Entering the PC(USA) Book of Confessions
- Pastor Kristy
- Jan 12
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 12
The PC(USA) is unique as it is governed by it's polity. There are two books that make up the Constitution. The Book of Order and the Book of Confessions.
The Book of Confessions is comprised of 12 historical, doctrinal documents of the church that speak how scripture is interpreted and lived out in certain times and helps us speak to our own faith life lived out public witness. READ THE BOOK OF CONFESSIONS
Apostles Creed | Nicene Creed |
Shorter Catechism | Longer Catechism |
During a traditional worship service the Affirmation of Faith comes from the confessions. Many churches typically only use the Apostles Creed.
Scots Confession - written in 1560 by Scottish Reformers, including notable John Knox. During the Reformation it was needed to delineate from the Roman Catholic and these reformers spoke to the role of the church. Specifically about the "sacraments" being only that which was done in scripture (Baptism and the Lord's Supper). The role of reading the scriptures is important and how we worship and trust in a Triune God.
Heidelberg Catechism- around 1563 in Switzerland,
The Second Helvetic Confession - written in 1564, part of the Swiss-German Reformation. This document is truly the work of Heinrich Bullinger who took over the church in Zurich from Reformer Zwingli. This document emphasizes the church and its life and affirms the authority of Scripture for the church's government and reformation.
Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms
In 1643, an Assembly was gathered in Westminster Abbey, later, because of the cold, another part of the church. This assembly was composed of 121 Puritan ministers of the Church of England, most of whom were Presbyterian‘s and their sentiments, but with some Congregationalist and a few favoring Episcopal Church government. In addition, there were 30 lay members of Parliament. The draft was completed in 1647.
This all came about with some interesting history including a few changes to the English throne, civil wars, angry parliaments, and the need for explanation of power alongside the need to explain a doctrine that would work between Episcopals, Puritans, Presbyterians and Congregationalists (but only them).
With the reformation the divine power and authority of the throne was changing and Westminster was one of the voices that gave more voice to the elected than to the throne, another reason why it was so strongly upheld as the reformed voice in America’s doctrine and American Presbyterian school of thought.
The Confession itself begins with God’s self-revelation in scripture. Then it moves to the fall of humankind and sin in the world. That humanity has fallen short of the glory of God, as seen in Romans 3:23 “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
But then by God’s grace through Jesus, human relationship with God is restored.
Then the confession shares the Christian life–how it is nurtured by prayer, preaching, sacraments.
Authority of Scripture
The authority of scripture is through God, the Lord of Creation, the one who sent Jesus, and the one who through the Holy Spirit alone helps us to interpret and live that which the scriptures guide us to live in the here and now.
Sovereignty of God
Meaning that “that all human beings are, at every moment of our lives, in relationship to the living God. “ It is not about the ruling but about the way that God in relation to us through Jesus Christ who taught us what leadership and loving God was about.
The Longer Catechism, took longer to compose than the Confession was a guide for preachers, in fact there was controversy in the 60s when someone tried to delete this from the book of confessions while working to enter the Confession of 1967.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism was to help youth parse out scripture and know how to live in faith. The first question is the one that guides the rest.
What is the chief end of man (or humanity)?
The answer: To glorify God and enjoy God forever.
This is reflected in 1 Corinthians 10:31
31 So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
All that we are and all that we do is to seek and and glorify God. That we are created for this, and in that when we do, it opens up and allows us to live out our truest selves. Paul in this chapter was helping the people of Corinth to not have to worry about food laws, or picking out everything another does, but that we truly are to live out what Augustine called the “rule of love” that all we do is to show love for God and by loving our neighbor we are loving God.
The Barmen Declaration of Faith
In the 1930s in Germany there was a need for clergy and churches to speak out against Nazi and the push to not only have government control but to control the message of the church and use the church to continue the exploitation of the state.
