Some representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention announced that they’re going to push for the SBC to officially adopt the Nicene Creed. Creeds are necessary but can Baptists actually affirm the Nicene Creed in good faith? Joe Heschmeyer addresses this question and more in today’s episode of Shameless Popery.

Transcription:

Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and I want to explore a fascinating thing going on in the world of Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptist Convention is coming up and there’s a push to change what’s called the Baptist Faith in message, which is kind of a statement of beliefs. And I was clued into this by Matthew Barrett from Cradle Magazine who said, friends, I call your attention to a significant moment in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention next month for Southern Baptist, Andrew Brown, Steven Lawrence, Steven McKinnon, and Malcolm Yarnell will move that the messengers amend the BFM. That’s Baptist faith and message with the article, the Creed. The creed they’re referring to is none other than the Naim Creed. And in the essay below which we’re going to look at, they provide three reasons why they believe the time to do so is now. So this is great because even though I’m not a Baptist, it’s kind of nice seeing great minds battling these things out.

I’m loving the debate, great minds battling it out, and I’ve got a front row seat.

I mean, I couldn’t talk about the creed without making at least one creed reference. I wanted to make ones to the band, but I wasn’t sure if you would accept those with arms wide open. In any case, the Baptist case for the Creed. And I would second this and say it’s also the Catholic case for the Creed looks something like this. This is how Malcolm Yarnell and I might be mispronouncing his name, in which case I apologize, defends it in c Credo magazine, which is fitting because credo I believe is where the word creed comes from. He says, we wanted to share a few reasons why we believe it is necessary for Southern Baptist to adopt this ancient universal statement of the true Christian faith without delay and without qualification. Now, that’s a significant phrase. I think what we’re going to see is Baptist can actually only accept the nice and creed with some serious qualifications.

Nevertheless, I want to first agree with him and say, creed is good. Here’s why we should take the creed very seriously. He says, first, the nice and creed authoritatively articulates the primary doctrines of the Christian faith from the Christian scriptures based on extensive, careful and thorough ex of Jesus of scripture. The CRE establishes once for all that God is Trinity, that the Father is almighty, that he’s the creator of all things goes on to defend the deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, the gospel of his death and resurrection and that his kingdom is eternal. But then he says, it also affirms the deity of the Holy Spirit, our need to worship God, the Spirit with the Father and the Son, and the reality of the church and the resurrection. We’re going to get back to that because as he rightly says, to affirm the creed without qualification is to affirm what it says about the reality of the church.

But why does this matter? I mean, it can’t just be that Malcolm Arnell thinks that it got it right because there’s plenty of writings that he’s probably convinced get good Christology, right? That doesn’t mean that they have to become part of the Baptist faith and message. Rather, he says the creed was much more substantial than a mere confession. So if you’re not familiar with that term, a lot of Protestant denominations have a confession of faith about what their particular denomination believes in and yall’s argument is even the various framers of the Baptist faith and message understood some truths were so fundamental that they must be called a creed. Creeds, they believed encapsulated the teaching of scripture required for Christianity. Whereas confessions denominated one Christian Church or group of churches from another. So in the world of Protestantism you might say, well, we’re not in full communion with this other.

We’re bap and not Presbyterian and not Methodist and not Anglican, and here’s our local confession explaining what it is we believe that makes us different than everybody else. So that’s kind of the what divides Christians and the creed is what unites Christians, the creeds, what you have to believe in order to be a Christian in the full orthodox sense of the term. That’s why he says these are the things so fundamental that they’re required for Christianity. That’s so far, I mean, great. That’s wonderful. I think it makes sense for all Christians to affirm the nice creed. That’s what it’s there for. But that then raises a question for me at least, namely, can Baptist affirm the nice creed? Now, why would I ask that? Well, let’s look at two parts of the nice creed that seem like they pose a problem for a believing Baptist.

First I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. And then the immediate next line, I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come unmet. So it’s the very end of the creed and they’re good on belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. That’s not the issue. The issue is these two expressions, one holy Catholic and apostolic church on the one hand and one baptism for the forgiveness of sins on the other. Can Baptist affirm either of these things in good conscience? And this proposal has exposed something of a rift within the world of Baptist. So for instance, when the Center for Baptist Renewal shared news of this, they said the ecumenical creeds are symbols of the whole church.

