02-13-2007 10:38

That Credal Thing

Dear Gerald, 
 
Overall I found your essay here an interesting counterpoint to Terry Wallace\'s position. And for the most part, where I disagree, I think my disagreements are not terribly serious. 
 
There is one statement here, however, which I find factually troublesome, and that is the statement, \"Without creeds you cannot have heresy, and without heresy you cannot have orthodoxy.\" I think this is an oversimplification of the matter, and is at least in part demonstrably false. And I think a clarification might be helpful to some folks trying to understand what Quakerism is about. 
 
To begin with, while the classic creeds (Apostle\'s, Nicene and Athanasian) were certainly composed to serve as quick tests of orthodoxy, a more basic orthodoxy preceded their existence by centuries. That more basic orthodoxy was defined, not by creeds, but by doctrines. And the heresies which the creeds were written to address likewise preceded the creeds, for Christianity seems to have struggled with heresies from the very generation of its birth. 
 
Friends rejected creeds from the beginning. But they did not reject orthodoxy. Fox\'s famous letter of 1671 to the Governor and Assembly at Barbados was a Quaker declaration of orthodoxy -- though not a creed. Barclay\'s Apology was another such. 
 
In the Quaker world, the vast majority of Friends worldwide are what is known as \"Orthodox Friends\" -- members of FUM-, EFI-, Conservative- and Holiness-affiliated yearly meetings, which are all descended from the Orthodox side of the Hicksite-Orthodox split. They are \"Orthodox Friends\" because they adhere to the orthodox Christian faith. But they and their meetings have no creeds. This again is a demonstration that one may have orthodoxy without creeds. 
 
The distinction between doctrines and creeds is, I think, critical to this discussion. Barclay\'s Apology, the classic statement of Quaker beliefs, is a compendium of doctrines, but not of creeds. Fox\'s \"doctrinal writings\" -- volumes 4, 5 and 6 of his collected Works -- are likewise compendiums of doctrines, but not of creeds -- as also are many of his letters. And there are of course doctrines embedded within the New Testament, too. So far as I know, Friends have never seen anything wrong with the use of such doctrines; quite the contrary, Friends have relied heavily on them all through their history -- and still do so rely -- in their efforts to explain their faith to children and newcomers. 
 
In the great separations of the nineteenth century, Orthodox Friends condemned Hicksites, and Wilburite Friends condemned Gurneyites, for departing from doctrines contained in these compendiums; the Hicksite and Gurneyite responses were of course that the doctrines so departed from were not essential to true religion. There was some loose talk of \"heresy\" in those quarrels, but so far as I know there was never a formal charge of heresy, and there was certainly no use of creeds. 
 
So in sum, without creeds, you can still have heresy and orthodoxy. And I think this is important.

http://journal.earthwitness.org/the-quaker-magpie-journal/

IP: 68.13.162.248

Guest