The Christadelphian July 1952, John Carter

“Statements of Faith”

There is much confused thinking concerning Statements of Faith. The Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith represents an honest effort to set forth what those who accept it believe the Scriptures teach. A favourite cry of those who do not accept all its teaching and who would discard it as a basis of fellowship is that it is “a man-made statement”. By thus disparaging it they think they have disposed of it. They then usually proceed to set out their own views on the doctrines at issue in opposition to the definitions of the statement, combining their own interpretations with a cry of letting the Bible be our Statement. What is really meant is that their particular views of the teaching of the Bible should be accepted.

The Bible does not formulate its teaching in the form of a Creed; and because men have laid hold of isolated statements as the basis of their teaching the authority of the Bible has been claimed for very contradictory views. Thus, two men could each say, “I believe what the Bible teaches”, and yet hold opposing ideas. The matter might be illustrated in this way. A statement could be drawn up in the words of Scripture which would embody all the errors espoused by a Christianity that had adopted pagan fables. We have sometimes thought of formulating such a statement to illustrate the point. Every one claiming the name Christadelphian would join in protesting that the Scriptures used were misapplied, that the meaning given to them was contrary to the general teaching of the Scriptures. Yet it would be a Statement in the very words of Scripture.

The Lord expounded the Scriptures and gave an infallible interpretation to them; but his opponents did not accept his interpretation. They searched the Scriptures to establish their doctrines and misused the texts they relied upon to prove their truth. There has been a similar state of things in the history of Christendom. The trinitarian and the immortal soulist both quote Scripture, and both we believe are mistaken. But everyone who speaks or writes in exposition of the Scriptures is attempting to define its meaning. Those who object to the Statement of Faith make a statement of their own faith in their own teaching, which they seek to sustain by Scripture testimony. It is, therefore, not sufficient that a man say “I believe such a passage of Scripture”; what is required is a declaration of what in his view that passage of Scripture means: such a declaration is the man’s statement of faith, and is necessarily a man-made statement.

A man, then, and also a community must define the beliefs held: only then can there be set forth the teaching for which the community stands. Otherwise every address and every writing which is not entirely in the words of the Bible would have to be discarded; no lectures or pamphlets would be possible—they are all man-made.

The cry of man-made statements is to be viewed with grave suspicion—it usually indicates dissent from one or more of the clauses of the Statement of Faith. The latest illustration comes in the form of a typescript from Australia which severely criticizes three Clauses of the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith as unscriptural, advocates that the Statement be discarded altogether and that we be content with a Statement of Faith of the Scriptures alone. The present Statement is blamed as a root cause of divisions. But if some believe the doctrines set forth in the Statement and some do not, the presence or absence of a Statement in no way affects the fact that division of opinion exists. The real meaning of the opposition to the Statement is that there is not unity or belief. When the writer says, “Our ecclesias have always extended the hand of welcome to all brethren and sisters of the Christadelphian Faith”, in view of his own objections to the Statement in so many of its clauses one can only wonder what is meant by “the Christadelphian Faith” in this assertion: is it the writer’s “Faith” or the “Statement of Faith”, part of which he rejects? And why should not another reject three more clauses, and another a further three clauses? With nine clauses challenged would it be a Chrisdelphian Ecclesia? If not, just where must we draw the line?