Historical Confessions

Throughout the history of Presbyterianism in America there has been an underlying debate as to whether or not pastors, elders, or even members must subscribe to some statement of faith other than the bible. Traditionally the subscription debate revolved around the Westminster confession. The pro side felt that Westminster was a faithful statement of what we believe as a group. The con side felt that to be forced to subscribe to Westminster was to reduce orthodox Christianity to a summary of fundamentals, and that it was also to lose the freedoms of conscience provided in the bible.

The PCUSA, in which I was raised, has as part of its Book of Confessions, several varying statements of faith, including such beautiful, historical confessions as the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, The Scots, Second Helvitic, and Westminster Confessions, The Westminster and Heidelberg catechisms, as well as several various newer declarations of faith. The good part of tihs is the variety of statements of historical orthodox belief. Such variety lends perspective to our understanding of our faith. The bad part of having such variety in our Book of Confessions is that one may, conceivably choose to believe anything that one wants (even blatant heresy), and it is possible to find some spurious statement somewhere in the confessions to imply credibility to that belief.

In the next post or two I want to investigate where our ideas of biblical inerrancy and infallability come from, using the confessions, and sort through some recent ridiculous heresies that I've heard voiced about the bible as a purely human, uninspired collection of partially fictitious texts. I also want to get into the idea of whether spiritual guidance is a matter of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or of biblical understanding.

Lord, God, Help me! I'm surely in over my head in this study, but it is something that I felt led to learn about. Please, Lord, guide my thoughts and my writing, and silence me if what I am saying is not a right understanding of Your Truth. In your Son's name, Amen