Creeds and Confessions - Quotations

At the New England Reformed Fellowship’s annual Bolton Conference (held Oct. 25-26, 2013) Carl Trueman spoke on the topic the role of creeds and confessions in the church.  Here is some of what he had to say:

“Scripture is the norming norm, creeds are the normed norm.” Scripture is always our ultimate authority – but we can still say that creeds are a church’s normative doctrines and practices, because they were created from Scripture. In that sense, creeds have authority.

“If you don’t write your creeds, no one can critique them. Creeds strip us of magisterial authority.” Despite common misconceptions, creeds actually dis-empower pastors from a form of papal authority. Creeds lay out the church’s stances on scripture and a.) Let everyone search the scriptures and evaluate the pastor’s stance and b.) Keep the pastor from imposing personal preferences (Don’t smoke, or chew, or run with those who do, etc.) Saying “No creed but the Bible” makes the pastor king of interpretation.

“Notice – no creed has the words ‘we just’” Trueman was taking a jab at the lack of thought we often put into our prayers – the words “we just” don’t make their way into a thought through confession, nor someone who is praying with depth of belief based on rich tradition.

“We all operate from a tradition, whether we acknowledge it or not. Some write it down, others don’t.” Every pastor I’ve ever known who is against creeds uses an English Bible – which means their beliefs are founded on a lexical, textual tradition. They would also take issue with other faiths who claim the Bible as creed, like Mormons or Muslims. The difference is, some of us make this tradition clear by writing it out, and others don’t.

Carl R Trueman is Departmental Chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has an MA in Classics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Church History from the University of Aberdeen. He is editor of the IFES journal, Themelios, and has taught on the faculties of theology at both the University of Nottingham and the University of Aberdeen.

Excerpted from http://scribblepreach.com/2013/10/29/carl-truemans-top-10-quotes-on-creeds-and-confessions/