ARE RESTORATION “MOTTOS” CREEDS?

  In response to my recent article on the danger of Creeds, one man replied that - when the Restoration movement declared “speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent” - this motto was “a mini creed itself.”

  That’s a legitimate challenge because “Creed” simply means “I believe.”
  Thus, anything a Church or Christian says they “believe” could justifiably be called a Creed… that is, if that was the only definition you used. Unfortunately, that’s not what denominations mean by their “Creeds.”

    Strictly speaking, Creeds are the measuring sticks denominations use to determine whether or not you are a “Christian” (by their definition) and are acceptable within their religious group. That’s why back in the early 1800s, when Thomas Campbell offered communion to worshipers who weren’t part of the religious group he preached for, he was branded a heretic.

 A few observations of why we reject creeds:

1.     Creeds are given power and authority equal to Scripture.
  In essence, a denominational Creed is THE authority for the church… not Scripture. Years ago we had a youth minister named Brad who told me about a conversations he’d had with some of his denominational counterparts. He told me that they’d sometimes talk about different topics (for example, salvation) and often the denominational youth leaders would respond to a question by citing their church creed. Brad would ask them where the Bible said this or that, and they often couldn’t tell him. They didn’t know the Bible very well, but they knew their creed and that was sufficient for them.

 By contrast, the mottos of the Restoration movement aren’t intended to tell you WHAT you should believe, but WHERE to look for what you should believe… the Bible. Thus the motto “Where the Bible Speaks we speak…” would not be a Creed in the traditional sense.
  Our brotherhood may believe exactly what a denominational creed declares, but we tend to view the statements of that Creed in the same way we would view a Bible commentary. Creeds, like commentaries, are useful - but they’re not Scripture.

 2.     Creeds are man-made. Voted on and agreed to by the leaders of a specific denomination, Creeds (along with Catechisms, books of Doctrine and so on) are the “commands” of that group. Once denominations get used to accepting these man-made standards, they run the risk of becoming like some of the Jews of Jesus’ day. Jesus said “… in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” This kind of thinking (accepting the commandments of men as equal to Scripture) became so engrained into the Jewish psyche that - to this day – the Jewish people have the Law of Moses… then they have a commentary on the Law… and then they have a commentary on the commentary of the Law. Each of those commentaries are given the same weight, power and authority as the Law of Moses itself. Thus these commentaries are studiously examined because their Rabbis believe God’s voice comes as much through those commentaries as through the Law which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.

3.    Creeds tend to supplant Scripture as the main source of protection. One denominational preacher I read said that Creeds were the best defense the church had against heresy. He wrote “There is no guarantee that merely having written standards will preserve us from theological error. But, it seems to me, not having written standards is far more likely to lead to theological error.”
  An interesting thought… but wrong. Paul wrote, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” It is Scripture (not Creeds) that is God-breathed, and God’s Word is the best and ultimate defense against heresy.

4.     Creeds are meant to be divisive. A church historian by the name of Philip Schaff wrote a book entitled “The Creeds of Christendom” In his book he wrote: “the first object of creeds was to distinguish the Church from the world, from Jews and heathen, afterwards orthodoxy from heresy, and finally denomination from denomination.”
  Our brotherhood, by contrast, has always argued that if you removed the creeds, confessions and catechisms from churches - those churches have no choice but to return to Scripture as their sole source of authority. This would remove the “distinctiveness” of their denominational heritages and encourage their people to seek to be distinctive only in Christ and only based on His Word.

 5.     Lastly, the reason our mottos are not Creeds (in the traditional way of describing them) is because there’s only one part of our mottos that you MUST believe to be a Christian. That’s why we say “Our only Creed is Christ.” Christ is our creed, because without Christ you cannot become a Christian.