English Baptists Confessing the Faith in the Twentieth Century: A Response to Christopher Crocker

ABSTRACT

This article is a brief response to the claim by Christopher Crocker that English Baptists in the twentieth century were post-confessionalism. The article argues that the Baptist Union’s Declaration of Principle of 1904 (revised in 1906 and 1938) is a theological and confessional text, which while it is brief, is in alignment with catholic and evangelical faith. In addition to the Declaration of Principle, the article provides further evidence in reciting the creed, statements of belief, denominational documents, and resources for worship to claim that Baptists remained a confessing people.

KEYWORDS:

• Declaration of Principle
• catholic
• evangelical
• Baptist Union
• confessions
• creed

The Baptist Quarterly has recently published two interesting and helpful articles by Christopher Crocker on letters exchanged by James Culcross and Charles Spurgeon from 1887-88.¹ Crocker makes the argument that they demonstrate a crisis in confessionalism amongst English Baptists; the letters written as they were during the Downgrade Controversy.² In his conclusion Crocker writes that ‘much of the twentieth century may even be described as post-confessional, with Baptists unaware of historic confessions or the use of them.’³ In this brief article, I want to gently challenge this assessment and make the case that, although English Baptists have not produced a shared confession of faith in any way similar to those from the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, the revision of the Declaration of Principle in 1904 reintroduced theological claims that were both catholic and evangelical, and so provided a link back to their confessional past, without wholly returning to it.

Crocker’s suggestion that Baptists were unaware of historic confessions overlooks that several Baptist texts refer to them. Most notably, for example, in 1911 the Union, through its Kingsgate Press, had published Baptist Confessions of Faith edited by William J. McGlothlin.⁴ In the middle of the century, Ernest Payne’s The Fellowship of Believers references Baptist Confessions throughout his argument and includes the 1679 Second London Confession in the appendix.⁵ Likewise at the end of the century, Roger Hayden’s English Baptist History and Heritage references and discusses historic confessions.⁶ This at the very least suggests that some Baptists were very much aware of Baptist confessional history.

In a footnote Crocker notes that the Declaration of Principle of 1873 was revised in 1904 and again in 1906 and 1938.⁷ He makes no comment on the expanded Declaration of Principle, only that the 1873 Declaration ‘placed, if ambiguously, the BU within the spirit the age, namely that of deconfessionalisation.’⁸ It is my contention that, whilst this is a fair point, the revised Declaration of 1904 (and 1938) challenges Crocker’s claim. The 1938 Declaration of Principle is an identifiably theological statement,⁹ that is both catholic and evangelical, or at least, I suggest, is intended to be read that way.¹⁰ There was an implied recognition in 1904 (and 1938) that the Union needed a more theological basis. While I share with others that the Declaration of Principle could be strengthened with further revision,¹¹ in its current wording it shares a clear correspondence with the Nicene Creed¹² and Bebbington’s evangelical quadrilateral.¹³

The 1938 Declaration of Principle (DoP) is as follows:¹⁴

1. That our Lord and Saviour,¹⁵ Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh,¹⁶ is the sole and absolute authority¹⁷ in all matters regarding faith and practice, as revealed in the scriptures, and that each church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,¹⁸ to interpret and administer His laws.

2. That Christian baptism is the immersion in water into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,¹⁹ of those who have professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ²⁰ who ‘died for sins according to the Scriptures; was buried and rose again the third day.’²¹

3. That it is the duty of every disciple to bear personal witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to take part in the evangelisation of the world.²²

When placed alongside and compared with the Nicene Creed there is a shared theology:

a.	The name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit Nicene: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty … and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God … and I believe in the Holy Spirit. DoP: Into the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The DoP uses a clear trinitarian formula, taken from Matthew 28.19.²³ It names the three divine Persons and the oneness of God in ‘the singular word “Name.”’²⁴ The DoP stands the Baptist Union in the trinitarian faith.²⁵

b.	Identifying Jesus as Lord and Saviour Nicene: And in one Lord Jesus Christ … who for us men, and our salvation DoP: Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ
c.	That Jesus is fully divine and fully human Nicene: God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God   … and was made man DoP: God manifest in the flesh
d.	That Jesus died and rose again according to the Scriptures Nicene: and was crucified for us … He suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. DoP: who ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures; was buried and rose again the third day.’

