Carter boldly claims, "Baptists have always been careful to draw the distinction between a confession of faith and a creed." See "A Review of Baptist
Confessions of Faith Adopted by Major Baptist Bodies in the United States," Baptist History and Heritage (April 1977): 75.
This section investigates and analyzes the liturgical theology of the rite of ordination of a bishop, beginning with the
confessions of faith and continuing with the "Divine Grace" call to prayer and the holding of the Gospel book over the head of the bishop-elect.
This development was made possible by the breakthrough to a new, post-confessional perception and appreciation of the Barmen Declaration, and hence also of the tradition of the Reformation
confessions of faith, that took place in Halle in 1937.
* For theistic
confessions of faith in a God who created the physical universe, any complete or absolute separation of science from religion would amount to a tacit denial of the most basic claims of theism (Worthing).
On the one hand, loyalty to existing
confessions of faith is not neutralized by the Leuenberg Agreement.
While most Pentecostals derive from a Wesleyan-Holiness theological stream, the movement has largely gained the high ground numerically among adherents of a New Testament paradigm of the church plus those who stress Christian experience over creeds and
confessions of faith. Baptists, in particular, would do well to read carefully the advance of Pentecostal missions and the reasons for Pentecostal growth in North American contexts.
Let's begin with their
confessions of faith and see if we aren't actually one in Christ.
Even though later Mennonite ,groups often developed new and more complex
confessions of faith, the Dordrecht Confession was often the basis for revisions and therefore must always be kept in mind by researchers.
I report the contents: an introductory chapter places the Creed in the context of early Christian
confessions of faith. Chapter two looks at the versions (Greek, Latin, and German) which have found a place in liturgy.
Although it is rare for
confessions of faith to elaborate on eschatology, Article XXII is a surprisingly vivid expression of the second coming of Christ and his earthly rule with his saints.
Written
confessions of faith, Bryden believed, properly represent this pattern.
The new edition, Creeds and
Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, comprises three volumes of documents, but the editors have wisely added a fourth, Credo, a remarkable study of the role of creeds over the whole history of Christianity.
Many of them ask what Luther's thinking means in many of today's issues--creation, resources, environment, attitudes toward oppressive governments, liberation movements, and people of different races, religions and cultures, attitudes toward different
confessions of faith and ecumenical theology.
