Episode 219: The Importance of our Confessions — Dr. Chad Van Dixhoorn

“Church and society are often at sea, tossed about by every wind of change. And I believe Christians would be more steady in those storms if we had more ballast. We need a bigger doctrine of God. We need a clearer doctrine of humanity and sin. We need a richer understanding of our salvation if we're going to be anchored in our turbulent times, if we're going to analyze and respond to the powerful currents that are around us rather than being swept along or swept away with everyone else. I think the church has been experimenting with doctrinal minimalism for more than a century and has been leaning into it in the last few decades. Well, not all the data is in. Maybe the results will look much better 10 years from now. But I think it's time to change a variable. I'm not confident we're building the strongest generation of Christians that America has seen with our minimalistic approach. I think it's time for the church to tinker with some doctrinal maximalism. I think we need a confessional Christianity that's got some real substance.” — Dr. Chad VanDixhoorn

Summary of This Episode

In an age of doctrinal minimalism, the church needs to reconsider its relationship with confessions. While many Protestants associate the Reformation with the "five solas," this packaging misrepresents the Reformation spirit. The reformers never attempted to distill their movement into a handful of points. Instead, they produced over 90 Reformed confessions and catechisms by the end of the 16th century, recognizing that the short creeds of the early church needed supplementation with longer statements of truth.

Churches today need more truth to confess, not less. Yet many Christians harbor concerns about confessions, believing they may compete with Scripture's authority, or that simpler statements like "we believe in the Bible" would suffice. Others worry that lengthy confessions contain seemingly irrelevant material or might cause disunity. Some simply find confessions cumbersome to use.

However, confessions offer substantial benefits that outweigh these concerns. First, the idea of concise statements of faith is thoroughly biblical, appearing in passages like Deuteronomy 6:4 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. When confessions faithfully summarize Scripture, they stand in harmony with it as subordinate standards, not competing authorities.

Confessions also represent honesty – the desire to state truth openly. While cults hide their beliefs until people are too deeply involved to escape, Christian churches historically announce what they believe. The document may be long or short, but the impulse is honest declaration.

Additionally, confessions promote unity by establishing common priorities with other Christians across time and geography. The great creeds unite millions of believers universally, while confessions connect smaller but still significant communities. This stands in contrast to the "ten bullet points on the website" approach, which creates individualized statements as unique as snowflakes, doing little to forge meaningful connections between churches.

The vintage of Reformation confessions offers advantages over contemporary statements. These documents remind us that Christianity wasn't "invented during the Reagan administration." They have been seasoned over time, tested and refined through centuries of church life and theological reflection.

Good confessions promote truth by providing ballast in turbulent times. In our cultural moment, Protestants have often minimized doctrine to unite around seemingly more urgent causes. Churches have sometimes treated Christian doctrine like excess baggage they can't afford to bring into contemporary battles. While a simple statement that "we're saved by Jesus" is essential, God's Word reveals much more that churches need for their thriving and mission.

Church and society are "often at sea, tossed about by every wind of change," and Christians would weather these storms better with more ballast – a bigger doctrine of God, clearer understanding of humanity and sin, and richer comprehension of salvation. After a century of doctrinal minimalism, the results appear underwhelming. Perhaps it's time to experiment with doctrinal maximalism instead.

Finally, confessions with good doctrine deepen prayer and praise. When believers learn to speak in complete sentences about Christ's work as planned from eternity, accomplished in time, and applied in their lives, their worship grows more profound. Understanding justification, adoption, and sanctification enriches Christian devotion. There is nothing abstract about these truths once they are personally owned.

The history of American Presbyterianism illustrates what happens when churches functionally abandon their confessions. As Progressive Christianity gained momentum in the early 20th century, churches maintained their confessions on paper while reducing essential doctrines to a few basic points. Under pressure from cultural trends and influential personalities, they surrendered the Reformed faith in particular while fighting for basic Christian orthodoxy. They had confessions but no longer believed they could hold them fully.

Today's churches can learn from this history. The reformers sought to recover not just the gospel but true worship, doctrine, discipline, and piety, recognizing how each element supports the others. They wrote confessions to prevent parts of the church from holding the whole hostage. Rather than relying on personalities or contemporary thought leaders, they chose "the weakness of confessions and deliberative assemblies over the power of popular personalities."

America now stands populated with "truth-starved Christians" after decades of tightening doctrinal belts. Our confessions can serve as appetizers, stirring hunger for God's Word and ultimately for God himself – "most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth."