“Doing Church” as things fall apart and the centre does not hold
Alexander Venter wrote a very helpful book called “Doing Church”. He also wrote, “Doing Healing”, “Doing Reconciliation”, and “Doing Spirituality”. His way of doing retains connection to the historical orthodox credal confessions of the Church. The link is significant, because the early decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed a destabilization of the structural and theological landscape of Western Christianity. Driven by the fragmenting forces of late modernity, an emphasis on radical individual autonomy, and a pervasive suspicion of institutional authority, many communities have attempted to re-invent the ecclesiastical wheel quite apart from historical orthodoxy.
The phrase "doing church" might itself be a telling linguistic shift from being the Church toward an experiential, functional activity. The phrase has sometimes engineered environments of therapeutic Deism, apart from clear connection to historical orthodoxy. Our drive for contemporary relevance has frequently resulted in a theological thinning out, reductionist dumbing down, and more. Stripped of our historical roots, we find ourselves adrift on the shifting tides of cultural trends and emotive consumerism.
In response to this instability, a growing countermovement has rediscovered an ancient truth. The most profound freedom, vitality, and safety in ecclesial life are not found in perpetual change, but within the secure, familiar, time-tested boundaries of being a confessing people. It is, at least in part, why we have seen a move by some toward Eastern Orthodoxy and the more traditional churches. The historical creeds are a good starting point toward being a confessional people.
A church becomes a confessional church when it publicly affirms a particular confession, which summarizes its understanding of the faith. Such confessions, served in large part by the Ecumenical Creeds, act as a guide for preaching, worship, discipleship, leadership and pastoral care. Confessional churches seek to make their beliefs clear and accountable. The enormous challenge in this is trying to do so without moving into detailed tick box statements of faith and various legalist requirements for belonging that go way beyond anything ever intended by the creeds.
What I mean by confessional and what the Southern Baptist Convention means by it are likely not the same thing. I mean trying to summarize that which has “stood the test of time,” viewed through the lens of the coming of the Kingdom. In that process the Holy Spirit is the ultimate rule of our faith and practice. Emphasis on the authority of Scripture with scarcely a mention of the Holy Spirit, as so many do it, will inevitably move us toward bibliolatry.
As our starting point, "doing church" within the parameters of the Ecumenical Creeds - the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, is not a decision to choose stagnation over life. Rather, it recognizes that freedom and safety require some structural boundaries. Much like a river requires banks to keep it from becoming a mire. The weakness of the reformed churches was never their credal, nor even their reformed confessions - that might be their strength. Their weakness is more likely to be seen in their general inability to be continually reforming.
When tethering ourselves to the credal statements, some honesty is required. The statements are the outcome of several historical and theological processes. They did not drop “carved in stone” from heaven, nor were they delivered by Angels. But, then again, neither did Scripture.
Our faith affirms that God gave us the Scriptures, and that God the Holy Spirit has been working in and through the Church and biblical Israel for a good few thousand years. That same faith contends that the Holy Spirit, working in the Church throughout the Church-age; intended for us to have these credal statements. The creeds were sufficient for the Early Church. The question becomes whether they are sufficient for us? Or should they be allowed to be semper reformanda - “always reforming or in this case always being “re-formed, revised and re-written?’”
Without going into any detail of what might change, I do think the creeds require contextualizing by local congregations. We do not, for e.g., need to be bound to the historical context of patriarchy and male dominated language just for starters. The language is reflective of the times in which the creeds were penned, rather than reflecting any theological position. Changing form or composition without altering substance is after all what Bible translation is, in part, about. It should be no different with credal formulations. But whatever contextualizing takes place needs to be thoroughly informed by, and significantly guided by, the historical creeds and an understanding of the historical-theological-political processes which brought them about.
The challenge of uncharted faith
When a church abandons conscious, active alignment to and interaction with historic confessions, it doesn’t then become objectively neutral, or based “purely” on Scripture. There is no safety in arrogance. Instead, such communities become vulnerable to several dangers.
One danger is theological parochialism. Without the anchor of an inherited confessional faith, groups inevitably become reflections of their immediate cultural moment or the personal idiosyncrasies of their current leadership. The “Kingdom” of this or that charismatic leader. The theological horizon shrinks to the boundaries of what is popular, comfortable, or marketable in a specific locus - within time and geographical boundaries.
Another danger is the tyranny of the unwritten creed. Every local church has a creed, whether we admit it or not. Communities that proclaim, "No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible", still maintain strict boundaries regarding what is acceptable belief and practice. The critical difference is that their creeds are unwritten and extremely fluid without limit. There, the parameters of orthodoxy might shift overnight based on a pastor’s new theological fascination or a change in leadership. This can create an environment of spiritual anxiety for the congregation, who cannot necessarily see where the invisible theological lines are drawn. The charismatic movement – where I find home – is vulnerable in this area.
