New Confessions

by Joe Thorn on May 22, 2007

Yesterday I shared what our church is using as a confession: a hacked Abstract of Principles. I actually love the old confessions and catechisms and use them for teaching and personal devotion. The Second London and Westminster confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, the catholic creeds and many other historic church documents are immeasurably valuable for the church today. I love how these writings reflect the truth of Scripture in creative and powerful language. I appreciate that when we can affirm them we share a common faith with those who have come before us. And yet, I have to wonder if the church has grown lazy and too dependent on these confessions.

There was a time when the church valued the articulation of the Christian faith into the language of the people. Presbyterians, Baptists and others would, as the context required, draw up a new declaration of the faith. This was often to address the current heresies, false doctrines, or conflicts within local churches. What many baptists used as their primary confession in 1644 was replaced by what was drawn up in 1677 (a hack on the Westminster) and widely published in 1689. Articles would later be added to address new issues, or other, more simple, documents would be drawn up in following centuries.

While I love our old confessions, and think the church should make use of them, I do not understand why we have not articulated the Christian faith again in the twenty first century in a form that would be useful and clear to our churches. Some would argue that confessions themselves wont work in postmodernity. I disagree, and in fact believe the postmodern context creates a need for a new confession. Others will argue that what has been written is sufficient, or that we can simply update the language (As was done with the Second London Confession via Carey Pub.). But I believe we must do better, and speak plainly (as the puritans would put it) to the church and the people God has sent us to. Where are the Reformed theologians, confessing the faith afresh for a new generation addressing the theological issues our churches face with persuasive and beautiful words?

No doubt, this is a huge undertaking. It is no simple task that can be done over night. I dream of our best pastor/theologians, who can exegete Scripture and culture, gathering together throughout the year to work on such a project. Maybe I am alone in my desire. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this will not happen. Maybe it has to start with our church. I’m just thinking here.

I am interested in what you guys think. Is there a need for a new confession(s) that would have wide use in many churches?

About Joe Thorn

I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saint Charles, IL, and author of Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Jen is my wife, and Katherine, Elias, Madeline and Kilian are my kids.

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  • http://www.alienman.blogspot.com Brad Williams

    Joe,

    I think that the Together for the Gospel guys tried to do something like this at the last meeting. I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but I doubt it will work very well. (Though the Chicago Statement concerning Inerrancy has really been widely embraced, even if it isn’t a summary confession. I could be wrong!)

    I think that, historically, these confessions have been both foundational and reactionary. Foundational in the sense that the movements that birthed them were fledging at the time and sought to identify themselves. Its much easier to instill conformity in the beginning than to try to add it later as a ‘modern’ confession might do in this denominational era.

    By reactionary, I mean that the great confessions and creeds were responses to heresy/schism in the church. Thinking specifically of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, these were saw a successive, authoritative(?) documents and viewed holistically. Can we do such a thing now, or would we simply be re-inventing the wheel on most things?

    That’s why revisions such as the one your church adopted interest me so much. I’m not so much interested in writing new confessions, though I’m not against it, but I very interested to see what we do with the old ones. I think in places where we see change it can alert us to progress…or potential blind spots in our theology.

  • http://www.joethorn.net Joe Thorn

    I understand the context out of which many of the great confessions arose, which is why I wonder if we should be working at it as our spiritual parents have done; not forsaking their work, but not messing with it either.

    I don’t know though. I may be way out on this, but tend to think it’s worth looking at. I am not talking about reinventing the wheel, but fashioning a wheel to travel different cultural terrain.

    Of course I am familiar with the Chicago statement (and think it’s great), but it’s not quite what I am talking about. And I like the affirmations and denials from the T4G conference document, and believe they have done what I am talking about.

  • http://www.conqueringthirst.com James Gordon

    Joe,

    I just read the other day that the purpose of the newly formed Gospel Coalition (with the conference tomorrow and Wednesday) is to be “centered on a new evangelical reformed confession of faith drafted up by Dr. Carson with a preamble composed by Dr. Keller regarding the role of the gospel and church in culture. The colloquium was arranged in order to help hone the statements into an agreeable final draft. The hope was to redefine a clear center for evangelicalism more akin to that previously articulated by men such as Francis Schaeffer, John Stott, and Billy Graham,” according to Mark Driscoll. I certainly think you have a good point that it would be nice to see some new sort of confession for today’s culture.

    In Christ,
    James Gordon

  • http://ketteringfellowship.blogspot.com Perry McCall

    I have always found it interesting how the common practice was for pastors and Churches to draw up their own confessions. They would affirm and teach the foundational confessions but you would still find in the constitutions “their” doctrinal statements.

    I think the T4G document represents a good example of what Joe is expressing. We need to be writing new confessions for our times. However, the writing of these confessions will be hard and will take time. The T4G document was enjoyed and appreciated by most but it was still criticized by many who were and are great supporters of the evangelical doctrine. I think the best place to start is in our local Churches.

