Good question, Tracylight. My two bits.

First, I bet I can guess what they are by their answer....

Are they Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormons? Benny Hinn-ites? Jim Jones reborn? Bet they're Episcopal....maybe neo-Arians. How can we possibly tell from that answer?

Tell him you told somebody that was their confession and the person couldn't tell if they were a cult, charismatic extremists, or just wacko liberal, all of whom have as their creed "the Bible." Couldn't tell if I would go to their church or call them brethren or not.

In our history we Christians have suffered the continual onslaught of people who said they were just preaching "the Bible". That was the claim of Arius, who denied that Jesus was fully God. It created such a conundrum that Christians had to get together and ask themselves, "Well? What do we believe?" It was no longer sufficient to claim "the Bible" in that debate because both sides, so far apart, were both doing that.

Of course they believe "the Bible", good for them, but that doesn't help us know them. "What," is your question "do you believe about the Bible?".

So the Christians got together. There they articulated in clear, no-nonsense, uniform terms what a Christian believes about Jesus, and it cut off the Arian heresy. Their words formed the Nicene Creed.

It was so effective in keeping Christianity pure, and so rallied the faithful in a hopeful unity that whenever great heresies sprung up again with some new angle, some new oblique attack saying "But it's just the Bible!" Christians responded with an exegesis on whatever point the heretics cared to raise. That's all...its's just a clarification about what we believe about the Bible, pointed against attackers. It worked, and it's still working.

Creeds are important in keeping the Church pure, in keeping a Christian identifiable from the world, and even to identify our beliefs within our community. It gives us all a place to go in the face of heretical attacks....it's all the hard work that really smart Christians have done in a nutshell. It's a way of distinguishing us from the liar's light.

Where creeds are tools in defending the faith, doctrinal statements are tools in articulating for those outside of ourselves what we believe. It is no offence to God for you to hear that I am for this creed or that my church adheres to this doctrinal statement or that. What matters is that the confession is Biblical. For them to have a statement would be beneficial for you, for others. That's the purpose. They already know they believe "the Bible"...how does that help you?

Only in the case of churches where tradition trumps Scripture can a creed or confession become a stumbling block.

When we're alone, or when we're communing with like-minded faithful, then we may simply say we are, after all, just Christians just reading the Bible, for there we stand before God alone.

-Barry