Do Seventh-day Adventists Have a Creed?

Addressing the claim to have "no creed but the Bible"

Photo credit: me

(A nine-minute read.)

Back in 2018, answering a question from a reader simply known as “Martin,” who was wondering about my denomination’s relationship to Protestantism, Ted N. C. Wilson, current president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, responded with a standard line that has been present within Adventism since before its official founding in 1863.

“As Seventh-day Adventists,” Wilson explained, “we have no creed, other than the Bible itself. We believe and follow the Protestant practice of Sola Scriptura—the Bible and the Bible only.”

In making the claim, Wilson was simply echoing the “preamble” of the denomination’s “Fundamental Beliefs,” which states in the very first sentence that “Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.”

This has been, simply put, the self-understanding of Adventism since before we even officially became a denomination. We have no creed but the Bible, we claim.

Indeed, so committed are we to do this idea that, as it says two sentences later in the preamble, “[r]evison” of our Fundamental Beliefs “may be expected” in the future.

Thus, we are, in theory, super committed to anti-creedalism.

But are we really?

What about in practice?

Though this is not directly what my doctoral research examines, it’s definitely downstream from it.

And what I want to wrestle with briefly here is simply this: is it true that Seventh-day Adventists have no creed but the Bible?

For those reading who aren’t Seventh-day Adventists, my apologies for the “in house” discussion. But I think you’ll find value in the topic anyway—especially since Seventh-day Adventists aren’t the only ones who make such a claim.

In fact, this sort of anti-creedalism was actually one of the most common features of nineteenth-century American Christianity—back when Adventism began.

Just about every American Protestant denomination and movement claimed to be anti-creedal, boasting that they took only the Bible as their sole source of authority and practice.

And most denominations—at least ones that remained biblicist in their commitments—followed a similar pattern as Adventists from the nineteenth century on.

So the question about Adventism can be similarly answered when it comes to other denominations.

Thus, again, to repeat: do Seventh-day Adventists (and similarly-oriented denominations) have a creed?

Defining our terms

Of course, we start with a question: what even is a creed?

I could get complicated here, noting how some historians and theologians claim that nailing down a definition is hard to do. I could also point out how there’s a distinction between a creed and a confession.

But I want to keep it simple.

So, for my purposes here, I’ll take a note from Alexander Campbell, perhaps the archetypical anti-creedalist of the nineteenth century, and use his words to define a creed. A creed, according to his 1843 definition, “is an ecclesiastic document—the mind and will of some synod or council possessing authority—as a term of communion, by which persons and opinions are to be tested, approbated, and reprobated.”

In other words: a creed is an authoritative doctrinal statement, laying out the beliefs of a particular religious body, that is used to determine people’s theological fitness and eligibility for church membership.

And thus, if a person is in agreement with a group’s creed, they’re considered to be “orthodox,” and therefore qualified for membership. If they’re not in agreement with the creed, they’re “heterodox” and not qualified for membership.

Some people would define a creed more minimally, saying it’s simply a statement of faith that is descriptive in nature—regardless of whether a group requires subscription to it as a qualification for membership.

But either way, I think it’s hard to make a case, based on this working definition, that Seventh-day Adventists don’t have a “creed.” We clearly do.

There’s a long history that led to where we are, of course—but it’s very clear that Seventh-day Adventists, firstly, have a statement of beliefs, and, secondly, require people to subscribe to this statement of beliefs in order to be a member of the denomination and, usually, to be employed.

Indeed, the Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual, created and adopted by representatives of the denomination from around the world, makes it explicit:

“Baptismal candidates and those being received into fellowship by profession of faith shall affirm their acceptance of the Fundamental Beliefs in the presence of the local congregation or other properly appointed body.”

So if a person doesn’t “affirm” their “acceptance” of these “Fundamental Beliefs,” then he or she can’t be a member.

Thus, it’s pretty clear: Seventh-day Adventists have a creed.

Why does it matter?

At this point, I want to make it clear that I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing that we have a creed. In fact, I lean more toward thinking it’s a good thing.

I just think, at the very least, it’s really important to be honest about it.

After all, we can claim all we want that “the Bible is our only creed.” It sounds nice and is good in theory. But the moment we start drawing up statements that explain what we understand the Bible to be saying, we’re starting down the creedal path—which is probably just as well (after all, the Bible is a big, long book that, by its very nature, requires interpretation).

Why do Seventh-day Adventists, for example, insist that an elder should be the husband of “one wife,” per Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy, but not insist that women must cover their heads whenever they pray, per Paul’s other instructions in 1 Corinthians?