The longest section of the Nicene Creed relates to Jesus and this is mirrored in the DoP which equally focuses on Jesus. The DoP opts for the scriptural phrase of ‘God manifest in the flesh’ instead of the Nicene language of incarnation or begottenness, but the meaning, I contend, is the same.²⁶ This is the view shared by both John Calvin²⁷ and Charles Spurgeon²⁸ with regards 1 Timothy 3.16. It was also the view of the Baptist Assembly in a resolution passed in 1972 which stated:

we assert the unacceptability of any interpretation of the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord which would obscure or deny the fundamental tenet of the Christian faith that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, truly God and truly man.²⁹

In Jesus Christ, God is revealed in human form. The present tense form of ‘manifest’ signals that Jesus, crucified and risen, remains fully human and fully divine; that is, God in Christ was not only temporarily in the flesh.

e.	Belief in the church and the practice of baptism. Nicene: I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. DoP: That each Church has liberty… That Christian baptism is the immersion in water.

While both Nicaea and the DoP mention the church, in the former, it is the ‘one’ church, while in the latter it speaks of ‘each Church’ reflecting the Baptist belief that the local congregation is fully a church. This Colwell has said is a definite weakness of the DoP: its a ‘blatant denial of catholicity.’³⁰ Arguably a form of catholicity is present in that the DoP is the basis of the Union – all churches, associations, colleges, and ministers covenant together on this foundation.³¹ Colwell elsewhere argues:

For any church to be validly identified as ‘Church’ it cannot be wholly free from a connectedness and consequent coherence with the Church’s history and traditions across the centuries.³²

As a statement by the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) says, ‘for Baptists, the local church is wholly church but not the whole church.’³³

Of course, the Nicene Creed is clearly a much fuller confession of faith. The DoP makes no reference to creation or eschatology, and what it says on christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology are brief. The DoP was not designed as a full confession,³⁴ its purpose rather was to identify Baptist distinctives.³⁵ What it does declare and confess is in alignment with the Nicene Creed.

David Bebbington’s claim that evangelicalism contains a quadrilateral of biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism is also evident in the DoP. The DoP has a particular regard for the Bible: ‘revealed in the Scriptures; according to the Scriptures.’ In addition, the DoP references four scriptural texts explicitly and there are echoes of two more. For Baptists, Scripture is given a privileged place. Scripture alone reveals Christ. The DoP does not mention the cross, but it does speak of Christ as Saviour and that he died for our sins. The DoP speaks of the need for conversion in its language requiring a profession of repentance to God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which is followed by baptism. Finally, the DoP highlights that the gospel needs to be ‘expressed in effort’³⁶ in its language concerning the ‘duty of every disciple’ to bear witness and taking part in the evangelisation of the world. According to the DoP Baptists are activists in evangelism. Some have also argued that evangelicalism is also marked by christocentrism,³⁷ and if that is correct, the DoP is also clearly christocentric in its shape – each clause makes a reference to Christ. The DoP is therefore in this sense an evangelical confession. (Like the language of ‘catholic’ I am using the language of ‘evangelical’ as a term bigger and wider than any particular institutional expression.)

My argument so far has sought to demonstrate that the 1938 version of the DoP is a carefully constructed text, that shares a theology with both the catholic Nicene creed and the main qualities of evangelicalism. The next step is to argue that the DoP does not stand alone and through the twentieth century the Baptist Union has made other statements of belief, published theological reports and documents, hymns books, manuals for leading worship, and joined ecumenical bodies. These each offer further support for a reading of the DoP, and as such, the Baptist Union, as catholic and evangelical. Each of them presents the ‘representative’ theology³⁸ of the Baptist Union that is in continuity with the tradition of the historic creeds. This way of knowing the faith Paul Fiddes has named a ‘dynamic process of “traditioning.”’³⁹ Rather than one comprehensive confession of faith, Baptists denominationally in the twentieth century drew on a range of sources that each contributed to make them a confessing people in the catholic and evangelical tradition. The rest of this article will seek to demonstrate that.

Reciting the Creed

On three occasions, English Baptists have recited the Apostles’ Creed in public worship.⁴⁰ As Fiddes mentions it is ‘unusual for Baptists to use the creeds in worship.’⁴¹ The first time was at the first Baptist World Alliance Congress (BWA) held in London in 1905. Alexander Maclaren in his Presidential address invited those present to repeat the Apostles’ Creed ‘not as piece of coercion or discipline, but as a simple acknowledgement of where we stand and what we believe.’⁴² The minutes state that ‘the whole gathering then instantly rose and repeated, slowly and deliberately, after Dr. MacLaren, the whole of the Apostles’ Creed.’ In 2005, this was repeated at the BWA Congress held in Birmingham. A group of theologians in advance of the Congress had encouraged the BWA to take this step.⁴³ On the evening it was declared that ‘this speaking of the Creed will be an impressive, unifying and glorious thing for us to do together, as Baptists, as we proclaim our common beliefs to the world.’⁴⁴

The Apostles’ Creed was also recited at the 2001 Baptist Assembly as part of a special covenant service called Covenant 21. Covenant 21 had been prepared by the Baptist Union not only for the Assembly, but for churches and associations to use to mark the new millennium and a new beginning for Baptist life.⁴⁵ It was said, ‘Together with all God’s people, we proclaim our faith and celebrate the story of our salvation’ at which delegates then recited the Creed.

