My View of the Proposed Fellowship AoF: A Story

Ref: Proposed Affirmation of Faith; March 12, 2025 e-update from Steve Jones
*I’ve bolded the points I feel are more major. I’ve underlined personal implications.
*If you are a church member, don’t read this until you’ve first read the proposed AoF for yourself. 

I was born into a Fellowship Baptist church in Springfield, ON. It was my grandmother’s church near the family farm. Thankfully it continues to be a faithful and robust Christian witness. 

I was born into a Fellowship Baptist church in Springfield, ON. It was my maternal grandmother’s church near the family farm. Thankfully it continues to be a faithful and robust Christian witness.

Around the age of 6 my family began to attend another nearby church, which happened to be my paternal grandmother’s church. It was a Convention church (the Convention and Fellowship had split in 1927 over theological Liberalism). It wasn’t evangelical or even Reformed, but was traditional and conservative given its rural setting. It was here I was converted and baptized at age 9 and began to grow. However, as I read my Bible and was exposed to other Convention churches, I realized that there were many areas where my beliefs did not align with my denomination. As a lover of history it was as a late teenager that I discovered historic Baptist confessions like the New Hampshire and 1689. Here were the robust beliefs of Scripture I was coming to believe and that were far different to the moderate and even liberal stance of the Convention. I gained convictional courage about the time I was being called into the ministry (c. 2005–6). In the early 2010s this led to me becoming part of a reform movement in the Convention I was a part of. The questions of what the Gospel was and matters such as homosexuality and female pastors did much to cause me to be a Berean—searching the Scriptures. I became more biblically and theologically and convictionally aware. When we moved overseas in 2014 I knew that I couldn’t join a mixed denomination and found great rest of conscience and fellowship in joining the FIEC, which asked any pastor or church to annually and cheerfully (re)subscribe to their Doctrinal Basis and Ethos Statements. The FIEC was and isn’t perfect but what a joy it was to be a part of a confessional body!

Then in 2019 we felt called to return to Ontario and I began discussions with the Fellowship, the only other group known to me, about finding a pastorate there. I read the 1953 Affirmation of Faith (AoF) and, despite it not saying some things, was in hearty agreement with what it did say. Being new to the Fellowship when I became pastor in Markdale, and because of Covid, I didn’t have great opportunity to get to know my new Fellowship. However, from time to time I was aware that how I defined things in the Affirmation and how others did, didn’t always align (this became more evident to me at an ordination council I attended). Then in late 2022 we received notice that there would be a national vote at Fellowship Convention in November as to whether we wanted to open a three-year process to review our AoF. The process seemed solid (though in hindsight the one thing it lacked was discussion) and our elders weren’t opposed to updating language, etc. We were concerned that some of the reasoning behind the review was that some within our ranks no longer believed everything within the AoF. I spoke about this confessional concern in 2022 in front of 500+ delegates as being contrary to our pastoral code of ethics (pt. 5), which states, for example, that pastors ought to resign if their beliefs no longer align with FEB. The elders of MBC voted against this but the Convention voted in favour and so the process began. Whenever surveys, townhalls, etc, were held, I cheerfully engaged fully in the process, even emailing ideas to the chair of the team, our President, Steve Jones. However, as we awaited a first draft, which appeared in the spring of 2024, my heart was heavy wondering what would be changed. There was more engagement and finally more discussion at the 2024 Convention. Here I spoke to 500+ delegates on a few of the articles that were, and continue to be, of concern to me. It was at this Convention, where many churches were advocating for the AoF to be clearer on the gender of the office of elders/pastors/overseers that many eastern churches learned that egalitarianism was present in the west. My heart was heavy again—that was one reason I had left the Convention!

That is my backstory to the AoF, which as one who studies confessions, I nevertheless think is a great improvement on the 1953 version. There will always be more that could be said (and much this document doesn’t say). Still, its language is crisper, fuller and often more connected to historic creeds.
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Nevertheless, and aside from small quibbles about word choice or smaller matters, I continue to have the following concerns:

If you’d like a cliff note’s version of these, they are: concerns over our loose confessionalism; egalitarianism (female pastors and preachers) in the Fellowship; and our departure from our understanding of the Lord’s Day.

