A Generous Creedalism

Some thoughts on how good theology helps us be more open-handed

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nicea.jpg)

(A six-minute read.)

A few weeks ago, something Katelyn Beaty wrote caught my eye. A self-described “post-evangelical,” Beaty used to be an editor for Christianity Today, before making her way out of evangelicalism.

While detailing some of her concerns with this branch of Protestant Christianity, she nevertheless included this perceptive perspective:

Every religious, political, and cultural body has to figure out some boundaries. That’s as true for the Unitarian Universalists and the local Freemason chapter as it is for evangelicals. For belief and belonging to cohere, there will be certain things we agree are true and, by implication, untrue. Or, if that’s too dogmatic, a certain vision of life we aspire to, and a certain vision of life we agree is harmful and should be avoided. For as much as people in a modern pluralist society might balk at them, confessional boundaries give people and communities meaning and purpose. I just don’t think you can build a sturdy life without some sturdy boundaries.

Beaty’s reflections here resonate with me a great deal.

As I’ve noted a number of times before, this issue essentially gets at the heart of my doctoral research. I’m studying why it is that so many Protestants in nineteenth-century America were self-purportedly opposed to the creation and use of creeds (that is, statements of belief that were used to determine who was or wasn’t qualified to be a member of their particular faith community).

The research I’ve done has been a combination of fascinating, enlightening, and tedious (as would be expected with doctoral-level research). And there’s been many interesting discoveries along the way—which I’ll be excited to fully share with the world in about four or five years.

But the one thing I’ll say for now is this: before starting my research, I was completely sold out to the idea that not having any sort of creed or statement of belief was the way to go. Just eliminate all theological boundaries, I thought, and trust that winsome persuasion can “win out” without the need to explicitly “enforce” those boundaries.

After nearly three years of study, however, I’m not sure that’s wise—for a number of reasons. And, perhaps more significantly, I’m not sure it’s even really possible.

Indeed, I think it’s both inevitable and advisable that a faith community has some sort of creed.

Because, the reality is, as Beaty implies above, every organization seems to have a creed anyway.

And the question then becomes, as Carl Truman has argued, whether it’s explicitly written out or not (with him insisting—rightfully, I think—that it’s more honest and gracious to just write it out explicitly so everyone knows what they’re dealing with).

With all that said, I’ve come to think that the best way to articulate what I’m advocating for is what I’d call a “generous creedalism.”

With this phrase, I’m playing off—as I’ve written about before—a phrase that Yale theologian Hans Frei coined (and Brian McLaren popularized).

Frei talked about a “generous orthodoxy,” which reflects a strong commitment to the classic tenets of the Christian faith—and, precisely because of this theological commitment, extends a generous, gracious, adventurous, open-handed attitude toward “new light” (as my faith community would call it) and those who may not subscribe to the “old light” we’re committed to.

I know I’ve quoted this a thousand times before, but Fleming Rutledge captures what I’m talking about wonderfully, when, speaking of her own vision, she puts it this way:

[W]e cannot do without orthodoxy, for everything else must be tested against it, but that orthodox (traditional, classical) Christian faith should by definition always be generous as our God is generous; lavish in his creation, binding himself in an unconditional covenant, revealing himself in the calling of a people, self-sacrificing in the death of his Son, prodigal in the gifts of the Spirit, justifying the ungodly and indeed, offending the “righteous” by the indiscriminate nature of his favor. True Christian orthodoxy therefore cannot be narrow, pinched, or defensive but always spacious, adventurous and unafraid.

So I apply all this to creeds and statements of faith—which, in my perspective, are effectively the same thing—as well.

I’m wholly committed to and excited about the particular way my faith community articulates our theological vision (though, see below), and I think it’s pretty reasonable that we’d expect that people who want to join—or remain in—our movement align with that theological vision.

And, precisely because of that theological vision, I want to pursue generosity in the way I hold onto that creed and the way I promote it with others.

How that gets “cashed out” on a practical level is something I’m still grappling with.

For example, what do I do if I—as a pastor who’s highly committed to creative and contextual ways of sharing my faith—have someone who wants to officially join my faith community, but can only get on board with 95% of my faith community’s “creed”?

Or what happens if—and this is probably way more common—I have a 30-something in my congregation who’s grown up in my faith community but has developed fairly significant doubts about one or two of our tenets—and yet he or she is asked to be a leader in my congregation?

I’m still processing how my “generous creedalism” would operate in those scenarios.

But a few preliminary thoughts about this “generous creedalism” would go like this (these could each be full posts in themselves).

If I was made the “benevolent dictator” of my particular faith community for a day, I’d try to do this:

1. I’d start from scratch with our “Fundamental Beliefs” and articulate them in a different way.

I’d make them more centered on Jesus and love. I’d tighten them up and shorten them—and would likely omit one or two of them altogether. I’d perhaps turn them into a “Fundamental Story” instead of “Fundamental Beliefs.”

I’d want others to help with all this, of course, as I’m in no way infallible.

And I recognize that doing all this runs the risk of doing precisely what one of the great drawbacks of creeds has always been: making them a product of their time and place.

And, no, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel every generation or two, starting from scratch with the way we articulate our theology every few decades.

But I do think the way my faith community currently articulates our beliefs could use major revision.

2. I’d want to do all I could to ensure that people in my faith community—especially leaders—prioritized embodied people over abstract ideas and doctrines.

I’m not a big fan of what historian George Marsden, in describing his own Reformed family, calls “doctrinalists”—that is, people whose main priority is to guard the boundaries of theological orthodoxy, caring more about ideas than people.

Yes, I do believe this “generous creedalism” does make much of ideas and theology. But not over and above the thoughts, feelings, and wellbeing of people who are made in the image of God.

So we need to repeat it over and over and over again that, yes, we’re joyously committed to our “creed,” and precisely because of that, we’re even more joyously committed to people.

3. As I’ve written before, I’d want to try to firmly establish in people’s minds that membership in our particular faith community doesn’t equate to being accepted by God.

Again, I’d want to repeat this over and over and over again—which would, among other things, hopefully help people understand that just because we may have to part company over differences of theological conviction, it doesn’t mean we think those differences of conviction mark a person’s departure from God’s love or acceptance.

As I said, how exactly my “generous creedalism” manifests on a practical level is something I’m still wrestling with. But these are some broad principles that I want to keep in mind in pursuit of it.

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Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.