  • http://www.byfarthersteps.com Tim Etherington

    I’m for it Joe. I think you’re right. Though I love the 1689 I think it is in need of an update. We’re facing issues today such as homosexual marriage, homosexual ordination, stem cell research, egalitarianism, Open Theism, New Perspective, etc. The existing confessions have to be stretched to cover some of these contemporary issues. So I’m with you, let’s kick start the theologians and get them moving on a new confession.

  • http://www.alienman.blogspot.com Brad Williams

    Joe,

    I’ve been thinking about this a good bit today. What was it that made the Chicago Statement so great?
    1. It definitively answered the question as to what inerrancy is.
    2. It was written by a well-respected and scholarly group.

    Do you think that we need to work on a confession from scratch, or are there particular areas which should be addressed separatly. That, to me, would be the easy part to figure out.

    The had part is deciding who can now write such a document? Members of the ETS? Southern Baptists? Together for the Gospel folks?

  • http://www.joethorn.net Joe Thorn

    I personally think there is merit to the idea of a confession written from scratch in order to write it differently. Talking form, not content. Maybe something a bit more narrative. This would not eliminate the need for short, direct doctrinal statements, but a confession that reads more narratively could prove very useful today and really intrigues me. I am thinking of something written in paragraph form that ties theology to the history of redemption.

    But certainly we can draw up newer confessions that are more specific and needed. Addressing things separately is a good idea and can allow for even greater consensus among evangelicals – like focusing on the gospel and not baptism ala the conference going on in Wheaton right now.

    Who would do it? I think it would come down to a few guys getting together who are passionate about it, and then inviting others they want to work with until they feel they have an appropriate group. I really have no idea what I’m talking about here Brad. Just thinking. :)

  • PCA Guy

    The reason Presbyterians will not undertake a “rewrite” of the Westminster Confession of Faith is because too many people are attached to 17th century theological terms. It makes them feel comfortable.
    Many of the PCA pastors who have suggested updating the Confession, or even begin to incorporate theological terms into language for postmoderns, become labled as “undermining the Gospel” and a host of other things, which simply are not true.

    Take for instance the extremely dangerous resolution which will be voted on in this year’s general assembly. A stacked study committee was commissioned to explore the “Federal Vision controversy” in the denomination. If adopted, it could open the doors for teaching elders in good standing to be tried by their Presbyteries for being closer to Calvin and many of the Westminster Divines, than Dabney, Thornwell and other Southern Presbyterians. It will also basically show that the denomination I love dearly is unwilling to use fresh expressions of language for our theology.

    It’s sad to me that we, as a small denomination, are more interesting in heretic hunting in our own circles rather than expressing our faith in an accessible way.

    It can be done. Change just scares people.

  • Damon Titus

    Joe,
    I think the idea of writing a confession that reads narrativley and ties theology to the history of redemption is a great idea. I see it using the biblical narrative to express sound theology in a culturally savvy way. You use the glory of the story to highlight and shape the glory of the theology it expresses. Seems like the two go hand-in-hand, as understanding what God has done in history, and how He has done it helps us know who He is.

    I don’t know if your familiar with the Gospel summary “Two Ways to live”, but it follows a basic history of redemption, and uses a more narrative approach to present the message of salvation. I wonder if the kind of confession you’re talking could follow a model like this. At least it would be something to look at for ideas.

  • Josh Montague

    Joe, I just returned from the Gospel Coalition conference. There’s a great pseudo-confession coming out of the work of the GC’s council. It will be posted on http://www.thegospelcoalition.org in a few weeks. We received a copy and an initial read-thru was pretty exciting. I’m really thinking of using it in our church plant. If you’re interested, I could scan it and send it your way.

  • Josh Montague

    I’m wondering if pseudo-confession was a bad word choice.

  • http://gunny93.blogspot.com/ GUNNY HARTMAN

    As our church always uses a “hack” of the Abstract of Principles, I feel ya, Joe.

    I like the link to the past and the first SBC doctrinal statement, but there was some verbiage that was confusing and some issues weren’t really dealt with to our satisfaction with regard to our 2006 needs.

    I think we’ve seen efforts in this regard with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which I saw/see as a great improvement, but it’s a bit hard (at least in our SBC world) to have great precision where there is not great unity theologically.

    Even those attempts that span denominational lines are going to be limited because they can’t address issues of ecclesiology, so they will be incomplete.

    Yet, these issues help us to ask and answer what are the lines of commonality that join us, especially in what many are seeing as a post-demoninational world. i think that’s an overstatement or at least a premature assessment, but you don’t have the commonality in that regard that was once there, nor the same measure of loyalty or commitment to that vehicle to enact change.

    In short … let’s do it!

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