The Journal of Baptist Studies 7 (2015)
set up a false dichotomy when it comes to the use of creeds in Baptist life: creeds can serve either as non-binding expressions of faith and worship or in coercive and, therefore, decidedly un-Baptist ways. Conservative, evangelical Baptists would agree that creeds and confessions cannot coerce consciences, but they can and should be used to delimit voluntary and mutual fellowship and cooperation—both within each individual church and within our associational bonds. So in this sense, conservative Baptists are poised to affirm a more robust sense of the authority of the creeds, as local churches and associations voluntarily consent to their use. The creeds possess no Scripture-independent authority, and no ecclesiastical institution can invest them with authority they don’t already possess as faithful renderings of biblical truth. Evangelical Baptists would echo the language of Thomas Oden, who speaks of the authority of the creeds in terms of historical “consensus” grounded in the authority of Scripture. Inasmuch as the ecumenical creeds set forth the basic contours of the biblical God and gospel, they, again to quote the Orthodox Creed, “ought throughly to be received, and believed”—and utilized in the preaching, liturgical, and catechetical ministries of the church. Cult An evangelical Baptist catholicity will also recognize the church’s liturgical life has deep biblical and historical roots and appropriate those patterns and practices biblically mandated or in accord with biblical wisdom. With respect to biblical support for liturgical forms, the life of the people of God has always been patterned in ways that call attention to its sanctified place among the nations. Israel’s cultic and communal practices, and idem, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville. KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005).
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