The following essay is a revised edition from a lecture given at the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

W. O. Carver remarked on the project of the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message that it was an “abomination of creedmaking.”¹Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 293. Sentiments like these are not hard to find anymore. Baptists are derided and even praised as non-creedal people—both now and in the past.²See, for example: “Ep. 151 Southern Baptists, the Nicene Creed, and the Eternal Generation of the Son,” Podcast, The Reluctant Theologian, June 19, 2024. The fear of confessions not only describing generally held beliefs but regulating them with any level of authority abounds. These fearful ghosts continue to haunt Baptists and Southern Baptists alike.³See Timothy George, “Southern Baptist Ghosts,” First Things, May 1999, https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/05/southern-baptist-ghosts. But are those like Carver right? Do creeds and confessions conflict with Baptist theology? I suggest not. Instead, confessions offer a vision for the good, true, and beautiful. They stir up and safeguard peace, unity, love, and ultimately the truth of Scripture. And they do so for Baptists, like all other traditions. To prove this, I cover the general benefits of confessions, the historical use of confessions in Baptist life, and conclude by providing a confessional test case.

1. The General Benefit of Confessions

Whether a creed or confession, writing down what we believe and enforcing it has always been important. This is true of the church catholic across the ages from the Apostle Paul’s “trustworthy sayings,” his confessions of the mystery of godliness, and his command to hold fast to the “traditions” we were taught, to this very today.

Consider the early church fathers. The patristic fathers thought it was a crime to innovate beyond the Nicene faith.⁴Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, trans., The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, vol. 1 (Konzil, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007), 22. The fathers at Chalcedon were clear: “accursed who innovates.”⁵Price and Gaddis, The Council of Chalcedon, 1:170. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444) is representative when he explains that there is an implicit refusal to go beyond Nicaea even in the slightest respect.⁶Cyril of Alexandria quoted in Price and Gaddis, The Council of Chalcedon, 1:182. Athanasius (296/98–373) at the Council of Alexandria (362) issued a letter that quite clearly outlaws those who “pretend to cite the faith confessed at Nicaea” but “do nothing more than in words deny the Arian heresy while they retain it in thought.”⁷James Stevenson and W. H. C. Frend, eds., Creeds, Councils, and Controversies: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church, AD 337-461, 3rd ed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 80. For Athanasius and company, creeds, their language, and their meaning are necessary for healthy doctrine and unity.

Fast forward to the Reformation and we find groups like the Strasbourg pastors, such as Martin Bucer (1491–1551), facing objections from Anabaptists and Spiritualists that confessions bind consciences. Bucer and company remained resolute that for the sake of the public good and the health of the church there should be a regulation of doctrine from common confessions.⁸Timothy R. Scheuers, Consciences and the Reformation: Scruples over Oaths and Confessions in the Era of Calvin and His Contemporaries, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), 234.

Fine and good. That’s what you might expect from other traditions like Episcopalians and Presbyterians. But what about Baptists? In contrast to the narrative of some, you find similar sentiments among Baptists—even Southern Baptists. B. H. Carroll (1843–1914), the first president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a standard example:

You hear it on every side, “I believe in religion but I don’t care anything about theology. I love flowers but I don’t care anything for botany. Let’s have a religion without any dogma.” Men take great credit to themselves in these utterances that they are free from the enslavement to dogmas. You must not take these people too seriously. They either don’t know what they are talking about, or else know what they say is utterly unworthy of human respect.⁹B. H. Carroll, The Faith That Saves (Dallas: Helms Printing Company, 1939), 92–93.

This example is not uncommon for Carroll. He has numerous examples where he speaks in plain (and sometimes striking) terms about the necessity of creeds.

The necessity and utility of creeds and confessions is a basic Protestant (and Baptist) position. To summarize, the consensus is that creeds and confessions help churches in four main ways:

1. They guard the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
2. They protect churches from imposing personal interpretations on others.
3. They promote unity by promulgating theological boundaries and emphasizing commonality.
4. They serve as time-tested pedagogical tools.

