The SBC and the Nicene Creed Featuring Malcolm Yarnell & Steve McKinion along with Matt Emerson and Luke Stamps: A Brief Response

Four Baptist scholar-historians (two seminary professors and two university professors) plan to move at the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention that The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message be amended to include a brand new article of faith—Article XIX: The Creed.

Many have wondered why now, and why this Creed. In the minds of those wondering why now, they undoubtedly are thinking about the confessional history of Southern Baptists themselves. For Southern Baptists, there appears to have always been a significant even if not very troubling issue that ultimately called for a confessional response.

When Southern Baptists adopted their first convention-wide confession in 1925, the occasion had to be momentous since the convention had existed over three-quarters of a century without a confession of faith (1845-1925). And it was. The Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy and the rise of evolution was significant enough to eventually unite Southern Baptists in adopting a confession—The Baptist Faith and Message.  

Similarly, when the convention began experiencing a battle over the first eleven chapters of Genesis and the questionable interpretation some professors were embracing and even publishing, the controversy eventually led to a significant but not thorough updated edition of the 1925 BF&M in 1963.

Fast-forward to 1979 and the beginning of what’s now broadly identified as the Conservative Resurgence, culminating in 1998 and 2000 with a major revision Southern Baptists presently embrace—The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (2kBF&M).

Back to the question some are confused about: Why now? What crisis or significant issue does the four-man Nicene Creed crew offer as sufficient rationale to significantly amend Southern Baptists’ confession they have embraced over the last quarter-century?

I took the time to listen to them explain their for over an hour in the video posted I encourage you, if you have time and patience to listen to their reasoning. But do not expect an answer to the question, why now. You’ll be very disappointed. They offer no real rationale at all. Basically, they offer in their video what you might expect if you were sitting in their classroom listening to a lecture on theology, church history, etc. etc. Completely absent from the hour-plus explanation is a reason why Southern Baptists must adopt the Nicene Creed—(The Creed).

Over and over the four men suggested the Nicene Creed is biblical. Ok. So what? Are they suggesting the 2KBF&M is not biblical? Or insufficiently biblical? Where is the 2kBF&M lacking in its articles expressing either the Triune nature of God or a high Christology? If the 2kBF&M is fully sufficient and biblically faithful, why would Southern Baptists amend their confession and adding a redundant statement? If the 2kBF&M is insufficient and biblically suspect, then they need say so. But then where exactly are Southern Baptists in theological error in their present confessional statement? Personally, I don’t need a theological lecture. I need a sufficient rationale as to why Southern Baptists ought to add a 4^th century Creed to its present confession. Hence, their repeated insistence that the Nicene Creed is biblical offers no real reason why they should embrace it and embrace it now.

Somewhere in the panelists’ lecture it was mentioned that the 1700-year anniversary of the Nicene Creed was next year in 2025 (that’s assuming one counts from AD 325, but the 325 version of the Nicene Creed isn’t what the panelists are proposing. Rather they’re proposing the “extended edition” of the Nicea Creed dating from AD 381). If celebrating the anniversary of The Creed remains the only reason for Southern Baptists to include it in their present confession of faith, I think a better confessional celebration for Southern Baptists in 2025 might be to honor with a Centennial Event the first convention-wide confession Southern Baptists adopted in 1925. Since the panelists are so creed-oriented, they should be elated about Southern Baptists finally getting around to adopting its first confession of faith in 1925.   

Again, my frustration with the panelists exists in their explanation of The Creed and the complete absence of offering any sufficient rationale for Southern Baptists to take a giant leap from their historic practice of failing to adopt and/or significantly change their confession of faith apart from what they came to accept as an impending crisis. What is more, it literally took years—even decades—before the action was finally taken. In other words, there was an extended period of debate and persuasion in every case before Southern Baptists were ready to significantly change their confession. Yet the four-man Nicene Creed crew steps out from behind a rock with a rabbit they pulled out of a hat—”Southern Baptists ought to amend their present confession with ‘Article XIX: The Creed.’” Who was expecting that? No one I’ve talked to.

Even more embarrassing to them (or should be!) is what a terrible time it is to bring something like adopting The Creed up when Southern Baptists are presently divided over what the term “pastor” negates and/or affirms pertaining to male or female servants in Article VI of the 2kBF&M. That issue will drain the time for debate on the floor of the convention let alone the exhausted will of the messengers to decide upon a major revision of their confession. What were these guys thinking?