1. Confessionalism: If not everyone believed the AoF in the past, what would stop that happening again in the future? How do we know every pastor or church believes and continues to believe the AoF as the basis of our Fellowship? Oversight is left to the Region, and so effective enforcement of the AoF is left to the beliefs and our convictional strength of a few leaders who change over time. Pastors and churches can enter in agreement but then drift through the years, unbeknownst to the wider Fellowship. Our Bluewater Association was unanimously concerned enough to make a motion to FEB National in Dec 2024, “…to strongly consider what our form of accountability of adherence is regarding our statement of faith. In addition, what is our level of accountability to any national/regional bylaws and policies. We would like to see these strengthened.  (E.g. The possibility of annual subscription by pastors/churches).” When the lightly revised final proposed AoF came out in March 2025 I was disheartened that the plan was the status quo, that FEB was going to operate on ‘presumed support’ and that churches could even continue to hold to the 1953 AoF—what confusion. Despite officially being binding on paper, there remains no effective mechanism to ensure member churches and pastors continue to uphold our doctrinal basis.
2.  Man: While it is generally seen as more inclusive to speak of ‘human’ than ‘man’ these days, one cannot get around the fact that human simply means ‘of man’! For important theological reasons (e.g. Jesus is the second Adam, or Man), I believe ‘man’ should be retained. Borrowing from the Irish Baptists, I’d also suggested including something on complementarity between men and women here, such as, “equal in value and complementary in role.” This seems all the more important given the egalitarianism present in the Fellowship.
3. The Local Church: This has been generally improved to note the difference between the universal and local church. It softens the independence of the church (removes ‘sovereign, independent’), probably to emphasis our mutual responsibility to each other, however, this could have been done in a different way that would still emphasize that a church is independent under Christ. Related to the article on mankind, and because of cultural issues and the presence of egalitarianism within the Fellowship, the gender—of at least pastors/elders/overseers—as being male elders, should be clearly stated. (If clarity, either here or in a separate motion coming forth this November on gender in pastoral leadership, cannot swiftly resolve the want of convictional clarity within the Fellowship on this point, I will need to re-evaluate my credentials as a pastor within FEB).
4. Ordinances: It is lamentable that ‘in the following’ order has been removed; the irony is that they are still listed in an order. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated in the early church by baptized believers. However, one who is closed communion can still sign off on this AoF in the absence of this phrase.
5. The Lord’s Day: While it is good to root this day in the Resurrection, this article is one of  substantive changes to the AoF. It contradicts the 1953 statement, and hence our own local AoF that is based on this. Part of its vagueness is it may be blending speaking about worship generally and a day specifically (older confession had articles such as “Worship and the Sabbath/Lord’s Day”).  The 1953 AoF allowed those who believe this day to be a Creation or a New Covenant ordinance to arrive at a place of unity. It was an objective command, not a subjective custom, signified by the use of the definite article (‘the’) and the possessive apostrophe (‘Lord’s’). The proposed change would make the day nothing more than a subjective custom rooted in tradition.[1] Herein, lies a key danger. Protestants/Baptists only believe or do anything if Scripture commands it. While tradition can be a wise friend, it is never to be given the status of Scripture (a mistake Catholics make and which was the formal cause of the Reformation!—where is our authority). The ‘explanation’ for this article reads, “This is also in keeping with the long history and tradition of Christian churches, beginning in the apostolic era, to worship and engage in spiritual activities on the first day of the week.” Tradition! (If this article passed, as one who believes the Lord’s Day is a creation ordinance, a gift of God to man and a key means to life and godliness, I would not be able to fully subscribe to the new AoF as a credentialed FEB pastor).

[1] Tradition generally refers to the customs of men. Capital ‘T’ tradition, meaning authoritative, is surely wrong for Scripture alone holds authority. However, lower case ‘t’ tradition, or the ministerial/helping wisdom of the past, is a useful thing. On the latter I’ve always loved a quote by an associate of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchton, ‘Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living, tradition is the living faith of the dead.’ Tradition is generally used negatively in the New Testament (e.g. Mk 7:7), however, in three places Paul uses it positively. He says in 1 Cor 11:2 to ‘maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.’ Likewise, in 2 Thes 2:15 he says, ‘stand firm and hold to the traditions that your were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter’ and in 3:6, ‘that tradition that you received from us.’ The word for tradition is paradosis, which is a compound word of ‘beside’ and ‘give over.’ It means the transmission of a command. When used negatively it is a command of men, when used positively it is a command of the apostles, who represented Christ and is therefore authoritative.