What Can We Learn from Traditions that Adopt the Nicene Creed?

Many nineteenth- and twentieth-century Baptists would have balked at the recent idea of adopting a formal creed like the Nicene Creed as part of their confession. As W. B. Johnson (1782–1862), first president of the Southern Baptist Convention, once remarked, “We have constructed for our basis no new creed; acting in this matter upon a Baptist aversion for all creeds but the Bible.”^[1]

Several cultural and theological factors played a role in this aversion to creeds. There was a popular sentiment, however unfounded, that the creeds were “Romish” and contrary to the practices of free churches. The recitation of creeds, it was thought, resulted in a coldhearted, impersonal faith without the life-giving power of the Spirit.^[2]

But the prevailing view of many nineteenth-century Baptists was that the use of creeds like the Nicene Creed ultimately undermined biblical authority.^[3] The ironic credo “no creed but the Bible” was the mantra of an uncritical, anti-creedal biblicism. Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a former Baptist who later led the Restoration movement, explicitly denounced the Nicene Creed as an exercise in “scholastic jargon” that should be forgotten by the Christian church.^[4] This brand of anti-creedalism was more theologically conservative, even as it criticized the Nicene Creed for using terms not explicitly found in the biblical text.

The Creed has also been incredibly valuable in unifying Christians who share common convictions about the authority of Scripture and the gospel. Share on XLiberal and moderate Baptists opposed the creeds for entirely different reasons. The American Baptist theologian and father of the Social Gospel movement Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) criticized the tendency of creeds “to make the religious thought of one age binding for a later age.”^[5] Rauschenbusch bemoaned that the Council of Nicaea was a weapon of state religion that enforced uniformity and stifled the church’s theological maturity. “It is very hard, almost impossible, to get rid of a creed after it is once adopted.”^[6]

Assuring us that “Baptists are a non-creedal people,” many twentieth-century theological moderates staunchly resisted any attempt to use confessions like The Baptist Faith and Message for doctrinal accountability in SBC entities or churches.[7] They weren’t just against ancient ecumenical creeds like the Nicene Creed. They resisted any effort to restrict their freedom to interpret the Bible in the way they saw fit.[8] Many of these moderate Baptists were more concerned with hermeneutical liberty than fidelity to the truth. But Southern Baptists of the conservative resurgence reinforced another strand of confessional Baptist life, requiring statements like the BFM as an instrument of accountability for their missionaries and seminary professors.

Baptists can learn from the example of other denominations, faith traditions, and even early Baptists, who have demonstrated the value of the Nicene Creed in safeguarding biblical truth and fostering theological unity. The Protestant Reformers who further developed the teaching of the sufficiency of Scripture and biblical authority appealed to the Nicene Creed to safeguard biblical truth from error and as a foundation to their own confessional statements and catechisms regarding the Trinity. The Creed has also been incredibly valuable in unifying Christians who share common convictions about the authority of Scripture and the gospel. And the witness of other faith traditions highlights the value of the Nicene Creed in discipleship and the worship of the local church.

The Polemical Function of the Creed

While Protestant Reformers directed believers back to the primary authority of Scripture in their reform efforts, they also expressed great appreciation for the tradition’s ability to exposit the Bible.[9] When it came to the doctrine of the Trinity, they saw no need to reinvent the wheel or present an alternative to the Nicene Creed. In fact, Luther and Melancthon’s Augsburg Confession (1530) explicitly appealed to the Nicene Creed in its article on God, stating that “the decree of the Council of Nicaea concerning the Unity of the Divine Essence and concerning the Three Persons is true and to be believed without any doubting.”[10]

Calvin likewise wrote, “We willingly embrace reverence as holy the early councils, such as those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus I, Chalcedon and the like, which were concerned with refuting errors—in so far as they relate to the teachings of the faith. For they contain nothing but the pure and genuine exposition of Scripture, which the holy fathers applied with spiritual prudence to crush the enemies of religion who had then arisen.”[11] Calvin saw the great need for creeds like the Nicene Creed to address significant theological errors that threatened the church.

Reformed and Protestant Scholastic works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often looked to the Nicene Creed when formulating their doctrine of the Trinity. Share on XThe earliest Baptists also recognized the creeds as statements that properly expressed the Bible’s authority and corrected doctrinal error. Seventeenth-century General Baptists invoked the creeds to defend the consensus quinquesecularis against those within their ranks who subscribed to heterodox Christologies, such as the Socinians and the group associated with Matthew Caffyn (1628-1714).^[12] Caffyn initially drew controversy with his Hoffmannite Christology that denied Jesus a true human nature. He later came to deny the doctrines of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. As a response, the General Baptist statement The Orthodox Creed (1678) incorporated the full text of the Nicene Creed to encourage doctrine accountability among their group and prevent serious theological error.

