It’s a great quote that could appear any day around here, despite any discussion.

I’ve been in plenty of towns in Ky where the two largest downtown churches were First Baptist and First Christian. Neither was interested in creeds or confessions (though Baptists historically have used them and have one.) In my experience, neither was exactly knocking the culture over with the Gospel. Often quite the opposite. “No creed because we’re just like the culture” fit most the of churches I’ve served.

Frank Turk has blogged a detailed post about our creed discussion. You can read it for yourself here. And Frank, we were a better blog with rule 40, but backsliding is what we do best.

Deserves to be a banner quote? Well, to quote Audrey in National Lampoon’s Vacation, “Let’s not overdo it, mom!”

The following quote from Adrian Warnock is getting the full gauntlet from the [not reformed] today.

“I want to EXPERIENCE personally the Spirit doing this much more frequently in a way that is as thrilling as the way in which Piper describes it.”

What I am waiting for is for some of the members of that team to lose their reticence and come on out contra Dr. John Piper and his Christian Hedonism model. Plenty of posters here at the Dark Side of the Blogosphere have done so. I have their tire marks on my back to prove that nothing I could say would slow them down.

What if the quote were from Dr. Piper or Jonathan Edwards: “I want to EXPERIENCE personally the Spirit doing this much more frequently in a way that gives the greatest possible pleasure.”

Would Dr. Piper and Dr. Edwards deserve as much ink as Dr. Warnock? Piper has written entire books on this subject, and most of them are translating Edwards into contemporary prose. I’ve heard Piper say we are morally obligated to seek all the pleasure we can in God. Is “from” God somehow off the books?

I would imagine some think so. But I’m pretty sure they won’t say so. “Dour” is the new black.

To master the Creed is to know the whole of Christian doctrine. If you have nothing left to learn of the Creed, then you are a theologian of theologians and should be teaching the entire Church with your wisdom, not writing on a blog.

That deserves to be a banner quote.

It’s not that the Creed doesn’t contain the miracles and ministry of Jesus, it simply interprets them.  The miracles of Christ aren’t just him being nice to people or showing us how to be nice; they are testimonies to his divine sonship, his coming death, his resurrection, the nature of the Church, and the coming of the ultimate kingdom of God in the final resurrection.  Further, this is a baptismal creed, not just something people said because they were bored.  To know the Creed is to know what your baptism means, to know what the entirety of Christian life means.
To master the Creed is to know the whole of Christian doctrine.  If you have nothing left to learn of the Creed, then you are a theologian of theologians and should be teaching the entire Church with your wisdom, not writing on a blog.  Thinking you know everything there is to know about the Creed simply because you know the definitions of the individual words is completely missing the point.

Unfortunately you can’t camp under a snapshot very long until the rain comes eventually.

I think, when it’s all said and done, I’ll just have to stand alone as the token “no creed but Christ” guy in the bar. That is, unless there’s someone else out there? Anybody? Helloooooo?????

I’m a big tent guy, too. And the AC is a pretty good snapshot of the tent.

Perhaps one idea we’re missing in all this talk of creeds, or at least talking around, is what exactly we are affirming and proclaiming.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Tom, but what you seem to be saying is that the various creeds miss out on all the acts of Jesus that we are to emulate. I would argue that while that is a central part of our discipleship, and something we should strive after over a lifetime, it is not central to what/who we affirm when we proclaim our faith.

The Apostles’ or Nicene creeds are there for us to profess our faith in God, and they help us define who that God is. To say who He is in such a short profession of faith will necessarily leave out a lot of detail. That’s why we don’t stop there, and continue on in ither areas of being His disciples.

My reasoning goes like this. I believe (insert creed here). So far so good. How does that work itself out daily? The creed points to the God revealed in Christ as we see in holy scripture. The creed is a pointer.  So I look in scripture and see further that I must be a disciple of Jesus. I study there and emulate what I learn. So the scripture is also a pointer and a teacher. This is where I would add the things you have talked about regarding Jesus’ life and ministry.

