Featured How "No Creed but the Bible" Subverts the Bible

You could have quoted one of several other verses but, like you did with your Jeremiah blunder, you reached for a verse that seemed to support your position. Oh well.

 

I think that the last days of the PCUSA were when Carson Blake came to power. At that time, it was realized immediately that he was liberal and the once-packed Presbyterian churches began to decline to the vast empty caverns that they are today.

 

What is your opinion of your former church?

 

I have to admit this was a bit of a rhetorical question. I grew up in an SBC church and always viewed the "Baptist Faith and Message" as the SBC statement of faith. But it was always emphasized this was NOT a creed. These were released in 1925, 1963, and 2000. When I was working for at&t in NJ, I belonged to an American Baptist church which was a great church, not at all like many here seem to think. The pastor and chairman of the deacons were instrumental in bringing both my brother and I all the way home from the far country after being brought up in a strong Christian home. My brother made the decision to become a minister in that church, graduated from the Southern Baptist Seminary and is an ordained SBC minister.

Since coming back to the South 12 years ago, I have belonged to a dual aligned CBF/SBC church which just recently cut its ties with the CBF after being rather significant in its formation. Their initial proposal was to take references to both the CBF and the SBC out of their By-Laws because "the SBC might change in the future to the extent that we no longer want to formally associate with them." I think this was considering the recent change to a younger, more progressive President for the first time in decades. I successfully argued that if we were going to cut ties to the CBF it shouldn't be hidden but clearly stated.

It is true that the American Baptists still do not have a convention-wide creed. But individual churches create their own statement of faith which can be very much like the well-known confessions. As a Deacon, I drafted the initial statement which was then edited by the other Deacons and the Pastor and presented to the church which approved it. I almost exclusively followed the New Hampshire Confession of 1863 which I personally still accept as the statement of my faith. It is very much like the 1925 BF&M. But the 1963 and 2000 BF&M's made changes to this statement primarily on Eternal Security (1963) and The Family (2000). I have issues with both of these changes but the historical SBC allowed for a personal interpretation of our faith. The Fundamentalist takeover of the SBC and especially the installation of Albert Mohler as the President of Southern Seminary changed this by hardening the BF&M into a Creed that must be signed by seminary professors and missionaries.

Therefore, the question of whether or not the SBC has a creed is a moot point. We have a creed.