Were I of a conspiratorial mind, perhaps I would conclude they had thought about it deeply. For if Southern Baptists were mentally and emotionally exhausted from dealing with one confessional issue, what better time to bring up such an otherwise anti-Baptist motion that they include an actual edict of ancient Roman Imperial Law into their 21^st Century faith confession? (more on that later).   

Even so, I now want focus more on the second question I listed above—Why particularly the Nicene Creed?

As I watched and listened to the video explanation, several questions were brought to my own mind. At the very start and running throughout the historical commentary there was an undeniable conflation of the two terms “confession” and “creed.” Baptists have struggled throughout their history to both explain the difference most believed existed between the two terms as well as maintain the distinction practically. No one who’s been in fellowship with a Baptist church as long as I can forget what used to be a standard dictum among many Baptists. “Baptists may be a confessional people but not a credal people.” Or, similarly, “Baptists honor no creed but the Bible.” Many attribute those expressions to misguided Baptists who fought with the Church of Christ in the 19^th Century (those whom they then called “Campbellites” after Alexander Campbell) and consequently hold with derision anyone who would make such a statement today.

Suffice it to say there were tens of thousands of Southern Baptists representing hundreds of churches and dozens of associations in the south that not only believed that view but practiced it by embracing no creed or even confession of faith but Scripture alone. And recall, for over three-quarters of a century (1845-1925), Southern Baptists had adopted no confession of faith. When they finally did adopt a confession in 1925, it had literally taken years of debate and persuasion for them to do so. And while embracing no creed but the Bible was not the only confessional position many Baptists held or even the majority position Baptists maintained, it nonetheless remains a significant historical chunk of Baptist history and deserves more than derision or dismissal especially by these four scholar-historians who know better. As I said earlier, I don’t need a theological lecture about what I ought to do; I need a fair reading of the facts. Unfortunately, the Nicene Creed crew failed to offer it.

If I may…

Dr. Yarnell brings up founding president of Southwestern seminary, B.H. Carroll, as representative of Baptists embracing creeds. I stand to be corrected, but the way I recall Carroll’s approach to creeds was to equate creeds with a personal confession of faith in the Lord Jesus as in, for example, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31); or, “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:9-10). Thus, Carroll concluded that every man (or woman) holds to a creed. Just what this has to do with officially adopting as a convention of churches the Nicene Creed escapes me. Now if Yarnell could offer a little known essay in which Carroll argues for the Nicene Creed and why we should adopt it too, that’s an entirely different story. That would be evidence for Yarnell’s position. Like I said, I stand to be corrected. But don’t insult us when Carroll was apparently not speaking about the same kind of creed you are proposing Southern Baptists officially adopt—The Creed.

Indeed, Yarnell is so convinced Southern Baptists must embrace the Nicene Creed that we risk the very wrath of God being poured out on us if we fail to confess the Trinity and Christology properly (9:33, streaming point in the video here and following). Thus, it’s “important for us to affirm the formulate” (i.e., The Creed, 13:17).

Granted it’s significant if Baptists fail to confess a biblical understanding either of the Triune nature of God or the Person and nature of Jesus Christ. I have but one question. Where in the 2kBF&M do we fail to embrace either a biblical understanding of the Trinity or the Person and nature of Jesus Christ? If we presently confess a biblical understanding of both the Trinity and Christology in the 2kBF&M, why is it necessary to embrace yet another statement—albeit an historical one but nonetheless a redundant one?

If, on the other hand, Southern Baptists have failed to express a biblical understanding of either the Trinity or Christology, we’ve got a much bigger issue in play, for if this is so, we not only are heretics but have been heretics for centuries, and men like Yarnell and the pro-Nicene guys have stood by and left us in ignorance. In fact, they’ve apparently been professing heresy as well! I don’t understand.

Another line the panelists lecture us about is their supposed long trail of Baptist tradition in accepting and adopting ancient creeds in many confessions and catechisms among their Baptist ancestors (beginning 1:51). More than once, they cite Baptist roots in England—both Particular and General Baptists—who commonly accepted not only the Nicene Creed, but also the Apostles’ Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. They claim, for example, that The Orthodox Creed adopted by General Baptists in the eighteenth century included embracing all three creeds mentioned above, and therefore is definitive proof that Baptists have a long rich history of embracing the Nicene Creed. “They readily affirmed the language and text of the three ecumenical creeds” to “show themselves a part of the broader Christian tradition” (beginning at 2:28).

What they conveniently fail to mention is, by all measures, The Orthodox Creed remains the single exception in Baptist confessionalism that so much as mentions the ancient creeds. In other words, reasonable historians would view this an outlier, an exception to the general norm practiced by virtually all other Baptist bodies not definitive evidence that proves the practice an established one in Baptist tradition.