That’s what makes him creeds properly. Again, that’s what makes him creeds and not confessions. The precise meaning of some lines is disputed baptism for the remission of sins universal. And I was confused when I said universal. I was like, oh, they’re so afraid of the word Catholic that they translated as universal. Got it. Unum san him Catholic one, holy Catholic apostolic church. They have to change Catholic to universal, which is fine. I mean universal’s not bad as a translation. It’s just a little misleading. But it shows that they’re aware. These are the two areas that there’s some dispute on the precise meaning, which is a very delicate way to put that. But they say historically Protestants and Baptists have happily affirmed them. Well, whether they’ve happily affirmed them or not is going to be an important question. But another important question is are they affirming the same thing that the writers of the creed and the church that produced the creed believed at the time it was produced?

We’ll get into that. But anyway, so I present this and say the Center for Baptist Renewal posted this on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called now. And at least as when I looked today, the only response was from someone who I assume is also a Baptist who says, those who agree with this statement will be condemned if they do not repent. The unadulterated divine revelation un solely by creeds is the basis for learning that which is pleasing to God. So you’ve got these two tensions. You’ve got an anti creedal movement within Evangelical and Baptist world that says, oh no creed, but Christ, any kind of creed is limiting the gospel. And so basically you’re just left to let everybody sort out the Bible for themselves on paper. Now in reality, it’s more like your local pastor tells you what to believe about the Bible and it gets even more complicated.

I want to do justice to the anti-real position, but say there is that strain of anti-real thought. But you also have these Baptists who say, no, we want to be more connected with historic Christianity. We want to believe what the early Christians believed and the early Christians tell us what they believe. Now, where do they do that confusingly, even though it’s called the Ian Creed, we don’t have an original creed from the first council of Nyia. It’s from the first Council of Constantinople. So both of these are going to be really relevant because they acknowledge that they’re drawing on what happened at Nyia, but it’s not clear that Nyia ever put together a formalized kind of creed. So really it’s sometimes called the Nino Constant Bulletin creed when you can imagine why we go with nice and creed instead it’s easier. But there’s these two moments that are really important for the creation of the creed.

The first is the first Council of Nyia in the year 3 25, and the second is the first council of Constantinople in the year 3 81. Now, why do I mention this? Because if the Creedle Baptists are right that there are Baptists who affirm the creed and Protestants more broadly who affirm the creed, but that there’s a debate over how to make sense of phrases like we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church, or we believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, then it seems to me the logical answer is to say, what did those words mean at the time they were written and what did those words mean by the people who wrote them? If I want to understand what the Constitution means by cruel and unusual punishment, I don’t look to someone in 2024 and say, what does that expression mean to you?

That’s the idea of a living constitution. No, I would say, well, what was intended by the framers? What was intended in the Bill of Rights? What’s intended by the people who wrote it? And how would those words have been understood at the time in that culture? That’s good exegesis in general, right? That’s how you should interpret the Bible and say, what did this mean at the time and place? Not just what can I make these words mean demean, but also what do I make of the creed? How do I interpret these things? And so I have in mind here the fact that there are Protestants who affirm the creed, but only by twisting it and distorting what it means. And so I would point to Dr. Kevin de Young as someone who seems to me again as a non Protestant to be doing this kind of blatantly. Now young, I want to be really clear, is not himself a Baptist. I believe he’s Presbyterian, but what he’s doing to the creed is the kind of thing I’m warning against and would warn Baptists not to do when deliberating on whether or not to accept the creed.

But back to this question. So there’s a connection, baptism and the remission of sins. But how? Because some would read this for the remission of sins in a kind of quid pro quo relationship or a very sacramental understanding of forgiveness that you receive baptism and in some traditions of the church it washes away original sin or it affects baptismal regeneration. So baptism, when you’re baptized, you automatically have your sins forgiven. Is that what the ene creed is saying?

So there’s two things. One, it’s very clear, and I think it’ll become very clear in this video that they did affirm a sacramental understanding of baptism that the first council of naia, first council of Constantinople, I think they were abundantly clear about it. I think their contemporaries were abundantly clear about it. I think if you read any of the writings from either the bishops present there or the other sources who were present there like Eusebius or if you read any of the things written about baptism even a hundred years before or a hundred years after, anytime in there you’re going to get a very clear picture. They have a very sacramental view that baptism does something automatic is a bad way to describe it. Sacramental is a better one or miraculous, even that God does something through this. We wouldn’t say when Moses or Aaron rather changes the staff into a serpent, it happens automatically.

