(This entry has been edited since it was posted, to remove obsolete references.)

(The numbering refers to the FIEC "Basis of Faith".)

1. "There is one God, who exists eternally in three distinct but equal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is unchangeable in his holiness, justice, wisdom and love. He is the almighty Creator, Saviour and Judge who sustains and governs all things according to his sovereign will for his own glory."

Some English Bibles use "eternal" for "aionios" ("of the age to come"). Here presumably it means something like "without beginning or end". I endorse the doctrine, but let us not confuse the two concepts. (We need to avoid the future life being seen as a disembodied "spirit world".)

"Personae" originally meant "masks", very different from what most modern English speakers mean by "persons" i.e. separate beings. "Personae" was too close to Modalism, but the modern English sense, contrariwise, is too close to Tritheism. The word is confusing and should be dropped: "The one God subsists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, equally divine but distinct". [I avoid "exists" of God because it originally meant "becomes".]

Btw, I call them "Provider", "Mediator" and "Indweller". I think those terms convey their functions better than the traditional "Father", "Son" and "Spirit" which expressed the circumstances in which souls first became aware of the Trinity, intially in the awareness of the boy who was God. (Later some of his friends began to think more comprehensively: "In the beginning was the Word".)

We should clarify from the outset that this "love" is "agapE" not "erOs" or "filia". Even better, say something like "benevolence" instead.

Why mention "Saviour" before "fall"?

Does "sovereign will" retain its original sense of "the decree" i.e. (as the Westminster Confession puts it) that "God, from all eternity, did ... unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass"? This implies that God intended man to fall, that the fall was a "felix culpa", a "happy fault which brought us such a great redeemer". I reject such celebrating of sin. Or does it just mean that "God is King and should be obeyed"? Let us be clear.

And if we agree that God did NOT intend the fall, what WAS his original plan? We cannot see it all, but clearly it involved uniting with created souls by becoming one of them. He foresaw that if we fell he would still fulfill this purpose, though not along the straight path he had shown us but along the devious path we would have chosen, joining with us on that path and bearing our pain, not forcing salvation on us but out-waiting us, being so good that our evil would be swamped.

2. "God has revealed himself in the Bible, which consists of the Old and New Covenant Books alone. Every word was inspired by God through human authors, so that the Bible as originally given is in its entirety the Word of God, without error and fully reliable in fact and doctrine. The Bible alone speaks with final authority and is always sufficient for all matters of belief and practice."

"Every writing inspired by God is profitable"? Yes. "Every word ... without error"? No. The Bible makes no such claim; it is a modern (Western) rationalisation, answering a question which Christ would probably have answered with a different question: "Why are you quibbling about this or that wording? What is it about the Reign of God that you don't understand?" "The writing cannot be broken", certainly, but that is a broader and deeper point than this Item addresses.

3. "All men and women, being created in the image of God, have inherent and equal dignity and worth. Their greatest purpose is to obey, worship and love God. As a result of the fall of our first parents, every aspect of human nature has been corrupted and all men and women are without spiritual life, guilty sinners and hostile to God. Every person is therefore under the just condemnation of God and needs to be born again, forgiven and reconciled to God in order to know and please him."

"Equal dignity and worth" is the only attempt in this Basis to express God's law, the way of the good life. And it tells us little. I wonder how anyone thinks each word of "equal dignity and worth" affects their choices. If it is just another way to say "treat your neighbour as yourself", so far so good, but this says nothing of man's overall (unchanging) Task.

If "our greatest purpose" means "our ONE overall proper purpose, such that all other proper purposes are contained in it", let us make that clear. But if it implies that we may properly ALSO have other purposes, which deserve some effort but (jointly or severally?) less effort than serving God, I deny it.

That one purpose (serving God) entails fulfilling the "Great Commission" by developing the world's resources. (The following expands on parts of the "Cosmology" in ChristianRelaunch.org.) This involves these Realms of action:
{knowledge, action, expression, respect, conversation, altruism, commitment, decoration, reverence}
which provide the Natural Standards to be:
{accurate, efficacious, clear, just, genial, generous, loyal, stylish, sublime}
as we seek:
{truth, achievement, communication, justice, accord, benefit, fealty, beauty, transcendentality}.

"Worship" (with other acts of reverence) in its basic sense is the "highest" realm in the sense of being the only one rooted in all the others, but it cannot develop without those others and cannot (in this basic sense) safely be called "greater" than they. But being "highest" (even in that limited sense) makes it suitable to represent the devotion to God of life as a whole (as in Rom 12:1).

Love (agapE) in its basic sense (altruism) is one of the three realms that directly underlie reverence, so can also represent the whole of our Task, and can even stand for God's character (as in 1 Jn 4:16).

So reverence and altruism can both represent life as a whole. Loyalty and beauty could also take that role; maybe reverence and altruism are more suitable, but the important point is that they are only metaphors which should not blind us to the range of other necessary activities.