These things don’t stand on their own. God, disciple, scripture, creeds, prayers, sacraments (ordinances if you don’t care for that word) – all together – are wrapped up in this Christian life. OK, so God stands on His own. He doesn’t need us, but we certainly need Him, so I included Him in the list.

I have no conclusion to this thought. It is simply rattling around in the brain as I think on the interaction y’all have had over the past couple days.

I wanna play!

The new design prompts to me realize I’ve never submitted a recipe for the menu, so here goes. I recently posted this over at Blogcritics, but it seems especially appropriate here.

Extra Stout Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:
1 cup dark chocolate chips (I use Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup dark beer (I use Guinness Extra Stout)

Preparation:
Put the chocolate chips, egg, salt and sugar in a blender.

In small saucepan, bring the milk and stout to just-before-boiling, then remove from heat.

Quickly pour the liquid into the blender and blend one minute or so, until the chocolate chips are completely melted.

Pour into four ramekins or small bowls and chill for several hours, until firm.

Delightfully, this uses very little of a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout, leaving the rest of the bottle to enjoy while the mousse sets!

Teetotalers can safely eat this mousse, as it’s only a small amount of beer heated to almost-boiling. :)

Tom: The problem, in that case, isn’t the Creed itself, but how the Creed is used. You may have a blind spot when it comes to the word “creed,” so let’s try something parallel.

I love the Bible. The Bible tells me about Jesus, my Savior and Lord, and so it’s very important. God-breathed, even! While the Bible itself isn’t salvific, in that people can read it without becoming Christians, it is probably the strongest record we have of the Word of God (Jesus) that is in a form people can understand (that is, not a personal metaphysical experience). The Bible is as close as we can get to Jesus Himself in our lifetimes, barring miraculous happenings.

However, some people like to use the Bible as a weapon. They pick verses here and there with which to criticize others. They declare themselves to be authorities on use of the Bible and lose sight of the Object of the Bible, the God-Man, Jesus. They judge people by standards found in the Bible, though usually inconsistently. They pick and choose their favorite parts of the Bible and attack others on that basis while overlooking their own failures. It’s really awful behavior.

So what do I do in response? Dismiss the Bible based on widespread abuse of the words therein? “No word but the Living Word!” No. Abuse of the Bible does not diminish the importance or value of scripture any more than people taking the Lord’s name in vain diminishes or devalues Jesus. In fact, by invoking the name of Jesus or the Bible, I believe people are making themselves responsible for their use of the name or the book, and should be more careful than they generally are. It is the people using scripture to judge and dismiss and belittle others that should be repudiated, not scripture itself.

Does that make sense?

Brian, the Apostles’ Creed is in some way more fundamental than the Nicene Creed, as it reflects the various baptismal creeds that served as the basis for the Nicen Creed—even though the specific form we have seems to be a little later.

But to me, by saying less, you’re really saying more.

Unless you’re saying the Apostles’ Creed, and then it’s fie on thee for not reciting the entire Gospel of Luke.

The whole problem with “No creed but Christ” is when you realize that the people you disagree with actually disagree with you on who Christ is and what he commanded. Some of us say to have Christ as your creed means nothing less than to have his vicar as your pontiff.  If you make it about just thinking Jesus was probably pretty important in history and a pretty cool dude to boot, well, that’s not the Jesus of the Gospels.  It’s a figment of your imagination.

The Mormons and JWs are not really part of my world, to be honest. Although once I really liked this girl who turned out to be a JW, so that really would have been an issue at that point.

I’m talking about controversies like a few months ago when people were ripping N.T. Wright for saying that Marcus Borg was a Christian. I thought that was a little ridiculous. In that sense, I’m not that interested in saying someone like Borg is “in” or “out” either one. I’m not part of his universe, anyway. Although I admit I have learned some stuff from the guy (selectively, of course.)