On these three occasions,⁴⁶ Baptists have confessed that they stand in the tradition of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Henry Wheeler Robinson in the early years of the twentieth century claimed that ‘so far as the general substance and aim of these historic creeds are concerned, it may safely be asserted that Baptists are as loyal to them as are any of the evangelical Churches.’⁴⁷ Where Baptists have dissented is the claim that the creeds have equal authority to scripture.⁴⁸ This needs to be stated carefully: the Baptist view has not been to dissent from the content of the creeds, but to dissent from their use as a test of membership.⁴⁹

Statements of Belief – Denominational and Ecumenical

At different points in the twentieth century, the Baptist Union, whether through the Assembly or the Council, or through their membership of the European Baptist Federation or the Baptist World Alliance, have made, or approved, statements of belief. This is in large part because of the ecumenical context of the twentieth century in which Baptists chose to be participants.

In 1920 the Lambeth Conference issued ‘An Appeal to all Christian People’, which was a new attempt at ‘new and comprehensive church relations.’⁵⁰ In May 1926, the Assembly of the Baptist Union, held in Leeds, issued their official reply. It was not the warmest of responses, but it did state the following:

We believe in the Catholic Church as the holy Society of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, which He founded, of which He is the only Head, and in which He dwells by His Spirit, so that though made of many communions, organized in various modes, and scattered throughout the world, it is yet one in Him.

Just over twenty years later, in March 1948, the Council of the Baptist Union issued a statement called ‘The Baptist Doctrine of the Church.’ This was a Baptist contribution to the World Conference on Faith and Order that met in Lund in 1952. The statement borrowed from the 1926 Lambeth reply but built on it considerably. It located Baptists within ‘the great central stream of Christian doctrine and piety.’⁵¹ It claimed that:

The origin of the Church is in the Gospel — in the mighty acts of God, the Incarnation, the Ministry, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

And later the report asserted that:

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity asserts a relationship of Persons within the Godhead, and God has revealed Himself in the Person of His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

While the statement is not a confession, it is a theological description of the beliefs of the Baptist Union, which, like the DoP, are both catholic and evangelical. It offers a detailed ecclesiology including sections on governance, worship, ministry, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and a view of the relationship between Church and State.

In 1992 the European Baptist Federation (EBF) produce an account of Baptist identity called What Are Baptists? On the Way to Expressing Baptist Identity in a Changing Europe.⁵² It was made available by the Baptist Union as an appendix in Paul Beasley-Murray’s Radical Believers.⁵³ As a member Union of the EBF, this statement carries significance for English Baptists. The statement was ‘commended for use’ by the EBF to ‘all Unions, churches and seminaries’ as a descriptive statement. It begins by saying it is ‘not intended as a confession of faith’ but goes to say that ‘it includes certain affirmations about faith and gospel.’ Its first clause states:

We are part of the whole, world-wide Christian Church and we confess faith in One God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In 2005 the BWA Congress, held in Birmingham, issued a message from those assembled on what they believed.⁵⁴ The Baptist Union was a founding, and remains a current, member Union of the BWA.⁵⁵ The message began by stating that:

Those assembled … 

believe in the one eternal God who revealed Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit;

rejoice that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, revealed in the Scriptures as fully God and fully human, and whose life shows us the way of true discipleship, was crucified for us and was raised from the dead on the third day to save us from our sins.⁵⁶

At several points through the twentieth (and into the twenty-first) century, the Baptist Union, the EBF, and the BWA have confessed that the faith they hold is one that accords with Nicaea. They were not written as tests of membership, but in order first to describe that Baptists understand themselves to be located within the historic tradition of the church, and second to name their distinctives, focused on ecclesiology.

In the twentieth century, English Baptists committed themselves to ecumenism in three ways. In 1918 they were one of the denominations that formed the Federal Council of Evangelical Free Churches. The then General Secretary of the Baptist Union, John Howard Shakespeare being the leading instigator in its beginnings.⁵⁷ This organisation made a Declaratory Statement, which affirmed a trinitarian faith:

There is One Living and True God, Who is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Him alone we worship and adore.

