Doctrine and Conduct (4)

Over the years I've been interested to read the creeds and statements of faith of a lot of churches and denominations. At one stage I even started 'collecting' statements of faith which contained the same 'core doctrines' as Christadelphians. I discovered quite a few churches and denominations which were remarkably similar to Christadelphians in several of these core doctrines.

Something I have noticed about nearly all of these statements of faith is that they follow a fairly predictable order. Here are the subject headings of 'A Summary of Basic Bible Doctrine' from just one group (who are, incidentally, almost identical to Christadelphians in their beliefs) - although I won't say which group it's from as this is not important to the point I'm about to make. Each heading is expanded into several statements, but I just want to look at the headings for now.

1. GOD

2. THE SPIRIT OF GOD

3. THE PROMISES OF GOD

4. GOD AND DEATH

5. THE KINGDOM OF GOD

6. GOD AND EVIL

7. JESUS CHRIST

8. BAPTISM

9. LIFE IN CHRIST

Any summary of doctrine has to have some sort of order and structure so that it flows logically. This one starts with God, which is a fairly logical place to start (the Christadelphian statements of faith often start with the Bible, as a way of showing that the Bible is the foundation for what follows - which is also logical). However, where the various statements of faith go then can be very interesting. The above summary, for example, has a section dealing with the devil (# 6) before the section on Jesus Christ (# 7). This strikes me as very odd. I can only speculate that being a non-trintarian statement it is trying to avoid any hint of putting Jesus on an equal footing with God. (But why put the devil before Jesus?!)

What is not quite as odd, and in this way it is fairly typical, is that "Life in Christ" comes right at the end. This suggests that correct theology, outlined in the first 8 statements, has to come before we can have a life in Christ. Most statements of faith I have seen follow this sort of pattern. The Christadelphian statements generally attach "Commandments of Christ" as a separate statement - as a kind of appendix to the doctrinal one. So I am not criticising the above statement, or the Christadelphian ones, as though there is anything particularly strange about them.

To the contrary, I think these statements of faith have been influenced to a very large degree by earlier creeds and confessions (such as the Thirty Nine Articles, or the Westminster Confession). The way Christadelphian doctrine is taught generally follows a pattern outlined in literature such as The Christadelphian Instructor, A Declaration, or Preparing for Baptism. These documents follow the same general pattern as any Systematic Theology and appear to have been influenced by them, at least in their structure. I think this is how protestant Christians generally tend to think, and Christadelphians are no exception.

However, it's not how Jesus thought.

Jesus never gave a systematic theology, or an outline of basic doctrine. He never once (so far as we know from the Gospels) gave a sermon about the Godhead, or the nature of man, or life after death, or the Age to Come.

Matthew says that Jesus went about preaching the Kingdom of God and then immediately gave us his account of the kinds of things Jesus taught about the kingdom by giving us the sermon on the mount. Jesus message was the good news of the kingdom, and that message is encapsulated in a sermon about how to live!