These aspects are found throughout the church catholic, including among Baptists. For example, even E. Y. Mullins (1860–1928), the great champion of soul liberty, says, “…I think creeds perform a useful function in educating us to unity of faith and practice…”¹⁰E. Y. Mullins, Baptist Beliefs, Second (Louisville: Baptist World Publishing Company, 1913), 9–10. Mullins, despite his fear of creedal and confessional authority understood their value and did not reject them wholesale. If contemporary moderates, often labeled “squishy” and unprincipled, would confidently assert the value of creeds and confessions as Mullins did, we could ask for nothing more.

2. Historical Baptist use of Confessions

It is no secret that Baptists have historically used and enforced confessions. Examples abound, from the seven churches in London that constructed the First London Confession of Faith; to the crown jewel of Baptist life in the Second London Confession (2LCF), which was ratified by over one hundred Baptist churches across England; to the American reuse of the 2LCF in the Philadelphia and Charleston Baptist associations and churches. They used them as tools not only to describe generally agreed-upon principles but also as tests of fellowship to maintain unity, educate members, and squelch division.

Take the Philadelphia Baptist Association formed in 1707 as a test case. These churches together used confessions to guard the faith, protect churches, promote unity, and teach the faith. This influential association assumed the 2LCF as its standard (as was true of Baptists throughout the United States during this time).¹¹A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 4. Association minutes from 1724 show this in action when the association refers a Sabbath query to the confession “owned by us.” You find this throughout their minutes. You see it again in 1729 when they refer a query about how can administer the sacraments to the confession.¹²Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 30. You find them ordering a reprinting of the confession in 1742.¹³Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 46. Their work to enforce the confession is also evident throughout. For example, the preface to the minutes of the association from 1851 says, “In every period of its existence the Association has firmly maintained the soundest form of Scripture doctrine; nor could any church have been admitted, at any period, which denied or concealed any of the doctrines of grace.”¹⁴Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 4.

But this is only scratching the surface. The minutes from 1743 show a debate wherein a man named Joseph Eaton recants and renounces his apprehension of eternal generation wherein he “departed from the literal sense and meaning of that fundamental article in our Confession of faith, concerning the eternal generation and Sonship of Jesus Christ our Lord.” He even goes so far as to “condemn” his former teaching against the doctrine of eternal generation and admit his sorrow for ever doing so.¹⁵Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 47. What a testimony to the power and use of a confession of faith! This is not unlike many debates of our own day about the nature of the Son and whether he is eternally subordinate. The Philadelphia Baptist Association is evidence that enforcing a confession can produce the fruit of unity around orthodoxy.

But the Association also was abundantly clear about the power of a confession over a denomination—even a Baptist denomination. An essay entitled the Power and Duty of Association was “approved and subscribed by the whole house” on September 19, 1749.¹⁶Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 60. It says:

Though no power can regularly rise above its fountain from where it rises, yet we are of opinion, that an Association of the delegates of associate churches have a very considerable power in their hands, respecting those churches in their confederation; for if the agreement of several distinct churches, in sound doctrine and regular practice, be the first motive, ground, and foundation or basis of their confederation, then it must naturally follow, that a defection in doctrine or practice in any church, in such confederation, or any party in any such church, is ground sufficient for an Association to withdraw from such a church or party so deviating or making defection, and to exclude such from them in some formal manner…¹⁷Gillette, Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, From A. D. 1707, To A. D. 1807, 61. Emphasis mine.

What else can we take from this clear direction but that the most important Baptist Association of the time was consciously requiring subscription to a confession? It was not merely local churches that had the authority to mandate a confession upon members but an association as well. This is Baptist faith and practice. Those that suggest otherwise are ignorant of our history to their own detriment.

Unfortunately, the Philadelphia Baptist Association did decay over time and experienced drift from their confession of faith. They did not remain vigilant as the centuries wore on. This is certainly proof that creeds and confessions are no magic formula to maintain the confession of the church—only the Spirit of God can do that. But neither is faithfully preaching the Word and administering the sacraments a magic formula for fidelity to the truth of Christ. In every age, no matter the means, we remain dependent on the work of God to sustain us. But this should never lead to a neglect of means.