Reformed and Protestant Scholastic works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often looked to the Nicene Creed when formulating their doctrine of the Trinity. Today’s Southern Baptists can benefit from the theological precision offered by the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed here. We can and should embrace Jesus as the “only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds.”^[13] Against the errant view that Christ will cease to reign over God’s kingdom in eternity (a view derived from a problematic reading of 1 Cor 15:24–25, 28), the Creed explicitly says that the Son’s “kingdom shall have no end.”[14] This seventeen-century-old creed remains relevant to today’s theological debates.

The Ecumenical Function of the Creed

Luther and Zwingli had a deep disagreement over the nature of the Lord’s Supper—a disagreement that ultimately kept their movements from uniting. But at the Marburg Colloquy in October 1529, these two leaders produced the Marburg Articles, which plainly stated their points of agreement and disagreement. They began their statement by acknowledging:

“We on both sides believe and maintain unanimously that there is only one true God, who is by nature God and the maker of all creatures. This same God, who is one in essence and nature, is triune in persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, etc. This is precisely what the Council of Nicea concluded and this is what is sung and recited by the entire Christian church throughout the world in the Nicene Creed.”[15]

Luther and Zwingli immediately recognized that the Nicene Creed is a statement of truth that can be celebrated by all Christians everywhere, and which can bring unity to believers who have serious disagreements between them.

The Nicene Creed has historically provided a baseline for Christian unity because it contains everything a person must believe in order to be properly called a Christian. Share on XThe Nicene Creed has historically provided a baseline for Christian unity because it contains everything a person must believe in order to be properly called a Christian. This does not mean that memorizing or fully comprehending the Creed is necessary for saving faith. Nor are we saying that the Nicene Creed is exhaustive in its description of every important theological issue. Instead, the Creed encapsulates the essential truths of the gospel and the biblical metanarrative—the overarching story of Scripture. It expresses what “mere Christians” with a faith rooted in the Bible already believe in a clear and concise manner.

Under the threat of persecution from the Church of England and Charles II (1630–1685), Baptist dissenters felt the need to stress their orthodoxy and alignment with the broader Christian tradition. The early General Baptists made the clear case to their Anglican counterparts that they were also in the stream of tradition that celebrated the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed. Thomas Grantham (1634-1692) asserted that Baptists subscribed to the Nicene Creed and Apostles’ Creed, noting that “we are no favourers of Novelties or new Doctrines.”^[16]

In many corners of Baptist life, the word “ecumenical” still stirs up unpleasant memories of twentieth-century ecumenical movements that often resulted in theological compromise and the minimization of Christian doctrine. We should be wary of any effort to promote Christian unity that denies essential tenets of the faith or that enforces uniformity of thought. However, Scripture repeatedly mandates that believers pursue unity with one another (John 17:20–23; 1 Cor 1:10; Eph 4:1–6; Phil 2:1–2). For this reason, we can and should seek common ground with believers who share in the same essential tenets of the Christian faith—even if we do not participate in the same fellowships or faith communities because of the secondary and tertiary matters that divide us.

The Catechetical Function of the Nicene Creed

Creeds have also played an important role in the catechesis or discipleship of new believers. By the end of the second century, baptismal candidates were required to affirm an early version of the Apostles’ Creed before they could be baptized.[17] Luther employed both the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed in his Small Catechism (1529). The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) does not directly invoke the Nicene Creed but reflects Nicene orthodoxy in its statements about the Trinity.[18]

The earliest Baptists, however, directly invoked the Nicene Creed in their catechesis. The Particular Baptist Hercules Collins (d. 1702) added the Nicene, Athanasian, and Apostles’ Creeds to his catechism (a Baptist reworking of the Heidelberg Catechism). He wrote that these creeds “ought thoroughly to be believed and embraced by all those that would be accounted Christians.”^[19] General Baptists also stressed that the Nicene Creed should be taught “in all Christian families.”^[20]

The Liturgical Function of the Creed

While some Baptist churches regularly recite the Nicene Creed in their corporate worship, this is a much rarer phenomenon in Baptist life than it is in other traditions.^[21] Those in the Free Church tradition do not normally feel compelled to use instruments like the Book of Common Prayer or the liturgical calendar. However, there is something to be said for the regular incorporation of creeds and confessions in worship, especially if these statements point congregants to foundational biblical truths. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches use the Creed in this way—as do many Protestants in Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed churches.

Baptists also have the freedom to use the Creed in this way, but the liturgical use of the Creed must accompany its catechetical use. Some years ago, I was acquainted with a scholar who served as the chair of the New Testament studies department at an Ivy League university. Though he was raised in a more conservative theological tradition, he later became a thoroughgoing deconstructionist who argued that the Bible has no meaning apart from the meaning imposed on it by its readers. He ultimately denied many tenets of the faith he had once professed, including the doctrines of the Trinity, the incarnation, the virginal conception, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But he also told me rather proudly that he confessed the Nicene Creed every Sunday in the local Episcopal congregation of which he was a member.