Nor as suggested did General Baptists print either of the three creeds mentioned in The Orthodox Creed but only alluded to them by printing a few words from the opening line of each creed and made a summary statement of the opening lines of which reads “The three creeds, viz. the Nicene creed, Athanasius’ creed, and the Apostles’ Creed, as they are commonly called, ought thoroughly to be received and believed.” What’s telling about the opening statement in The Orthodox Creed is, it’s lifted almost verbatim right from The Thirty-Nine Articles, the standard confession of the Church of England.

English Baptists did not experience religious liberty the way we’ve come to experience in America due to Baptist influence on the first amendment in our Bill of Rights. For English Baptists, no such religious liberty was afforded. England’s Crown was at times so ruthless in its persecution of dissenting Christians that many were fortunate to escape (to Holland and elsewhere) with their lives. Many didn’t make it.

Hence, one might understand better why General Baptists were anxious to align themselves as close as possible to the Church of England, a kind of optics, if you will. What better way to prove your Christian body’s allegiance to the ancient faith (i.e. Church of England) and denial of supposed heresy than confessing, “Like you, we believe in the ancient creeds too!”? I do not fault them. Desperate times are creative times one may suppose. That was their crisis and perhaps their solution to deal with it (for the record, if it was their solution, it did not work).

On the other hand, what crisis do Southern Baptists desperately face that would call for them to align themselves with Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, or other faith communions that fully embrace the Nicene Creed like the Greek Orthodox, communions Baptists historically have been careful to distinguish themselves from? No one is pressuring any faith group in America to add a Creed to prove themselves historically credible let alone Baptists. Baptists have forever argued that the New Testament alone demonstrates their ecclesiological validity and historical existence.

Nor do the panelists offer another Baptist confession—particularly a Calvinistic confession—to demonstrate the practice of adopting ancient creeds into their confessional documents. They do mention a catechism written and used by Hercules Collins, a Calvinist, that allegedly affirms the Nicene Creed, but catechisms are by no measure necessarily equated with creeds or confessions. Rather catechisms, at least in the free church tradition, are teaching tools normally written by single individuals (usually pastors) used at local church discretion.

One panelist continued to push people toward their resource page for more documentation on Baptist adoption of ancient creeds. Apart from expensive books advertised on the resource page, I found a couple of blog posts citing Hercules Collins as an example of Calvinist adoption of the Nicene Creed as well as a post citing a piece in The Alabama Baptist state paper in the late 19^th century that was apparently amenable toward the Nicene Creed. Both examples, however, were apparently written by individual Baptists not recommendations to formally affirm the Nicene Creed in a public confession of cooperating faith by any Baptist body. If I am mistaken, I encourage the panelists to clarify for I humbly stand to be corrected.  

According to the panelists, the Nicene Creed is “thoroughly biblical” (3:38), so much so, that virtually every phrase and word is lifted right from Scripture itself. I honestly smiled as both Drs. Yarnell and McKinion waxed strongly on this point. I immediately recalled Athanasius’ (c. AD 296-298 – 373) Defense of the Nicene Definition and the very first objection he cited by those who were anti-Nicene to answer in Nicene’s defense: “[The Arians] still [like] to complain like the Jews, ‘Why did the Fathers at Nicæa use terms not in Scripture, ‘Of the essence’ and ‘One in essence?’” (translated in the English version of The Creed the panelists are proposing as “one in substance”).

It is not too much to suggest that the single most contentious aspect of the Creed offered by the early detractors might concern the non-biblical word(s) employed to describe the Person and nature of Jesus Christ and the Triune nature of God. Even those who ultimately signed the Creed expressed reservations about the term since, for them, it tended to offer verbal ammunition for Modelists as well as potentially offer credence to Gnostics among whom the term was not uncommon. Intense debate took place both before and after the Council of Nicea over specific words.

Please understand. I’m not at all suggesting the term Nicea-Constantinople ended embracing was a doctrinal mistake or did not accurately portray biblical revelation. What I am suggesting is, that it’s misleading at best to suggest that every word and phrase is lifted straight from the Bible when it’s obviously not the case. Even Nicene’s most learned defender, Athanasius, acknowledged the novelty of the term and rightly argued it didn’t matter. The term perfectly captured the essential teaching of Scripture and that was sufficient.

