On changing a doctrinal basis

This week hundreds of pastors and others will be attending the FIEC Leaders' Conference in Blackpool.  Wish I could be there!  It has always been an encouraging time when I've been in the past.

One thing the assembled delegates will be doing this week is voting on a change to the FIEC Doctrinal Basis.  This is the document which defines those core beliefs which FIEC churches are required to uphold.  The proposal is to add a statement on marriage, worked into the article on humanity, which now becomes two articles: 'humanity' and 'the fall'.  You can see the current DB here, and a post detailing the proposed revisions here.  Since I'm not a delegate or a church leader, I haven't hugely engaged with this, but the more I think about it the more I think this is a bad move, or at least that it ought not to be done in this way.  So, too late to do anything constructive about this, I thought I'd share my thoughts here.

Firstly, let me put on record that I agree with the text of the proposed changes.  I don't have any doctrinal objection whatsoever to the statements, in the sense of thinking that they are saying anything wrong.  I could still sign up to this revised doctrinal basis.  So that means that for me this is not a 'to the barricades' moment; this is not a hill on which I would be prepared to suffer a serious wound, let alone die.

Nevertheless, I have three objections to the proposed changes.

1. I think it is clear that this is reactive theology.  That is to say, we feel pressured to make this change not because of some internal development of our theology, or because of a closer attention to Scripture which has brought something new to light, but because the secular culture has moved and we feel the need to respond.  Of course, a great deal of theology is reactive.  The development of the Nicene Creed was a reaction to heretical thinking in the church.  There is nothing wrong with reacting.  But there is always the danger when we are reacting that our theology is not in the driving seat.  We may be responding theologically, but what is setting the agenda?  It seems to me that these proposed changes are driven by an agenda which is not, ultimately, theological.  The statement about 'biological sex' as the identifier (?) of gender does not look like the church speaking on its own terms, out of its own beliefs; it is a response, in terms which are alien to biblical revelation, to an issue raised by the surrounding culture.  Again, that does not make it wrong.  But it does, for me, make it unsuitable for inclusion in a statement of fundamental beliefs.  Here, I would hope to see an unfolding of Christian doctrine with its basis in revelation.

2. I think the changes have the potential to distort our anthropology (and therefore our Christology).  Because the statements are reactive, they are also partial.  They do not unfold what it means to be human on the basis of Scripture, but make a couple of statements about the particular elements of human existence which are controverted (gender, and marriage).  The result is to make gender and marriage appear unduly important in our understanding of humanity.  This exaggerated emphasis has a knock on effect in a number of areas, including singleness (which seems to be problematised by the revisions) and Christology, in understanding the relation of the (male) Jesus to this fundamentally bifurcated humanity.

3. More practically, I don't understand how these changes don't involve "elevating an ethical matter into the Doctrinal Basis" (to quote the FIEC article).  The FIEC already has an ethical position paper on gender and marriage; churches already have to uphold this position.  But now churches which use the FIEC DB as their own statement of faith will have to require people not only to submit to the church's discipline practically, but to agree doctrinally - i.e., not just maintain the ethos of the church, but commit theologically to the truth that backs that ethos.  Now, I hope people will agree with it; I think it is right and good and true.  But I don't want to underestimate the confusion in our world and our churches on this issue.  I don't want to raise barriers to people being members of evangelical churches where they will hear the truth taught.  Otherwise there are plenty of liberal churches they can join.

For these reasons, as well as the apologetic/evangelistic reasons advanced by Richard Baxter (not that one), I'd love these changes not to go through, at least not in this form.  I guess they will, and it won't be the end of the world.  But that's what I think.

The cheering crowd of witnesses

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has just rattled through a list of the faithful from the Old Testament era, those who pointed the way and passed on into death still holding to their hope in God.  He envisages them, and also I think those faithful Christians who have fallen asleep in the Lord, as the crowd in the stadium, cheering on the believers who are still toiling in the race.  Those runners are not looking at the crowds; they are looking to Jesus, who stands at the finish line and beckons them on, just as he stood at the start line and set them running in the first place.  Nevertheless, the cheering crowds are surely an encouragement to those who are growing weary.

I've been thinking in the last couple of days that sometimes the Christian life feels less like a race on a stadium track and more like a lengthy cross country.  The course is not always as clearly marked as you'd like.  It seems to have been designed to take in as many obstacles as possible.  Sometimes you find yourself running through streams, or dodging through trees, and wondering if you've taken a wrong turn.  Sometimes you can't really imagine that the race will ever be finished - unlike a stadium race, you can't see the finish line clearly and you might not be sure how far through you are.  Has anyone, in fact, ever completed this gruelling course?

And of course the primary encouragement when we feel like this is that the Lord Jesus ran this way.  Even when we struggle to lift our eyes to see him at the finish line, we see marks along the way that remind us of him.  Yes, he also battled through these brambles; we see the signs of his passing this way.  That sharp rock on which you stumbled and cut yourself is already marked with the blood which he shed there.  Christ ran this way, and he reached the finished line.  Lift your eyes to him.

But also - do you hear the crowds?  There are so many.  Some of them have barely had time to change out of their running kit; some have been there in the crowd for millennia.  They cheer us on.  They made it.  They ran the race, they reached the finish.  We are all mud-bespattered, but they are gloriously clean.  Some of them still carry marks from the wounds they picked up in the race, but healed now; mere memories of suffering, emblems now of triumph, in some ways more significant than the crowns they wear.  And they cheer us on.  They made it; we can make it.

Let's keep running.