“Because of this need we have formed in “emergency league“ of ministers who have given written assurance to one another that in their preaching, they will be bound by only by holy scripture in the confession of the reformation, and to the best of their ability will succor those brethren, who in doing so have to suffer.”
1300 signed up. By the end of September, the number had grown to 2300 by January 1934 they were over 7000 members.
Karl Barth drew up a “declaration concerning the right understanding of the reformation confessions of faith in the German evangelical Church of the present.“ It marked the first anti-Nazi confession via a church body rather than an individual theologian or group. (From Presbyterian Creed, A Guide to the Book of Confessions by Jack Rogers, 185)
Today this is important because it speaks against idoltry and the use of "the church" to exploit others and use the gospel, scripture, to inflict harm and hate upon a nation or the world.
The Confession of 1967
During the height of Civil Rights and the Vietnam War there were many social pressures that elicited a need to respond to the social pressures of the day and serve as a contemporary confession of the church as the language of the Westminster and Reformation confessions were archaic. The General Assembly responded in 1956 with receiving an overture for revision of the shorter catechism that evolved into the conversation for a confession.
It is not a system of doctrine or includes all traditional topics of theology, it is the first American written confession and works to serve and state "God's Work of Reconciliation" As the confession revolves around 2 Corinthians 5:19 "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself."
There are problems with this confession today as the language is structured for men only as referenced both to God and those professing the faith as "men" which means it is not inclusive language. There is also a section in the social concerns that are sexist in nature and not how the denomination feels about the role of women in the church and the world.
Even with the lack of inclusive language there is the importance of the equality of persons. Speaking out against racism and prejudice in the world as faithful people of God.
A Brief Statement of Faith of the PC(USA)
In 1983, the two largest streams of Presbyterianism in the United States of America reunited. They overcame the shame of being divided for more than 100 years.
The articles of agreement, governing the reunion mandated, and the reunited general assembly, instructed by its moderator, Dr. J. Randolph Taylor, to appoint, a committee “representing diversities of points of view and groups within the reunited church, to prepare a brief statement of the reformed faith for possible inclusion in the book of confessions “ it may be the first time in history of the reformed cradle formation that a group was chosen specifically for its diversity, and then expected to write a document evoking unity.
21 people who did represent the diversity in the church were appointed women and men, racial, ethnic persons, and Anglos, members, elders, and ministers, and a range of ages, representing many points of view across broad theological spectrum. (Presbyterian Creeds by Jack Rogers)
A brief statement extended the reformed tradition into new areas, not previously articulated in the book confessions. It provided a narrative of Jesus Christ, life and ministry, generally admitted from the previous creeds. It unequivocally announced that God “makes everyone equally in God‘s image.“ (223)
A brief statement of faith: at Presbyterian Church USA has responded to our need as a church to find the center, the core on which we can agree. It offers concrete evidence that there are concepts, commands, and commitments to which Presbyterian‘s respond in common. A brief statement becomes, therefore, a baseline on which Presbyterian can build. (267)
The Belhar Confession was first adopted by a South African synod in 1982, and Christian confessional responses to white-supremacist political and social structures remain an important subject forty years later. During that time, the Confession has traveled around the world and is used by a number of Reformed churches years after Apartheid ended in the 1990s.
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word of segregation.
Belhar's theme is unity, reconciliation, and justice.
God stands on the stand of the poor, destitute, and wrong therefore the church should stand.
Segregation of any kind is sin.
In the 2000s Americans were looking at adding this confession, the first was Reformed Church in America in 2008. In 2016 the PC(USA) added this to the Book of Confessions making some alterations on to give it inclusive language.
The whole of the confession states it's beliefs and then rejecting ideologies and harmful ways of treatment of others because of the strong scriptural beliefs that we hold.
The formula is We believe (points) and therefore we reject.
The end of the confession also includes the Gloria (Father, Son, and Spirit) just like Brief Statement of Faith.
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