We would say it happens with divine power automatically is turning it into something mechanical rather than miraculous. But then the second thing he says, it’s right there at the end that he doesn’t think that that’s what they were trying to say, but also that you don’t have to read it that way. Well, that second thing is the kind of distortion that I’m seen to watch out for. I’ll give you an example. If you said, do you believe Jesus saves? And I said Yes, but in my heart I meant Jesus lozado, the pitcher for the Marlins has two saves that he’s registered as a pitcher. Well, he would say, okay, fine. You found a grammatical way to affirm the words while obviously undermining the meaning. That’s not what those words mean to the speaker. And so for me to affirm them in a way that I know they’re not meant is dishonest.

It’s disingenuous. And so there’s no point in having a creed that unites us if one group of Christians are interpreting it dishonestly in a way contrary to how it was meant. So fine, you can grammatically find ways of exploiting the Greek to maybe squeeze your theology in there. But if you know that’s contrary to the theology that was intended, watch out for that. And I mentioned this partly because heretics at the first council of Nsea did exactly that. People like Arius, like this whole issue about Trinitarian theology. There were people who were heretical who were able to affirm the creed by internally meaning something different by those words. And I would just say, don’t do that better to just deny the creed. If you don’t believe nicely in Christianity, say that. Don’t say that you do believe it, but you’re redefining what all those words mean for all the same reasons.

I think if you’re a conservative Protestant, you would say, yeah, I wouldn’t want someone redefining marriage. I wouldn’t want someone redefining what man and what woman are any of these things. Even if they could have a completely orthodox sounding statement, if they only get there by redefining the words, that’s not how you actually arrive in an agreement that only causes confusion and dissension. So the better question isn’t what can we make the Greek mean? The better question is what did one holy Catholic and apostolic church and what did one baptism for the forgiveness of sins mean to the Christians of the fourth century and particularly to the Council of Fathers in 3 25 at the first council of CIA and in 3 81 at the first Council of Constantinople. So that’s the question I want to explore today and to see is their view harmonious with the view held by Baptist and I think more broadly by many Protestants, but because of the context I’m focusing on Baptist particularly.

So first, do Baptists agree with the creed about the church one, holy Catholic, apostolic? Briefly, what did Christians believe before the first council of Nyia? This gives us some context. How would people at the time have heard these words and understood them? And here I would turn to the reformed theologian, Louis Burkhoff in his book Systematic Theology, where he writes from the days of Cian, now that Saint Cian of Carthage, he dies in 2 58, so early two hundreds here from the days of Cian down to the Reformation, the essence of the church was sought ever increasingly in its external visible organization. The church father’s conceived of the Catholic church as comprehending all true branches of the church of Christ and is bound together in an external and visible unity which had its unifying bond in the College of Bishops. The conception of the church as an external organization became more prominent as time went on.

So obviously even from the way he’s described that Burkhoff views this as a distortion, he doesn’t think it happens until the time of cion and he views it as obviously going in the wrong direction. We don’t actually need to settle either of those questions. Whether you think this goes back to the time of Christ, whether you think it’s a good thing, those are not the question. The question is what did Christians believe in the three hundreds? The Christians might be right or wrong, but what did the Christians at the time of Nicea and before and after believe about the church? And so it’s very clear even from KO’s description that they thought of it as something that was external and it was visible and it’s organized how? Well, because there’s these bishops who are in Union one with another Thomas White in the book upon this rock of Baptist understanding of the church, which Malcolm Yarnell has another chapter in.

So Yarnell doesn’t write this part and obviously an author is not responsible for other things written in a book that they contribute to, but there’s a good chance he’s at least read this and at the very least it seems like a fair Baptist treatment of church history. Thomas White says By the late second century, we see the trend reversed to focus on the universal church and not the local. No, put that in context. He says, when Saint Ignatius of Antioch in the first 10 years of the 100, so like 1 0 7 ish talks about Ecclesia church. He most of the time means the local church, but that by the end of the one hundreds, most of the time when people say Ecclesia, they’re not thinking about the local church, they’re thinking about the global church. Now I would suggest that you can explain that supposed shift by the fact that Ignatius is writing to particular churches, whereas Erin Aeu and the other later authors tend to be writing on theological topics addressed to everybody like the church broadly.

