[raynearhood]

By their very nature, creeds define what two or more groups' shared beliefs are, and they provide a useful way for both insiders and outsiders to test themselves on whether they really are doctrinally and congregationally unified.

I was called out and saved 15+ years ago in a church who's history can be traced back to the American Restoration. An Arminian/semi-Pelagian church with an ambiguous Statement of Faith (though generally orthodox) that flexes and changes "with the times," the church had unofficially adopted the old statement "No Creed but Christ; no confession but the Bible." Many of my old friends were shocked and taken aback when they found out that I had "converted" to a confessionally Reformed faith. Question after question came my way, the most common being: "How can you hold a man made document above Scripture?" I started a blog and eventually flipped over to maintaining a family webpage to both answer questions and maintain a record (though I am fairly undisciplined in keeping the page updated). On our "What We Believe" page I answered that question thusly:

We want to be up front and answer the question most often posed when relating that we are confessional: "How can you hold a man made document above Scripture?" The answer is simple, we don't. We believe the that Confession we confess, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that it agrees with Scripture and is a concise statement of sound biblical doctrines. We believe the creeds we confess to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that they agree with Scripture and are concise, yet thorough, statements of the orthodox faith. The Creeds and Confession are subservient to Scripture. Would they disagree with Scripture, we would reject them. But they don't disagree, so we don't reject them. They do agree, so we accept them.

Consider that most churches have a Statement of Faith developed from that church's understanding of Scripture. These statements explain what the church teaches and what its members believe. Members of the church are expected to understand that the Statement of Faith explains, as far as the church understands, proper doctrine in the church. In America, most of these statements are fairly ambiguous (some more than most). The Creeds and Confession are similar to a Statement of Faith, though much more thorough and much, much less ambiguous.

[Alex Murphy]

We want to be up front and answer the question most often posed when relating that we are confessional: "How can you hold a man made document above Scripture?" The answer is simple, we don't. We believe the that Confession we confess, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith....to have authority in the church and amongst its members ONLY in that they agree with Scripture and are concise, yet thorough, statements of the orthodox faith. The Creeds and Confession are subservient to Scripture. Would they disagree with Scripture, we would reject them. But they don't disagree, so we don't reject them. They do agree, so we accept them.

Consider that most churches have a Statement of Faith developed from that church's understanding of Scripture. These statements explain what the church teaches and what its members believe. Members of the church are expected to understand that the Statement of Faith explains, as far as the church understands, proper doctrine in the church. In America, most of these statements are fairly ambiguous (some more than most). The Creeds and Confession are similar to a Statement of Faith, though much more thorough and much, much less ambiguous.

What an excellent statement - thank you for pinging me to it. The "2nd Confession" is the 1689 version of the Baptist Confession, right? There's a great deal of commonality with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is what I hold to myself. Glad to "shake hands" with a fellow Trinitarian believer!