Doctrinal Statements

    Before introducing the creeds and confessions we've adopted, there are a few distinctives of West Side Baptist Church that are unusual enough to require some mention. Believing 2 Timothy 3:16-17 to be profoundly true, we try to draw all our methods from clear Biblical teaching. Therefore, we observe the Lord's Supper weekly. We affirm God's claim that we are a corpus, or body, by the work of Christ, and utterly refuse to enter into the charade of State 'incorporation' for any tax or legal benefits. We affirm the sovereignty of God over all things, including salvation. And as elaborated below, we are also a family-integrated church, not splintering the family with evolutionary age-segregation, but meeting as families. 

    We have not penned our own statement of belief, but have drawn on the centuries of wisdom preceding us. We praise our God for the joy of having such an immense heritage! The following are three statements of faith with which we are in substantial agreement:

    We affirm the Nicene Creed, not as an exhaustive statement, but accurate in the limited scope of its subjects.

    We affirm the Biblical Confession for Uniting Church and Family. We are a family integrated congregation, meaning that we hold the family to be the central unit of human society from which the church and culture are constructed. We believe God has given to the family alone responsibility for education, health care, and social welfare. We oppose the usurpation of this authority either by the church or the state. Therefore our meetings, including Sunday School, are age-integrated, and we seek to empower fathers and mothers to do their job of raising young men and women as God directs them.

    We affirm the London Baptist Confession of 1689 with the following clarifications: In Chapter 19, paragraph 4, we understand the "judicial laws" of the Old Testament as being a subset of the "moral law," and that the phrase "their general equity only being of modern use" indicates that the principles and standards of justice inherent in the judicial laws of Old Covenant Israel are binding on all nations in all ages. In Chapter 24, paragraph 3, we understand "the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth" to refer to laws conforming to God's revealed standards of law.