The slow decay of the Philadelphia Association is why in a circular letter from 1870 a pastor laments that confessions had fallen into disuse among Baptists, calling for a renewal of confessionalism:

Many are utterly ignorant of the Confession of Faith of this Association. Not only have they never read it but they have never seen it… Some declare it is an infringement on the liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment, but this arises from a misapprehension of what soul liberty is. A church holds certain truths, based, as it is believed, on the laws of Christ. These are regarded as essential to its integrity. An Association of churches does the same. A member comes to hold and propagate views contrary to the accepted faith of the churches. For that reason the hand of fellowship is perchance withdrawn. There is no persecution in this. The conscience is not trammeled. The liberty of the church or individual is not impaired. The church and the association has rights and liberties as well as the individual, and in exercising them does not invade the sanctity of individual conscience or interfere with the right of private judgment.¹⁸David Spencer, “Laxity in Religious Belief,” Circular Letter, 1870, http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/1870.cl.phila.html.

The confused assertions we find rebutted here in 1870 continue to this very day. But for well near 200 years the Philadelphia Baptist Association was in direct opposition to the anti-confessional spirit. Popularizers of “no creed but the Bible” like Alexander Campbell—who taught that confessions are merely “matters of opinion” and churches should be given “perfect freedom and liberty” regarding every matter of doctrine—were rejected.¹⁹Alexander Campbell, Christianity As It Was At The First (Birmingham: D. King, 1867), 28. These pastors and associations understood that true liberty is not in the absence of confessions but in their presence since everyone has a confession. Some choose to write theirs down, making them publicly available for scrutiny and revision. Others do not, thereby concealing the terms on which they agree to associate with others.

3. The SBC Use of Confessions

Of course, Baptists today usually want to know not just about Baptist practice but Southern Baptist (SBC) practice. So what if English Baptists or early American Baptists thought or did something—they aren’t Southern Baptists. But Southern Baptists too are a confessional people. Just ask B. H. Carroll. Yet some like Rob Collingsworth recently argue that:

For the first 100 years of our existence as a convention–including an 80-year period in which we had no confession–the constitution said nothing about what a church must believe in order to cooperate. The only criteria for cooperation? Financial contribution. It was 1948 before we amended the constitution to say that messengers could only be appointed from churches “in friendly cooperation with this Convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work,” an admittedly broad and baptistic turn of phrase. To summarize: it is not now, nor has it ever been, the practice of the Southern Baptist Convention to enforce or impose a confessional standard among cooperating churches. The confession is a self-identified consensus statement that broadly describes what most Southern Baptists believe. It is a guardrail for the work of our entities rather than an enforcement mechanism for our churches.²⁰Rob Collingsworth, “Five Reasons to Oppose the Law Amendment,” The Baptist Review, March 18, 2024, https://www.thebaptistreview.com/editorial/five-reasons-to-oppose-the-law-amendment-.

But this misunderstands the history and development of the SBC. The SBC was founded as a missions organization in 1845 and not as a denomination as we understand it today. That it allowed individuals, missionary societies, associations, and other groups to send messengers (not just local churches) reveals that it was not a normal Baptist association. The local associations held confessions and used them. This was assumed. The anti-creedal spirit of W. B. Johnson (1792–1863) and others was the minority.

Johnson argued that creeds were ill-advised for three primary reasons. First, there is no Scriptural command or precedent. Second, they replace Scripture and undermine Christ’s rule. Third, we already have a standard in Scripture. These reasons are still found in corners of Baptist life to this very day. But they are not good reasons to deny the necessity of creeds and confessions. Johnson did succeed in stopping the South Carolina Baptist Association from adopting the Philadelphia Confession in 1824 and he did draw up the constitution of the SBC in 1845. But there is very good reason to find Johnson the minority—and wrong.

Consider five proofs (of which many more could be added!). First, read six direct claims from B. H. Carroll:

