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The Terms of Subscription
By JamesRenihan | April 16, 2008
By Prof. Renihan
The Terms of Confessional Subscription
While this material may seem straightforward and obvious, not all have accepted the premise nor recognized the implications of this doctrine. Some Christians have rejected the utility and importance of confessions or creeds, while others have sought to apply these principles to their own doctrinal convictions. Several phrases may be used to describe these positions, at least as reflected in the last 350 years or so. The discussion has received much more consideration from Presbyterians than from Baptists, but it is nevertheless good for us to know and understand these terms. Some of them are my own, while others are commonly found in the literature.
We may speak of at least 7 views concerning confessional subscription. The first two militate against the use of confessions, but relate directly to the issue at hand.
1. The first category is often stated in terms such as “Doctrine divides, love unites.” I sometimes call this the ‘Rodney King’ view of theology and confessional subscription–’Why can’t we all just get along’? In this case, doctrinal formulations are pitted against relational categories i.e. love, as if one could properly exist apart from the other. As a result, doctrine is either relegated to a secondary status or ignored altogether. Confessional subscription is regarded as a serious hindrance to the advance of love.
2. The second category frequently promoted is typically couched in terms such as “we hold to the Bible alone: it is sufficient for us. Confessions are man-made documents.” This view has a long and ignoble history, as it has frequently been used as a means to legitimize heterodoxy and/or heresy under the guise of a faulty doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. Many examples may be cited, two brief summaries must suffice. In the first place, we mention the Salter’s Hall, London, Debates of 1719, where a slim majority of ministerial participants agreed “that no human compositions, or interpretations of the doctrine of the Trinity” should be part of the requirements for ministerial service.[1] The result was the death of two denominations: English Presbyterians and General Baptists, both of which became Unitarian. Second, the triumph of liberalism among (American) Northern Baptists in 1922 when a motion to adopt a confession of faith was defeated at the annual convention when a New York pastor, Cornelius Woelfkin (an appropriate name!), proposed a resolution stating “that the Northern Baptist Convention affirm that the New Testament is an all-sufficient ground for Baptist faith and practice, and they need no other statement.” After three hours of “heated” debate, Woelfkin’s motion was passed by a 2 to 1 margin.[2] While the Bible won, the Bible really lost, as this was a spiritual-sounding ploy to promote liberal theology under the guise of Christian freedom. In both of these cases-and they could be multiplied-appeal to the sufficiency of Scripture was a powerful means to avoid the adoption of a confession of faith, and promote the cause of unbelief.
There is another form of this category. Some conservative and evangelical churches, wishing to steer clear of denominational categories, have formally refused to adopt any kind of doctrinal statement, asserting instead that the New Testament alone is their standard. Of course when one begins to probe, it is immediately evident that there is in place an unwritten, though carefully defined doctrinal system to which the ministers and members subscribe. While the appeal to the Bible alone sounds spiritual, it cannot be sustained in practice. Interpretation, and a resulting system, is inevitable.
3. The third category of subscription acknowledges the legitimate place of confessions, but only in a limited manner. It may be called Gospel Essentials Subscription.
This view argues that churches or ministers subscribe to a Confession as it reflects the gospel (or the gospel as understood by that fellowship), but little or nothing beyond is required. They agree to allow differences on a broad range of subjects, because they share the same core of beliefs. We have a fascinating example of gospel essentials subscription from American Baptist history. In 1787, the records of the Philadelphia Association note that they received a letter from John Leland announcing the union of the two Baptist groups in Virginia, the Regulars and the Separates. The “Plan of Union” as it was called was printed in the Philadelphia records. It states,
After a long debate about the utility of adopting a Confession of faith, agreed to receive the Regular Baptists. [I presume that this means that they agreed to receive the Confession of the Regular Baptists, which would have been the Philadelphia Confession.] But to prevent its usurping a tyrannical power over the consciences of any, we do not mean that every person is to be bound to the strict observance of every thing therein contained: yet that it holds forth the essential truths of the gospel, and that the doctrine of salvation by Christ, and free unmerited grace alone, ought to be believed by every Christian, and maintained by every minister of the gospel.[3]
Leland overreacted to the political imposition of a creed by the Anglican state church in Virginia, even at one point calling a confession a “Virgin Mary between the souls of men and the Scriptures.”[4] In taking this view, he did a tremendous disservice to the churches, and contributed to the doctrinal decline of Baptist theology. So far as he was concerned, adopting a Confession only involved a commitment to the “essential truths of the gospel” contained in the document, and not to the details. This was a large step toward later broad evangelicalism.
4. The fourth category is often called system, or loose, subscription, though the latter is often an unfortunate designation. This view advocates a position of general agreement with a confessional document, with more or less concern for details. In many cases, the advocates of system subscription argue for the presence of an extensive system of doctrine in their confessional documents-this is why the term “loose” is often unfortunate or inappropriate. For these men, system subscription recognizes that theological truths impinge upon one another and often hang together, so that a significant core of doctrine must be recognized and maintained. In other cases, the system may be paired down to a few propositions.
Morton Smith says “loose or system subscription . . . maintains that we subscribe to a system of doctrine, which is not specifically defined, but which is contained in the Confession . . . . The system subscriptionist maintains that only the doctrines comprising the system are mandated in the subscription. Doctrines that are not a part of the system are not included.”[5] In this way, at least among Presbyterians, men have been able to deny certain truths that they deemed non-essential, while still asserting their agreement with their Confession.
