“I Believe in COCU”?

“Principles of Church Union” may chart a course for 25.5 million Protestants

Efforts to merge ten Protestant denominations into a great united church containing 25.5 million members were actively encouraged a year ago when the Consultation on Church Union met in Dallas, and for many months delegates have been engaged in a selling job to their parent denominations. Books on church union have been published; study groups have been formed. Next month COCU meets again, this time at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And this month pastors of the participating denominations will exchange pulpits in an attempt to further interdenominational understanding and prepare for the May meeting of the consultation. Their pulpit theme will presumably be: “I believe in COCU because …”

The subject is a significant one, but it raises even more important matters. Many who are asked to believe in COCU will be asking what COCU itself believes. They will be asking about the doctrinal basis of the proposed united church. What will be its creed? What do the Principles of Church Union say about the faith of the church and its doctrine? What do they say about Scripture, tradition, and the outstanding doctrinal confessions of church history? What will be the ultimate source of authority for the united church? What authority will guide the path to union? These questions are of interest to all the participating churches, especially to those built on a creedal foundation. They will be of great importance to United Presbyterians, for instance, who are just now reaffirming the confessional nature of their church by adopting the Book of Confessions, to be approved finally by the General Assembly in Portland, Oregon, in May.

Unfortunately, not only is the proposed doctrinal basis of the united church uncertain; the authority upon which such doctrine is established or is to be established is uncertain, too.

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The most striking thing the COCU Principles say about a statement of faith for the united church is an assertion of the danger of verbal formulations, coupled with a refusal to recognize any one confession as binding upon the new community. The Principles state:

The united church … will constantly remind itself of the divisive dangers in verbal confessions and intellectual formulations, and of the need to keep open and continuous the theological dialogue within which the Church grasps the riches which are in Jesus Christ.… It will not … permit the use of any single confession as an exclusive requirement for all or as a basis for divisions within the new community.

This statement is not without merit. Many who have always considered a verbal confession as a uniting rather than a dividing force in a denomination will blink twice. But others who fear the immediate loss of the particular beliefs of their communions will find it a comfort. And the statement itself is balanced by the recognition of “all those confessions which are cherished by the uniting churches.” The ideal of COCU is apparently a tolerance of all the creeds held by participating denominations leading to a final goal of doctrinal unity and perhaps a new confession. Moreover, says COCU, there is an obligation” to rediscover a more comprehensive tradition of covenants and confessions” represented by other churches not yet participating in the negotiations.

At this point, however, a careful reading of the Principles of Church Union raises doubts for those concerned with doctrine. In the first place, with the exception of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, none of the confessions acknowledged in such general terms is fisted. Does the “recognition” of all confessions cherished by the uniting churches mean a recognition of all the confessions embodied in the United Presbyterians’ Book of Confessions, including the Barmen Declaration and the controversial Confession of 1967? Does it mean “recognition” of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which are normative for the Church of England but are only accepted with modifications as a general statement of doctrine by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States? Does it mean “recognition” of the theologically undistinguished creed of the United Church of Christ? Does it mean “recognition” of the Methodist Articles of Religion? And what do the Principles mean by “recognition”? Unless the churches are given some idea of an answer to these questions, they may well be on the path of those who sing in Paint Your Wagon: “Where am I going? I don’t know. When will I get there? I don’t care. All I know is I am on my way.”

Secondly, many will be justly questioning COCU’s reference even to the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. As outstanding embodiments of Christian faith these two confessions could have great normative value for a church that took them seriously. But even this possibility for a doctrinal basis is weakened by the decision of COCU to acknowledge them as nothing more than symbols. The Principles of Church Union commend the Nicene Creed largely to the church’s theologians, as a “guardian of the truth of the Gospel,” and recommend that the Apostles’ Creed be used by the united church “as a corporate act of praise and allegiance which binds it to the apostolic gospel and to the faith of the one Church in all centuries and continents.” Nothing in the COCU documents even suggests that actual belief in any of the statements of these two creeds will be required of anyone.