• “For instance, if a man wants to preach that there ought to be no church, no ordinances, like a Quaker, he is at liberty to do so, but should not do so occupying a Baptist pulpit and claiming to be a Baptist preacher. Common honesty demands that he shall not take the pulpit of a denomination to undermine the faith of that denomination.”²¹Banajah Harvey Carroll, “Foundations of Our Faith,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 51, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 137.
• “This body of truth, whatever it is, that was once delivered to the saints must be contended for earnestly. It must never be lightly esteemed, and whenever it is necessary and any part of that body of truth is jeopardized, the true lover of Jesus Christ will earnestly contend for whatever our Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to believe or to do. And he will evince a spirit of absolute disloyalty if he regards with even indifference any addition to, subtraction from, or diminution of, the body of truth once delivered to the saints.”²²Carroll, The Faith That Saves, 92.
• “The creed and the confession of that creed stand right at the door of the church. The man without a creed cannot come in. The man who has a creed and will not declare it cannot come in. He must not only in his heart believe, but with his mouth he must make confession and that confession is a necessity as well as the inside faith which it declares.”²³Carroll, The Faith That Saves, 94.
• “Now that is a creed. You say you don’t believe in creeds. You want religion and not a dogma. You have no particular creed. Well, I am sure then that you have no particular religion. Whatever a man believes, that is his creed and bound to be his basis of life.”²⁴Carroll, The Faith That Saves, 95.
• “Is there any importance in that creed? The Apostle Paul distinctly says that unless that creed, in its three items be accepted, that all preaching is vain and that all faith is vain and that men are yet in their sins, and that your trusting fathers and mothers that sleep in the cemetery are perished. It really reflects upon the intelligence of a reasoning man to say that he has no creed or that he objects to creeds or that he objects to a confession of that creed. If he has it, it is right to state it. He has a right to state it orally, or to state it by the pen. It may be written, it may be printed, but surely that much creed is essential to the salvation of a soul. Who wants people to cut out any one of these three vital constituent elements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the reception of which men are saved and their sins forgiven?”²⁵Carroll, The Faith That Saves, 96.
• “Are you prepared to give up any item of this creed? Is it not a comprehensive one? What one of these elements would you blot out? And why should you seek to become a member of the church unless you accept it in your heart, and if you do accept that in our heart, what is the objection to declaring it with your lips, and if you do declare it with your lips, why not put it down in writing?”²⁶Carroll, The Faith That Saves, 101.

These descriptions need little commentary to show what the Southern Baptist Carroll thought. He clearly saw no conflict between his staunch creedalism and confessionalism and his Baptist principles. The creed and confession are essential to the life of the church and the larger association.

Second, consider the claim of Thomas Meredith, editor of North Carolina’s Biblical Recorder, who taught that he knew of no church or association that “did not have its summary of faith as an essential part of its constitution.”²⁷Greg Wills, “The Church: Baptists and Their Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Polity: Biblical Arguments on How to Conduct Church Life, ed. Mark Dever (Washington, D.C.: Nine Marks Ministries, 2001), 30. Likewise, Joseph Baker, a Baptist missionary in Virginia during the nineteenth century, said the SBC and “every association with which we are acquainted” had a confession.²⁸Wills, “The Church: Baptists and Their Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” 30.

Third, historian Greg Wills explains that Baptist associations required churches to present their doctrinal standard before the association would allow them to join. This is authority being exercised by an association external to the local church itself. Modern American Southern Baptists who lack the category for associational power have lost their Baptist heritage. Here is what Wills says in full:

Most Baptists employed confessions of faith and supported their use. Most churches adopted them. So did most associations. Associations usually required churches applying for membership to present their creed, because they felt that the association should comprise churches of the same faith and practice only.²⁹Wills, “The Church: Baptists and Their Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” 28.

Fourth, Baptist associations excluded churches that rescinded their creeds in response to Alexander Campbell’s movement. The Flint River Baptist Association in Georgia removed Bethlehem Church for this in 1852.³⁰Wills, “The Church: Baptists and Their Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” 29. Similarly, the Reedy River Baptist Association appealed to their creed in 1855 to disfellowship two churches. This very association refused W. B. Johnson’s appeal not to use the creed. This is blatant evidence of Baptist usage of creeds and confessions as not only descriptions of generally held beliefs but authoritative tools for guarding right doctrine, promoting unity, and protecting local churches from divisive individuals who would seek to teach contrary to the church’s faith and practice. To be clear, the association isn’t exercising authority over a local church as to what it must believe full stop; its authority pertains to the local church’s membership in the association and that only. In other words, the confession sets the terms of membership in the association.

Fifth, even recently, former SBC President James Merritt argued in his address in 2001 to the SBC that:

It is the height of spiritual cowardice and theological hypocrisy to hide behind the skirt of local church autonomy, or the priesthood of the believer, while pretending that churches can do anything they want to do, or believe anything they want to believe, and still be Baptist.³¹James Merritt, “The Battle of New Orleans” (Presidential Address, 2001 Southern Baptist Convention, New Orleans, LA, June 12, 2001), 93.

