On June 26, 2008, the Evangelical Free Church of America changed its Statement of Faith.  The vote followed several years of discussion which generated three major versions and thoughtful amendments.  I followed the discussion closely and I (along with all of Cornerstone’s Elders) fully endorse the new, revised statement.

Here are a few of the most significant changes:

The new Statement closes the door on “open theism,” a popular modern heresy that denies God’s ability to read our thoughts and to know and control the future.  The new Statement blocks open theism by saying that God has “limitless knowledge and sovereign power.”  The word “sovereign” is sometimes associated with Calvinism, but not in this case.  Arminians believe that God does not always use His sovereign power because He is careful to preserve humanity’s free will choices.  Nevertheless, even Arminians believe that God indeed has sovereign power and that He does use His sovereign power to control humanity whenever it pleases Him.  The issue between Calvinists and Arminians is, essentially, To what extent does God use His sovereign power, specifically in regard to election and the problem of evil? Both Calvinists and Arminians are welcome in the EFCA, and we have both varieties of Christians here at Cornerstone.  Open Theists, on the other hand, deny God’s attributes of limitless knowledge and sovereign power.  Our new Statement defends against this heresy.

Usually, when denominations change their doctrine, the change is a movement away from orthodoxy and away from what people in the denomination would recognize as true in previous generations.  In contrast, all the revisions in the EFCA document restate what the 1950 framers believed, but in a modern context.  For example, the new Statement strengthens our affirmation of the Bible’s inerrancy.  Here are two impressive new sentences: “The Bible is…the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged.”  Also, ”[The Bible] is to be believed in all that it teachers, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.”

Inerrancy has always been fundamentally important to the EFCA.  However, one of the hot philosophical questions today relates to epistemology (how do we know what we know?).  Many people question the Bible’s clarity in ways that the 1950 framers did not anticipate.  Critics of inerrancy today say, “Since God is incomprehensible and we are only human, we cannot claim to have any firm understanding of Him or His truth.” This presupposition is typical of America’s relativistic culture.  This is a slippery slope leading to new interpretations of the Bible’s clear teaching on issues like sexuality, gender, God’s attributes, and the very definition of the Gospel.  In the EFCA we believe that God and His Word are glorious beyond our full comprehension.  However, we believe that God is our all-powerful Creator who is capable of communicating very clearly about whatever He wants us to understand.  The Bible is filled with mystery, but it is very clear about many issues.  The new EFCA Statement of Faith addresses this (post)modern question by reaffirming the intelligibility, authority and reliability of the Bible.

The new Statement is more clear about penal substitutionary atonement.  This doctrine was assumed by the framers of the original 1950 Statement, but one of the most heated debates in the church today relates to why Jesus died on the cross.  Many people in the “emergent conversation,” along with Pentecostal health/wealth preaching and the majority of mainline denominations, along with popular fiction like The Shack, are teaching that Jesus did not die to propitiate God’s wrath.  They teach that God the Father did not punish the Son for our sin; some go so far as to call that idea ”divine child abuse.”  Instead, in their view, Jesus simply died as moral example of sacrifice for us to follow.  This false teaching has inspired impressive compassion and justice ministry worldwide, and it has created many new evangelism techniques (like YFC’s 3 Story Evangelism and InterVarsity’s 4 Circle Evangelism) that downplay or omit sin, hell and repentance and replace these doctrines with an attractive invitation to follow Jesus.  However, the Bible would have us affirm the doctrine of original sin as an essential component of the Gospel.  The Bible describes God as being both loving and holy, and these attributes are to be held in balance, neither cancelling the other in any situation.  The new EFCA Statement adds the phrases ”sacrifice for our sins,” “under His wrath,” and “atoning death” in order to secure an historic belief in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.  In the same paragraph, the classic Reformation phrase “by faith alone” is also added.

The new statement adds a paragraph on Christian living, seeking to balance orthodoxy (right doctrine) with orthopraxy (right living).  The framers of the new Statement (EFCA Spiritual Heritage Committee) explained, “We wanted to affirm that the gospel has power to change lives, and something of the nature of that transformed life should be included in our Statement of Faith.”

The new statement is a bit longer (by roughly 50%), more eloquent, and it retains the EFCA’s characteristic “unity in essentials, charity in non-essentials.”  For example, Arnold T. Olson (our first President) wrote an important book called “The Significance of Silence.”  This book explains why the EFCA is “silent” on four issues:

1. Baptism: What is the appropriate age and mode of baptism (sprinkling or emersion)?
2. Communion: What is the extent of the presence of Christ in the elements of the Lord’s Table?  Who may serve the Lord’s Table (ordained or non-ordained)?  Who may take Communion (children or only adults)?  When/where can we celebrate the Lord’s Table? (The original Free Church members were persecuted in Europe for meeting outside the authority of State churches.)
3. Eternal security – Can a person lose his faith?
4. The timing of the Tribulation – Will Jesus rapture His people before, during or after the Tribulation?

The EFCA allows a wide range of belief in these four main issues and many others.  The current statement continues that tradition by strengthening our evangelical core theology while simultaneously keeping the door open to all who affirm solid Bible doctrine.  To be more specific, the framers of the 1950 Statement were almost entirely Arminian Dispensationalists, but many pastors and Trinity professors from a Reformed perspective are now serving throughout the denomination.  The new Statement removes the previous Arminian and Dispensational bias.  I would have liked to see the revisions go farther in this respect (by removing the word “premillenial”), but a loud minority misunderstood or misrepresented the issues, attacked the character of the President and the Spiritual Heritage Committee, and threatened to leave the EFCA.  In the end, the EFCA chose to keep the family together.  This was probably the mature thing to do, but the consequences continue to exclude many evangelicals from the EFCA.

Nevertheless, in my best judgment the new Statement protects the EFCA from modern theological controversies and it also broadens the fellowship of the EFCA to include some of us from a “Reformed” theological position.  I’m very proud to serve an organization where such a Statement is affirmed.  The process of change was not without controversy, but the Spiritual Heritage Committee and the President’s office led the EFCA through it with admirable love.  Most people who had concerns about the new statement shared their concerns peacefully and I was impressed by the revision process as it dealt respectfully with concerns as they were raised, peacefully and otherwise.  Christianity Today commended the Statement change here.  You can read the new statement here.  Resources for understanding the difference between the current version and the 1950 version here.

Since the exact wording of the 1950 Statement is included in the text of Cornerstone’s Constitution, our Constitution will need to be changed if we decide to adopt the new Statement (you can read our Constitution here).  Cornerstone will vote on our elder’s recommendation to change our Constitution at a Quarterly Meeting on April 19.  I will explain the Statement changes at a Q&A on March 4, 6:30 PM.  Even though we do not anticipate any serious controversy or division over this change, the Elders at Cornerstone have decided to use this opportunity to generate theological conversation and learning.  Please feel welcome to ask our elders about these changes.