And then if they were writing to a particular church to settle a very local controversy, then they would probably use alas and the narrower sense, but nevertheless, less. He says er in his work against heresy is written in the year 180 roughly used Ecclesia 130 times with 103 of those uses focused on a universal meaning. So church is understood as the global Catholic church and Catholic is not an synchronistic term here. Both Ignatius and Ous speak of the Ecclesia as Catholic. And so Thomas White goes on, he says, by the third century, so the two hundreds and the time of the writings of Cyprian again cian, a change occurred with references to a universal yet visible church. Cyprian used the term the Catholic church repeatedly and his famous statement indicates his emphasis on the visible Catholic church and then he quotes Cian, he cannot have God for his father who has not the church for his mother indicating that outside, excuse me, indicating that there is no salvation outside the church.

Okay, since both of these guys view Cian as being a really important figure, it’s worth looking directly at what Cyprian has to say on the subject. This is his on the unity of the church, also known as treatise one, just to be confusing and it dates to probably the year 2 51, about seven years before he died and he says whoever is separated from the church, and again he needs to say the visible Catholic church and is joined to an adulterous is separated from the promises of the church. Nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He’s a stranger, he is profane, he is an enemy. And then comes the line we just heard. He can no longer have God for his father who has not the church for his mother and he gives this example. If anyone could escape who is outside the Ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the church.

In other words, the church is Noah’s Ark. It is passing through water, the whole baptismal imagery using First Peter three that’s going on that Rin doesn’t even touch on it explicitly there, but other church fathers do that. This church, this visible body through the water in the wood because they saw the gopher wood as a prefigurement of the cross, this visible body is the means of salvation. And then if you decide to break away from the church, you might as well just dive off of Noah’s Ark. You are consigning yourself to eternal death. Sapr goes on to say this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the church, that we may also prove the episcopate, that’s the bishops itself to be won and undivided. Now I say this because it’s really important. In the 14 hundreds you get this idea that the troop church is in an invisible body spiritually of just all the saved.

That is not what early Christians believed at all. They believed it was a visible body and a visible body that had presiding bishops in it. CPR goes on to address matics as who break unity in the church and he says, does he think that he has Christ who acts in opposition to Christ’s priests who separates himself from the company of his clergy and people he bears arms against the church? He contends against God’s appointment, an enemy of the altar, a rebel against Christ’s sacrifice for the faith, faithless for religion, profane, a disobedient service, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the bishop and forsaking God’s priests. He dares to set up another altar to make another prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the Lord’s offering by false sacrifices and not to know that he who strives against the appointment of God. That is to say the clergy appointed by God is punished on account of the daring of his temerity by divine visitation.

Cian is extremely clear that it’s not just a matter of believing the right things, it’s also being in union with the bishops and priests set up by God and not having some rival worship service where you invent your own style of worship or invent your own prayers. That is I think, exceedingly clear and I don’t think I’m alone in this Malcolm Yarnell. You know the guy who wrote the article about why we should have the creeds in an interview he did back in 2007? So this is a long time ago. I assume he still believes the same thing. I don’t know why this would’ve changed, but nevertheless, he says, I want my students, while they appreciate the brilliant contributions of the early church theologians to see that they were not perfect like theologians today, they have their blind spots. What Protestant are free churchmen can truly justify the Sacra dot system that’s like priestly system constructed by cian, a system that has distracted many from the ones for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross by focusing upon the sacrifice of the priest.

So notice Alchem Yarnell thinks Cian is at best he’s got the blind spot or worse he’s distracting us from the action of Christ. Cyprian in contrast would view Malcolm Murel as an impious son and a rebel in someone who is risking damnation by his actions against the true sacrifice the one offered in union with Christ by the bishop and his priests. And what I mean to suggest is those guys can’t both be right and their conception of the church is such that if Cian is right, Al Yarnell has a tenuous relation with the church at best and is cut off from the church at worst that to say I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. If by that you mean what cyprian means, then you’re saying you believe the Catholic church is the true church and then become Catholic. Now you might say, okay, but that’s the two fifties.

How do we know people still believe that 75 years later? I don’t think anyone’s arguing that the Christians and 300 became more Protestant. You just get ever increasingly clear Catholic statements as you go. But nevertheless, what did the first council of NAIA teach about the church here? I would point you to Canon eight. If you want to know what the first council of NAIA taught and believed, you can find the cannons of the council and they’re dealing with the Cathars and they say concerning those who call themselves cathar like the... Read more on Catholic.com