bwaugh
Chad Van Dixhoorn is Professor of Church History and Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte and is best known for his study of the Westminster Assembly including editing The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly, 1643-1653, 2012. Currently under review is Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms: A Reader’s Edition, which he edited for publication by Crossway in 2022. It is important to notice that the book is subtitled A Reader’s Edition, because it is not intended to replace the three volumes of Philip Schaff’s work issued as The Creeds of Christendom, 1877. Schaff is invaluable but his copious attention to detail and inclusion of lesser creeds is suited more for reference than cup-of-coffee-easy-chair reading. Van Dixhoorn has achieved in 434 pages a user-friendly narrative of important creeds and confessions along with brief introductions and occasional explanatory footnotes. His method carefully excludes the extraneous but provides the necessary. The general index and thirty-eight-page Scripture index increase the utility of the book, but a brief bibliography for readers desiring additional study would be helpful. The lengthy Scripture index may be intended to show those of biblicism and “no creed but Christ” perspectives that creeds and confessions are composed by interpreting Scripture regarding essential points of doctrine.
The author has provided a baker’s dozen documents printed on buff paper with sharp black text and burgundy headings that deliver an attractive antiquarian appearance. The boards and spine are decorated to give the look of a volume that was tooled in days of yore. You might like to insert it on your shelves next to Schaff’s between Calvin’s commentaries and B. B. Warfield’s works. Included in the collection are the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, Chalcedonian Definition, Augsburg Confession, Belgic Confession, Thiry-Nine Articles of Religion, Canons of Dort, Westminster Confession of Faith, London Baptist Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Larger Catechism, and Westminster Shorter Catechism. You will notice a considerable jump chronologically from the ancient church’s fifth-century Chalcedonian Definition to the sixteenth-century Augsburg Confession, which gives the impression nothing was going on in the interim years. Might not an explanatory introduction between these two documents separated by more than a millennium provide readers with something to fill the gap? This would be helpful for those less informed in historical theology, which is the readership it appears the author is targeting.
All Christians have beliefs about the Bible, sin, salvation, the work of Christ, and other doctrines. As the author points out on page 7, credo, is the Latin word translated in English, “I believe.” Everyone has a creed or confession, but the question is whether what is believed is true and faithful to the doctrines of the Word. Each of the documents presented by Van Dixhoorn has historical context as knowledgeable men gathered to decide between truth and error. The doctrines addressed in these thirteen documents are matters of life and death with eternal significance. The book, Creeds, Confessions & Catechisms, asks, What do you believe?, and even further, Is what you believe true?, then it provides the answers given during centuries of learned study directed by the wisdom of multiple minds coming to agreement. There is consolation in these documents because they provide answers to questions of belief that often arise as one grows in grace. Van Dixhoorn’s book might make a good companion volume with Kevin DeYoung’s, Church History for Everyone, which will be released by Crossway in two volumes.
Barry Waugh
Notes—The header is the Old Library of Trinity College, Dublin. The copy of the book used for this review was kindly provided by Crossway. A.I. says of reprints of Schaff that it “has been reprinted and reissued numerous times by various publishers since its original release in 1877, making an exact total count of printings unavailable.”
