Unity of the Faith

Just to clarify, I personally am not against creeds and confessions of faith. I think they are very useful documents for historical, theological and spiritual reasons. But I do think that they can be abused and have in some cases been the cause of division in the body of Christ. This view is not a particularly new or special view but has been one that is a major part of the protestant reformation and the baptist tradition.

 

Please forgive me, but I am wrong for thinking you guys are taking this board way too seriously? I do enjoy reading the various posts and enjoy posting to from time to time, but reporting non-Baptists who post on on the Baptist forum, isn't that a little geeky/nerdy? I mean we are supposed to be born again believers in Jesus Christ who show love, patience, and kindness toward one another.

 

There are portions of the board reserved for baptists and other portions for all Christians.

 

I think this is the key. Baptists, to my knowledge, have never placed a creed or confession above the Bible. It has always been a summary of biblical teaching.

 

It's called abiding by the forum rules. Why are you criticizing the ones who play by the rules and defending the one who doesn't?

 

Simply saying that one believes the Bible or that he or she is a Christian isn't good enough. Both statements can mean anything and everything. Come on. J.W.'s and Mormons will tell you that they believe the Bible and that they are Christians. Creeds, etc. help us to understand what "I believe the Bible" means or what one's definition of "Christian" actually means.

 

This is a debate forum. This is the norm for the debate forums.

 

How have creeds been used for division? I'm thinking of creeds like the Nicene, Apostles', and Athanasian.

Also, even if they have, that does not mean creeds are not good things. Anything can be misused but if it based on the Bible and shows the unity of believers in the essentials, its goodness outweighs abuse done by the minority.

 

They have to be aware of them, they have to click saying that they agree with them when joining here.

 

It is against board rules for nonbaptists to post in the baptist only area. A new member agrees with this when they join, and immediately breaks the rules they agreed too. To manitain order the rules must be upheld. Should we allow and encourage people to break rules? A person does not have to like the rules, they must hoswever obey them, everyone agreed to them when they joined. This would be like lying,clicking and saying yes I agree to the rules, and immediately break them on purpose.

 

Let me return to the OP and talk about unity. The Biblical ideal is, of course, unity and harmony among believers. The problem is, it's an impossible goal to reach this side of heaven.

Honest and sincere believers appeal to the same scriptures and come to different conclusions. The so-called "Church," is desperately dysfunctional, fractured, and useless, and basically has no reason to exist.

If unity is the highest priority, then I ask, what are you silling to do in order to achieve it? What do you desire that I do about it? Shall we paper over our differences and pretend that they are secondary or non-essential?

So the "Church," which doesn't really exist, is the wrong place to strive for unity.

However, there is a place where you will find harmony and unity. In my church, and hundreds and thousands of local Baptist congregations around the world. Dare I say, you'll find it in Methodist and Presbyterian congregations (even though they're wrong about some things).

Now, can I fellowship with Presbyterian and Methodist believers? Of course. But beyond our common faith, we're not and never will be unified. Well, let me take that back. We will be in harmony on all points someday, when we gather in the great General Assembly in heaven. Then my Presbyterian and Methodist brothers and sisters will all believe the same thing. They'll be Baptists.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

Let me return to the OP and talk about unity. The Biblical ideal is, of course, unity and harmony among believers. The problem is, it's an impossible goal to reach this side of heaven.

Honest and sincere believers appeal to the same scriptures and come to different conclusions. The so-called "Church," is desperately dysfunctional, fractured, and useless, and basically has no reason to exist.

If unity is the highest priority, then I ask, what are you silling to do in order to achieve it? What do you desire that I do about it? Shall we paper over our differences and pretend that they are secondary or non-essential?

So the "Church," which doesn't really exist, is the wrong place to strive for unity.

However, there is a place where you will find harmony and unity. In my church, and hundreds and thousands of local Baptist congregations around the world. Dare I say, you'll find it in Methodist and Presbyterian congregations (even though they're wrong about some things).

Now, can I fellowship with Presbyterian and Methodist believers? Of course. But beyond our common faith, we're not and never will be unified. Well, let me take that back. We will be in harmony on all points someday, when we gather in the great General Assembly in heaven. Then my Presbyterian and Methodist brothers and sisters will all believe the same thing. They'll be Baptists.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

As I stated in the post you quoted, I agree with you that creeds are good for historical, theological and spiritual reasons.

Regarding creeds that have caused division, the classic example is the Filioque clause in the Nicene creed that contributed to the East-West Schism of the Christian church into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. There were other reasons for the schism but the clause is commonly cited as a major one.

Additionally, the Chalcedonian creed was instrumental in the Council of Chalcedon that declared Monophysitism to be a heresy. This lead to the division between the Oriental Orthodox Church and the rest of the Christian church which eventually became the RCC and EOC. The RCC and EOC now acknowledge that the Oriental Orthodox Church probably didn't believe in Monophysitism and recognize their view of Miaphysitism as orthodox. The Oriental Orthodox church is currently in a process of refellowshipping with the RCC and EOC after more than 1500 years of division.

 

While I agree with you that it is probably impossible to achieve unity this side of heaven, I do not think that it diminishes the biblical prayer of Christ in John 17 and Paul's command in Ephesians 4 for Christians to practice unity.

We also have these words from Jesus.

But He said, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God. Luke 18:27 NASB

 

I would be the last one to diminish Christ's prayer and Paul's command. God instructed the OT prophets to preach of his command to turn from sin, knowing that Israel would not.

Preachers preach for the need for revival, knowing that absent an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it won't happen. Yet they still preach it.

If a lack of unity wasn't a problem, there'd be no need to pray for it, and Paul wouldn't have to spend time calling for it.

 

The problem is there is a false ideology that is being espoused that says we should be unified in our diversity( ie different doctrines). However, this s not a scriptural teaching:

Eph 4:10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Eph 4:11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
Eph 4:12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Eph 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
Eph 4:14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Eph 4:15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, (ESV)

There can be no unity outside of doctrine. The doctrine of the Priesthood of the believers in most cases is not taught biblically and is misused to excuse every wind of doctrine men want to hang on to.

 

I think he's free will Baptist, so he's Baptist and can post here. At least, that's what I saw on his profile unless I'm recalling incorrectly.

 

Yes, I'm familiar with that but I think the differences are much deeper than that clause. That might have been the reason, but I think differences were already there.

But at the time, they thought it was Monophysitism, and that would be a heresy. So they erred in maybe discerning what the Oriental Orthodox Church believed but that's not really a problem with a creed, but rather with erring on what a group believed.

I don't these 2 examples show that creeds cause unnecessary division.

 

In essentials, unity. In all other matters diversity must be allowed tolerance.

I read a post under ordination that troubled me greatly. A requirement to believe pretribulational premillennialism, and I presume that included dispenasationalism. I was told it was different to fellowshipping, but really is not. I am being disallowed because I embrace amillennialism and do not believe in a so-called "rapture". This is a non-essential and each of the four viewpoints have been presented by baptists down through the years. It is a shame, to my mind, to make such a division.

Our fellowship is in Jesus. On this point we can find fellowship and unity whilst enjoying the different denominations.

Cheers,

Jim

PS. I am NOT including false doctrine here, such as the cults.