Few phrases reflect the spirit of the Restoration Movement more than this: “The Bible is our only creed.” Or its close cousin: “No creed but Christ.” These slogans express a deep conviction—that the Word of God, not the words of men, must be the foundation for the church’s doctrine, worship, and identity.
It was a bold and necessary protest. In an era when denominations were defined by their confessions, catechisms, and creeds—each claiming to outline “true” Christianity—Restoration leaders called believers to lay down their party flags and return to Scripture itself. They weren’t trying to write a better creed. They were trying to leave creeds behind altogether.
And yet, the story is more complicated than it first appears.
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Today, we’ll explore the origins and intentions behind Christian creeds, why the Restoration Movement rejected them, and how churches today—including the Churches of Christ—still rely on unwritten creeds more than we might admit. Along the way, we’ll wrestle with an honest question:
Is it truly possible to have “no creed but Christ,” or are we simply trading formal documents for informal assumptions?
Creeds in Context
Long before printed Bibles sat on every pew—or in every pocket—early Christians relied on something else to help preserve and pass on the faith: creeds.
The word creed comes from the Latin credo, meaning “I believe.” These statements were never meant to replace Scripture. Instead, they served as summaries of core apostolic teaching.
Creeds were crafted during a time when the New Testament canon had not yet been finalized, most believers couldn’t read or write, and copies of Scripture were rare, expensive to produce, and not widely available. In that world, creeds played a vital role. They were used in baptismal instruction, corporate worship, and guarding orthodoxy against false teaching. The early church needed to make clear, especially to new converts, what it meant to follow Jesus, and what it did not.
Consider the Apostles’ Creed, one of the earliest and most widespread:
“I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places”
It’s a straightforward, concise, and memorable statement focused on the essentials of the faith.
Later, the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325, expanded in 381) arose to clarify the full divinity of Christ against the rise of Arianism, which denied that Jesus was truly God. In doing so, the creed gave voice to what the church had always believed but had to articulate with greater care.
In other words, creeds were originally guardrails, not gatekeepers. They functioned as a means of unity, helping far-flung churches stay centered on the same gospel. In a world where written Scripture was inaccessible to many, they gave the church a shared confession of faith grounded in biblical teaching and shaped by pastoral concern.
Where Creeds Went Sideways
As helpful as creeds were in the early centuries of the church, their function gradually began to shift. What started as summaries of shared belief slowly evolved into tests of institutional loyalty. Over time, creeds moved from being tools of unity to instruments of control and division.
Many creeds began to function as authoritative texts in their own right rather than pointing believers back to Scripture’s authority. Councils and church leaders increasingly appealed to the creed, not the canon, to define orthodoxy. The danger was not in clarity but in elevation: creeds, originally subordinate to Scripture, began to compete with it.
By the Middle Ages, a person’s standing in the church often depended less on their relationship to Christ and more on their alignment with official dogma. Questioning the language of a creed—even on a minor point—could result in exclusion or condemnation. In some cases, creeds became so complex and philosophically layered that only scholars could understand them, alienating ordinary believers from the very faith they professed.
Even well-intentioned creeds, meant to clarify truth, began to be used to enforce conformity on non-essential matters, drawing sharper lines than the New Testament itself. As the church splintered into competing confessional traditions, the creed became a boundary marker, dividing Christians from Christians in ways the apostles never envisioned.
Why the Restoration Movement Rejected Formal Creeds
The early leaders of the Restoration Movement were not the first to notice that creeds had drifted from their original purpose, but they may have been the most determined to abandon them entirely.
Thomas Campbell, in his 1809 Declaration and Address, famously wrote:
“Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship of the church… for which there cannot be produced a ‘thus saith the Lord.’”
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This wasn’t a rejection of doctrine. It was a rejection of elevating human formulations of doctrine above the authority of Scripture itself. Thomas, and later his son Alexander and Barton W. Stone, had seen firsthand how creeds divided believers who otherwise shared a common faith. They watched as councils and traditions built walls that excluded sincere Christians over matters not clearly defined in the Bible.
In their view, creeds had ceased to serve unity and had begun to enforce sectarianism. The Restoration plea was simple but radical: Let Scripture be the only authoritative standard for faith and practice; let believers be united not by creeds but by Christ; let the church speak only where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent.
This emphasis on biblical primacy was not about theological minimalism—it was about reclaiming the voice of Scripture over the traditions of men (cf. Mark 7:7–9). The goal was not to create a new movement, but to call all Christians to abandon denominational loyalties and return to the simplicity and unity of the early church.
