Educators want BWA members to recite creed (updated)

By Steve DeVane

BR Managing Editor

The longstanding Baptist cry of "No creed but the Bible," isn't stopping a group of theologians and educators from asking the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) to recite the Apostles' Creed at the group's 100th anniversary meeting next year.

The scholars say the move would repeat the first act of the BWA World Congress in July 1905.

The request was signed by 28 theologians and educators from 10 countries. Steve Harmon and Barry Jones from Campbell University Divinity School and Curtis Freeman from Duke University's Baptist House of Studies signed the document.

A letter dated June 23 and an explanatory statement called, "Confessing the Faith," was sent to Keith Jones, the chair of the BWA Resolutions Committee.

Jones said in an e-mail reply to questions about the request that he believes the program committee was considering the recitiation of a creed before the educators made the request. John Sundquist, the chair of the program committee, confirmed in an e-mail that the Apostles' Creed will be recited in the opening session of the Centenary Congress.

BWA executive director Denton Lotz said in an e-mail statement that he suggested four years ago that those attending the meeting next year recite the creed.

"We had already informed various Baptist theologians about this proposal," he said. "Baptists worldwide are always ready to affirm our orthodox and evangelical faith as expressed in the Apostle's Creed!"

Jones said his committee is also working on "a significant statement on Baptist identity for presentation to the Congress." BWA officers asked the committee to develop the statement, he said.

Harmon, associate professor of Christian Theology at Campbell's Divinity School, Freeman; Elizabeth Newman from the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond; and Philip E. Thompson, of the North American Baptist Theological Seminary wrote the accompanying paper.

The statement written by the four said the recitation of the Apostles' Creed in 1905 was a surprising act for Baptists.

"Many Baptists acquired an allergy to creeds because of the illegitimate ways they have been used to bind the individual conscience, to substitute for a personal confession of faith, or to underwrite an established church-state order," the statement said. "Creeds are misused whenever they become instruments of coercion, just as religious liberty is abused when it is invoked to legitimate deviation from the living witness of apostolic faith."

BWA President Alexander Maclaren called for members of the BWA's first congress to rise and confess the Apostles' Creed "not as a piece of coercion or discipline, but as a simple acknowledgement of where we stand and what we believe," the statement said.

The explanation said that staunch anti-creedalism has often led to "the faulty assumption that modern Christians can leapfrog from the primitive Christianity of the Bible to the contemporary situation with relative ease."

"Ironically, in the wake of the Baptist encounter with modernity those from both ends of the theological spectrum employed the slogan, 'no creed but the Bible,' in their theological arguments," it said. "Serious Bible readers will find much needed hermeneutical guidance by returning to the ancient creeds of the church."

In an e-mail interview, Harmon said the issue grew out of conversations during a meeting of the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion Region-at-Large in Washington, D.C., on June 3-6.

The intention was to draw on the Southern Baptist Convention's recent withdrawal from BWA over charges of liberalism as a "teachable moment," Harmon said. The educators hope to move the Baptist theological discourse "away from the worn-out labels of 'conservative' vs. 'liberal' that belong to a dying modernity," he said.

"In other words, we believe that one of the most pressing issues on the Baptist agenda at the beginning of the second century of the Baptist World Alliance and its witness to the world is recovery of the connection of Baptists to the ancient tradition that they share in common with all other Christians," he said. "At the same time, we believe that one obstacle to such a recovery is a misunderstanding, widespread among non-fundamentalist Baptists, of the nature and function of such ancient ecumenical creeds as the Apostles' Creed and the 'Nicene' Creed, which summarize and communicate this ancient tradition that Baptists share in common with all other Christians."

Newman and Thompson both have N.C. ties, Harmon said. Newman grew up in Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville and graduated from Wake Forest University. Thompson served as pastor of a church in Pendleton and graduated from Mars Hill College.

Other signers of the document and their schools are Mikael Broadway, Shaw University Divinity School, Raleigh; Biju Chacko, India Baptist Theological Seminary, Kottayam, India; Christopher J. Ellis, Bristol Baptist College, Bristol, England; Rosalee Velloso Ewell, South American Theological Seminary, Londrina, Brazil; Paul Fiddes, Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, Oxford, England; James Gordon, Scottish Baptist College, Paisley, Scotland; Doug Harink, King's University College, Alberta, Canada; Barry Harvey, Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Stephen Holmes, King's College, London, England; Willie J. Jennings; Duke Divinity School, Durham; Roy Kearsley, South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff, Wales; Ken R. Manley, Whitley College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Nathan Nettleton, Whitley College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Parush R. Parushev, International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague, Czech Republic; Frank Rees, Whitley College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; Luis Rivera, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.; J. Deotis Roberts, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (retired), Philadelphia, Pa.; Karen Smith, South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff, Wales; John Weaver, South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff, Wales; Daniel H. Williams, Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Jonathan Wilson, Acadia Divinity College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia; Ralph Wood, Baylor University, Waco, Texas; and Nigel G. Wright, Spurgeon's College, London, England.