I recently ran across the following theological statement that belongs to a denomination in the United States. I simply offer it to you for your critique, feedback and thoughts. What do you like about it? What does it offer? What is it lacking? Is this something you could stand behind?
“The [insert Denomination Name] acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who share in this confession. It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world. It claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God. In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, it recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion.”
While I know you could just google a phrase of this and find out what denomination it is – I’d rather you simply critique it and offer your thoughts without knowing what denomination is behind this statement.
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- Statement of Faith
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- Twitter of Faith
- Introducing the Credo Blog Series
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, I kind of like it. It covers the bases, so to speak, but I suppose some would say that it is kind of “squishy” on how far it goes. It does leave a lot of room for interpretation.
Pretty vague, IMO. The only things that are specific enough to be vaguely helpful in guiding church life are the references to ancient creeds, the Reformers, and the sacraments.
Nothing offensive or controversial in it, just not very bold or specific.
It’s fairly generic and lacking in detail, but it’s short, so that’s necessary. It presents as a clear offshoot of the reformed tradition. The general sense I have of it is that it reflects the ethic that would underlie an open-minded, open-hearted, but still discernably Christ-centered fellowship.
And afterwards, I had to google it. I just couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t surprised.
I like that they stick to their guns on what they outline as more secondary beliefs and their own cultural and theological expressions while not discounting the differences they have with others within our faith. I think it offers both a denominational distinctive and a Christian distinctive, which is healthy. It establishes a commonality both within the denomination and within the whole Body of Christ.
Interesting: at once “orthodox”–aside from omission of belief in one God, almighty creator–and almost obviously intentionally vague or open-ended. It avoids the distinctives of older creeds like “resurrection of the flesh, the forgiveness of sins, the life everlasting,” and that Jesus is one in substance with the Father, true God from true God, etc. And yet it gives a certain lip service to those older distinctives, given the line about the “historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds.” I suppose we should be able to hold members of this denomination–if the creed means anything–to subscription to the idea that One God is Father, Son,and Spirit, since the Reformers did not get rid of that idea. But somehow I suspect we will find individuals in this denomination, whatever it is, calling for various “trinities” like tulip, deer, and rainbow, or what have you. So while this creed is not really controversial, it is, like others have said, rather bland, so it might better be replaced by the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, since it claims to profess that Creed anyway, and since that Creed is more precise regarding what it means to call God Father, Son, and Spirit.
FYI – The statement Adam posted is not a creed nor does it claim to be one. Rather, it is the preamble to a church’s constitution.
works for me.
Give a way of identifying with a long Christian tradition, while commiting to the context in which we live. Kind of where we are going with our confirmation ‘vows’ in our congregation, so I’m quite comfortable.
I recognized it right away as a statement from my denomination. I think for this discussion, it might be helpful to point out that this paragraph is not our “statement of faith”, but is one part of the preamble to our denomination’s constitution. It is a theological statement, but I don’t think it’s intended to convey the fullness of our theological beliefs.
If you’d like to see our denomination’s “Statement of Faith”, you can find it here: http://www.coronachurch.org/yourti103443.html (Spoiler alert: I chose this link b/c it does not reveal the denomination, but be aware that you will see the denomination when you go to this site).
I was off in my guess as to what denomination it came from. The open-endedness of it (or vagueness if you want) makes sense now that I know what denomination it is. I am a bit surprised it is not more specific considering I’ve been lately admiring preachers for this denomination for “telling it like it is” in some respects.
Not bad, if you’ve only got that much space to work with. But that word “prosper” suggests that we do things in the world and only look to Word and Spirit to baptize what we already believe is “redemptive.” Word and Spirit should exercise a more foundational and critical function to the church’s action, and the word “prosper” has the connotation of simply amplifying or helping what we’re already doing. A church is missional to the extent that it engages in a faithful mission, participating in what God is already doing.
Chris, I do see that your point is that this “prosper” line implies that we are hoping the Spirit will bless what we have already decided to do. While that’s often the case in churches everywhere, it has unfortunately been frequent in my experience of this denomination [sigh]. But I’ve also experienced more recently an increasing openness to discern where God is already at work so that we might join in that work, so maybe there is hope for us yet!
Good exercise, btw, Adam.
You peeps are better than me. I had to break the rules and google it before anything else…
Bet,
Sometimes God works through the church in spite of the shortcomings of our theological statements, which is a wonderful thing. :-)
This is a beautiful testimony of faith by the United Church of Christ. It’s covers the fundamentals while allowing room for interpretation. I think it affirms the old UCC credo: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”
It’s sounds good but I wouldn’t base a decision to join on it. Most churches say nice things on paper. The devil is in the details of how they put it into practice.
Why is it mentioned that their sacramental practice is in accordance with practice prevailing among evangelical Christians? Is it significant to this church that their practice is in accordance with prevailing practice?
Drew, remember this statement was written in the early 1950′s. I think it may be an anachronistic way of referring to Protestants…..