Dr. Yarnell insists that the entirety of the third article, almost all of which is new at Constantinople (381), concerns exclusively the Holy Spirit including both the statement on the church as well as the statement on baptism (34:22 ff). If this is so, it makes little sense, at least to me, if one considers the Nicene Creed in AD 325. The earlier version ends with, “these [i.e., Arians] the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.” How does this earlier statement concerning the “catholic and apostolic church” refer to the Holy Spirit? It seems the only way to interpret the “one holy universal and apostolic Church” of Constantinople (381) against the original backdrop of the “catholic and apostolic church” (325) is to unplug one from the other. I don’t know if that makes sense.

On the other hand, it makes more sense to interpret the “one holy universal and apostolic Church” as referring to the Holy Spirit as Yarnell insists if one presumes already The Creed has no connection to the rise of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of church structure and authority, a repeated claim throughout the panelists’ explanation. “The Roman Catholic Church was not in existence at this time” they insist.

While it’s true the terms “Roman Catholic Church,” “Roman Catholicism,” “Papist,” “Popery,” et al did not come into existence until centuries later, it’s not the case that the contours of Catholic ecclesiology was absent during this early period. To deny that the rise of Constantine to imperial power at the beginning of the 4^th century; his legal favorability toward Christianity; his intermixing Roman politics with ecclesial matters; his lifting Bishops to unprecedented heights of power in both culture and church matters, power never before experienced in the ante-Nicene church…and also to deny the “Second Constantine,” Theodosius I, who at the end of the 4^th century (AD 380) took the Nicene Creed and used it as a political weapon—an act fully supported by the “one holy universal and apostolic church”— to banish and butcher, condemn and confiscate, persecute and punish, to prohibit public worship or worship places from calling themselves “churches” else pay the significant price and wrath from the Roman sword… to deny these elements were in place but were not at minimum incipient Roman Catholicism though it was not called Roman Catholicism at the time is far too historically naïve to merit consideration.

Below is the edict of Theodosius declared February 20, AD 380 establishing Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire:

We desire all people, whom the benign influence of our clemency rules, to turn to the religion which tradition from Peter to the present day declares to have been delivered to the Romans by blessed Peter the Apostle, the religion which it is clear that the Pontiff Damasus and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness, follow; this faith is that we should believe, in accordance with apostolic discipline and Gospel teaching, that there is one God-head, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in an equal Majesty and a holy Trinity. We order those who follow this doctrine to receive the title of Catholic Christians, but others we judge to be mad and raving and worthy of incurring the disgrace of heretical teaching, nor are their assemblies to receive the name of churches. They are to be punished not only by Divine retribution but also by our own measures, which we have decided in accordance with Divine inspiration (citation see below).

The panelists might think the “one holy universal and apostolic church” was but an expression referring to the Holy Spirit, but that’s decidedly not how the imperial law wed to the Church understood it as it was teased out into the social fabric of the empire. Notice in the decree already forged was the primacy of two Roman Sees over all others—Rome and Alexandria. (that’s a clear sign of Roman Catholicism). However, it was not long until Rome became understood as the primary Catholic See in the empire.

Below is the edict of Theodosius II who in AD 445 acknowledged Rome as the primary Roman See in the Catholic Church (see below documentation). Rome is referred to as the “primacy of the Apostolic See” where Saint Peter was the “prince of the episcopal crown.” Thus, by order of Theodosius II, neither church nor Bishop was to “carry out anything contrary to the authority of that See.” Indeed Theodosius complained that Rome Pope Leo’s “sentence should have been valid throughout Gaul even without Imperial sanction” just as it has “without a break” been carried out “up to now.” Why? Because the “Pontiff of the Roman City” had primacy over the other Bishops and Sees.     

To suggest that either the Pope or the primacy of Rome, both doctrinal beliefs of which are at the core of Roman Catholicism, came into existence only in the latter 5^th century and most likely in the 6^th century ignores historic reality, and apparently only for arguing the Nicene Creed ought to be readily accepted and publicly confessed by Southern Baptists.

One final thought. Eager to prove his point about the innocuous phrase of one universal church in The Creed, one of the panelists expressly declares, “There is only one church. There are not two or more churches of Christ. There is only one Church, the body of Christ” (48:45). It seems to me that the panelist should consider more time reading and understanding the 2kBF&M rather than trying so hard to push Baptists to embrace the Nicene Creed. Article VI plainly declares,

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers… Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord (italics added).

It’s difficult to reconcile the two statements—the panelist’s and the 2kBF&M. There remains a blatant discrepancy. He denies that two or more churches of Christ exist while the 2kBF&M explicitly affirms just the opposite. And while the 2kBF&M affirms the existence of what has been called the universal dimension of the church, it is definitively a secondary statement, a brief “also” affirmation:

“The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages…”

At best the panelists and The Creed skew the way Baptists have historically viewed the church by focusing entirely on the secondary dimension of the church (universal) rather than the primary dimension (local bodies of Christ). 