I see even less sense in the claim that women are "equal" to men. Equally necessary (complementary), yes, but is the night "equal" to the day, or the sea to the land?

4. "The Lord Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life in obedience to the Father. He taught with authority and all his words are true. On the cross he died in the place of sinners, bearing God’s punishment for their sin, redeeming them by his blood. He rose from the dead and in his resurrection body ascended into heaven where he is exalted as Lord of all. He intercedes for his people in the presence of the Father."

4A. I refuse to insist on Christ's having no human father. I see no high significance in it. Not all the facts mentioned in a Gospel merit inclusion in a Creed (or "Basis"). (The "Virgin Birth" as such is about his mother's conduct AFTER he was conceived, and cannot POSSIBLY be important.)

4B. "Bearing God’s punishment?" Literally? I reject Penal Substitution and any other Appeasement theory. They are morally absurd. (Starting from ChristianRelaunch.org, in the Item 7 link, under "Christian Objections" is a link to "The Satisfaction theory".)

4C. When God is said to be "in heaven", that is just borrowing a phrase from unsophisticated folk who thought of God (or gods) as being "up there". A harmless metaphor up to a point, but I avoid the phrase, and certainly I deny that a man could be "in heaven". Acts 1 says that Christ rose "into the sky" and will "come in the same way", but nothing of his destination or his whereabouts meanwhile. Is he on Earth or away from Earth? Dunno. (Presumably he needs no air and can move at will.) Probably he moved (walked? flew?) to meet Paul on the road to Damascus. Why does he not turn up in person more often? Dunno, but I bet his reasons are good. (Btw, "in the presence of the Father" is similarly problematic. "At the right hand" is a status not a location.)

5. "Salvation is entirely a work of God’s grace and cannot be earned or deserved. It has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ and is offered to all in the gospel. God in his love forgives sinners whom he calls, granting them repentance and faith. All who believe in Christ are justified by faith alone, adopted into the family of God and receive eternal life."

Amen! Sola gratia, sola fide!

6. "The Holy Spirit has been sent from heaven to glorify Christ and to apply his work of salvation. He convicts sinners, imparts spiritual life and gives a true understanding of the Scriptures. He indwells all believers, brings assurance of salvation and produces increasing likeness to Christ. He builds up the Church and empowers its members for worship, service and mission."

"Church" is often (as here) used for "ekklEsia". I prefer to avoid the perennial danger of confusing nation with location.

Again, it is implied here that worship is not service and in some sense precedes it. (See above.) Similarly with mission.

7. "The universal Church is the body of which Christ is the head and to which all who are saved belong. It is made visible in local churches, which are congregations of believers who are committed to each other for the worship of God, the preaching of the Word, the administering of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; for pastoral care and discipline, and for evangelism. The unity of the body of Christ is expressed within and between churches by mutual love, care and encouragement. True fellowship between churches exists only where they are faithful to the gospel."

See above re "church". Here one of the holy nation's functions (corporate reverence) is confused with its Task as a whole. This Basis seems utterly blind to (or rejects?) that wider Task. (See under Item 3.)

"Administering of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper"? In the beginning these forms were convenient expressions of initial and ongoing membership, but I refuse to insist on them as the only valid forms of subscription and renewal. (I smell a trace of Ceremonialism.) (No problem if an organisation uses those traditional forms to identify its own membership, if it baptises newcomers regardless of whether they "have been baptised elsewhere", a distinction which would revert to some kind of mystic status for "the baptised".)

8. "Baptism and the Lord’s Supper have been given to the churches by Christ as visible signs of the gospel. Baptism is a symbol of union with Christ and entry into his Church but does not impart spiritual life. The Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice offered once for all and involves no change in the bread and wine. All its blessings are received by faith."

Amen to the main point here, but see Item 7 on the status of these ceremonies.

9. "The Lord Jesus Christ will return in glory. He will raise the dead and judge the world in righteousness. The wicked will be sent to eternal punishment and the righteous will be welcomed into a life of eternal joy in fellowship with God. God will make all things new and will be glorified forever."

If "eternal" means "in the age to come" then amen. If it means "endless", I refuse to insist on that as regards punishment. Who says that Gehenna is the last word? Who says that repentance is impossible after resurrection? Some texts seem to suggest it, but I think they are just expressing how much better it is to repent now, how much harder (but not impossible!) it will be hereafter. The smoke may (if the phrase is more than a vivid expression of victory) "go up for ever" (to remind us), but not the fire; in this case there may be smoke without fire! If God can save me (the chief of sinners) .... "When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all." What about perpetually evil wishes? How will they be subjected to God? The sinners can be subjected (by being punished), but their wishes cannot. Annihilation is one possibility, but I think God will be glorified more by restoring ALL that went astray.