I’m keeping the list updated.  Here it is so far:

http://www.boarsheadtavern.com/archives/2007/03/27/2149787.html

I’m not that interested in using some kind of formula to say “You’re in, you’re out.”

So… what do you do with a Mormon or a JW? They believe that everything in their faith is in accordance with Scripture, and you have no “formula” that you can refer to that might describe your differences between them. Nonetheless, if a Mormon came into your church and started preaching distinctive Mormon doctrines, you’d probably take him nicely aside and explain that that isn’t what you believe here, and that he won’t be allowed to preach that way. Everything he says is “from Scripture” as he understands it, but that doesn’t matter: it turns out that you have a Creed after all, and it doesn’t agree with the Mormon creed.

Everybody has a Creed, some people just won’t admit it.

In our modern individualistic society, in which every man’s way is right in his own eyes, it is more important than ever to remember that Christ calls us to live in community with each other, in radical dependence on His church. In fact, this has ever been true, and yet some people point to our modern age as an excuse for changing how we relate to Christ. In fact, He does not change. He is not swayed modern technological advances or new heresies that sweep through society. He is the Christ, Head of His Body, the Church, world without end.

From the beginning of human history, God has called a people unto Himself. Not “people,” but “a people.” Not segmented individuals with little in common, but families, communities, and tribes. It is for His people—all of His people, his Israel—that God sent Moses to Egypt for deliverance. And it is for His people—all of His people, His Church—that Christ was born, lived, died, and lived again. At His Ascension, Christ commanded His disciples to wait for the inauguration of His Church, and on Pentecost, Christ’s Church was born, 3000 people strong with Peter at its head.

This was no less than the fulfillment of Christ’s promise in Matt 16:17-19, where He said, “And I tell you that you are Peter [rock], and on this rock [Peter] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” The “keys of the kingdom” were given to Peter on Pentecost, and rest today in the authority of Christ’s church.

Today some suggest that Peter was given too much authority, but God has chosen to work with imperfect humans, giving them the Grace and wisdom they need to fulfill His purposes and direct His church. The alternative, it seems, is for every man to look to himself for authority, or to elevate the Bible as a “paper pope,” reading out of it whatever he desires. But this is not God’s way. Salvation and truth are found within the Church Christ established, not in the whims of men who refuse to be under the Church’s authority as Christ was under authority.

When we have questions, where do we turn? Are we like sheep without a shepherd, looking for truth on each passing wind? Do we follow whichever self-appointeded “prophet” has purchased television time this week? Do we trust in the godless society around us to dictate practice and theology? Do we trust in ourselves alone?

No. We are not called out of darkness into the twilight of self-direction, but into the marvelous light of God’s Church. We do not look to popularity or passing fancy for understanding, but to the Church of Christ, established as the guardian of faith. Men are fallible, but Christ guards His Church to ensure that truth is preserved, and so salvation is found in the Church, and safeguarded by the pontiff whom God anoints.

[ I pick Jesse to advocate Congregationalism. ]

Michael—Being SBC, do Baptists generally even recite a creed? Because when I’d visit the Southern Baptist Church with my friend when I was a kid I don’t remember them ever reciting a creed. So, unless I have the Baptists all wrong, it seems a little strange to me for a Baptist to be going to the mat for reciting a creed.

Look,at the risk of raising the ire of Kurt and others, I really am a “No Creed but Christ” kind of guy. Being Disciples of Christ I do resonate with the early leaders of that movement who did not believe in using the creed as a test for fellowship. I’m a “big tent” kind of guy; I’m not that interested in using some kind of formula to say “You’re in, you’re out.” Think that’s lame? Whatever. I stand by the fact that Jesus fully accepted Peter’s confession “Thou are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” Yeah, Phillip, I know that doesn’t fulfill my “criteria.” But to me, by saying less, you’re really saying more. And if it’s good enough for Jesus, why shouldn’t it be good enough for me…or you, for that matter?

