Confessions and denominational stability

by   Alan Day                                                                                                                                               Vol. XVIII, No. 3, March 2005

James Boyce outlined the future of theological education among Southern Baptists in his inaugural address at Furman University in 1856. Anticipating that a Southern Baptist seminary would be created soon, Boyce suggested what he called "Three Changes in Theological Institutions." The first change was that provision should be made to educate ministers who had not had the benefit of formal education. The second change would provide advanced studies to produce biblical and theological scholars who could teach and write without dependence on foreign scholarship. The third change, in his own words, "is the adoption of a declaration of doctrine to be required of those who assume the various professorships."

Boyce was particularly sensitive to the encroachment that Thomas and Alexander Campbell had made into Baptist ranks. He said about Alexander Campbell, "Playing upon the prejudices of the weak and ignorant among our people, decrying creeds as an infringement upon the rights of conscience, making a deep impression by his extensive learning and great abilities, Alexander Campbell threatened at one time the total destruction of our faith. Had he occupied a chair in one of our Theological Institutions, that destruction might have been completed."

We perhaps have forgotten how powerful and attractive was the Campbellite movement. At one time even First Church of Nashville, TN, was totally captured by Campbellite doctrine. Historian William Lumpkin wrote, "Alexander Campbell took hold of the popular prejudices against confessions and ministerial education and used them mightily during the early years of his preaching to establish his movement. To the Regular Baptists of the frontier he preached antiorganizationism with great effect, but to the Baptists of Separate background he constantly preached anticonfessionalism and antiministerial education." Lumpkin says that in Kentucky alone, 10,000 Baptists defected to the Campbellite movement (William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Foundations in the South, p. 154).

The statement, "Baptists are not a creedal people," has been made so often that, for some Baptists today, it is their only creed. Of course there is truth in the statement. When we say we are not creedal, we are affirming the ultimate authority of the Scriptures. Furthermore, we require no creedal tests prior to membership in our churches. Also, we have generally referred to our doctrinal standards as "confessions" rather than "creeds." Finally, Baptists are not creedal in the sense that we do not believe that affirmation of a creed makes one a Christian.

But Baptists have found it impossible to achieve lasting unity and purpose without doctrinal standards. Our greatest leaders have acknowledged that. E. Y. Mullins wrote, "Creeds arise as the effort of religious men to interpret and reduce to scientific form the contents of revelation and of Christian experience. So also creeds are formed for purposes of Christian unity and as a means of propagating the faith" (MuIlins, Freedom and Authority in Religion). In Mullins' view, creeds, or confessions, were necessary to true unity and effective evangelization.

[Alan Day is pastor of Edmond, OK, First. Reprinted from the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger, 25 October 2001.]