We believe that God so loved the world as to give His Son to be the Revealer of the Father and the Redeemer of mankind; that the Son of God, for us men and for our salvation, became man in Jesus Christ, Who, having lived on earth the perfect human life, died for our sins, rose again from the dead, and now is exalted Lord over all and that the Holy Spirit, Who witnesses to us of Christ, makes the salvation which is in Him to be effective in our hearts and lives.⁵⁸

The statement was approved by the Assembly of the Baptist Union in April 1918.

In 1939, the Assembly, on the recommendation of the Council, assented to membership of the Baptist Union in both the World Council of Churches (WCC) and what would become the British Council of Churches (BCC). The BCC was founded in 1942 and the WCC in 1948. At the beginnings the basis of both the BCC and WCC was an acceptance of ‘our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour’, but at the Delhi Assembly of the WCC in 1961, this was expanded and strengthened to all those who ‘confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’⁵⁹ When the national ecumenical instruments changed in 1990 (replacing the BCC) to create the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland⁶⁰ and Churches Together in England, the Assembly of the Baptist Union affirmed their membership in 1989 and again in 1995.⁶¹ All these ecumenical relationships of the Baptist Union have indicated that Baptists are within the church catholic.

Baptist Union Documents

Further evidence for the theological beliefs of the Baptist Union can be found in six documents published by the Union: The Meaning and Practice of Ordination (1957), The Doctrine of the Ministry (1961), Baptist and Unity (1967),⁶² Forms of Ministry Amongst Baptists (1994), The Nature of Assembly and the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (1994),⁶³ Transforming Superintendency (1996),⁶⁴ and Covenant 21 (1999).⁶⁵ The mid-twentieth century reports on Ordination, Ministry, and Unity each give an account of church and ministry that identifies the work of God in the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.⁶⁶ There is a conscious trinitarian grammar.

The documents from the 1990s are even more explicit in articulating a strongly trinitarian theology.⁶⁷ Forms of Ministry writes:

the foundational ministry in the Church is that of the triune God, who have revealed himself to be a Servant God in the history of his people Israel and above all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God freely and humbly submits himself to a path of ministry (i.e. service) in his purpose to reconcile persons and communities to himself, calling them into the fellowship of the eternal life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s ministry is his chosen way for carrying out his mission, his sending forth of the Son into the world in the power of the Spirit.⁶⁸

The Nature of the Assembly and the Council says:

God takes the initiative in calling people in covenant loyalty to him … finally in the person of Jesus Christ God’s word is made incarnate and is perfectly united with human obedience; through his life, atoning death, resurrection and sending of the Spirit at Pentecost Christ forms the new covenant community of the Church. Seeing displayed the relationship between Christ the true Son and his heavenly Father in the power of the Spirit, we understand that the life into which God calls all creation is nothing less than a sharing in the fellowship (koinonia) which he enjoys within his own triune being.⁶⁹

Transforming Superintendency opens with a whole section on a trinitarian account of God. For example, it says, ‘God is One God in Trinity. This is the fundamental faith of the Christian Church. To speak of God is to speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God.’⁷⁰ Lastly, Covenant 21, encourages the use of the Nicene Creed because it is ‘thoroughly trinitarian in both its content and shape, and in making covenant we are sharing anew in the eternal covenant relationship within the triune life of God, as a fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’⁷¹

Worship

In the twentieth century the Baptist Union published four hymnals, the Baptist Hymnal (1900), the Baptist Hymnal Revised (1933), the Baptist Hymn Book (1962) and Baptist Praise and Worship (1991).⁷² They also published four manuals for leading worship: A Minister’s Manual (1927), Orders and Prayers (1960), Praise God (1980), Patterns and Prayers (1991), and then in 2005, Gathering for Worship. This is significant because each of these books were denominational books, commended for use by Baptist ministers and churches. They presented to the churches a shape and content for their worship. While Baptists have always claimed a liberty in the style and content in worship, what these hymns books and manuals demonstrate is that Baptist worship has and does tend to have an ‘order’ and a ‘pattern.’ Christopher Ellis suggests, with regards to the hymn books,⁷³ that ‘it is not clear how thorough the monopoly of the denominational books was, though anecdotal evidence suggests it was considerable.’⁷⁴ It can perhaps be claimed with some confidence that most Baptist churches would have used the hymn books, at least up to the 1980s.⁷⁵ Likewise most Baptist ministers would have used the different worship manuals, at least for specific rites and events.⁷⁶

The theology of the hymn books and manuals is one rooted in a trinitarian faith. All the hymn books encourage the singing of a trinitarian faith. This reflects, as Stephen Winward suggests, that ‘Free Churchmen generally prefer to sing their creed, rather than say it.’⁷⁷ Winward goes on to claim that ‘the hymn book has a didactic function’ and as such it ‘is our catechism, our primer in doctrine.’⁷⁸ The Baptist Hymn Book and its revised versions arranged the hymns under headings, beginning with the Holy Trinity, followed by sections on God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In Baptist Praise and Worship the hymns and songs are arranged differently,⁷⁹ but still provide hymns that confess the faith.

