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Baptist
Confessions of Faith
by Carol Crawford Holcomb When
Baptists talk about confessions of faith, someone usually asks what the
difference is between a confession and a creed. It is true that confessions
and creeds could both be described as concise statements of belief, but the
difference hinges upon how they are used. Baptists originated in 17th-century
England when state churches crafted creeds that carried the force of law.
These churches imposed penalties upon those such as Baptists who dissented
from accepted doctrine or practice. Baptist confessions carried no punitive
measures, but rather affirmed what a group of Baptists believed in a
specific time and place. Creeds connote coercion while confessions suggest
voluntarism. The
story of Baptist confessions begins with two Englishmen, John Smyth and
Thomas Helwys, who founded the first Baptist church in 1609. Smyth wrote a
short statement of faith in 1609 to explain his views to the Dutch
Mennonites. His confession countered the prevailing Calvinism of the day by
affirming free will and denying the existence of original sin. However,
historians consider Helwys’ Declaration of Faith written in 1611 to
be the first Baptist confession of faith. Because Smyth and Helwys held that
Christ died for all people (general atonement), this original group of
English Baptists became known as General Baptists.
The earliest Particular
(Calvinistic) Baptist churches emerged during the tumultuous years leading
up to the English Civil War. The attitude toward Baptists in the 1630s and
1640s was decidedly negative. Baptists were
accused of publishing “seditious pamphlets,”
of conducting “night meetings of naked men and women,” and of promoting
“licentious spiritual marriages.” English authorities disrupted Baptist
meetings, assaulted church members, and often placed them in jail.
Because of these
accusations and persecutions, seven Particular Baptist churches issued the
First London Confession in 1644 to set the record straight concerning
their beliefs and practices. The document reflects the Reformed emphases of
original sin, particular election, limited atonement, and lack of free will.
Thus, the thorough Calvinism of the First London Confession demonstrated
that Particular Baptists were in step with the larger Puritan movement and
commended them as orthodox to their contemporaries in England.
Under King Charles II
all those who dissented from the Anglican pattern experienced persecution.
Particular Baptists again felt pressure to state their agreement with their
fellow dissenters— Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The framers of the
Second London Confession of 1677 patterned their document on the
Westminster Confession and retained the wording of the articles that agreed
with their faith. Particular Baptists demonstrated their agreement with the
Reformed tradition to minimize persecution.
The first Baptist
association in America was organized in Philadelphia in 1707. Elias Keach
and his father, Benjamin Keach, revised the Second London Confession to form
the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, which was adopted by the
association in 1742. In addition to aiding in apologetics and education,
this confession served as a basis of union for merging groups. This was the
primary confession for Calvinistic Baptists until the Second Great
Awakening.
About the time
Philadelphia Baptists were adopting their confession, the revivals of the
First Great Awakening produced a new strain of Baptists—
largely converts from Congregationalist
churches. These new “Separate Baptists” rejected confessions of faith in the
Colonial Era because they had experienced them as tools of coercion within
Congregationalism. This Separate Baptist tradition profoundly influenced
Baptists in the South.
In response to the
doctrinal diversity in their state, New Hampshire Baptists adopted a
softened form of Calvinism in their New Hampshire Confession of 1833.
The doctrines of free will and divine election were equally acknowledged
along with perseverance of the saints and the judgment of the wicked. In the
20th century when Southern Baptists met to draft a confession in
response to the bitter struggles over fundamentalism and evolution, they
turned to the New Hampshire confession as a guide. The result was the
Baptist Faith and Message of 1925. The SBC adopted this
confession along with a preface that contained five articles enumerating the
limits of confessions of faith, stating strongly that the “sole authority
for faith and practice among Baptists” is the Bible. “Confessions are
guides,” continued article 4, “having no authority over conscience.”
Unfortunately, the
Baptist Faith and Message of 1925 failed to eliminate the conflicts within
Baptist life. The churches greeted the document with a “tremendous outburst
of silence.” When tensions resurfaced in the 1960s over the authority of the
Bible, the convention called a committee to revisit the confession. The
committee was comprised of the presidents of the various state conventions
and chaired by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Herschel
Hobbs. The SBC adopted the committee’s work as the Baptist Faith and
Message of 1963.
The revision preserved
the flavor of the 1925 confession while nuancing the traditional Calvinism
and expanding the doctrine of God. The confession also included two
additional statements on the scriptures: “the Holy Bible is the record of
God’s revelation of himself to man,” and “the criterion by which the Bible
is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.”
The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message remained
the doctrinal expression of the SBC until 1998 when the new fundamentalist
leadership of the SBC felt it necessary to revise the document to better
reflect their beliefs. The convention approved a full revision in 2000.
Among other changes this revision deleted the above additions on the
scriptures—effectively removing the Christological criterion for
interpreting the Bible.
The most glaring
additions were social and ethical articles—including statements defining
marriage and family, requiring wives to “graciously submit” to their
husbands, and excluding women from pastoral ministry. Upon its completion,
the SBC leadership used the confession as an instrument of conformity,
compelling denominational employees to sign the document as evidence of
their orthodoxy. Ultimately, the convention extended the policy to include
missionaries, many of whom resigned from their ministries rather than sign
the new confession.
Baptist churches and
individuals have drafted confessions of faith since 1609 for a variety of
reasons. Individuals and associations adopted confessions for polemical and
educational reasons. In times of persecution, confessions functioned as
apologies, answering false accusations and offering testimony of the Baptist
faith to all who could be persuaded. The Baptist identity was forged in the
fires of persecution brought about by their refusal to conform to the creed
of a state church. This historical experience shaped their views of
religious liberty, freedom of conscience, and confessions of faith. The
theology expressed in these confessions is quite diverse, and there have
been instances in which Baptists have used their confessions as creeds. Yet,
the prevailing Baptist approach has been that confessions are merely guides
and that the sole written authority for Baptist faith and practice is the
Bible.
Carol Crawford Holcomb
is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
in Belton, Texas. |
