conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

Two questions based on that interesting posting:

1. How does one know what's "inspired" and what's not? The Bible was written down by human beings, after all.

2. What is "doctrinal unity" if not creed?

1. I have no idea. Really. Let me get back to you. It has simply been the view of the church (read: institutions claiming Jesus) for 2000 years that the canon is inspired, in line with the teaching of the Apostles from the 1st Century. Now, the incarnational aspect of Christianity would encourage Human Authorship. The Word (whether Jesus or the Bible) is incarnate. It is a true model for Christian life.

2. Is doctrinal unity open to opposition or change? It is a question to answer a question. Sorry. But it is the party line. This is the fine line Baptists walk. What makes us Baptist is the doctrine that says there is no "right" dotrine. Oxymoronic as it may seem, it is where we try to live...most of us anyway.

But, as a Baptist, I would say that Christian identity is not dependant upon your agreeing with even this doctrine. Only your Baptist identitiy is...and that too is arguable.

All that to say, that some Baptists would say that the Southern Baptist Convention is no longer Baptist because it is creedal and enforces doctrinal adherence. This does not mean it is not Christian. It is just not being very Baptist.

I'll take up the creedal defense. I don't believe creeds have legal status, nor that dissent deserves punishment. I do believe that they narrate the salvation story. We can't stand up and "say the Bible" each week. When we say the creed, we say this is the story of our salvation. If we change the creed, we abandon that belief in Jesus as the same yesterday, today and forever. The creeds are written by humans, but so's the Bible. Because they are written by ancient authors, because they have been said for about 1900 years maybe, they tie our faith to the faith of our ancestors. I'm talking about the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed - I assume you are too. We can argue over nature and grace, predestination vs. free will, etc. But the stuff in those two creeds are the essentials of faith. If we can't agree on the essentials, I think we're in trouble. My bishop wants to abandon the belief in the resurrection and the divinity of Jesus. I think he's left the faith behind and moving to Unitarianism. He'd disagree, I'm sure, and just say he's "reinterpreting" the creeds for modern times.

I need to be careful, because I do not want to say that intellectual assent is what binds Christians together. Faith is not just intellectual assent. But when we are baptized, aren't we asked the questions in the creed? Well, at least we Methodists are. That's how the creed began. When we say the creed, aren't we reaffirming our baptism in a sense? We say, I believe in this story of salvation. Can we think of the creed as a fence? Fences shouldn't have such a negative image. Fences keep our children from wandering into the street and getting run over by cars. I think running outside the fence, or dissenting from the essentials of faith, can hurt you. If we refute Jesus as risen from the dead for example, wouldn't we still be in our sins as St. Paul said?

Creeds should not reflect contemporary experience. We should shape ourselves to the story in the creed, not the other way around. Also, there's a variety of interpretations for the Bible, too. Does the Bible defeat its own purpose also? I think the creeds do concentrate authority in scripture and in tradition, not in themselves.

Tripp, re doctrinal unity -- if there's opposition, it's not unity, is it?

The unity is in Christ. Sameness is not unity. This is not a collective or a borg. It is allegiance, agreement or disagreement aside.

[Momentarily emerging from blog-silence to comment]

I concur with Jennifer. The Creeds are not some legal contract. Nor are they exhaustive of the essentials of the Faith (because that would reduce Faith to mere intellect).

Rather the Creeds are a life and a family name. Before my late grandfather's passing, *the* Thanksgiving ritual at the Healy farm was the afternoon pinochle game. The ritual never varied in its essentials. Dinner noonish. Family gabbing at the table till mid-to-late afternoon. Then the dishes were cleared and the pinochle game began. There was language, content, rules, even a family history. One was woven into the family through this Thanksgiving Day afternoon ritual. I saw it many, many times. Ingrafted in-laws would come in and utter various pinochle-heresies and sqirmy-pinochle-vocabulary. These "heresies" and new words were fine for what they were, but if you wanted to be part of the family, you learned the lingo, including rituals, patterns of behaving and rules. If you couldn't agree on the basics--an agreement that was assent but also "living"--then you were an "outsider" camping out on new pinochle turf, and a welcome guest. But not part of the family.