The manuals clearly point to ‘Christian worship [as] both trinitarian and Christocentric.’⁸⁰ The introduction to Gathering for Worship describes worship ‘as a dynamic encounter with the Triune God.’⁸¹ All the manuals have prayers and liturgies which have a conscious trinitarian shape. They all draw on wider catholic traditions. In a section on material for use in public worship, Orders and Prayers, includes confessions of faith, in which both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are present. Patterns and Prayers does not include any creed — although its sister publication Baptist Praise and Worship does include the Apostles’ Creed – but, like the other manuals, those being baptised, ordained, inducted, or covenanting at the founding of a church are all asked to declare their belief in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Gathering for Worship in its sections on baptism⁸² and renewing covenant⁸³ encourage that a confession of faith is made and include the wording of the Apostles’ Creed.

Conclusion

While the history of the Baptist Union was not founded on assent to a long confession of faith, the 1938 version of DoP as the basis of the Union is a theological text and, I suggest, in agreement with catholic Christianity as it is expressed in the Nicene Creed. The twentieth century saw Baptists denominationally continue to express and, in different ways, confess an orthodox faith in terms of the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ. I have sought to demonstrate that with reference to Baptist use of the Apostles’ creed, statements of belief, denominational documents, and publications for use in worship.

While a lack of a clear confession of faith did, inevitably through the 1900s, at points, result in tensions around doctrine, and so generate some voices suggesting the need for a new confession of faith.⁸⁴ This never found enough support or interest to be taken any further,⁸⁵ and some instead argued it would be an unhelpful move.⁸⁶ Now in the first half of the twenty-first century these same tensions remain, but again, there is no evidence the Union is departing from an orthodox trinitarian and christological faith, although there are clear differences among Baptists on other doctrines.⁸⁷ With that said, I would contend, firstly, it would be helpful for the Union, when it gathers in Assembly and in the meetings of Council, to confess the faith more regularly, whether by reciting the Apostles’ Creed or a more directly scriptural affirmation.⁸⁸ This would be a clear signal to all members of the Baptist Union that we hold to the faith once received. Secondly, it would be beneficial to encourage a similar use by Associations and local congregations, as a means of uniting Baptists as catholic and evangelical.⁸⁹ As Colwell says, ‘confession is appropriate to that which unites rather than that which divides.’⁹⁰ Thirdly, it would also be helpful for the Union to produce or highlight resources that teach the Christian faith, whether for children, or for those preparing for baptism, or for more general use.⁹¹ In these and other ways, Baptists would demonstrate that we have been and continue to be a confessing people.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Christopher Crocker, “James Culross, C.H. Spurgeon and the Crisis of British Baptist Confessionalism, 1887–8: Part I, the Letters,” Baptist Quarterly 53, no. 4 (October 2023): 179–91; Christopher Crocker, “James Culcross, C. H. Spurgeon and the Crisis of British Baptist Confessionalism, 1887–8: Part II, the Controversy,” Baptist Quarterly 54, no. 2 (April 2023): 90–125.

2 On the Downgrade Controversy see Mark Hopkins, “The Downgrade Controversy,” in Truth that Never Dies: The Dr. G. R. Beasley-Murray Memorial Lectures 2002–2012, edited by Nigel G. Wright (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 114–30.

3 Crocker, “James Culcross, C. H. Spurgeon … Part II, the Controversy,” 125.

4 William J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (1911). Later in 1959 an American press, Judson Press, published Baptist Confessions of Faith, edited by William Lumpkin. A revised edition appeared in 2011 edited by Lumpkin and Bill J. Leonard.

5 Ernest A. Payne, The Fellowship of Believers (London: Kingsgate, 1944, and a revised edition 1952), 23–30, 40–44, 61–64, 70–71, 75–76, 131–41.

6 Roger Hayden, English Baptist History and Heritage (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1990), 35–36, 48, 65–72, 78 It was reprinted in 1994. A second updated edition was published in 2005. The first edition was part of the Baptist Union’s Christian Training Programme and designed for church members and those seeking to be lay pastors.

