Relecting a bit this morning about creeds and the the purposes they serve.
Function of Creeds
Historically, creeds served a purpose. They were the road markers for the faith. Issues were clearly delineated by the creeds. If a person strayed from the creed they went too far from the faith.
Creeds provided a confessional unity. Either one could say the creed or one could not. The saying of the creed implies conformance to the creed. This was true when a man’s word was their bond.
A person could be said to be a heretic if they strayed from the path marked by the creed. Councils produced anathemas against people who rejected the contents of the creeds. Civil authorities were able to prosecute and in some cases put to death, people who publicly rejected the teachings of the creeds. Calvin’s Geneva was one such place where a theonomy with the death penalty for violating theological standards existed.
How do Creeds Work Today in Other Churches?
How creeds work in other churches depends upon the church. Some have not dismantled the Creeds as common confession but have added an unwritten clause allowing individual conscience in matters of disagreement. In that case, the creeds don’t so much provide road markers as historical markers near the road. That way someone can take the side street off their own highway and view the historical marker. Sometimes the marker is close to the highway and sometimes the marker is a long way off the highway. Either way the confession of the creed by the confessor no longer is a sign that the confessor agrees with the content of the creed but rather admits that the creed is a historical statement of what the faith once was.
Some churches retain the original purpose of creeds although death sentences are not pronounced today for disagreement with the creed. A person, in some churches, could be excommunicated for public disagreement with some part of their church creed. This happens in all sorts of denominations.
Modern Example From the Assemblies of God
The Assembly of God denominination provides s surprising example of this given that the AoG is commonly thought of as theologically progressive. If an ordained pastor gets convinced that Christ is returning after the tribulation, rather than before the tribulation, he will be tossed out. This leads some Assembly pastors to deliberatly not look at the subject. Others hold contrary opinions but keep them private. Change is difficult because even the implication that someone does not hold to the pre-trib rapture leads to the assumption that they are out of the faith.
Certainly the Assembly of God, or any other group for that matter, has the right to define what makes them distinctive. It’s just hard to grant that one’s view of a particular aspect of Eschatology should be such a strong determiner of who is in and who is out.
Role of the Augsburg Confession in the Church of Sweden
The Augsburg Confession was the Lutheran symbol of faith in the state church of Sweden. In the state church of Sweden, the fences could not be transgressed. The state church forced out those who did not hold the confession and this led to the formation of the free church in Sweden.
Why Did the Covenant Reject Creeds?
The Covenant Church in America, under the influence of Waldenstrom, rejected creeds when it formed in 1885. The reason for this was due to the treatment of Waldenstrom by the state church of Sweden. Waldenstrom had rejected the prevailing theory of the atonement of his day, namely the Anselmian view. For Waldenstrom, this had to do with the wrath of God. Waldenstrom taught:
The fall of man did not change God’s heart.
Wrath was not in God’s mind afer the fall.
The change after the fall was in man.
The atonement takes away man’s sin.
The atonement is in Jesus Christ.
Waldenstrom’s view of the atonement led Waldenstrom to reject the Augsburg Confession (1530). Waldenstrom, interestingly, remained a member of the state church all of his life.
Have Waldenstrom’s Views Stood The Test of Time?
For the most part, Waldenstrom’s view of the atonement has not endured in the Covenant Church but the idea of not having creeds has remained. The fence posts were too constraining for unity of the church.
Certainly unity of the church should not be based on sharing a Midieval view of the atonement otherwise there would have been no church before Anselm formed his view of the atonement.
What Part Remains?
The ideal of automomous local congregations proved durable. And the ideals of individual conscience in those local congregations proved yet even stronger.
So Where Do We Stand?
An even better question than where do we stand might be to ask how do we stand? Without the fenceposts of creeds, what is the basis of the faith? How keeps up the roadmarkers? If nobody keeps the roadmarkers the road will wander all over the place.
To some degree that is allowed to happen. Fence posts can move. It would probably have been unthinkable to the founders of the Covenant that less than 100 years later there would be ordained women in ministry in their church. Other social changes threaten to upset the applecart even now.
There are still control points, however. Since the church is relational there is some control in the mutual accountability of Godly relations. For a pastor to get approved for ministry they must go through the seminary or the external orientation program. There are psychological examinations and personal interviews. There is a monitoring of character and interaction with others. There are seen and unseen control points in this process.
Analogy to the Growth of the US Federal Government
With time, the United States saw the growth of the power of the Federal government. States and individuals were the ones to lose power with this growth.
Simiarly the Covenant Church has seen the growth in strength of the ministerium. The ministerium controls who gets to be a pastor. The ministerium functions as an Episcopal form. Every pastor is a member of two congregations. One of the congregations is the local church. The other congregation is the ministerium.
Although the Conference Superintendent lacks the formal power of a bishop, he still has significant control as the representative of the ministerium.
In the Covenant Church, the Executive Board of Ministry bears significant power in discipline of pastors. This is the point of control.
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