Far more could be said in response. Bur alas, I’ve run out of time, and I’m sure the reader has run out of patience.

From my perspective, these guys are not historic Baptists by any stretch. Nor are they in sync with even the best of Southern Baptists. With Neo-Baptists perhaps. Or maybe Ecumenists. Catholics who immerse, or Baptist Catholics, a moniker they appear to embrace.

Even so.

Whatever they are, I’m not buying what they are selling.

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3. Edict of the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and

Theodosius I establishing Catholicism as the State Religion,

February 27, 380

Original in Latin text in Mommsen, Theodosiani libri XVI,

Vol. I-2, De fide catholica,” p. 833

We desire all people, whom the benign influence of our clemency rules, to turn to the religion which tradition from Peter to the present day declares to have been delivered to the Romans by blessed Peter the Apostle, the religion which it is clear that the Pontiff Damasus and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness, follow; this faith is that we should believe, in accordance with apostolic discipline and Gospel teaching, that there is one God-head, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in an equal Majesty and a holy Trinity. We order those who follow this doctrine to receive the title of Catholic Christians, but others we judge to be mad and raving and worthy of incurring the disgrace of heretical teaching, nor are their assemblies to receive the name of churches. They are to be punished not only by Divine retribution but also by our own measures, which we have decided in accordance with Divine inspiration.

Given on the 3rd Kalends of March at Thessalonica, Gratianus and Theodosius being Consuls.

4. Edict of Emperors Valentinian III and Theodosius II recognizing the Pope as Head of the Western Church (enacted in 445)

Original Latin text in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. LIV, col. 636

 The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian to his Excellency Count Aetius, Supreme Commander of the armed forces and Patrician.

It is clear that for us and for our Empire that the only support is in the favour of the Supreme Godhead; to merit this, we must assist in the first place the Christian faith and venerable religion. Since therefore the merit of St. Peter, who is the prince of the episcopal crown, the dignity of the City of Rome and the authority of a holy Synod have established the primacy of the Apostolic See, let not presumption attempt to carry out anything contrary to the authority of that See; for then at last the peace of the Church will be preserved everywhere, if the whole body recognizes its ruler. Up to now these customs have been preserved without a break; but Hilary of Arles, as we learn from the reliable report of the venerable man Leo, the Roman Pope, has with obstinate audacity ventured to attempt unlawful actions and, as a consequence, an abominable disturbance has entered into the churches north of the Alps, as recent examples make only too plain. For Hilary, who is called Bishop of Arles, has overstepped his functions and has passed judgment upon episcopal ordinations without reference to the Pontiff of the Roman City. For he removed some clerics from office, though he has no authority to do so, and ordained others who were unwelcome and objectionable to their citizens.

Because he has attempted such deeds both against the Imperial majesty and against the reverence due to the Apostolic See, sentence was passed against him by order of that devout man, the Pope of the City, after he had obtained accurate information about him and about those whom he had invalidly ordained. That sentence should have been valid throughout Gaul even without Imperial sanction. For what is not within the competence of so great a Pontiff in ecclesiastical matters? But this reasoning has strengthened our command that no one coming after Hilary who is permitted to retain his see as a result solely of leniency of the long-suffering Pontiff may meddle in ecclesiastical affairs which concern another man, nor may oppose the orders of the Roman Bishop. For by such audacious acts the faith and reverence of our Empire is violated.

Not only do we banish this great crime but in order that there may not arise among the churches the smallest disturbance or the discipline of the religion appear to be weakened in any way, we decree by this perpetual Edict that it will not be lawful for the bishops of Gaul or of other provinces to attempt anything contrary to ancient custom without the authority of that venerable man the Pope of the Eternal City. But let whatever the authority of the Apostolic See decrees or shall decree, be accepted as law by all, so that if any bishop summoned to trial before the Roman Bishop shall fail to attend, he shall be compelled to be present by the Governor of the province in question, due regard being paid at every stage of tire proceedings to the rights which our divine parents bestowed on the Roman Church. Therefore your illustrious and excellent Magnificence, by the authority of the law of the present Edict, is to cause those decrees stated above to be observed and a fine of ten golden pieces is to be exacted immediately from any judge who shall have allowed our orders to be disregarded.

­­Source: Church and State Through The Centuries: A Collection of historic documents with commentaries. Translated by Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall. 1954. 6-9