7 Crocker, “James Culcross, C. H. Spurgeon … Part II, the Controversy,” 100n.52.

8 Ibid., 100.

9 It has been called ‘notably theological’ by Paul Fiddes, Brian Haymes, Richard Kidd, and Michael Quicke in Something to Declare: A Study of the Declaration of Principle (Oxford: Whitley, 1996), 24.

10 I note here that this is my third piece of work that engages with the Declaration of Principle, see my The Ruling Christ and the Witnessing Church. The 2022 Whitley Lecture (Oxford: Whitley, 2022) and “The Politics of Disagreement in the Body of Christ,” Journal for European Baptist Studies 23, no. 1 (June 2022): 39–54.

11 See for example the criticisms of John Colwell, “Catholicity and Confessionalism,” Baptist Quarterly 43, no. 1 (January 2008): 15–21 and John Colwell, “Integrity and Relatedness,” Baptist Quarterly 48, no. 1 (January 2017): 12–18.

12 The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 (to use it’s full title) is the most universally accepted of Christian belief. See Confessing the One Faith: an Ecumenical Explication of the Apostolic Faith as it is Confessed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). Faith and Order Paper No.153 (Geneva: WCC, 1991).

13 See David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 4–17.

14 I have added footnotes to draw attention to its biblical references.

15 2 Peter 2.20: ‘our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’

16 1 Timothy 3.16: ‘God manifest in the flesh’ (KJV).

17 Matthew 28.18: ‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.’ The ‘Great Commission’ clearly shapes the wording of the Declaration, as noted by Fiddes et al. in Something to Declare, 20–21.

18 John 16.13: ‘The Spirit of truth  …  will guide into all truth.’

19 Matthew 28.19: ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ In 2009 the Declaration of Principle underwent minor revision, as the word ‘Ghost’ was replaced by ‘Spirit.’

20 Acts 20.21: ‘repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

21 1 Corinthians 15.3–4: ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.’

22 Acts 1.8: ‘and you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.’

23 John Nolland offers a biblical interpretation of Matthew’s use of this phrase in “‘In Such a Manner it is Fitting for Us to Fulfil All Righteousness’: Reflections on the Place of Baptism in the Gospel of Matthew,” in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church, edited by Anthony R. Cross and Stanley E. Porter (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 78–79.

24 See Kendall Soulen, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity (Louisville, KT: WJK, 2011), [57–59], 58 where he discusses Gregory of Nyssa’s exposition of Matthew 28.19.

25 For two Baptist reflections see Hazel Sherman, “Baptized — ‘in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” in Reflections on the Water, edited by Paul S. Fiddes (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 1996), 101–16 and Ruth Gouldbourne, “Trinity: The Blessing of Almighty God,” in Rhythms of Faithfulness, edited by Andy Goodliff and Paul Goodliff (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2018), 211–22.

26 This is the conclusion also of Jeff Jacobson in “An Exploration of the First Clause of the Declaration of Principle,” in Attending to the Margins: Essays in Honour of Stephen Finamore, edited by Helen Paynter and Peter Hatton (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2023), 258.

27 ‘First, we have here an express testimony of both natures; for he declares at the same time that Christ is true God and true man. Secondly, he points out the distinction between the two natures, when, on the one hand, he calls him God, and, on other, expresses his “manifestation in the flesh.” Thirdly, he asserts the unity of the person, when he declares, that it is one and the same who was God, and who has been manifested in the flesh’, John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 92.

28 ‘God was manifest in the flesh; truly God, not God as humanized, but God as God; not in manhood deified and made superhuman, but in actual flesh’, Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament, Vol III: Romans III. 27 to Titus III 3–8 (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1950), 788.

29 Ian Randall, The English Baptists of the 20th Century (Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 2005), 381. The context of the 1972 resolution was a response to what was felt to be a denial of Christ’s divinity in an address that had be given at the 1971 Assembly by Michael Taylor.

30 Colwell, “Catholicity and Connectedness,” 16.

31 Some have argued that the DoP should be understood as a ‘written form of the covenant … provid[ing] a ‘basis of “walking together.”’, The Nature of Assembly and the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1994), 16.

32 John E. Colwell, “The Coherence of Freedom: Can Church or State Ever Be Truly Free?” in Challenging to Change: Dialogues with a Radical Baptist Theologian. Essays Present to Dr Nigel G. Wright on his Sixtieth Birthday, edited by Pieter J. Lalleman (London: Spurgeon’s College, 2009), 42.

33 “Statement from the Baptist World Alliance Symposium on Baptist Identity and Ecclesiology,” American Baptist Quarterly 38, no. 1 (Spring 2019), 109–11. The Symposium in question was held in Estal, Germany in 2007.