Alexander Campbell put it this way:
“The Bible will speak for itself. Let us have no creed but the Bible, and no name but the name Christian.”
Restorationist Summaries and Traditions
The early Restorationists were right to be wary of creeds that had grown into rigid tests of fellowship. However, rejecting formal creeds did not mean abandoning the need for doctrinal clarity, teaching tools, or theological memory.
Even within the Churches of Christ—especially in their formative years—certain summaries of belief quickly emerged. These were not written into confessions or adopted by councils, but they were widely recognized, taught, and repeated. Examples include the “plan of salvation”—hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized. Or the “five acts of worship”—singing, praying, preaching, giving, and the Lord’s Supper.
These expressions functioned as informal creeds. They helped pass on core convictions, ensured consistency across congregations, and distinguished the Churches of Christ from other religious groups. In many ways, they were useful, especially in preserving a focus on Scripture and resisting denominational drift.
But this points to a larger truth: every faith tradition, even those that reject creeds, still depends on some form of summary teaching. Written or unwritten, traditions always influence how we read and apply Scripture.
The real question is not whether we use summaries, but how we use them. Are they tools or tests? Do they serve clarity or demand conformity? Are they held open-handedly, or treated as untouchable fixtures?
When used wisely, these tools can aid discipleship and unity. However, when used carelessly, they can become the very thing they were created to avoid: extra-biblical boundaries enforced without biblical warrant.
The Reality of Informal Creeds in the Churches of Christ
Despite the Restoration Movement’s rejection of formal creeds, the Churches of Christ have never truly operated without doctrinal boundaries. While no central creed is written down and universally adopted, a widely recognized and largely unspoken framework shapes teaching, practice, and fellowship. These are, in effect, informal creeds—statements and patterns so deeply embedded in the culture that to question them is often to risk exclusion.
Consider the way certain formulations function:
* The “five steps of salvation” are presented not just as a helpful teaching tool, but as the only valid response to the gospel.
* The “five acts of worship” are treated as a divinely mandated checklist, even though such a list doesn’t appear in Scripture.
* Certain views on church structure, the silence of Scripture, and patterns of theology are often elevated to essential doctrines.
And yet, none of these are written in a unified document. There is no formal confession, no catechism, no denominational manual. Still, these expectations are enforced—sometimes harshly—by preaching, tradition, and peer pressure. Congregations that deviate from the norm, even on matters of judgment or expedience, may be viewed with suspicion or branded as “liberal” or “unsound.”
Rejecting formal creeds has not always protected the church from creedal behavior. It has simply relocated the boundaries from written documents to cultural norms. Ironically, this can make those boundaries even harder to question, since they carry the weight of tradition without the transparency of written definition.
The danger is not that we have expectations, it’s that we treat those expectations as if they are Scripture itself, all while claiming that we have “no creed but the Bible.”
A Better Way Forward
The Restoration Movement was right to resist creeds that sought to bind consciences and divide the body of Christ. The conviction that Scripture alone should govern the faith and practice of the church remains as important today as it was two centuries ago. But to truly honor that vision, we must also confront how we have replaced formal creeds with unspoken, unquestionable patterns of our own.
The goal has never been doctrinal minimalism. It’s not about having no beliefs; it’s about refusing to elevate our interpretations, summaries, and traditions to the level of divine authority. Saying ‘no creed but Christ’ only matters if our submission to Christ is real, not just verbal. We must reflect a posture of submission to God’s Word, openness to correction, and a refusal to treat our conclusions as infallible.
That requires something rare in modern Christianity: discernment and humility.
We need to recover a biblical model in which summaries and teaching tools serve the church without governing it. We must acknowledge the role of tradition and theological memory without allowing them to silence the voice of Scripture. We must also recognize the difference between essential doctrines that define the gospel and personal convictions that require patience, charity, and ongoing study.
Most importantly, we must avoid the very mistake our forebears tried to correct: dividing the body of Christ over what the Bible does not demand.
Creeds are not inherently dangerous. What’s dangerous is any formal or informal stance that claims more authority than the Word of God, or speaks where Christ has not spoken. If we truly have no creed but Christ, then Christ must remain the center—not only of our confessions, but of our conduct, our unity, and our collective humility before the cross.
Let us then hold fast to Scripture, teach with clarity, and live with grace—refusing to trade the authority of Christ for the security of slogans.
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