This qualified allegiance to the creeds is already causing trouble for Episcopalians. The Rev. Carroll E. Simcox, editor of the Living Church, comments that “this language is troubling in its vagueness.” And a lead article of the American Church News, monthly newspaper of the 11,000 member, Anglo-Catholic American Church Union, points to the difference between COCU’s reference to the creeds as ancient symbols and the language of the creeds themselves, which begin with the categorical statement, “I believe …” Says the American Church News, “This is quite different from merely using it as a corporate symbol binding us to some sort of connection with the Church throughout the ages. The Apostles’ Creed does indeed state the essentials of the Faith of the Church, but more than this, it states what each and every individual in the Church must believe if he is to be a Christian.”

The same paper also notes that “in the absence of a definite standard of beliefs for teaching, it is not likely that the new COCU Church could have much Evangelistic force in its effort to reach out for conversions.”

Finally, the effort of the consultation to find a doctrinal basis for the united church in the creeds is also weakened by statements that set the liturgies of the Church and its mission alongside verbal confessions as equally valid means by which the church may confess its faith. These emphases are valuable to the extent that they fink worship to belief and view Christian conduct as the proper manifestation of the Gospel in the life of the believer. But they are inadequate in their failure to make God’s truth, embodied in Scripture and reflected in the creeds, the measure of ethical action and of the church’s worship. What is to correct the church’s fife and liturgy when these practices go astray, as they have repeatedly done in the past? What will be the measure of man’s conduct? On what basis will the church teach Christian morals? Neglecting to acknowledge a scriptural or a doctrinal standard at this point is to cast the faith, worship, and practice of the church into the churning sea of subjectivity and to abandon the truth claims of the Christian faith and its moral imperatives to the sinful, inconsistent, and historically conditioned whims of men.

The value of creeds must not be overstated. They themselves are not truth, nor are they infallible. They have often been amended for the better, as in the addition of articles on the Holy Spirit and the Gospel to the Westminster Confession in 1903. But they are a great source of strength for a church that seriously holds them. In the interpretative statement about its confession, the United Church of Christ affirms, “A belief that is unsaid is incomplete, and a belief that is well said becomes a power for life and action” (We Believe, p. 15).

A church that acknowledges all creeds but subscribes to none, that alludes to its faith but neglects to define it, does not inspire confidence. Nor can it expect enthusiasm from the thousands who devoutly confess each Sunday morning, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.…”

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It must be acknowledged at this point, however, that although the weaknesses of the Principles of Church Union will dismay many churches whose nature is confessional, there is no reason to think that COCU’s posture on the creeds will necessarily be unacceptable to non-confessional denominations. Many would consider it wrong not to say impossible, to force a doctrinal statement on these churches. And those within them might well consider their understanding of the faith protected by having no confession of faith at all. For these churches, as indeed for all the churches participating in the consultation, there is final appeal to Scripture. Unfortunately, at this point also the COCU Principles must be judged inadequate.

At one point the union document states in very generous terms: “The united church acknowledges that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have a unique authority. They witness to God’s revelation, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and to man’s response to God’s revelation.” And it adds a little later, “The Scriptures are the norm of the church’s life, including worship and witness and teaching and mission.” These statements apparently make the Scriptures “a unique authority” in the church and acknowledge them as the ultimate norm of all the church’s actions.

It is all the more startling, therefore, to read in the paragraph immediately following that the united church also recognizes a “historic Christian Tradition,” a tradition that in some measure “antedated the formation of the New Testament canon.” Not only these statements but also the alterations in this part of the document between the original version of the Principles, presented for action at Dallas, and the version now circulated in book form, warn the reader that the Scriptures according to COCU are neither unique nor as normative as the paragraphs that mention them imply.

