Confession of Faith and a Broad Church

“ … mere negation is incapable of creating fellowship.”
(H Bavinck Reformed Dogmatics Prolegomena, page 84)

One of the purposes of a confession of faith is to define the ground of the unity of faith. Where Christian people stand together and make a common confession of faith there we find a unity in faith, a fellowship of Christian people.

When the attempt is made to establish a broad church more attention is paid to what is not believed, what is negated of the historic confessions of the Church catholic. The fragmentation, or more strongly, the disunity that we see in denominations seeking to be ‘broad’ begins here. Where there is no commitment to a common confession of faith there is no fellowship.

Those who would hold firmly to an historic confession of faith need not apologise for this commitment. It is in our confession of faith that we stand in the communion of the saints with the Church of all ages and places, it is in our confession of faith that we seek to establish a living unity of faith in our day and in our communities. It might even be said that in our making a confident confession of faith we are creating the proper context for fruitful ecumenical fellowship with fellowship Christians who recognise the truth of the gospel in our confession.