Just throwing out a suggestion: have you ever read Evangelical is not Enough by Thomas Howard? Fascinating book, a huge stepping stone on my spiritual journey. Howard is a great writer (formed greatly by C.S. Lewis) with a Shakespearean vocabulary, and he is also the brother of Evangelical writer Elisabeth Elliott.

Peace,
JL

Personally, far more than to churches and their traditions and interpretations, I relate to the freer explorations, of NONDENOMINTIONAL, ACADEMIC Theology. Which, at its best I assert, is not tied to any particular church, Protestant or otherwise. But which relies on more impartial, objective method. With NO committment to the “dead hand of the past”; old denominational doctrines.

For this reason, I am attracted to the Free Church in some ways. Which oddly enough, at first seems like a merely naive, native approach to the Bible. But whose “free” approach to the Bible, reminds me of the freedom of academic, nondenominational, scholarly theology, and biblical criticism. Which indeed, normally reads the Bible in a way quite separate from earlier denominational committments.

In a strange way, the supposedly naive Free Church, is arguably the true and best heir, of the Protestant tradition; 1)maintaining suspicion about all established churches, including not only the Catholic Church, but also the newer Protestant churches as well. While 2) it is oddly close to what I see as true academic theology; which has no denominational committments; and reads the Bible independently of all accepted ecclesiastical traditions.

Indeed in a sense, I suggest, all good academic theologians are honorary members of the Free Church. While your complaint about lack of compliance to the Nicene Creed, about the Free Church, is probably, deeper down, a complaint about modern biblical criticism.

So I’d like to tentatively defend the “Free Church.” In the name, in part, of academic freedom.

(Incidentally, the original use of the term “Free Church” referred to those early Protestant churches that did not choose to ally themselves to the government, as the only official and legal church; like the Free Church of Scotland, as opposed to the Church of England).

My grammar has problems sometimes ;-).

Evangelicalism celebrates and proclaims the supreme spiritual, moral, and theological authority of Scripture. At the Diet of Worms (18 April 1521), Martin Luther famously declared: “My conscience is captive to the word of God.” This powerful and bold statement resonates throughout evangelical history — a principled intention to listen attentively and obediently to Scripture, and to respond faithfully in our beliefs and actions. Yet evangelicals are aware that an emphasis upon the authority of Scripture cannot be uncoupled from the question of its proper interpretation. One of the major theological weaknesses of the “Battle for the Bible” within American evangelicalism during the 1980s was an apparent reluctance to accept that an infallible text was open to fallible interpretation. To assert the supreme authority of Scripture does not resolve how it is to be understood.

This familiar problem is often cited as the Achilles’ heel of contemporary evangelicalism. How can the validity of competing interpretations of Scripture be determined without appealing to some ground of authority that ultimately lies beyond Scripture itself? Evangelicalism, having affirmed the supreme authority of Scripture, finds itself without any meta-authority by which the correct interpretation of Scripture can be determined. This question is usually resolved politically, rather than theologically, by committees or organizations laying down how certain texts are to be interpreted. Yet this is not a new problem, nor one that is unique to evangelicalism. It has been an issue for the Protestant theological tradition as a whole. How can conflict over biblical interpretation be resolved without ultimately acknowledging certain criteria or agencies as standing above Scripture? To place any means of adjudication above Scripture is ultimately to compromise its unique authority. This realization has led to a growing appreciation of the role that engagement with the past might play in contemporary evangelical biblical interpretation and systematic theology. . . . (Alister McGrath quoted from, “John Calvin And Evangelical Theology,” ed. Sung Wook Chung, ix-x)

Sorry it’s a little long, but I think it at least addresses the related issues of how Protestants think of the Bible; and then further the mess it can lead to if we don’t indeed pay attention to how our forbears understood it (throughout church history). Sola Scriptura is different from Solo Scriptura.

I am not going to go point by point down your list here. Blogging just isn’t the medium for this; its better for impromptu, exploratory interaction; its bad for trying to write exhaustively or conclusively. The later is better done in printed literature (journals, etc.) or in person when miscommunications and clarifications can be carried out quickly.

I will say this: I am entirely for Sola Scriptura as I believe it was intended by the Reformers, but not the contemporary caricature as it is often paraded about, nuda Scriptura.