Thus, my response to the biblicist pastor would simply be this: do not precipitately abandon creedal formulations which have been tried and tested over centuries by churches all over the world in favor of your own ideas. On the whole, those who reinvent the wheel invest a lot of time either to come up with something that looks identical to the old design or something that is actually inferior to it.

Perhaps you’ve heard or even yourself said, “I have no creed but the Bible.” This phrase used to promote biblical fidelity is also commonly deployed as a missile against creeds, confessions, and other historic, man-made documents such as catechisms. But is this dichotomy helpful? Is it even biblical? Are historic documents and biblical fidelity mutually exclusive?

Carl Trueman wrote The Creedal Imperative to address this question and its apparent tension in some people’s minds. His short answer is: no. The dichotomy is not helpful. It is not biblical. The documents and the Bible are not mutually exclusive. In fact, says Trueman, these documents are very helpful and important.

Trueman investigates the suspicion people have of these documents and lends a possible solution that people are more shaped by the spirit of this age than they appear. He shows how science, consumerism, and technology all serve to eschew the past as they triumphantly march into the future only to take a brief bow in the present. On the other hand, creeds and confessions have a link to a time that many people in various sectors view with some degree of suspicion and superiority. In some cases this is right. We would be quite alarmed to find our doctor looking up how to do medicine from books in the 1700’s. However, the medicine of the soul is a bit different. The symptoms and treatment do not change with time. We should guard against such unbiblical thinking that resists our past.

Once Trueman opens the door to listen to these helpful bodies of theology and practice, he serves to provide a brief education as to how they have been used throughout church history. He explains in detail the various popular confessions and catechisms. My only critique of the book was the amount of ink spilled on the Baptist confessions. I know Truman is Presbyterian and the Baptist confessional heritage is less impressive, however, I wanted a bit more. But, I understand what and why.

In one of the more powerful sections of the book Trueman tees up the argument again by the biblicist (as I noted above—no creed but the Bible).

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