Creedal statements and confessions from previous generations of Christians can be valuable for study today. As a believer in Sola Scriptura, I do not believe that these statements are inspired; therefore, I do not believe they are authoritative the way that Scripture is. However, they are powerful statements of Biblical truth that are a vital part of our history. When evangelicals ignore church history, we shortchange ourselves. For that reason, I have offered these along with summaries of why they were written.
It is worth noting that several of these statements reference the catholic church or the catholic faith. This is not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church. This term is derived from the Greek word καθολικος (katholikos), meaning universal. In this sense, the catholic church is the fellowship of all true Christians and the catholic faith is the set of beliefs that are held in common by historical Christianity. These statements refer to the bonds that unite all Christians across our denominational lines and mark the border between orthodox and heretical. With that in view, these references to the catholic church or faith seem to mean something very similar to what Richard Baxter and C.S. Lewis meant with the term “mere Christianity.”