5. The next category is Full Subscription, also sometimes designated as Strict Subscription. In this view, the entire body of doctrine in a confession is considered as a cohesive system, and thus is received as a whole. Every doctrine contained in the statement is recognized for its importance and place in the system of Christian doctrine. This does not imply that they are all considered to be of equal importance, simply that all of them are true and should be received as such.
I am indebted to Dr. Morton H. Smith for the suggestion of the terminology “Full Subscription.”[6] According to him, “strict or full subscription takes at face value” the terminology used in adopting a confession of faith. As an example, we may note the language found in the documents used by the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America to define its theological commitments. When the association began it stated, “We declare that our primary rule of faith and practice is the inerrant Word of God, and adopt as our subordinate standards the excellent document commonly known as the London Baptist Confession of 1689, and the Constitution of this Association.” The constitution of the Association states, “While we hold tenaciously to the inerrant and infallible Word of God as found in the sixty-six books of the Bible (this being our final source of faith and practice), we embrace and adopt the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 as a faithful expression of the doctrine taught in the Scriptures. This Confession is the doctrinal standard of the Association,” and when a new church seeks admission it signs this statement: “We accept the London Confession of Faith of 1689 as an accurate and reliable expression of what the Scriptures teach and the faith we confess.” In each case, the member churches commit themselves to the Confession as a whole, maintaining the primacy of the Scriptures, and “embrace and adopt” the Confession as a truthful expression of their convictions with regard to the details of Scripture.
Taken at face value, these words imply, even though they do not explicitly state, strict, or full subscription. This does not mean that every doctrine within the Confession is treated as if it was equally important, but rather that the churches commit themselves to all of the doctrines of the Confession. In addition, as Dr. Smith says so well, “full subscription does not require the adoption of every word of the Confession or Catechisms, but positively believes that we are adopting every doctrine or teaching of the Confession or Catechisms.”[7] This is an important distinction, and needs to be understood. Several years ago I received a very thoughtful letter from a friend who visited our church. He has served as a pastor and a seminary professor, and has a Ph. D. in New Testament from a major Reformed seminary. But he was not familiar with our Confession, and took it home to read it with interest. His letter asked me several questions about the contents of the document, specifically wondering, for example, if we really did believe that the Pope was the Antichrist, or if we used wine in our observance of the Lord’s Table. I responded by telling him that these matters are non-issues among our churches. Our eschatology does not press us to identify any particular Pope with the Antichrist, though we would affirm that he and the Roman system are antichrist, nor do we insist that only wine is suitable at the Lord’s Table, believing that the “fruit of the vine” as it is called in Scripture, is all that is required for true observance of the Supper. Full subscription does not require absolute commitment to these words. It recognizes that a man may scruple over a statement here and there and still remain true to the doctrinal intent of the Confession. Substituting grape juice for wine is qualitatively different from substituting lemonade or Coca-ColaTM. Likewise reluctance to identify the pope with the man of sin is vastly different from signing Evangelicals and Catholics Together.
6. The sixth category of subscription is what I call Historical Subscription. This concept is intriguing, but creates some difficulties when applied consistently. It would propose that a confession must always be understood in terms of the intent of its framers, and thus might also be called, based on an analogy with American Constitutional parlance, “Strict Constructionism.” Though I have not been able to corroborate this, I have been told that Dr. John Gerstner made reference to this category in his debates on apologetic methodology with Van Tillian presuppositionalists, arguing that one could not hold to a strict construction view of the Westminster Standards and be a presuppositionalist at the same time, since the 17th century Puritans held to a more “classical” approach to apologetics. If Dr. Gerstner was right, then most of us would fail the test of historical subscription. While this view has its merits, and we must never ignore the intent of our the authors of our confessions, it would seem difficult to maintain this position with any real consistency.
7. The final category of subscription we should recognize is what I designate Absolute Subscription, or perhaps more explicitly, “Jot and Tittle” subscription. This is a view that insists that the only consistent position to maintain is the one that expects absolute agreement with every phrase and/or word contained in a confessional document. This view would require unqualified doctrinal and practical agreement and uniformity, something that would seem to be impossible. I do not advocate absolute subscription.
We are confronted with these choices as we contemplate the place and role of the Confession in our churches and ministries. We do not want, in any way, to allow it to take the place of the Word of God. But still, we need to take a position which accurately reflects how this document functions among us. In my judgment, full, or strict subscription is the best option of these. If we are absolutists, we will quickly disagree and separate from one another. If we insist on a fully historical position, we will have to reevaluate some of our beliefs. If we allow system subscription, we will have lost any real theological unity. Full, or strict subscription reflects the passage of Scripture mentioned above, and, as we will now see, best suits the practices of our Particular Baptist predecessors. How has confessional subscription been understood by those who have held to our Confession? Let us examine some of the historical data available to us.
[1]Michael Watts, The Dissenters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 375.
[2]Bruce Shelley, A History of Conservative Baptists (Wheaton: Conservative Baptist Press, 1981), 12.
[3]A. D. Gillette, ed., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association, from A. D. 1707 to A. D. 1807 (Atlas, Mich.: Baptist Book Trust, n.d. facsimile reprint), 233.
[4]H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), 233.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Morton H. Smith, “The Case for Full Subscription,” in David W. Hall, ed., The Practice of Confessional Subscription (Lanham: University Press of America, 1995), 185.
[7]Ibid., 186.
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