Creeds, Confessions, and the Mission of the Church Today
After completing a decade of teaching at Calvin Theological Seminary, I continue to be motivated and inspired by the ways in which theology, culture, and mission shape one another. I am drawn into the challenging contexts Christians face around the world, especially the questions posed by students who come from more than 30 different countries. Their questions have helped me contemplate theology, discipleship, and mission with fresh eyes.
These conversations remind me that the creeds and confessions we hold dear are not mere abstract doctrines that arose in a cultural vacuum. They were responses to real challenges the church was facing in specific times and places. The writings of early church leaders provide a posture and method for engaging society in ways that are biblically faithful and contextually appropriate. They model a way of engaging culture in a “dialogue of love” in light of the gospel. This approach holds fast to the authority of Scripture as we discern what is true, good, and beautiful in every culture. All of these threads converge in a single calling: to help the church live a theology that is rooted, contextual, and oriented towards God’s mission in the world.
I’ve long appreciated a maxim that theologian Martin Kähler coined back in 1908: “Mission is the mother of theology.” As Christians seek to live as disciples of Jesus, they inevitably encounter new questions and challenges that demand fresh theological reflection. This does not mean abandoning the creeds or confessions, but bringing them to bear on the present moment. We seek to embody the “living faith of the dead,” and avoid slipping into a “dead faith of the living.” Abraham Kuyper colorfully described dead faith, “Intellectualism produces, as it were, beautifully shaped, finely cornered and dazzling transparent ice-crystals. But underneath that ice the stream of living water so easily runs dry. There may be gain in doctrinal abstractions, but true religion, as shown in the warm piety of the heart, suffers loss.”
The Nicene Creed is a great example of the living faith of the dead. This creed emerged in response to pressing theological and cultural questions of the time. Gnosticism and Neoplatonism offered alternative “gospels” of how to be liberated from the shackles of material existence. Salvation was found through prescribed paths of spiritual enlightenment. What was at stake in Nicaea’s discussion of the two natures of Christ was the larger Christian story of how a loving God created the material world in goodness and the lengths He went to rescue creation and humanity by the grace He poured out through His Son and Spirit. The doctrines of the two natures of Christ and the Trinity are not simply abstract intellectual ideas; they are essential elements of the gospel story. If the church is to remain faithful to Christ’s mission today, it must engage the alternative stories to which people are looking in order to satisfy their deep longings and pressing questions, and to offer fresh retelling of the old gospel story with clarity, conviction, and grace.
One of the greatest gifts of teaching at Calvin Theological Seminary is our global student body. In my first year on the faculty, a student from Indonesia told me a story about a time when a professor had asked the class, “Do people in your context ask about how to understand the two natures of Christ?” To which the student humbly responded, “No, no one has ever asked me about the two natures of Christ. The question I am asked most commonly is, ‘Can Christians eat blood?’” This conversation revealed something to me: believers come to Scripture with different questions, shaped by their cultural contexts. My task as a professor is not simply to give answers to my questions arising from my social context, but to equip students to identify the questions arising from their context and to return to Scripture, creeds, and confessions for the robust theology they need to respond to those questions. I cannot do my job effectively unless I allow my students to teach me about their culture first. Their questions keep me on my toes and always learning, and prevent me from slipping into dead orthodoxy that can result from the theory-practice hierarchy.
As I wrestle with the questions my students raise, I find myself returning to the creeds and confessions. Though they arose from particular historical moments, they continue to anchor us in the story of the Gospel while empowering us to engage the questions of our own time and context with the posture of a missionary pursuing a dialogue of love with culture. In a deeply polarized world marked by division, tension, and anxiety, we need these theological anchors and dispositional practices of humble confidence more than ever.
In my research and teaching, I’ve resonated with the emphasis that our neo-Calvinist forebears placed on theology directly serving discipleship formation. The doctrines we profess should never be detached from our daily lives and work. At Calvin Theological Seminary, this means helping students imagine the church not as a retreat from the world, or as a besieged minority battling secular forces, but as a community of missionary priests that equips believers for mission in the world. Our mission at CTS is not only to prepare pastors for formal ministry, but to form leaders who serve the priestly vocation of all believers who stand as witnesses in offices, classrooms, boardrooms, and homes.
This is why I’ve come to describe the church’s engagement with culture as a “dialogue of love,” borrowing from the theologian José Míguez Bonino. This posture neither retreats from the world nor uncritically adopts its assumptions. Instead, it listens carefully, discerns thoughtfully, and engages respectfully. Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck modeled this well in their writings about general revelation and common grace. They had deep roots and confidence in the Reformed tradition, and they were restlessly eager to learn from and engage with society. They believed truth, goodness, and beauty were gifts of God wherever they appeared, and that ignoring such gifts, in John Calvin’s words, would demonstrate “ingratitude” towards the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Despite the rivalry and fear that shape so much of our cultural moment, I remain hopeful. Our missionary calling invites us into a dialogue of love, holding conviction and compassion together as we engage the world God loves. I find hope in our alumni who creatively extend the Christian faith across the globe reclaiming the Reformed vision of the priesthood of all believers. And I see this hope in our students discovering how ancient creeds speak to the social issues of today, and in congregations reclaiming everyday mission.
If we stay rooted in Scripture, anchored by the creeds and confessions, and open to being shaped by the experiences of the global church represented in our student body, I believe the next 150 years will be marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit who has carried us this far.
