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This is the Doctrinal Statement of a doctrinally based organisation. As such it provides part of the Constitution of the organisation concerned, and is written in the usual form for such constitutional doctrinal bases. My motives in criticising it when I first did so in 2005 were not to suggest a radical lack of sympathy for Affinity’s aims; on the contrary, I have great sympathy for any organisation which exists with the aim of promoting the Gospel and defending theological truth. It is precisely because I share similar aims that I edit this website. My main motive was to promote debate concerning the limits of Christian truth and unity. However, most of my concerns in that area have been addressed in the rewriting of this Basis which has evidently taken place since then, meaning it is high time this critique were also rewritten.
Of course, it would be valid to ask whether doctrine is a correct basis for Christian unity, to which the usual response is that everything we believe is, at one level or another, doctrine, and without doctrine we have no message. If Christianity’s main asset to offer to the world is a message, there must be some agreement on what that message is before it can be offered to the world with any coherence. This is true up to a point, but it can also be seen that whatever any group of Christians may lay down as their definition of that message does not prevent others defining and declaring it differently. The question then is; what is the world to see? For either we remain aloof from each other resulting in the world seeing different groups with different messages, and probably ignoring us all, or we agree to engage each other in an ongoing debate, which may become permanently unresolved in the worst case (at least, so far as the present world is concerned) but may also allow the world to see the relative merits of the arguments and, perhaps more importantly, from the common ground that does exist, that what is going on is an honest search for precision within a broader consensus which deserves to be taken seriously.
Within such a process, it is to be expected that party positions will form, and that bodies will arise to promote or maintain those positions, and that such bodies will form constitutions shaped around their position and designed to ensure its preservation. The question which then arises is; Can such bodies be sufficiently flexible to make progress as debates proceed, or are they fixed by their constitutions into immovable positions, thus preventing real progress being made? It is evident from the substantial rewriting which has occurred in the last eighteen years that Affinity is flexible enough to refine its position and clarify as needed and respond to problems when these become apparent.
1. The order in which items appear in a list can reveal the priorities of the lister. In this case, we have the (some may think it odd) spectacle of seeing the nature and rôle of Scripture defined before God is described. Does this suggest that, for the authors, their position on Scripture is more important than their faith in God? I sincerely hope not, but I would prefer to see this clause at number four, rather than first. Perhaps I am being unfair; it is common to see Scriptures referred to first, and it could be argued that, since our doctrinal understanding of God depends on Revelation, it is first necessary to establish the authority and source of that Revelation, but I am only half convinced. For God is the ultimate authority and source behind the Scriptures, as is made clear, and since they derive their authority from him I would prefer to see him come first. It may come down to which is more important: ontology (the ultimate reality, which we see only “through a mirror, in riddles” – I Cor 13.12) or epistemology (our understanding, through which all faith and knowledge is necessarily filtered). As an Evangelical, I prefer an order centred around the objective reality of God, rather than the subjective process, centred on our viewpoint, by which Revelation reaches us and is perceived.
The inerrancy of Scripture is a shiboleth in some Evangelical circles, but the word is not without problems. Firstly, it is obvious to anyone involved in textual criticism that many errors have crept in during transmission, hence the qualification “as originally given” which is also fairly standard. However, secondly, but more importantly, the Scriptures never claim inerrancy for themselves. They claim only to be spoken (literally “breathed out” II Tim 3.16) by God and useful for a number of purposes related to Christian growth and living (v17). We can infer that God does not lie, and therefore we would not expect to be misled by the writings he has inspired, when we interpret them sensibly and prayerfully, trusting in the guidance of his Spirit, but that is different from claiming an absolute principle of inerrancy which goes beyond what is written (c.f. I Cor 4.6).
This is important because there is danger in pushing the infallibility of Scripture too far. It can lead to over confidence in what is, too often, our own interpretation. The Scriptures are part of the riddled mirror (I Cor 13.12) through which we see our partial view of God, and should not be mistaken for the perfection which is to come when we see him “face to face”. Another danger is of unwittingly limiting the modes of expression God may employ to speak to us. Consider the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10.30-35). Are we to assume, if the Scriptures are absolutely true, that Jesus was talking about a real incident in which a particular man was robbed and beaten, and subsequently rescued by a passing Samaritan? Presumably, travellers were sometimes attacked on the road described, and sometimes were found at the roadside by others and given assistance. It is not beyond belief that such rescuers might sometimes be Samaritans or other foreigners, as they might also have been priests or Levites less callous than the ones Jesus had in his story. But are we required to believe Jesus was referring to a specific incident rather than simply illustrating what might typically be expected? No, because Jesus’ opening two words (“Some man” – anthropos tis) point to the fictional nature of the story. The victim was not just “a man” but “some man”, and the Samaritan likewise was “some Samaritan” (v 33). Our Lord’s deliberate vagueness points to the characters’ exemplary rather than personal nature. Hence, inerrancy should not be pushed to insist that everything in the Scriptures should be taken literally. More subtle means of expression are present, and we must be alert to them.