34 David Russell (General Secretary of the Baptist Union, 1967–1981) said it can be ‘described as a Confession only in a very limited sense’, Baptists and Some Contemporary Issues (London: Baptist Union, 1968), 13.

35 Colwell, “Integrity and Relatedness,” 14.

36 This is how Bebbington describes activism, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 3.

37 Rob Warner, Reinventing English Evangelicalism 1966–2001 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), 17.

38 The language of ‘representative’ is the word Anthony Clarke uses as an alternative to ‘normative’, see Anthony Clarke, “Listening to the Voices,” in Sharing Faith at the Boundaries of Unity, edited by Paul S. Fiddes (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2019), 153.

39 Martin Davie and Paul Fiddes, “How Do We Know What the Faith Is?” in Sharing Faith at the Boundaries of Unity, edited by Paul S. Fiddes (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2019), 17. The concept of ‘traditioning’ comes from Terrence Tilley, Inventing Catholic Tradition (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000), 40.

40 The shorter length and more simple wording of the Apostles’ Creed is probably a key reason for its preference over the Nicene.

41 Davie and Fiddes, “How Do We Know What the Faith Is?,” 20. It might be unusual, but perhaps not entirely as uncommon as Fiddes might presume. Morris West could argue in 1980 that ‘a growing number of Baptists are content to use the classic creeds of the church in worship as community confessions of faith’, “Foundation Documents of the Faith VIII: Baptists and Statements of Faith,” Expository Times 91, no. 8 (May 1980), 233.

42 First Baptist World Congress. London, July 11–19, 1905 (London: Baptist Union, 1905), 19–21.

43 This included English and Welsh Baptists, Christopher Ellis, Paul Fiddes, Stephen R. Holmes, Roy Kearsley, Karen Smith (American by birth but most of her career has been spent in England and Wales), John Weaver and Nigel Wright.

44 Baptist World Centenary Congress: Jesus Christ Living Water. Birmingham, July, 2005 (McLean, VA: BWA, 2005), 72.

45 See Goodliff, Renewing a Modern Denomination, 125–28.

46 There might well be other occasions that I am unaware of.

47 Henry Wheeler Robinson, The Life and Faith of Baptists (London: Methuen & Co., 1927), 90.

48 Russell, Baptist and Some Contemporary Issues, 12.

49 For example, in 1953 the Baptist Union reply to the 1950 report Church Relations in England, (which had contained Baptist representation) there was agreement with the report that there was ‘nothing which separates’ with regards ‘the doctrine of God the Father, the Person and Work of Christ, the Person and mission of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and the Life Everlasting.’ At the same time in a footnote, the reply stated that ‘Baptists are among those who object to formal subscriptions to creeds.’ See Ernest A. Payne, Baptist Union: A Short History (London: Baptist Union, 1959), 293.

50 Payne, Baptist Union, 186.

51 “The Baptist Doctrine of the Church,” Baptist Quarterly 12, no. 12 (October 1948): 440.

52 The statement was largely written by Paul S. Fiddes.

53 Paul Beasley-Murray, Radical Believers (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1992), 120–24. A copy is now available on the Baptist Union website: https://www.baptist.org.uk/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=111291&view=browser.

54 The message now appears on the BWA website under the heading beliefs statement, although there is no record of its being adopted by the BWA Council. See https://baptistworld.org/beliefs/.

55 On the beginnings of the BWA and the involvement of the Baptist Union of Great Britain see John H. Y. Briggs, “The Founding and Development of the Baptist World Alliance,” in For the Sake of the Church: Essays in Honour of Paul S. Fiddes, edited by Anthony Clarke (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2014), 103–25.

56 William L. Lumpkin and Bill Leonard, ed., Baptist Confessions of Faith (Rev. Ed.; Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 2011), 526–28.

57 See Peter Shepherd, The Making of a Modern Denomination (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2001), 103–10.

58 Appendix VIII, Payne, Baptist Union, 275–78.

59 This wording remains that of the ecumenical body that followed the British Council of Churches, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

60 In 1999 this was renamed Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

61 See Goodliff, Renewing a Modern Denomination, 137–45.

62 These first three were commissioned and adopted by the Council.

63 Forms of Ministry and The Nature of Assembly were commissioned at the behest of David Coffey (General Secretary of the Baptist Union, 1991–2006) and were commended by the Council for consideration by the churches.

64 This report was commissioned by the Council as a review of the General Superintendency.

65 Covenant 21 was not a report but an initiative of the General Secretary for the new millennium, who brought together a group to work on it, and it was subsequently commended by Council.

66 The Meaning and Practice of Ordination Among Baptists (London: Baptist Union, 1957), 12; The Doctrine of the Ministry (London: Baptist Union, 1961), 8; Baptists and Unity (London: Baptist Union, 1967), 40–42.

