No creed but the New Testament — and that has been tested every generation.
The Brethren have never adopted a confession of faith, which is a positive doctrine rather than an absence: a creed is held to fix in one century's language what must stay open to the text. It also means every dispute goes to Annual Conference rather than to a document.
The formula usually given is that the Brethren have no creed but the New Testament, and it is meant literally: no confession has ever been adopted, and attempts to adopt one have been defeated at Annual Conference more than once. The practical consequence is that authority sits in a deliberative body rather than a text, which makes the church slow, consensual and vulnerable to the same fights repeatedly. It also means Brethren doctrine has to be read out of Annual Conference minutes, which are unusually candid, and out of practice — what the church does at a love feast tells you more about what it believes than any statement it has issued. The nearest thing to a founding doctrinal document is Alexander Mack's Rights and Ordinances of the House of God of 1715, written as a dialogue between a son and a father, and even that is presented as inquiry rather than as law.
We have no other rule than the Gospel; and we do not accept anything as an article of faith which cannot be shown from it.
Alexander Mack, Kurze und einfältige Vorstellung (Rights and Ordinances of the House of God), Schwarzenau, 1715 (rendered)Condensed from the standard English translation of Mack's question-and-answer tract, the nearest thing the Brethren have to a founding doctrinal statement.
The same ground, other faiths
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