A NOTABLE trend in recent years has been a steady increase in the number of special-interest groups active within, across, or beyond established Christian denominations.
Some promote a specifically theological emphasis: Modern Church, Affirming Catholicism, Sea of Faith among them. Others major on specific issues, for example: Women in the Church, Christian Ecology Network, Public Square Group, One Body, One Faith (formerly the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement).
While there may well be significant crossover between these respective groupings, they are distinctive in terms of their relationship to theology and doctrinal formularies when it comes to articulating and activating their aims and objectives.
For those operating under a specific theological banner, that dimension is likely to be front and centre, with any specified ethical, social, or cultural objectives explicitly associated with, and derived from, declared doctrinal precepts. On the other hand, for those whose raison d’être is to advance specific ethical, social, or cultural objectives, it will be those objectives that will determine any theological basis to which credence is given, and pleaded in aid — something alluded to by the Revd Professor Sarah Coakley in her appeal to “Bring theology back to the parishes” (Comment, 8 August).
So, in broad brush terms, the question can be asked whether theology is a movement’s master or servant when it comes to how religious beliefs relate to aims, objectives, and any credal warranties evoked in support of them. Furthermore, it leads us to ask whether historic creeds, catechisms, and articles of religion are being treated as table d’hôte or à la carte menus to be accepted as they stand, or to be subject to utility tests in relation to promoting specific interests, causes, and campaigns.
PROMOTERS of progressive Christianity are well aware of negative reactions to the idea that faith founded upon centuries of assent to historic creeds can be deemed to be provisional, and therefore subject to renegotiation in changing times. But surely renewal, reinterpretation, development, and reformation are concepts firmly embedded in the history of Christianity; so why be so defensive when the Progressive Christianity Network (PCN), on its website, describes itself as “opposed to any exclusive dogma that limits the search for truth and free enquiry”?
Indeed, as the Revd Professor David Brown avers in Gospel as Work of Art (Books, 6 December 2024), there is a strong case to be made that the great Councils, e.g. Nicaea and Chalcedon, accommodate significant scope for scriptural and doctrinal interpretation, notwithstanding subsequent attempts to isolate specific interpretations as definitive and non-negotiable.
This is not simply a matter of academic interest. It goes to the heart of whether we do or do not prioritise beliefs as formulated in credal and confessional articles of faith. Surely, some might say, it cannot be the case that their stand on social or ethical issues determines their theological commitments: is that not putting the cart before the horse?
Yet we do find ourselves in a situation in which attitudes formed on non-doctrinal grounds are increasingly likely to determine allegiance to one or other brand of institutional religion. Churches quite often advertise their distinctiveness in terms of their stance in relation to current social or ethical bones of contention.
Place this alongside evidence that, when tested, regular churchgoers indicate significant reservations in relation to, for example, articles of the Creed, or, even more likely, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and a picture emerges that suggests that theology is required to be at the service of attitudes and campaigns rather than determining social, ethical, and political positioning.
Furthermore, the rise of populist politics is likely to result in more Christian churches’ publicly nailing their colours to the mast in relation to, for example, immigration, identity politics, and the environment within a selectively confirmatory theological framework.
This is theology as servant rather than master: individual Christians and issue-focused churches embracing theology as appropriate rather than as prescribed. Denominations may come to be defined more by the causes that they prioritise than the clauses in their creeds.
IS THIS a trend that we should resist and seek to reverse? After all, the Nicene Creed has served the Church for 1700 years as a compendium of doctrinal markers against which to measure orthodoxy, and the terms and conditions on the basis of which membership is defined; and its regular recitation has been, and is, a feature of corporate worship.
The PCN has offered “an expression of the Christian life, but not as a creed”. This inevitably raises the question: where does that leave the creeds that we recite in our liturgies? Do they still have a doctrinally defining party to play alongside the PCN’s stated principles, or do these effectively substitute for the historic creeds when it comes to formularies to which assent is required, or assumed, as a mark of membership? Churches that self-define on the basis of socio-ethical stances or campaign commitments appear to be on the increase and inclined to regard the theological precepts of the historic creeds as servant rather than master.
Post-modernism basically argues that it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you believe that it doesn’t matter. But, nowadays, even post-modernism is “post”! As the 21st century unfolds, there is evidence to suggest that what is believed does matter, even if beliefs are more likely to be based on humanist and existential values than on religious grounds.
Advocates for the historic Creeds as Christianity’s enduring landmarks may see the Nicene anniversary as an opportunity to reprioritise established doctrinal formularies as the criteria in relation to which all other claims to Christian legitimacy must continue to be evaluated. But perhaps it is all to the good that our theological “-isms” are in the process of becoming “wasms”, as they are called to answer at the bar of, for example, Progressive Christianity’s criteria for defining Christian identity now and in the near future.
Professor Brown (op. cit.) cites the case made by Professor Catherine Elgin for the appropriateness of “true enough” as adequate to meet particular purposes, and perspectives, for a particular context, be it in relation to the arts or sciences. This leads him to pitch for the Gospels as “imaginatively true”, even when, at one and the same time, they might be adjudged “historically false”.
Might that same principle apply mutatis mutandis to historically conditioned creeds? Pilate asked “What is Truth?”, and the development of Christian doctrine across 2000 years providentially progresses what is contextually “true enough” as the eternal truth of God in Christ captures, and recaptures, hearts and minds in successive generations.
The Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee is a former Bishop of Lincoln.