Tom: I like the Phil 2:6-11 creed, and posted about it here somewhat recently. But in fact, I have some complaints about it. Most scholarship places the date of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians at around 55 AD (or CE), which is roughly 25 years after Jesus died. Why should we rely on the words of people who never even spent time with Jesus while He was alive on earth? Besides, Paul—writing from prison, so clearly he had a skewed view of what was important—emphasized some strange things. There’s not a single word about Jesus healing anybody, or feeding anybody, or being human at all. We go directly from ”...being born…” to ”...obedient to the point of death…” with nothing about His actual life at all. Paul—in this passage at least—also seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on things that happened after Jesus died, spending almost half the creed on things not even mentioned in the Gospels. Well more than half, if you count the stuff that happened before Jesus was born. The Matt 16:16 creed is even worse, saying nothing about Jesus but that which most cultists and unbelievers would say about themselves!

In other words, Tom, you’re now offering up as alternatives creeds that are worse than the Apostle’s Creed on every point of criticism you’ve raised except one! That tells me—and should suggest to you—that your antipathy for the Creed is not based on anything you’ve elucidated thus far, but on other issues entirely.

The one issue I’m granting is that the Creed is extra-biblical. Then again, every line in it is drawn from scripture, and a focus entirely on the Gospels—as you suggested before suddenly stepping out of the gospels to introduce Paul’s creed—would miss a lot as well.

The Apostle’s Creed isn’t holy, or salvific, or unquestionable. But it’s solid and Biblical and points to Jesus, clearly enough that it is difficult to see where one could explicitly deny the creed without denying scripture or Christ Himself. If “descended into hell” is your hangup, recite it in Greek, where the word isn’t “hell,” or use the formulation “descended to the dead.” If that doesn’t work, there are two or three passages in the Bible that might cause problems, too.

It is a comforting thought that many things will change but I can still have you guys follow me to Georgia once again.

Aaron, let me know when you’ll be moving in and I’ll bring you a pot of soup and a ring of cornbread. We’ll be neighbors, you know:-)

I think I get the game. Now, can I play? Give me a real challenge.

I picked up “fresh new wind” and “new understanding of sexuality from the liberals that the author of Midwest Conservative Journal frequently quotes.

Why the Apostle’s Creed and not the Nicene?  It is a bit more concise I guess.  I usually point to the Nicene as the sort of bare minimum, the outer boundary that Michael mentioned.  Not wanting to pick a  fight or anything.  I have problem with the AC, just curious.

Sonia...great work on the site.

How about “No Creed but Christ.” That’s a pretty good creed.

I’ve got my merit badge in saying the ECFs or anyone else can be wrong. That being said, your attitude towards this unifying statement for the body of Christ well-represents the underlying problem with radical restoration movements. The apostle’s creed predates the New Testament canon. Acting as if its composers were idiots (“descended into hell!?!?”) compared to the insights we have today is a teenagers argument. At the very least, shouldn’t we disagree with the creed respectfully? When we say it at soli, I always call it the “ancient and universal faith for which the martyrs died.” Yes, it’s only a fallible summary of that faith, but I believe it ought to be treated as a treasure, not a joke to be discarded while we wave our Bibles and rhetoric around as if we have something to say more important than the creed. I always put the creed after the sermon, so that if I have nothing to say worth hearing, the creed will still preach.

In what sense is there less agreement in the historical church about the creed than about the canon? It’s not considered inspired, but I consider it the standard for a unified church confession, and considering its age and origin, it’s pretty important. If I meet someone who rejects the Apostle’s Creed, just about everything comes into question for me. It’s an “outer boundary” of the faith that shouldn’t be torn down.

And could you list for us all Paul’s passages on the life of Jesus? I agree with you that the ministry of Jesus is critical, but to say it is the same as the cross, etc. is not true. Jesus said so.

I believe we should write creeds and confessions that include the proclamation and actions of the Kingdom, but the first and most valued creed must always be the AC.

