'Tis a fine line to walk, being completely accurate while at the same time putting things as simply as possible. That's why the Confessions are so very valuable! I think that the divines who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) included the catechisms (shorter and larger) for that very purpose. If I was writing a Statement of Faith, I might at least take the answers from the shorter catechism and employ them in my SOF. Efforts to reduce a SOF down to the "bare essentials" are all too often so vague that no one has a clue what they mean. But they "sound pretty."

Not that even as detailed, specific, and exhaustive a Statement of Faith as the WCF has been enough to prevent entire denominations who claim to believe it from committing apostasy. If we cannot agree on something so detailed and so exactingly precise, I wonder what makes people think they can agree on one of these shallow, generalized "statements" of faith!

-R