Churches that have come into the things of the Spirit, but remain linked to confessional traditions, whether reformed, Anglican, Baptist, Eastern or Roman Catholic, seem less likely to move into what we used to call apostacy. The credal confessions tend to keep us grounded. They keep us from moving into what I call “the Gnostic jet stream” and I’ve heard others call the “stratosphere.” They keep us from hard dualist divisions. Manichaeism and more, is alive and well.
At their extreme, modern churches might continually gather around the most recent revelation of just one person. Although this is not normative, it is more prevalent than we might like to think. The moral implosion of the Church in the North Americas is sometimes down to this one thing.
Churches disconnected from the confessions have historical amnesia. They operate under the extremely arrogant assumption that the Holy Spirit skipped over two millennia of church history, trusting the current generation to finally interpret the Scriptures correctly. This isolates the modern believer from the global, historical communion of saints, leaving them alone to fight theological battles that were won centuries ago.
Confession as a map of reality
Against this backdrop of vulnerability, the historical confessions stand as maps of revelation. They do not replace Scripture, which we affirm as it has been handed down to us, but the creeds do protect Scripture’s interpretation from the bizarre. The early Church Fathers spoke of the regula fidei - the Rule of Faith. This rule was a summary of the core narrative of Scripture, a shorthand map that ensured readers did not twist the biblical text to mean its exact opposite. A reliable map doesn’t restrict our ability to climb; but it does ensure that we don’t walk off a cliff in the mist.
The Apostles' Creed anchors the local church in the foundational, historical reality of the Triune God, the incarnation, the bodily resurrection, and the ultimate restoration of all things.
The Nicene Creed provides a defense of the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ and the divinity of the Holy Spirit, ensuring that the object of the church’s worship is God as revealed by God, not as an idol of human imagination, or as the way of an enlightened human. It is the Way of the man-God, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living and Triune God.
The Athanasian Creed offers more on Trinity and the incarnation of Jesus.
Confession and pastoral competence protect the community
One of the benefits of doing church within a broadly confessional framework is the safety that it affords congregations from pastoral malpractice, of which there is not a little. In a highly individualized church model, the pastor is often the chief theologian, executive, and visionary of the community. If the pastor has a bad day, a theological crisis, or succumbs to a trend, the entire congregation is taken along for the ride. The pulpit can then become a platform for personal grievances, political diatribes, or speculative novelties.
When a pastor is bound by ordination vows to a specific confession, a safety mechanism is activated. The pastor is not the master of the text, but the servant of a received tradition. The confession sets boundaries to what is taught from the pulpit. Confessional faith alone, even contextualized confessional faith, whilst central to our identity is no panacea though. Pastoral competence too is significantly important.
The church I pastor is affiliated where pastors are currently licenced rather than ordained. The practice is under some discussion. Not everyone will agree with my assessment below. That’s fine.
We have minimised the need for theological and spiritual formation of leaders when telling prospective pastors that “all they need” to shepherd a local church is what amounts to the equivalent of about one year of undergraduate training. It is not nearly enough. Whatever wineskin it has been poured from over some decades; it was never enough, and it never will be enough. Pastors, much like doctors need “continual pastoral education.” We cannot be telling people, “Just do this, or that module or cohort and you will be good to go.” We cannot be saying, “you don’t need to do what the Church through the ages has always known it is necessary to do in the formation of those who are called to lead her.” We simply cannot…
A caveat here is as it relates to formal qualifications versus equivalent qualification. There are pastors and leaders who have no formal training, but by virtue of self-education, informal education and a significant body of reading, are every bit as capable as many with formal qualifications. That much is true. But a middle ground needs to be found.
Much like I would not want an unqualified mechanic working on my brand-new Mercedes SLC (I wish), or a second-year medical student doing open heart surgery on me, it is reasonable for congregants to expect a certain level of competency and craft from those who lead them. Being filled with the Spirit in isolation is not sufficient for the long haul of a pastoral ministry. In any event, life in the Spirit is not removed from study and spiritual formation. They are intrinsically intertwined. If the Spirit is the power, then very often, pastoral work and care is the bridge. The cura animarum – care of human souls is not an optional extra to the pastoral call.
An often-quoted sentiment that the disciples and Apostles who wrote the Epistles were uneducated fishermen doesn’t hold good. It is almost certain that the disciples would have attended Beit Seifer, where they would have learned to read, write and study Hebrew and more from a very young age. Memorization, sometimes extensive memorization, of portions of Torah was also common. Paul himself was a scholar of scholars, and the disciples all served a three-year practical apprenticeship with Jesus.
If pastors drift into ancient heresies repackaged as modern insights - things like refutation of the resurrection and the Virgin birth, adoption of modern-day Arianism, or turning the gospel of grace into a legalistic self-help program; all of which abound, then the creeds give the congregation an objective standard of accountability.