67 This trinitarian emphasis reflects the revival of interest, ecumenically and academically, in the doctrine of the Trinity from the 1980s onward, in which Baptist theologians have contributed. For example, Paul Fiddes was a member of the BCC commission on the doctrine of the Trinity in the 1980s, which published the report The Forgotten Trinity (1990).

68 Forms of Ministry amongst Baptists (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1994), 16.

69 The Nature of the Assembly and the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1994), 4–5.

70 Transforming Superintendency (Didcot: Baptist Union, 1996), (9–13), 9.

71 Covenant 21: Covenant for a Gospel People (Didcot: Baptist Union, 2001), 14.

72 For a reviews of the Baptist Hymn Book and Baptist Praise and Worship, see Neville Clark, “The Baptist Hymn Book,” Baptist Quarterly 19, no. 6 (April 1962): 277–84 and Neville Clark, “Baptist Praise and Worship,” Baptist Quarterly 35, no. 2 (1993): 95–100.

73 I would suggest his point is also true of the worship manuals.

74 Ellis, Gathering, 157.

75 Ronald Thomson records that ‘from 1900 to 1958 The Baptist Church Hymnal sold approximately 1,035,000 copies … From 1933–1958 The Baptist Church Hymnal, Revised sold 925,177 copies’, Ronald W. Thomson, The Psalms and Hymns Trust: A Short History of the Trust and the Work of Publishing Baptist Hymn Books (London: Psalms and Hymns Trust, 1960), 24. The publication of Baptist Praise and Worship appeared in a more competitive market, especially in the song books that emerged out of Spring Harvest and the charismatic evangelical stable. Also, from the 1980s saw the introduction of the OHP and then later the video projector to display words, which replaced the need for hymn books. It was not reprinted. See the reflections of Michael Ball, “Baptist Praise and Worship,” Baptist Quarterly 40, no. 4 (2003): 196–214.

76 The Lord’s Supper, baptisms, infant dedications, weddings, funerals, ministerial ordinations, or inductions. This might be evidenced in the reprinting of all the manuals, save Praise God.

77 Stephen F. Winward, “How to make the Best Use of the Hymn Book,” in The Baptist Hymn Book Companion, edited by Hugh Martin and R. W. Thomson (Rev. Ed.; London: Psalms and Hymns Trust, 1967 [1962]), 31.

78 Winward, “How to Make the Best Use,” 31.

79 The four main sections are titled, ‘The Call to Worship’, ‘Proclaiming the Gospel’, Celebrating the Gospel’, and ‘Living the Gospel.’

80 Stephen Winward, The Reformation of our Worship. W. T. Whitely Lectures for 1963 (London: Carey Kingsgate, 1964), 20. Winward co-edited Orders and Prayers with Ernest Payne.

81 Christopher J. Ellis and Myra Blyth, eds., Gathering for Worship: Patterns and Prayers for the Community of Disciples (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2005), 4.

82 This includes also whenever baptismal vows are reaffirmed.

83 The encouragement being that churches would being doing this at least once a year, e.g., at a church anniversary.

84 See Baptists and Unity (London: Baptist Union, 1965), 31, Brian Haymes, A Question of Identity (Leeds: Yorkshire Baptist Association, 1986) and George Beasley-Murray, “Confessing Baptist Identity,” in A Perspective on Baptist Identity, edited by David Slater (Ilkley: Mainstream, 1987), 75–85.

85 Paul Fiddes remembers that the tutors of the Baptist colleges had a working group to create a confession for several years during the 1970s, but no text was deemed satisfactory. Personal message to the author.

86 Russell, Baptists and Some Contemporary Issues, 13–14; Colwell, “Catholicity and Confessionalism,” 18.

87 One example is the doctrine of atonement, on which see David Bebbington’s survey, “British Baptist Crucicentrism since late Eighteenth Century: Part 2,” Baptist Quarterly 44, no. 5 (2012): 278–90. Another example, more divisive and strained, is centred on the current contestation with regards the doctrine of marriage and in particular the arguments for and against same-sex marriage.

88 Cf. Davie and Fiddes, “How Do We Know What the Faith Is?” 58.

89 In this, I am following Fiddes, Tracks and Traces, 217 and Colwell, “Catholicity and Confessionalism,” 20.

90 Colwell, “Catholicity and Confessionalism,” 20.

91 For one recent example see Curtis Freeman, Pilgrim Letters: Instruction in the Basic Teaching of Christ (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2021) and Pilgrim Journey: Instruction in the Mystery of the Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2023).