# Carl Trueman: The Creedal Imperative



## Need 4 Creed (May 3, 2013)

Has anyone read Trueman's book _The Creedal Imperative_?

It's great. Here are some highlights: 

"The pastor who thinks he is being biblical by declaring he has no creed but the Bible may actually, upon reflection, find that his position is more shaped by the modern world than he at first realized."

"It would be a tragic irony if the rejection of creeds and confessions by so many of those who sincerely wish to be biblically faithful turned out to be not an act of faithfulness but rather an unwitting capitulation to the spirit of the age."

"All Christians engage in confessional synthesis; the difference is simply whether one adheres to a public confession, subject to public scrutiny, or to a private confession that is, by its very nature, immune to such examination."

"I do want to make the point here that Christians are not divided between those who have creeds and confessions and those who do not; rather, they are divided between those who have public creeds and confessions that are written down and exist as public documents, subject to public scrutiny, evaluation, and critique, and those who have private creeds and confessions that are often improvised, unwritten, and thus not open to public scrutiny, not susceptible to evaluation and, crucially and ironically, not, therefore, subject to testing by Scripture to see whether they are true."

"Creeds and confessions are, in fact, necessary for the well-being of the church, and that churches that claim not to have them place themselves at a permanent disadvantage when it comes to holding fast to that form of sound words which was so precious to the aging Paul as he advised his young protégé, Timothy. . . The need for creeds and confessions is not just a practical imperative for the church but is also a biblical imperative."

"The fact that I am a confessional Christian places me at odds with the vast majority of evangelical Christians today."


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## Hamalas (May 3, 2013)

Yeah it's good! I'm reading through it with a few guys at my church right now. Of course, everything Carl Trueman writes is worth reading...


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## Need 4 Creed (May 3, 2013)

Sounds like a good study group! I agree, Trueman is always a good read.


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## Jack K (May 3, 2013)

Yes, it's a good book that explains the importance of confessions without being browbeating about them, which is what the detractors (sometimes rightly) often complain about.


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## Steve Paynter (May 3, 2013)

I too always enjoy reading Carl Trueman.

How big a book is it? What is its target audience?


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## Need 4 Creed (May 3, 2013)

Steve Paynter said:


> I too always enjoy reading Carl Trueman.
> 
> How big a book is it? What is its target audience?



208 pages, 6 chapters, not too heavy in that sense. 

I think it is mostly aimed at non-confessional Christians (although it could be to also encourage confessional christians), he says in the intro 'The burden that motivates my writing of this book is my belief that creeds and confessions are vital to the present and future well being of the church."

J


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## Gforce9 (May 4, 2013)

Need 4 Creed said:


> Has anyone read Trueman's book _The Creedal Imperative_?
> 
> It's great. Here are some highlights:
> 
> ...



Great quotes!


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## Need 4 Creed (May 4, 2013)

More from _The Creedal Imperative_:


"Those of us in the West have been taught to believe so deeply in the authority and autonomy of the individual that subjecting our own thoughts to external authorities, especially corporate or historic, is very counterintuitive. Combined with a desire for instant gratification, many of us are inclined to believe that if something does not make sense the first time we look at it, it—and not we—must be wrong."

"A church with a creed or confession has a built-in gospel reality check. It is unlikely to become sidetracked by the peripheral issues of the passing moment; rather it will focus instead on the great theological categories that touch on matters of eternal significance."


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## Herald (May 4, 2013)

In his book "A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith" Sam Waldron quotes Horatius Bonar:



> "Every new utterance of skepticism, especially on religious subjects, and by so-called "religious" men, is cheered as another howl of that storm that is to send all creeds to the bottom of the sea; the flowing or receding tide is watched, not for the appearance of truth above the waters, but for the submergence of dogma. To any book or doctrine or creed that leaves men at liberty to worship what god they please, there is no objection; but to anything that would fix their relationship to God, that would infer their responsibility for their faith, that would imply that God has made an authoritative announcement as to what they are to believe, they object, with protestations in the name of injured liberty"


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## JM (May 4, 2013)

Great quotes!


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