As evangelicals, we have a problem. We live in a political climate of entrenchment and extremes in which party lines are more important than people, and unfortunately ecclesial practice often looks little different. In churches and Christian institutions across the US, confessions and statements of faith function not simply as a guiding word but as a shibboleth intended to weed out dissenters and protect the purity of the cause. “Without added interpretation” has become a trending, even staple remark on every job post, creating a likely unfulfillable expectation for most who will think carefully and deeply about the statement. It is an expectation built on the basis of an uncritical, impossible approach to language—as if there is any such thing as an uninterpreted statement. The situation creates institutions, both churches and colleges/universities, that inbreed within their own limited horizons and fail to build true students and disciples who can engage well with the broader world. Worse still, it perpetuates the social and ecclesial hostilities witnessed by the very name “Protestant”—hostilities that manifest in ways as subtle as an application rejected for reasons unexplained and as large-scale as further denominational splits. The human impulse to fall back on law for protection is understandable, especially in an increasingly post-Christian, pluralistic age such as ours, in which common beliefs and practices can no longer be assumed. Yet the letter of the law has come to dominate, and it threatens to kill the unity of the church—even more so as statements and confessions grow increasingly lengthy and specific.
Engaging with Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of subjectivity in truth, this presentation suggests only the beginnings of a proposal: that institutional “fellowship” be based more deeply in Kierkegaardian subjective truth and not solely or mostly in objective truth. That is, the determining factor of who can be “in” and who must stay “out” of any given community must not begin or end with a person’s assent to a given institution’s own set of beliefs or doctrines—that is, outside of those in the ecumenical creeds (Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian). Considering the length of many confessions, I would be willing to suggest that most, if not all, with enough thought, should be able to find some point of hesitancy or conflict in any given statement. Such “exceptions,” no longer allowed in the parties, can foster greater insight and even discipleship, not least in the patience involved in registering one’s own and understanding others’ viewpoints. Total acceptance is an unreasonable, and in truth impossible, expectation. Rather, the person’s subjective posturing of themselves in relation to the objective truth of doctrine—and more importantly to truth itself in the living Lord Jesus—must take on a larger role in the vetting of membership in Christian fellowship. Truth exists, and it exists objectively. But complete, unwavering, uncritical agreement with confessions and statements cannot be the determining factor and ground for Christian fellowship. Such leads either, on the one hand, to fragmentation, or, on the other, to a thoughtless or ingenuine unity. The creeds alone should stand as the sole doctrinal criterion for Christian welcome. In this “creed alone” view (symbolum solum), spiritual union transcends all but the most central of doctrinal disagreements.