Nothing is more eloquent on this point than a comparison of the first version with the final text of the COCU document. The version of the Principles originally presented at Dallas read quite laudably:

The final test of any statement of Christian belief must be its faithfulness to the Scriptures and the living Lord to whom the Scriptures bear witness. We accept the unfailing standard of catholic faith, that no form or confession or belief may be required of anyone, nor regarded as necessary to salvation, which does not clearly spring from God’s revelation in the Scriptures or which cannot be tested by them.

In the final, approved edition, this openly Protestant and boldly Reformation statement has been completely removed, and statements have been added that could delight only the bishops who attended the Council of Trent. In place of the preceding affirmations, the Principles of Church Union now state:

The united church recognizes that there is a historic Christian Tradition. Each of the churches in the Consultation inevitably appeals to that Tradition in matters of faith and practice. By Tradition we understand the whole life of the Church ever guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, and expressed in its worship, witness, way of life, and its order. As such, Tradition includes both the act of delivery by which the good news is made known and transmitted from one generation to another as well as the teaching and practice handed on from one generation to another (cf. Luke 1:1–3).

In such a sense, the Christian Tradition antedated the formation of the New Testament canon. The New Testament canon appears not as separate from or opposed to the Christian Tradition but rather as an expression of it. Certainly it is the case that in the Church, Scripture and Tradition are found together.

What do these statements mean if they do not mean that tradition and Scripture stand together on equal footing within the church and together are the source of its authority? And what is this but Tridentine theology? In a day when even some Roman Catholic theologians (G. Sohngen, Y. Congar, R. J. Geiselmann, H. Kling) argue that Trent never intended to make tradition equal to Scripture and seek a new priority for Scripture within the Roman church, it would be ironic indeed if COCU itself returned to 1545, abandoned the sola scriptura of the Reformation, and aligned itself with the conservatives within the Roman fold.

It is also noteworthy that the Principles do not recognize the historical argument popularized by Cullmann: that recognition of the canon by the Church in the second century, far from establishing the equality or priority of the tradition, was actually “an act of humility” by which the Church acknowledged the errors of its traditions and bound itself to the apostolic witness recorded in the Scriptures of the New Testament forever. Cullmann’s interpretation of this action is strikingly vindicated by a comparison of the doctrinally weak and moralistically oriented writings of the Apostolic Fathers, who wrote before the canon was formed, with the doctrinally sound and theologically astute writings of the later theologians from the time of Tertullian, who wrote after the canon was established and in conscious dependence on it.

Some will say, in objection to this argument, that the Principles of Church Union do not actually endorse an equality of Scripture with tradition but only acknowledge pragmatically that tradition has always been involved in the Church’s understanding of its faith. This fact is true, of course. And for this reason none of the participating churches has ever given absolute authority to its creeds. All recognize the absolute authority of Scripture. But this COCU does not recognize. That is the point. The Principles of Church Union do not support their positions with reference to the Scriptures. And the deliberations resulting in the documents of union as they now stand actually represent a rejection of the absolute authority of Scripture for a hazy view that links Scripture and tradition together in the subjective flux of history.

This understanding of COCU’s stance receives further confirmation from the way in which the COCU documents explicitly speak of the relations between Scripture and tradition. The Principles state:

(1) Scripture is itself included in the Tradition. The reading of and listening to the Scriptures in worship and the authority of the Scriptures over the teaching of the Church are essential in the life of the Church.

(2) The Scriptures are interpreted in the light of the Tradition. The Church does not set itself above the Scriptures; but the Church reads and listens to the Scriptures as a community of faith. (3) The Scriptures are the supreme guardian and expression of the Tradition. This is what the Church intends by its acknowledgment of a canon of Scriptures.