Similarly, my nine-year-old daughter said to me at bedtime the other night, “Dad, you’ve said before that ‘hell’ doesn’t last forever. And yet I just read in Matthew that Jesus said the fire would burn eternally.”

In other words, what do we do when our beliefs and practices seem to conflict with what some part of the Bible says?

Indeed, what do we do?

We interpret the Bible, prioritizing some interpretations over other interpretations—prioritizing some verses over other verses.

This is not to say we’re externally imposing our interpretation on the Bible, using a creed to interpret it (though that’s often inevitably what happens as well). It just means we’re not simply taking the Bible and believing whatever it says and doing whatever it commands.

Thus, to say the “Bible is our only creed” is to really say nothing. What verses, themes, commands—of the thousands and thousands of verses, themes, and commands it contains—do we take to be authoritative and relevant? Which ones do we ignore?

The moment we start down this road we’re essentially forming a creed.

Perhaps more seriously, claiming “the Bible is our only creed” implies there’s no distance between what the Bible says and what we understand the Bible to be saying.

In other words, by claiming “the Bible is our only creed,” we’re essentially making our interpretations of the Bible infallible and inerrant.

In fact, we’re essentially denying the practice of interpretation altogether—which is a dangerous place to be, in my opinion, and actually cuts off the possibility of future revision of what we understand the Bible to be saying (which is the great irony).

I think, lastly, the reason such a claim is unhelpful is because it’s somewhat disingenuous. It gives the appearance of true freedom when no such freedom truly exists.

William Ellery Channing, the most celebrated Unitarian minister of the nineteenth century, put his finger on this in 1826.

“Do not give [a minister] the shadow for the substance of freedom,” he urged the professors at Harvard Divinity School at the dedication of the newly-minted Divinity Hall, “by telling him to inquire, but prescribing to him the convictions at which he must stop. Better show him honestly his chains than mock the slave with the show of liberty.”

Again, it sounds nice to say we don’t really have a creed—and that we’re open to further revision of how we understand the Bible. I also understand the intent. We’re trying to make it clear that the Bible is our primary source of authority, and that we’re trying to understand it better, and are therefore open to “new light.”

There’s also, from a historical perspective, the reality that the “preamble” of the Fundamental Beliefs was a bit of a compromise statement, urged upon by more “liberal” factions of the denomination as a way to try to keep us connected to our anti-creedal past (which may or may not be a correct interpretation of that past) and emptying the “Fundamental Beliefs” of any disciplinary power.

But it seems to me that, at the very least, saying we don’t have a creed, and claiming to be open to new understandings of the Bible, but then using our “Fundamental Beliefs” essentially as a creed and test for membership, requires one to engage in a lot of cognitive dissonance. It’s making the claim the slave is free when he really isn’t.

(Of course, the more “liberal” corners of the church simply want to rob our “Fundamental Beliefs” of any authority anyway—though I’m not sure that’s a truly tenable or even realistic approach, nor that “liberals” really want that either, as wonderful as it sounds in theory.)

The way forward

So what’s the answer?

Perhaps I’m quibbling over semantics, but I think it would be a good move if we just freely admitted we have, for all intents and purposes, a creed.

Admitting as much allows us, as Carl Trueman points out, to actually bring our interpretations into greater alignment with Scripture, since it’s an implicit admission that interpretation is involved in our reading of the Bible.

We can then “scrutinize” our beliefs in light of Scripture, he notes, instead of pretending we just believe whatever the Bible says.

Failing to admit as much, and claiming that “the Bible is our only creed,” actually “makes one’s tradition unassailable,” Trueman further asserts, and makes us more susceptible to unwittingly buy into non-biblical beliefs, rather than less susceptible.

Of course, I do want to remain open to further light. I think the downside of admitting we have a “creed” is that it does have the potential to close ourselves off from new understandings. We must be people who continuously examine and re-examine our interpretations of Scripture.

At the same time, I feel somewhat confident that there are some things that are fairly settled—and I do think it’s fine to insist that people line up with those interpretations if they’re going to be part of a particular community (religious or otherwise).

I thus feel the tension. I want to remain open to new interpretations, while not removing all theological boundaries—and the accountability that comes with those boundaries.

So, to answer my first question: do Seventh-day Adventists have a creed?

I think the answer is obviously “yes.”

And that’s OK—and probably even good. We just need to be honest about it.

And yet somehow truly be open to further light.

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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.