Well, over Friday evening and through Saturday, a group of about 50 of us had the privilege of hearing Carl Trueman speak on the topic of Creeds and Confessions. It was excellent – lots of stuff to think about, and lots of great encouragement too! Carl took three sessions (with Mark Thompson taking a great session on the 39 Articles in between) which were:
- Christians who know what they believe in a world which believes nothing
- Confessing Christ in context
- Confessing Christ in the future
These are some of the key points I thought Carl made during his lectures (it’s a little random, but worth putting down!):
- Contra today’s emphasis on progress, and the future, Christians know that 1) Truth is verbally formulated, 2) There are bodies which do the formulation, and 3) Truth can, to some extent, cross time and space.
- God does Church, we don’t! And Church is a doctrinal entity (not purely experiential), which presupposes knowledge and experience, which in turn presupposes office (Heb 14:7-9, 1 Tim 5:17, Romans 10:9, Titus 1:5, James 3). Thus, training and age are important.
- The order of Calvin’s institutes cannot be read up into his theology. Crucial.
- There are two types of Christian: One who writes their creeds down in order to be open with what they believe, and the other who prefers to keep them in the background
- The fact that Calvin and Luther didn’t reject the perpetual virginity of Mary shows how they valued tradition.
- The proof-texts of the Westminster Confession of Faith point you to traditions in the commentaries – they aren’t crude and brute proofs in and of themselves. They urge you to pick up the 30 or 40 commentaries on that verse to see why the point was made.
- Confessions are necessary for corporate unity. Eg: the Emerging Church is correct to point out the individualism of current evangelicalism, but hasn’t solved the problem since they haven’t produced any confession of belief. Thus, they have a rubbery, non-existent corporate unity.
- Confessions demonstrate our integrity. Eg, Luther and Zwingli and their disagreement on the Lord’s Supper: [it] “was a tragedy, but would have been an even greater tragedy if they had agreed.”
- Confessions require catechisms. They are vital to the communication of the faith. Carl agrees with Jaroslav Pelikan: “any movement that is based around personal salvation in Jesus but is divorced from creeds and confessions is doomed.”
- Confessions relativise the present. Since they stand the test of time, but they be used to measure how significant current issues are.
- Carl made an interesting suggestion of preaching through confessions. Morning worship with expository sermons, then a church family lunch, then afternoon worship with a sermon based around the week’s confessional point.
- Confessions must not simply be used as a test of orthodoxy, but they should ultimately bring us back to doxology – since of course, that was in the mind of the framers!
Personally, I’ve been challenged to think about my doctrine of baptism, and the importance of this for my future ministry in the Anglican Church. I think I’ve been taking this doctrine quite lightly, but actually should reconsider this, in light of upholding the 39 artictles. And also, I’d be keen to think about preaching through the 39 articles at some point also (bar the one on the Queen!).
So, all in all – a great conference and a great guy. I’m looking forward to Wednesday night’s lecture back at the PTC. It’s on BB Warfield’s theology. Info here.
