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The Bible raises ten thousand questions. If you answer any one of them in your own way only, and without looking farther, and say, “This is what I believe,” you are setting up a personal creed of your own. If you simply content yourself with the assertion, “The Bible is my creed,” you are leaving unanswered many of the most important and vital questions of faith and life. And a Church’s answer, more than your own, must be ample to meet all questions. When you refuse to take a definite stand on vital issues in the Christian Faith, but say, “The Bible is my creed,” are you really confessing Christ, or are you taking the problems of religious life easy, and evading the unpleasant but important doctrines which the Spirit of God has brought to an issue in the development of the Faith and His Church in history? – Theodore Schmauk. The Confessional Principle
- A Book in Five Independent Sections
- Historical introduction
- Part 1: The Nature of the Christian Confessional Principle
- Part 2: The Historical Rise and Development in Christianity of the Confessional Principle
- Part 3: The Lutheran Confessional Principle – Nature, Origin, and Historical Development
- Part 4: A Partial Application of the Lutheran Confessional Principle to American Conditions in the Twentieth Century
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A Book in Five Independent Sections
This is Dr. Schmauk’s magnum opus on Christian Confessionalism, a treasure of approachable, Biblically Conservative scholarship. Each section can be read separately.
Historical introduction
Part 1: The Nature of the Christian Confessional Principle
1 – The Question of a Confessional Foundation: What is the Question?
2 – How Is The Question To Be Discussed?
3 – What Are Confessions? Definitions.
4 – Does The Church Need Confessions?
5 – Do Confessions Constrict, Or Do They Conserve?
6 – Should Confessions Condemn and exclude?
7 – What Gives The Confession Validity?
8 – Do Confessions Bind?
Part 2: The Historical Rise and Development in Christianity of the Confessional Principle
9 – The Rise of the Confessional Principle in the Church
10 – The Development of The Confessional Principle in The Church
11 – The Confessional Principle In The Augsburg Confession
12 – The History and Tendency of The Confessional Principle in The Church
13 – The Confessional Use of The Word “Symbol”
Part 3: The Lutheran Confessional Principle – Nature, Origin, and Historical Development
14 – The Lutheran Confession
15 – The Origin of the Augsburg Confession. Kolde’s Introduction
16 – Melanchthon’s Unsuccessful Attempts as a Diplomatist. Kolde’s Essay
17 – Kolde on the First Known Draft, or Oldest Redaction of the Augsburg Confession, and its Discovery
18 – The Oldest Redaction of The Augsburg Confession
19 – The Hand of God in the Formation of the Augsburg Confession, as shown by the Course of Events in 1529 and 1530, and in the Letters of Luther, and of Melanchthon
20 – The Augsburg Confession Remained Unaltered
21 – The Augsburg Confession: The Further History of its Editions and Manuscripts. Kolde’s Essay, With A Summary of the Argument as it Bears on the Confessional Question, by T. E. Schmauk
22 – Protestantism Under The Augsburg Confession To The Death of Luther
23 – Protestantism From The Death of Luther To The Death of Melanchthon and to the Disintegration of Lutheranism
24 – Melanchthon and The Melanchthonian Principle.
25 – The Need of A Concordia Realized, and its Origin Attempted
26 – The Formula of Concord: its Origin Based on Kolde’s Introduction and on the Formula in Hauck
27 – The Introduction of The Concordia, and The Augustana Preserved
28 – Is The Formula of Concord A Confession?
29 – The Answer of a Providential Origin to the Question - Is the Formula a Confession?
30 – The Answer To The Criticism Made On The Motives and Men, as Touching The Question, Is The Formula A Confession?
31 – The Answer of The Formula’s Outer Form to The Question, Is The Formula A Confession?
32 – The Answer of The Formula’s Subject Matter, Touching The Question, Is The Formula of Concord a Confession?
33 – The Person of Christ and The Formula of Concord
34 – Concordia Is The Church’s Great Confession of Christ.
35 – What The Formula of Concord Accomplished As A Confession of The Lutheran Church.
36 – The Book of Concord. The Facts of its Origin and Publication. Kolde’s Essay.
Part 4: A Partial Application of the Lutheran Confessional Principle to American Conditions in the Twentieth Century
37 – From the Book of Concord to the Present Day
38 – The Book of Concord and Historical Lutheranism In America.
39 – The Confessional Principle of The Book of Concord and American Protestantism
40 – The Confessional Principle of The Book of Concord and Christian Cooperation
41 – The Confessional Principle of The Book of Concord and The Brotherhood of The Christian Church
42 – The Confessional Principle of The Book of Concord and the Future of the Church In America.
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