What we see here once again is that enforcing a confession for membership in an association does not violate any Baptist principle. It doesn’t violate the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It isn’t a minority report. It is simply historic Baptist belief in confessions as tools of unity and protection. Those that do not understand this lack awareness of our past.

4. A Confessional Test Case

But when each church is autonomous, as congregationalism maintains, what does it look like to have a confession beyond the local church level? Is it even possible? Doesn’t this conflict with Baptist doctrine? Article VI of the BFM2000 is clear: “a New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation.” But the truth is this: autonomy is construed in a variety of ways and traditional congregationalism has no fear of associational authority in many respects. It is not merely an English approach to strong connectionalism, either. Recall the Philadelphia Baptist Association.

But let’s give an example to show this is true. Let’s say we have three autonomous churches that want to cooperate to fund missionaries. Who should be part of this? Because the money will be spent on certain missionaries and planting churches that must practice and teach certain doctrines, a question arises. Will my church fund missionaries to plant local churches that deny the deity of Christ? No! Heaven forbid. So, there will need to be boundaries. But how can we construct and enforce these boundaries?

There are three consistent options to enforce doctrinal boundaries:

1. Enforce the entirety of a confessional document for cooperation.
2. Enforce the entirety of a confessional document for cooperation but revise it to be smaller than the original version so more can cooperate (e.g., instead of the Second London Confession of Faith use the New Hampshire Confession of 1853).
3. Remove the confessional document in its entirety and enforce nothing for cooperation.

The only inconsistent option is what we have today in the Southern Baptist Convention. Today the SBC enforces an unidentified part of a confessional document in completely ad hoc ways. The closest confessional requirement we find is in the constitution of the SBC which says this:

Has a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith. (By way of example, churches that act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior would be deemed not to be in cooperation with the Convention.)

The only explicit clarity provided in this note is a prohibition on homosexual behavior. But by this standard, a Presbyterian or Anglican church that practiced paedobaptism could join the SBC! Surely this is not intended. A “faith and practice which closely identifies” with a Baptist group should include the nature of baptism. But who determines which parts are essential to a “faith and practice which closely identifies”? What if a church is dual-practice and rarely, if ever, practices a paedobaptism, yet still must deny Article VII of the BFM2000 because they practice paedobaptism sometimes? Are they aligned in “faith and practice”? What if a church is open communion, denying Article VII of the BFM2000? What if a church denies that the church and state should be separate, denying Article XVII of the BFM2000? As it stands, the SBC cannot, indeed, does not, have the ability to enforce any of these aspects given the only binding clause being “a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.” The only way to determine this is by recourse to powerful individuals and small group’s personal interpretations.

How can this sort of standard be the basis for any consistent, transparent, honest, and friendly cooperation? Enforcing an unidentified part lends itself to powerful individuals and groups to only enforce their pet issues. It allows churches to be victims of powerful leaders who impose their personal interpretations. It destroys trust and unity.

But even if it were possible to enforce more than homosexual behavior by recourse to constitutional amendments (such as the Law amendment), these are entirely ad hoc and defeat the purpose of a confession. They become their own confessional standard, relegating the importance and value of the actual statement of faith. And so, it turns out that it is impossible to avoid confessional subscription. Everyone subscribes to something. Some confessions are just private and hidden or piecemeal and ad hoc instead of publicly available. But private and piecemeal confessions are not consistent with historic practice or the wisdom that prudence demands.

No confession is inerrant, of course. They can be revised. So, if that’s what an association needs in a moment of division, so be it. But to pursue a vague usage of a confessional document whenever the loudest group wants to is a recipe for division and disaster. The point of a confession is to assist with transparent and unified cooperation. True cooperation is only possible where there is trust. And trust can only be built on something solid like a confession.[32]

To maintain such cooperation requires publicly enforcing a body of doctrine. But publicly enforcing confessional subscription is not an inquisition. It is a commitment to faith, hope, and love. It believes that sound and healthy doctrine builds up the church and safeguards it from error. It is consistent with historic Baptist practice. No church is required to be a member of an association. They may depart at will and remain a faithful gospel preaching church. It is true that no confession is a guarantee of faithful doctrine at the end of time. But they are a God-given means to strengthen and defend the faith. We relativize them to our own peril and decline.