Beliefs
Credo Alliance broadly adheres to the New Hampshire Confession of Faith. We commend the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the Danvers Statement, the Crossville Statement (a modified Nashville Statement), the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, and the Frankfurt Declaration as well. Credo Alliance is historically Reformed, meaning that we affirm the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Formula of Chalcedon, and the Five Solas of the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Reformation's emphases on the areas of worship and vocational calling. Thus, while Credo Alliance is distinctively Baptist, we are also fraternal toward other traditions within the Protestant movement insofar as is possible.
In addition to the aforementioned confessional statements, Credo Alliance presents the following Statement of Emphases (matters of pressing concern where Credo Alliance will focus its effort):
Creation Order
We believe every family in heaven and on earth is named for the Father above: the husband is the Christ-like head of the wife such that she must voluntarily respect and obey him and church leaders (elders, overseers, pastors) are men because Adam was created first and Eve was created to follow not lead Adam. The spiritual war waged on this world is best engaged in by men as distinctly men and women as distinctly women. The biblical norm is that a man will marry a woman and the two will have children. Singleness is the exception, not the rule, according to the Bible.
Biblical Anthropology
The church should be discipling both men and women toward their distinct callings as men and women. This is accomplished through celebrating biblical masculinity and biblical femininity. To please God concerning the family, a man's primary responsibility is to provide for, protect, and lead in obedience to God. A woman's primary responsibility is to nurture and care for her home, and follow her husband. Concerning earning a living and vocation, husbands must work and wives are permitted to work, so long as the aforementioned primary responsibilities are not neglected or dismissed.
Biblical Sexuality
The standard for biblical sexuality is the Bible. When God gives a command, He does not have to list every possible violation for these violations to be sin. Rather, anything contrary to God's command is sin. Therefore, sin is being, desiring, or doing anything contrary to God. Anything sexual that does not agree with God's definition of sexual morality found in Genesis 2:20-25 and Mark 10:2-9 is sin and must be turned from. Moreover, biblical sexuality is limited to one man and one woman united in the covenant of marriage for life. Therefore, sexual inclinations, desires, and actions toward someone other than one's spouse are sin. Also, when a person has unnatural inclinations, desires, and actions (whether homosexual, transgender, or so-called "same-sex or trans aesthetic attraction"), he or she is sinning and is morally culpable.
Education
All education is discipleship. Therefore, fulfilling the Great Commission requires a thorough commitment to teach all that Christ has commanded. Jesus Christ is Lord and, therefore, no education can be complete without honoring Him as such. We believe Christian education is a task given to Christian fathers, as the heads of their households, with their brides by their sides, to lead their children in all discipleship. We believe churches should support Christian Education as a missions endeavor with the resources Christ has blessed them with. The ends for which God has ordained all manner of education is the knowledge of Him.
Regenerate Membership
The New Covenant community is constituted by those in Christ's blood, indwelt by the Spirit of God. Church discipline is that biblical process pursued for the restoration of church members who, upon admonition, repent from their sin, but are ultimately excommunicated if they remain unrepentant after the biblical steps for rebuke and restoration are complete.
Plural Eldership
Every local church in the New Testament, regardless of size or location, and without exception, possessed parity in a plurality of elders. Therefore, we also commend the plurality and parity of elders in all churches.
Ordered Worship
We encourage the reading, preaching, singing, or chanting of the Psalms, the ancient and divinely inspired songbook of the Church for all ages. We likewise would promote expositional preaching with prayer and the Lord's Supper as the centerpiece of corporate Christian worship.
Church Commission
Christ has commissioned His Church to make disciples by teaching all that He has commanded. To reduce this mandate to mere evangelism is to fall short of Christ's command. Pragmatic strategies aimed at numerical gains are at best tertiary aims and far too often are the means by which the Church is derailed in her efforts. We therefore aim our work at thorough discipleship.
Rural Congregations
Rural and culturally out-of-the way areas have historically been rich soil for the gospel. Believers in the same areas have led the way in sacrificial commitment to the Great Commission through mission and mission-funding endeavors. The agrarian quality of such communities reminds us that human history began in a garden and is moving toward a city constituted as a walled garden within which Christ is pleased to dwell. Therefore, wise Christians will seek to see the gospel preached widely in these areas, labor to make disciples there, and partner with believers in those communities in the work of The Great Commission.
Civil Justice
The civil magistrate is God's deacon who wields the power of the sword for justice. We affirm equal protection under the law for preborn and born human beings, each of whom is created in the image of God. We support efforts to protect society from sexual immorality that violates the marriage covenant or perverts God's good design for the human person, such as adultery, homosexuality, gender transitions, and pedophilia.
Critical theory and its many variants (Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, Queer Theory, etc.) are based on materialistic premises, cannot be reconciled with Christian anthropology, and pervert civic justice. Since these theories have great purchase in broader society and have proven insidious within organizations, Christians should be vigilant and recommit to understanding and articulating biblical principles of justice.
Civic and Political Engagement
Christians are commanded to love their neighbor, submit to governing authorities, and seek the good of the civic arenas in which they live. Since Scripture is the supreme standard by which all human conduct is to be evaluated, the principles of righteousness revealed in Scripture direct the Christian toward seeing all nations honor Christ as Lord, doing so to fulfill the two greatest commandments. Fundamental human liberties derive from man's Creator and can only be sustained within a society that broadly knows and obeys His law.
Contemporary Challenges
The reality of our fallen world means that helpful gains in the church and society are the product of providential blessing and careful labor. Therefore, they are precious and to be conserved. Our desire is to stand with the historic church in matters of contemporary controversy. We are unembarrassed to believe what Christians have always believed, regardless of societal fashions.
Religious Liberty
Every man, woman, and child should be free to repent and believe in Christ apart from government coercion. God has given mankind this right, and Christians and the government should agree. However, contrary to our wills and God's will, men, women, and children may use this liberty to reject God and Christ, and to worship false gods. We will fight for their right to freely repent and believe in Christ without government coercion, but we do not and will not defend their right to worship false gods, although they may use this liberty to reject God and Christ and worship false gods.
Future Things
Jesus Christ is surely and inexorably bringing all things into submission to Himself. Therefore, we are eschatologically optimistic, even as we recognize God's providence will cause the visible growth or decline of His church according to His own counsel during various periods of human history.