Crappy analogy, perhaps. Breaks down quite quickly. But only meant to illustrate what seems to me to be the dynamic among the Orthodox. Creeds are Faith, which is to say, a way of Life and a naming. It's not about parsing or infractions. It's about whether you want to be a part of the family or not. And if so, you don't get to remake the family until you've been family for some time.

good thinking all.

One thing to think about in all this is the following: the non-creedal approach for baptists stems from a period where one could be flogged, beaten, stonned, imprisoned, fined or even killed for professing religious belief contrary to the state church and whatever creeds it may have. This position is thusly reactive.

Another thing: The writers of the pamphlets were reacting against perceived persecution by other baptists. Being abandoned on the mission field, having one's tenure revoked, churches being disfellowshipped etc...though certainly not flogging in a public square, these are oppressive actions taken against those holding "unorthodox" opinions such as allowing for the ordination of women and other notions. It was never a questio of wether one could recite the Nicene Creed, for example. There were other tests to be taken/failed.

A non-creedal approach is antithetical, in this case, to any sort of fundamentalism, liberal or conservative.

And a third thing, just to keep things in bounds, historically this is always an argument within Christian context. Interreligious dialogue was not an issue in either instance per se. Yes, one can go there quite easily, but the context is "supposed" to be within Christianity.

Jane Ellen has posted something interesting on creeds, gang. Check it out. She is wise.

"The unity is in Christ. Sameness is not unity. This is not a collective or a borg. It is allegiance, agreement or disagreement aside."

Tripp, if this is true, then anybody could claim to be a Baptist. A Roman Catholic could claim to be a Baptist -- both believe in Christ. A Quaker could claim to be a Baptist. An Orthodox practitioner could claim to be a Baptist.

Megan: Sure, but a better way to think about it may be this: Baptists, in general (always the problem), see themselves as part of Christianity (that mystical church idea). So, we allow for the various tradition to exist. They are all Christain. That being said, we know that there are strains of baptists that are not so charitable, but the CBF and majority of ABC certainly stand in a more charitable position.

When I first started at Seabury, an Episcopal school, I asked Doug and Carol if they would be horribly surprised if I came out of it wanting to become Episcopal. Doug's response was classic. "They are still Christian, right?" That is perhaps a better way to get at it.

In the earlest documents of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, the first of its kind in the U.S., there are many moments when churches split over some point of theology but remain in the association. Usually something like "Though we can no longer worship with one another, we will not allow these trivial differences that have no bearing on salvation destroy our unity as baptists." will be said. They believed that these struggles and differences were a sign of both sin and freedom. And that these two ideas will not be reconciled until the second coming of Christ.

Refusing to worship with someone does not seem like a "trivial difference" to me.

I still don't understand why the Baptists are a denomination.

Refusing to worship was actually comparatively pastoral to other options popular at the time.

Why are Baptists a denomination?

The short of it is shared resources. We wish to do missions. It is easier to do this if we share resources.

It really is that simple. There are shared beliefs, yes. But as you noted, how one engages or decides not to engage in them is so varried that one cannot define denomination strictly by shared ideologies.

As a congregationalist denomination, the begining and end of the church is the congregation. Anything else is simply willing affiliation. Thus, we have regions, associations, fellowships, cooperatives and conventions, not One Church.

"Why are Baptists a denomination?

The short of it is shared resources. We wish to do missions. It is easier to do this if we share resources."

Ah! Finally, an answer that will stick! Gracias, Tripp.

De nada.

I don't know who Megan is, but it seems she and I think alike. She wants to know why Baptists are a denomination. Seems like the other side of my question that I'm going to ask here in public. Why aren't all congregational churches one big denomination? What keeps you apart? This is resources and money, too?

what keeps us apart? theology. We do not all share the same theology. What is the ECUSA seperate from the Roman church? Your ecclesiology is very similar. It is your theology that differs so.

hmm..this is quite interesting

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