Phillip—Well, I was pretty much finished with the whole Creed thing and was away from the computer for awhile (had to watch American Idol, you know) but let me try to explain my position another way. There are things that I think are important about Jesus. Why should someone back in triple-digit AD tell me what’s important? What is wrong with me thinking that, say, “Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God” (at least throwing a bone toward his earthly ministry) is about 100 time more important than “He descended into hell”? Why is mentioning the Ascension so crucial in the Creed when only Luke (in the book of Acts) think it’s important enough to even rate a mention?

I’m not saying I disbelieve anything in the Apostle’s Creed. I’m just saying it’s not in the canon. Want some creeds that are in the canon? How about Matt. 16:16: Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Or even better,Phil. 2:6-11: who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Pirate, well done for the first round. You give yourself away, though, by explicitly saying “In the 20th century, humankind came to a new, fuller understanding of sexuality.” Usually that argument is implicit, and I’ve never seen it made explicitly except by people trying to debunk feminist interpretations. The same with “A fresh new wind was blowing in the 70’s”. I think I could’ve spotted this as a fake, even if I hadn’t known :).

Michael, credobaptism per se isn’t the real problem. Rebaptism is what gets my hackles up. (Read the linked article. It’s very good, and expresses my feelings perfectly.)

OK, if that’s the template for how this is supposed to work, I can definitely do your worst. Bring it.

Pirate: You’re an evil, evil man, but at least you’ve picked something I’m pretty sure I won’t ever truly believe. I’m going to need to sleep on this one. :-)

Wow and wow again. Change is challenging. Even on the internet. The new look is great but it is different and I know it will take me a couple of days to adjust. I am moving this week and there is a lot of change going on in my life. I am buying a house for the first time and that scares me to death. My wife has a new job and that makes me and her both pretty anxious. Next week I will also begin the new adventure of helping to start a church. In the last seven years of my life I have lived five of them in New Orleans and it is the only place we have lived since we have been married. Oddly enough as unsafe as we have been feeling in New Orleans it has come to feel like home and is very comfortable. So I have a lot going on this week and as I have been thinking about the differences happening in my life I think to myself wherever I go I will still have the Boars Head Tavern. It is a comforting thought that many things will change but I can still have you guys follow me to Georgia once again.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a new slogan on a Methodist Church sign in Gulfport.

“Lent is spring training for Christians”

Sonia, sounds to me like you’re in if you want to be…someone should make you defend the non-use of instruments in church. We’re not looking for PhD work here. :-)

OK, so I had no doubts that I would be asked to defend either open communion or WO. I’m glad it’s the latter. Here goes:

For more than 19 centuries, only men were clergy in the church, although one occasionally found powerful abbesses and other highly respected women of spiritual influences, both in church and in sect. In the 20th century, however, humankind came to a new, fuller understanding of sexuality and gender virtually unprecedented in human history. We discovered, namely, that there can be no difference without the imposition of a power structure and the subjugation of another. In the case of male-only ordination, this was the subjection of woman and the silencing of her voice in the Church. We also learned that traits we generally describe as “masculine” and “feminine”-including which sex is the object of your sexual desire-is hardly defined by sex and is in many respects socially conditioned. Hence the assertion of gender difference and the enforcing of gender roles is a powerplay by patriarchalists to subjugate and silence women, and reducing them to status of sex slave without will or right, thus male ordination is inherently tied to a view of women as intellectually and spiritually inferior and unequipped for leadership. The inherent gender difference between men and women being abolished, the assertion that the pastoral role is of an actual spiritual fatherhood or something melts away as well (single mothers, for example, have to play paternal as well as maternal roles).

But women’s ordination—we should call it “human ordination,” really—is not founded on sociological reasons alone, but also theological. First, we need to look at biblical anthropology. The first (and probably oldest) Genesis myth describes “man” as created “male and female.” There is no masculine humanity with a subordinate female humanity emanating from it—man exists equally as male and female with no difference, therefore roles in the kingdom of God, in which the New Creation is established, must exist as male and female. The second myth is clearly trying to “fix” the first one by introducing language of subjugation like “helpmeet” and the patriarchalist rib legend; it lacks the timeless beauty of the six-day myth, which continues to receive relevant theological interpretation today. Anything of divine origin and normative for religious life would continue to be relevant, but the second myth is completely irrelevant to modern man, with its fantastical tales of talking snakes and man being an animated dirt statue. Thus it ought to receive less consideration in theological anthropology, since it reflects the superstitions of the age more than it reflects the intent of God.