These statements are all vague. At best the second is a mere statement of fact. And the third is untrue. But the really deplorable thing is that the “relations” omit the one relation that alone could place the others in a legitimate perspective. What about the great Reformation belief that the Scriptures correct the tradition, that they are the standard by which the Church itself and all its practices and beliefs are judged? Without an acknowledgment of sola scriptura, there is no such thing as an ecclesia semper reformanda. The consultation wants a church that is “truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed.” But there is only a drifting church “ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Such a church will not even be able to appeal to the authority of Christ, for Christ himself acknowledged the Scriptures and repeatedly directed the disciples to them as the source where they could learn of him.

The organization recommended to the denominations by COCU is a church without a navel; there is no evidence of an umbilical cord to the past. It professes a reception of the creeds but weakens its profession by failing to list them, by terming the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed symbols, and by setting the creeds alongside the church’s liturgy and mission as equally valid expressions of its faith. It professes a unique and normative Scripture but weakens this profession by an unqualified acknowledgment of the church’s tradition. This is a church with no standards and no absolutes, a church with no basis to form, evaluate, or correct its life and worship. If this is true, then to say “I believe in COCU because …” is only to say “I believe in what COCU believes.” And this is to say merely that “I believe in COCU! “Such a statement is idolatrous. It is evident that a church like this would be at the whim of whoever happens to be in charge of its structures.

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The inevitable result of COCU’s stance in regard to the creeds and Scripture is already visible in the Principles of Church Union in a sad neglect of basic doctrines. There is a sense in which a number of doctrinal phrases run like leitmotivs through the document. The Principles speak of “God as Father, “Christ as “Lord and Savior,” “crucified and risen, the living Lord and Head of the Church,” and so on. But there is never an attempt to define these phrases, and they are never developed in detail. It does not take a committed skeptic to wonder whether, in the absence of fuller definition, these phrases are any more than ecumenical clichés.

Moreover, statements of belief that might be thought basic to any Protestant church do not occur in the COCU Principles. There is very little about the nature and work of Christ. It is significant here that even the minimal “Basis” of the World Council of Churches, which speaks of “Jesus Christ as God and Savior,” was removed from the original, Dallas version of the Principles, and all references to Christ’s work are placed under the discussion of the sacraments, notably the Eucharist, not in the section dealing with “The Faith of the Church.” It is a high point of the COCU Principles, however, that at this point Christ is referred to “as the Crucified who died for our sins and who rose again for our justification, as the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world who gives himself to the faithful.”

There is no explicit statement of justification by grace through faith alone, no definition of grace or faith or justification, no reference to heaven or hell, rewards or judgment. The Trinitarian formula of the WCC “Basis”—“to the glory of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”—found in the original version of the Principles has also been removed. In the light of these deficiencies, many will feel that if the efforts expended over six years in arriving at a proposed organization of the united church (sacraments, liturgy, and bishops) had been expended on matters vital to the church’s doctrinal confession, a far more mature and commendable confession of faith would have emerged than the mere sprinklings that appear in the final document.

Fortunately, the union of the churches on the principles of the consultation is not yet final, nor will it be for some time to come. There is still time for the drafting of a courageous Christian confession. Christians have always been ready to confess the principles embodied in the Gospel, and there is no reason to believe that the community of believers who thus confess their faith will ever perish from the earth. But if the great denominations, even with their reunion and reorganization, neglect the Gospel, they will be able to expect nothing less than that the faith of believers will express itself elsewhere—in small denominations, if necessary, and in nonaligned groups of believers. The shifting of the faith into new directions has happened before. Judaism was bypassed with the advent of Christianity. The Roman church was outflanked at the time of the Reformation. The rationalistic church of the nineteenth century was embarrassed by the great revival movements. It can happen again.

On the other hand, there is no reason why the great denominations, even a great united church, could not emerge with a new allegiance to the everlasting faith. Belief in COCU could become belief in the God of Jesus Christ, a God who is holy, just, omnipotent, and loving and who through the vicarious atonement of his Son and the continuing work of his Holy Spirit in the world and in the Church is yet at work among us.

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