Skip to content
Devoted to the inerrancy and inspiration of the Scriptures and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Log in

Evangelical Theological Society

  • Home
  • About
  • Account
  • My Cart

Evangelical Theological Society

  • Membership
    • Membership Applications and Levels
    • Member Directory
    • ETS Career Connections Services
      • Job Candidates
      • Submit Candidate Information
      • Current Employment Opportunities
      • Submit a new employment opportunity
    • Member Publications
    • Submit a New Publication
  • JETS
    • Subscription Information
    • Current Issue
    • JETS PDF Archive
    • Advertise in JETS
    • JETS Search on ATLA
    • Manuscript Submissions and Book Reviews
    • JETS Back Order Information
    • Missing Issue Claim
  • Annual Meeting
    • Annual Meeting Overview
    • ETS Conference Registration
    • Hotel Information
    • Boston Transportation and Attractions
    • Exhibit Hall, Sponsorship, and Advertising Information
    • Annual Meeting Special Event/Space Request
    • Future Themes / Venues
    • Past Programs / Recordings
  • Proposal System
    • View My Proposal(s) status
    • Proposal Notification Timeline
    • List of Proposals for Reviewers Only
    • Preparing to submit your Paper or Session proposal
    • Crafting a Quality Proposal
    • Submit a Session Proposal
    • Student Recommendation Letter Guidelines
  • Program Units
    • Overview
    • Information for Program Unit Chairs
    • Starting a Program Unit
  • Regions
    • Region Overview
    • Northeast Region
    • Eastern Region
    • The Southeast Region
    • Ontario/Quebec Region
    • The Midwest Region
    • Southwest Region
    • The Northwest Region
    • Far West Region
  • News & Information
    • The Officers and board of directors of the Society
    • ETS Advertising Opportunities
    • Business Meeting Minutes
    • Stories
    • In Memoriam
    • Submit News Item
  • Membership
    • Membership Applications and Levels
    • Member Directory
    • ETS Career Connections Services
      • Job Candidates
      • Submit Candidate Information
      • Current Employment Opportunities
      • Submit a new employment opportunity
    • Member Publications
    • Submit a New Publication
  • JETS
    • Subscription Information
    • Current Issue
    • JETS PDF Archive
    • Advertise in JETS
    • JETS Search on ATLA
    • Manuscript Submissions and Book Reviews
    • JETS Back Order Information
    • Missing Issue Claim
  • Annual Meeting
    • Annual Meeting Overview
    • ETS Conference Registration
    • Hotel Information
    • Boston Transportation and Attractions
    • Exhibit Hall, Sponsorship, and Advertising Information
    • Annual Meeting Special Event/Space Request
    • Future Themes / Venues
    • Past Programs / Recordings
  • Proposal System
    • View My Proposal(s) status
    • Proposal Notification Timeline
    • List of Proposals for Reviewers Only
    • Preparing to submit your Paper or Session proposal
    • Crafting a Quality Proposal
    • Submit a Session Proposal
    • Student Recommendation Letter Guidelines
  • Program Units
    • Overview
    • Information for Program Unit Chairs
    • Starting a Program Unit
  • Regions
    • Region Overview
    • Northeast Region
    • Eastern Region
    • The Southeast Region
    • Ontario/Quebec Region
    • The Midwest Region
    • Southwest Region
    • The Northwest Region
    • Far West Region
  • News & Information
    • The Officers and board of directors of the Society
    • ETS Advertising Opportunities
    • Business Meeting Minutes
    • Stories
    • In Memoriam
    • Submit News Item

Creeds, Doctrines, and Church Cultures: Five Theses Related to Changes in Beliefs

Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a seminal essay—“Creed or Chaos?”—that later become a lead chapter in her book with the same title (1949). A subsequent edition (1995) carries the subtitle: “Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma or Disaster; Or, Why It Really Does Matter What You Believe.” While appreciating Sayers’s basic concern for preserving historic Christian orthodoxy, this paper examines the arguments for five overlapping theses that would significantly complicate her basic claims. 1) Churches often change far more rapidly and radically than their leaders or constituencies would like to admit. 2) Those persons aggressively calling for fidelity to biblical or historical positions with respect to Church doctrines or Christian lifestyles are frequently among the chief catalysts for those changes, including some of the most dramatic ones. 3) Cultural encounters and influences also play an enormous role in those changes, whether the pervasive effects of surrounding societies (local, national, or now also media driven) or the impact of encounters with alien or foreign cultures brought about by aggressive evangelism, discipleship, church planting, or other missionary outreaches. 4) Beliefs are deeply intertwined with behaviors, so that the claim from some in the Anabaptist, Pietist, and Holiness movements that orthodoxy cannot be separated from orthopraxy seems to be true on a pragmatic level, given what we can learn from the psychology and sociology of religion. 5) Changes may go in many directions on different levels, so that the familiar evangelical concerns that changes inevitably tend toward theological liberalism or secular unbelief are simply wrong—some of the most striking changes are neither liberal nor secular, though they may be decidedly unbiblical and fly in the face of the Nicene Creed. Specific examples to support these five theses will be drawn from a variety of Christian traditions, with special attention to evangelical bodies, including a focused case study running throughout that references the Missionary Church, a relatively small evangelical denomination with a tangled ecclesial heritage drawing on five distinct but intersecting Protestant identities. There will also be repeated allusions to the ironies of unintended consequences, a frequent result of trying to promote truth while guarding against change. This ironical pattern of unexpected results is so pervasive that it might merit a separate paper.

Forgot your password?

RECENT POSTS

Moved or need to confirm mailing address?

Inaugural ETS Lifetime Service Award Presented in San Diego

JETS 67.3 is available online

The Center for Classical Theology

Theologians without borders-coming to San Diego, November 2024

Proposal period, website, and membership accounts

Member not receiving emails? here is what to do

Lifetime service award

JETS 66.3 is available online

San Antonio "Show Us Your Badge" program!

View all

Recent Publications

The Spirit and Renewal (Part 1): Definitive & Progressive Sanctification - Sherif Fahim

'New Creation' in Paul - Sherif Fahim

Justification, Sanctification, and Union with Christ: Fresh Insights from Calvin, Westminster, and Walter Marshall - Sherif Fahim

Death in Second-Century Christian Thought The Meaning of Death in Earliest Christianity - Jeremiah Mutie

The Quest for Early Church Historiography From Ferdinand C. Baur to Bart D. Ehrman and Beyond - Jeremiah Mutie

The Book of the Twelve - David Fuller

Early Witnesses to the Syriac Text of Acts 15 with an Investigation into the Text of Acts 15 in the Didascalia Apostolorum and with and Appendix on the Western/Jacobite Peshitta Manuscript Tradition for Acts - Daniel McConaughy

The Star and the Magi in Jacob of Serugh and the Early Syriac Tradition - Daniel McConaughy

Saved by Grace through Faith or Saved by Decree? A Biblical and Theological Critique of Calvinist Soteriology - Geoffrey Robinson

The Rhetoric of Matthean “Small Faith” - Christopher Seglenieks

View all

"To foster conservative Biblical scholarship by providing a medium for the oral exchange and written expression of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures." (Constitution, Article II.)

Contact Us

Address:
Evangelical Theological Society
7901 E Shea Blvd
Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Phone:
(888) 883-3062

Fax:
(888) 944-6328

Email:
Annual Meeting Inquiries
General Inquiries
Member Services
Subscriber Services

© 1949-2025 ETS - All rights reserved.