The confessions democratize accountability. When we are not covenanted to uphold an inherited confession, the sheep get tossed to and fro, by every wind of doctrine blowing through the cultural landscape and every leadership change. Historical orthodoxy is the well from which we draw, and the framework within which we safely explore “doing and being church” in ancient and then also new ways.
Safety = freedom of conscience
Paradoxically, while many now view the creeds as restrictive cages, designed by people who “wanted to control us”, in reality, a credal formulation functions as a shield that protects the believer’s freedom of conscience.
In non-credal, highly experiential or mystical church environments, spiritual maturity is often measured by purely subjective metrics. Things like, emotional intensity during worship, participation in specific church programs, compliance with a charismatic leader’s vision, or alignment with unwritten cultural taboos. Because the standards are subjective and ever-changing, the believer’s conscience is frequently bound by human traditions and expectations.
When a church operates within a confessional framework, the parameters of what is required for orthodoxy are clear. The confessions outline the essentials of our faith. On matters outside these explicit boundaries - what theologians call adiaphora or matters of secondary importance - there is immense freedom.
A confessional church tells the believer what it believes about God, humanity, salvation, and the sacraments. Once those things are affirmed, the church does not have the right to micro-manage the believer’s conscience on matters of personal preference and choice, political opinions or cultural tastes. The creed sets the boundary of the garden, but within that garden, there is freedom to run, play, grow, disagree, and “do church”.
That freedom extends to all the hot topics of our day, viz. Political persuasions, White Christian Nationalism, NAR, LBGTQIA+ inclusion, Pro-life & Pro-choice, assisted suicide, Gender roles & women in leadership, Critical Race Theory & Social Justice, Digital Culture & Outrage, Israel & Palestine, and anything else you can think of that I have not listed here. None of these topics are credal. There is room for significant differences of opinion in any fellowship.
The creeds also provide a haven for those experiencing doubt or spiritual dryness. When an individual’s faith feels weak or their emotions are flat, they do not have to generate their own certainty to be part of the community. They can step into the liturgy, confess the creed alongside their brothers and sisters, and allow the corporate, historical faith of the church to carry them through the darkness. The creed reminds the doubting soul that their salvation rests on objective, historical events outside of themselves - Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Unity across Time and Space
The Church is fragmented, not only denominationally, but generationally and culturally. Churches often segment themselves by demographic targets such as youth churches, cowboy churches, hipster churches, inclusive churches, or traditionalist enclaves. This demographic segregation, is the natural result of "doing church" based on market analysis and consumer preference.
The credal confessions offer an entirely different basis for unity - one that provides relational safety. When a local body confesses the creeds, they are intentionally declaring that their primary identity is not rooted in their age, race, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, or cultural preferences. Instead, their primary identity is rooted in a shared confession of the faith. The confessional faith provides a way for us to hold divisive things in tension. Things that need to be held in tension without having to “land’ on every secondary issue as a requirement for belonging. Where we “land” is on the content of the credal confessions.
This confessional identity links the local congregation to the global church across space. A worshipper confessing the Nicene Creed in a small village in Africa, a cathedral in Europe, or a storefront church in North America is participating in the same confessional reality.
The creeds also link the church across time. When we speak these words, we are singing in harmony with the martyrs of Rome, the theologians of Chalcedon, the reformers of Geneva, and the faithful hidden throughout centuries of history. This historical continuity provides a deep sense of spiritual safety. It reminds us that we are not alone, that our struggles are not unique, and that the faith we hold has survived empires, plagues, wars, and cultural collapses. Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run, with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
A Spacious Place
In the Psalms, David praises God for bringing him out into a "spacious place" (Psalm 18:19). For us seeking a church home, that spacious place is found not in the unstructured wilderness of theological experimentation, but within the walled garden of confessional orthodoxy.
"Doing church" within the safety of the credal confessions is an act of profound pastoral humility. It is an admission by leadership and congregation alike that we are not smart enough, creative enough, or holy enough to reinvent the inherited faith on our own. It is a respectful submission to the consensus of the faithful who have gone before us.
Within these ancient boundaries, the church finds the stability she needs to weather the storms of late modernity. The pulpit remains protected from error, the pew remains protected from tyranny, and the individual conscience finds the room it needs to breathe, doubt, heal, and grow.
What we have inherited through the ages from those who have gone before us, may be very easy to critique from where we sit. I have done my share of that. But I have no doubt that God the Holy Spirit has ministered through it all. Good, bad and ugly. The bottom line is simply this. Either we can see that what we have inherited carries the fingerprints of God all over it, or we can’t. Faith is faith because it is given the ability to believe what it cannot fully see. But faith is certainly not blind (He 11:1).
By standing on the foundation of confession, the local church ceases to be a shifting mirror of cultural trends and becomes what it was meant to be. A solidifying presence in an ever-changing culture. We offer the world the enduring safety of the unchanging Gospel of our unchanging King, Jesus.