Bema Confession of Faith

Introduction

Since it became pleasurable to God to uphold and bless Bema, multiplying its attendees and flavoring it with overwhelming evangelical zeal, it seemed necessary to us that we react in favor of our Lord’s manifold grace that He has shined on us, having equipped us with an assembly worthy of being called loving and pious. The general Godlessness of Allen High School has become alarmingly apparent as we have employed the charisma of God’s most talented evangelists. Yet, their engagements with the unregenerate have not even come close to being exhausted because of their disturbing number. So we have determined to write a brief confession of faith for ourselves. This way, should anybody attempt to know us, they shall know us for us, and should anybody try to humiliate us (though they will fail and receive only pity), they will at least attack us and not a shadow. Hundreds of years before us, the puritans wrote the Westminister confession of faith. It was, at the time, revolutionary. Good reformed theology began to glow. Many years later, in 1689, the aptly named 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith was composed. This is the confession to which we entirely adhere. The reason we write our own is that the 1689 confession is both old, making it hard for those less capable of reading, and exceedingly long, rendering it unsavory for most. No confession herein will deviate from any confession therein. In closing of this introduction, keep this benediction: may the grace and mercy of God continue to abound in their iridescent creativity and ineffability, which finds, by comparison, the most eminent artist’s most colorful craft bland and the most brutal strike from the master wordsmith’s hammer inarticulate.

The Nature of God

God is the grounding for all the Truth; without Him, there is no foundation for good or evil, the Truth or untruth, validity or invalidity. He is the Truth, and anything that deviates from His actuality is untruth; anything that differs from His likeness is evil; anything that invalidates Him invalidates itself. God exists in three persons in One: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son was incarnated as both fully human and fully God. His utter humanity allowed Him to be looked at and walk the earth as a man does, and His Godhead grants His authority as divine Judge and Savior of humanity. The Father is the Father of the Son; His throne is heaven, and to Him, all prayer is due. He created the universe through His Son, the pre-incarnate Christ. The Holy Spirit found it pleasing to be our Teacher. He revealed it to the early Christians. He guided them and illuminated them concerning Him. He provided them specific spiritual gifts according to what pleased Him, usually their piety.

Creation

God’s existence is entirely evident to all discerning men, His invisible attributes being made known by what has been made. Not merely by the expensive detail of creation but by the miracle of creation as His manifestation. For this reason, we believe that every man is inexcusable before God regarding His existence. God, having found it pleasing, created the entire world and all the material that is it in six days, resting on the seventh, consecrating it, thereby making it holy.

The Holy Scriptures

Soteriology

The Church

Predestination

Women in Ministry

Hell

Sex and Gender Issues

Clergy and Laity’

The Gifts of the Spirit

Church Authority

Isreal and Jews