An astute reader might object that the recorded fact in the Gospel According to St Luke was not the robbery but Jesus’ telling of the story. That might seem like a fair point until we remember the issue at stake, which is God’s truthfulness. Not only was God the Holy Spirit, through the Evangelist, recording the telling, but God the Son was the one recorded as telling it. Therefore, the parable of the good Samaritan must be as much the word of God as any other part of Scripture, and subject to the same principles regarding truth and interpretation.
We also must beware imposing our opinions on the text: whether Mark 2.26 refers to Abiathar is a matter for textual critics. We must evaluate their opinions and proceed from there. We must not prejudge the matter on the basis that if it does refer to the wrong High Priest (see I Sam 21, 22.9-20) there would then be a factual error in the text. We must base our faith on Scripture, not the other way round.
This leads to the question of what is meant by “as originally given”. There is no problem with this concept if we think all the Biblical authors simply sat down, wrote what they were told, and stopped writing when they reached the end, producing a complete original from which all subsequent copies are derived. However, that is a particular faith-position to adopt, and there is no evidence, Biblical or otherwise, to support it. On the contrary, the synoptic Gospels in particular show signs of research, compilation, editing; the usual processes that go towards the writing of books. At what stage does a compilation become an original? What about the Psalms? Again, we can see how material has been reworked. At what point do we have an original which can be held as the definitive version? Is it the first draft, the first edition sent to a copyist, or some prior form intended by the Holy Spirit of which all earthly texts are but a shadow? Are we really to believe St Paul never changed his mind about what he was dictating, or that Isaiah’s three distinct styles and historical contexts must nonetheless be the work of one man, because otherwise, how could we tell which one was the original? Again, we are in real danger of imposing our will on Scripture rather than letting it inform us.
In practice, what we are seeking is not a mythical original, but a form of the text which would have been recognised by the authors as what they intended and trusted the Holy Spirit intended through them, which would presumably be not so much an original as a final version by the original author.
All that said, it is true that the Scriptural claim to be spoken by God is a claim to his authority behind it, and given the intangible nature of our present partial experience, it is the only tangible means we have of accessing God’s will in matters of faith and practice.
2. This is much improved from the way it was written in 2005, clarifying the full unity in diversity of the Trinity. One could raise the well-known philosophical chestnut about the word “existence” applied to the one in whom we all exist (cf Acts 17:28) but that is probably getting a bit pedantic.
3. This paragraph was not present in 2005 and serves to explain the reason to oppose politicisation of sex and gender. The teaching contained is not new but before the controversies of the last ten years would not have been considered important enough to make its way into a Doctrinal Basis. Previously it would have been accepted as uncontroversial and therefore not distinctive of a particular position.
4. While this affirms the deity and humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, it does not specifically link him to the Son although that could, perhaps, be implied by his conception “of the Holy Spirit”.
5. This is now fairly standard and well stated.
6. This is fairly conventional.
7. As is this.
8. This is also fine.
9. This is good. There is an ambiguity in the interpretation of “where” in the second sentence. It could mean churches must be in complete agreement and true to the Apostolic Faith to be in fellowship, or it could mean the fellowship is limited to the extent of their agreement. Maybe this is intentional, as it would enable some fellowship to exist on the basis of issues on which the churches do agree despite disputes on other issues, and even across different interpretations of this point itself. That would allow the idea of impaired or limited communion which, depending on one’s viewpoint might or might not be considered a good thing.
10. Again, this is a fairly standard account of the Biblical witness.
In the last eighteen years this document has been vastly improved in both orthodoxy and consistency. I was highly critical on my first encounter whereas on my second there is much less to cause concern. This is now a fairly typical Evangelical statement of the basic Christian Faith as most Evangelicals and, to a large extent, many others would understand it.
Ken Petrie
1st Draft
3rd January 2005
2nd Draft reflecting major rewrite of document under discussion
27th March 2023
Conclusion revised slightly to read better
8th June 2025
Your comments welcome
