Keith very helpfully showed how confessions have a negative and positive role. They function negatively by saying who’s “out” and postively by saying who’s “in.” I’m re-reading through “Authority: Where to Go for Truth” in Our Legacy: The History of Christian Doctrine by John D. Hannah. I want to give a simple example of how confessions said who’s “out” and who’s “in.”

During the canonization of scripture, Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church came to a strong disagreement on whether or not authority resided in tradition. Protestants very clearly said that authority did not reside in pastors, scholars, and councils unless that which was taught was in strict conformity with the Word of God. Thus, authority for the Reformers resided solely in the Bible. They stated this in one of the first Protestant confessions - The Gallican Confession of Faith (1559). It states:

Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but, on the contrary, all things should be regulated, and reformed according to them (Article V, quoted from Our Legacy, 55).

To affirm such an article in the mid-sixteenth century was to clearly state that you were “in” with the Reformers and “out” with the Catholics. In the early twenty-first century, our proposed SoF functions that exact same way.

Posted in Church History |