This man’s cognitive dissonance was jarring to me. How could one declare “We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . who . . . suffered . . . and . . . rose again, according to the Scriptures” if that person does not believe the Scriptures that declared Jesus rose again? How can one confess that Jesus “was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the virgin Mary” while dismissing the infancy narratives as a later addition to the gospel tradition?

In that moment I learned something significant about the liturgical use of creeds in worship. Like the Bible, the Creed can be misappropriated if it is not properly understood and believed. Like the Bible, the Creed can only truly be appreciated with respect to its authors’ original intentions. A creed originally drafted to correct and anathematize heresy must not be used to conceal it.

If creeds are going to be part of the worship and liturgy of our churches, they must be exposited and explained in the context of their historical and theological origins. The Nicene Creed is not a magical formula that mystically imparts faith or an iconic symbol that can be interpreted any way we please. It is only useful in the worship of the church as an historic and corporate confession of biblical truth, rooted in the heartfelt conviction that its claims about God and Christ are true.

Conclusion

Other traditions (and the earliest Baptists) have shown us the value of this creed in putting up guardrails around biblical truth. They have shown us that this creed is a starting point for fostering conversations about Christian unity by drawing our attention to the metanarrative of Scripture. They have also modeled for us ways to use the creed pedagogically, either in the discipleship of new believers or the worship of the local church.

For Baptists who have historically emphasized the authority of Scripture above all human traditions, asking Southern Baptists to consider formally adopting a creed like the Nicene Creed may seem unnecessary or even suspect. But Southern Baptists would do well to adopt the Nicene Creed—not as a binding document that usurps the unique authority of Scripture—but as a gift from the early church that helps us uphold and proclaim the truthfulness of God’s Word.

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Notes:

[1] Cited in Walter B. Shurden, “Southern Baptist Responses to Their Confessional Statements,” Review and Expositor 76.1 (1979), 69.

[2] James E. Tull, Shapers of Baptist Thought (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1972), 206.

[3] For more on historical Baptist understandings of sola Scriptura, please see my article, “Baptists, Sola Scriptura, and the Place of the Christian Tradition,” in Baptists and the Christian Tradition: Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity, ed. Matthew Y. Emerson, Christopher W. Morgan, and R. Lucas Stamps (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 27–54.

[4] Alexander Campbell, The Christian System (Pittsburg: Forrester & Campbell, 1839), 130–31.

[5] Walter Rauschenbusch, “Why I Am a Baptist,” in A Baptist Treasury, ed. Syndor L. Stealey (New York: Arno, 1980), 180.

[6] Rauschenbusch, “Why I Am a Baptist,” 181.

[7] Walter B. Shurden, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1993), 14.

[8] The Baptist distinctive known as “the priesthood of all believers” is the assertion that all believers have direct access to God through Christ our Great High Priest and that all believers share in the fellowship of ministry in the local church. But many moderate and liberal Baptist theologians have redefined this tenet into what they call “the priesthood of the believer,” which they take to mean that every individual is free to read the Bible as they please without any imposition on their conscience.

[9] Heiko Obermann’s distinction between one-source tradition (Tradition I) and two-source tradition (Tradition II) is extremely helpful in understanding how the Reformers approached tradition. See Heiko A. Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation: The Shape of Late Medieval Thought, with translations by Paul L. Nyhus (New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1966), 51–120.

[10] Augsburg Confession (1530), art. 1.

[11] Calvin Institutes 4.9.8.

[12] See J. Matthew Pinson, Arminian and Baptist: Explorations in a Theological Tradition (Nashville: Randall House, 2015), 153–82.

[13] Of course this view has fallen on hard times, largely due to the work of Baptist theologian Dale Moody (1915–1992) in “God’s Only Son: The Translation of John 3:16 in the Revised Standard Version,” Journal of Biblical Literature 72.4 (1953): 213–19. For a robust response to those claims, see Charles Lee Irons, “A Lexical Defense of the Johannine ‘Only Begotten,’” in Retrieving Eternal Generation, ed. Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 99–102.

[14]  R. B. Jamieson, “1 Corinthians 15:28 and the Grammar of Paul’s Christology,” New Testament Studies 66.2 (Apr 2020): 187–207; Glenn Butner, The Son Who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2018), 162–72.

[15]  The Marburg Articles, art. 1, trans. William R. Russell, in Sources and Contexts of The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and James A. Nestingen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 89.

[16] Thomas Grantham, Christianismus Primitivus (London: Francis Smith, 1678), Book 2, 59-60.

[17] Hippolytus of Rome, The Apostolic Tradition 21.

[18] Hippolytus of Rome, The Apostolic Tradition 21.

[19] Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism, Being the Sum of Christian Religion Contained in the Law and Gospel (London, 1680), A4.

[20] Orthodox Creed (1678), art. 38.

[21] James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009), 4.