided in the educational context (see #4 for a case study). Further, I think that to compromise the Reformed doctrines is to deprive ourselves of the highest quality contact with non-Reformed evangelicals. The fact is that many evangelicals today are attracted to Reformed schools precisely because of our distinctives. My friend Jim Veldkamp is a Reformed scholar in the field of education who has had much contact with non–Reformed evangelicals over the last few years. He tells me that at one fundamentalist college there is a faculty study group going through Norman de Jong’s Education in the Truth. He says that he has had many opportunities to discuss Reformed philosophy of education with such brethren. And neither de Jong nor Veldkamp seeks to play down the doctrines of the creeds. The pervasiveness of secular humanism in our time has led many evangelicals to seek out the one branch of Protestantism with a carefully thought–out theology of education—the Reformed branch. Will we so dilute our own commitment that we will have nothing unique to offer our evangelical brethren? The possibility is disconcerting.

It seems to me, therefore, that it would be unwise to drop the church creeds from our school constitution unless an alternative can be found which states as comprehensively as the Reformed creeds the biblical gospel. So far as I know, none of the proposed “educational creeds” states, as clearly and fully as the historic creeds, the gospel we believe. Thus we ought to maintain the church creeds, supplemented by statements of educational philosophy which apply the gospel to specifically educational matters.