Second, Paul does say “In Christ there is neither…male nor female.” Passionate commitment to follow in the footsteps of Christ qualifies one for ministry, not your sex. All true believers, not just men—or even consecrated people!—are called to minister in the Church. We must oppose this medieval, sacramental view of ordination that has its roots in the age of Constantine and the politicization of the Church rather than in the New Testament. Ordaining women is not conferring a new right or privilege on them; it is simply acknowledging what they are already doing and what God is already doing through them! It is nothing more than the outworking of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9).

Third, Jesus did not come to form an institutional church. Mark, the oldest and most authentic Gospel, has no command to continue the Lord’s Supper (14:22-25), and the command to baptize in 16:16 is rejected by even the most conservative scholars as being a later addition to the text. Seeing the church in terms of a sacramental administration is what requires a mystically consecrated clergy—and rarely if ever were men and women in the same ancient sacerdotal orders. The “catholicizing” of Christianity began in the Matthean community, which turns the Last Supper into a consecration, adds a later liturgical formula to the Great Commission, and thus makes the calling of the apostles about consecrating clergy rather than protypes of the universal call to all to follow him in the way of love, truth, and justice. Jesus was about calling people to a radical new lifestyle of overturning social conventions to establish a reign of divine love and compassion on the earth, not about forming an institution to exclude people from a heaven by concentrating power in the hands of specially consecrated men by making them gatekeepers of sacraments, terrorizing them with threats of hell into obeying the will of the institutional church.

And finally, did not Christ say the Spirit would lead his followers into all truth? A fresh new wind was blowing in the 70’s. Rome’s sacerdotalism disqualifies it from being “church”—who else can be “church” except for the mainline Protestants? The Spirit inspired almost the whole of the followers of Christ to affirm the pastoral ministry of women through the testimony of brilliant theologians and the thoughtful reflection of sincere Christians. We have sociology, the Bible, and the living testimony of the Holy Spirit on our side. Ordaining women is the only way we will finally tear down the medieval castle of the institutional church and bring back the living Gospel.

I pick Phillip Winn to defend the necessity of submitting to the Roman Pontiff in all things for salvation. If you need reference, the doctrine is exposited here. I know I had JS before, but that seemed, I dunno, not black-and-white enough.

A good collection of D.A. Carson mp3s on many subjects. His sessions on how the NT writers quoted the OT are very good.

oh, for mercy’s sake, you may as well try to get Bill to write on the rapturous delights of grits and Jack to write on the superiority of the radical redistributivist principles of justice.

Pirate: I would play but one could accuse me of ultracrepidarianism when it comes to matters of theology and politics much above a basic level of understanding.

Michael, I meant that you pick the first person to write, and when that person’s done, he picks the next one, and so on. That way no one person can dominate the topics. I’ll go first if you want.

MOD: Sure. (It is a good list :-)

Jesse on credobaptism.
Jason on closed communion.
Josh on women pastors.
Phillip on teetotalism.
Raja on the dispensational view of Israel.
Joel on Contemporary Praise and Worship music.

Time doesn’t allow for good research, but I’ll play. Make me defend the prosperity message if you really want to see me squirm.

JOEL:  I read Piper’s article, appreciated it for it’s positive contribution about our need to be more in awe at the privilege of hearing God speak in His Word,  but also could not sympathize with Piper being grieved by the CT article.  Piper ends his essay saying this article “grieved” him, but he did not doubt that the situation happened.  I don’t doubt the situation happened and therefore,  I can’t grieve the article. So, I’m confused….