You Have a Creed

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says we’ve witnessed a huge change of attitudes about relationships.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So we’re experiencing today the long-term effects of an all-out, intentional, orchestrated effort to undermine what the Bible teaches in relation to gender and sexuality.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of True Woman 101, for Wednesday, April 20, 2022. I'm Dannah Gresh.

The upcoming Revive Our Hearts conference in Indianapolis, True Woman '22, will be the ninth True Woman conference. The first one was held in Schaumburg, Illinois, in 2008. At True Woman '08, Revive Our Hearts introduced a document addressing serious needs of our time, the True Woman Manifesto. At that conference fourteen years ago, various leaders rose one by one to read this important document.

Sarah Stevenson: Marriage, as created by God, is sacred, binding, lifelong covenant between one man and one woman.

Dannah: The Manifesto had a rich background, being carefully crafted and refined. It meant a lot to those who signed it in 2008 and to those who have signed it since. In the same way that a building needs a solid foundation, the True Woman Manifesto is supported by some strong, dependable phrases.

In this series, Nancy’s going to walk us through the "Foundations of the True Woman Manifesto." Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Now, the Manifesto has three sections.

• The first is a section with several foundational belief statements. Those statements start, “We believe.”
• Then there’s a middle section that’s a set of affirmations. These are various points that are related to our God-given calling as women.
• Then the third section involves fifteen statements that express our consecration, our desire, to be God’s true women. Those statements start with the phrase, “We will”—this is what we agree to do.

We want to walk through the True Woman Manifesto, point by point, giving a biblical basis for how we arrived at these statements, further explanation and insight, just unpacking this document. The reason for taking this time is that we want you to understand what this document is all about, what the points are all about.

I want you to embrace what this document represents and then to be equipped to share these truths with others and to help them understand and embrace it—your children, your friends, your small group, women in your church. This resource, the True Woman Manifesto, along with this teaching material, will be available for you to use in training women in your circle of influence to be true women of God.

If you go to ReviveOurHearts.com, you can print off a copy of this manifesto, or contact us, and we'll tell you how at the end of the program today to get a pack of True Woman Manifesto brochures. That way you can have multiple copies to share with your church and others in your circle of influence.

Now, I want to start this series with a couple of introductory sessions. Today we’re going to talk about what prompted us to come up with the True Woman Manifesto in the first place, and what is a manifesto, and why do we need a document like this, and a little bit about what the True Woman Manifesto is and is not intended to be. The in the next program I want to overview the purpose of the True Woman Manifesto.

So first of all, why did we come up with this statement? I think you’d agree that for decades, Western culture has been drifting from whatever biblical and spiritual moorings it may have had at one time.

We have abandoned the Word of God as our ultimate authority, and now we’re facing everywhere in our culture an all-out assault on Christian and biblical values. Nowhere is that more true than in relation to gender issues, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and to live that out in the context of family and culture.

The feminist movement and its underlying ideology has become mainstream. It’s in the air we breathe. If you’re under forty, you probably have never known any other way of thinking unless you’ve been brought up in the Word and the ways of God. So we’re experiencing today the long-term effects of an all-out, intentional, orchestrated effort to undermine what the Bible teaches in relation to gender and sexuality.

We’re seeing the unraveling of the fabric of marriage and family at a rate that’s unprecedented in the history of our country, and the confusion about:

• what it means to be a woman 
• what it means to be married
• what it means to have a family
• God’s values
• God’s thinking in these areas

The confusion exists not only out there in the secular world, but sadly, also, in the church, among believers, because we have to such an extent swallowed and bought into the world’s philosophy, the world’s way of thinking, and the world’s practices—and in ways that we don’t even realize.

You may not at all consider yourself to have been influenced by the feminist movement, but in ways that we don’t realize, we’ve imbibed this. We’ve taken its thinking into our system, and that’s where we want to shed light on the world’s system and then show the light of how God thinks in these areas.

So I felt the need, as we were developing the first True Woman conference for us to provide a thoughtful, earnest, written response to this point that we’re facing in history and through the True Woman Manifesto, to sound a certain sound, to provide a biblical explanation, clarification, definition, direction, and correction where needed, and a basis for women of God to unite in a movement of revival and reformation.

So this True Woman Manifesto is our attempt to put together a succinct statement with the goal of:

• educating Christian women in God’s ways of thinking
• inspiring them
• motivating them
• mobilizing us as women to be that army of praying, true women in this culture

Now, what is a manifesto? The word comes from the Latin word manifestus, which means “clear, evident.” If something is manifest, it’s obvious. You can see it for what it is. Dictionary.com says, “A manifesto is a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives.”

This is something that we have publicly declared to be our position. This is what we believe the Bible teaches.

There are those who have asked us, since we released the True Woman Manifesto, why do we even need a document like this? We have the Scripture. Why do we need another written document?

Mary Kassian posted an entry called, “The Need for a Creed: Reflections on Creeds, Confessions, and Manifestos.”

I want to take a few minutes here to summarize what she said so well on that post and to excerpt from her post several key points about why we need a creed like the True Woman Manifesto. “The word creed,” Mary Kassian pointed out, “comes from the Latin word credo, which means, ‘I believe.’”

A creed, a manifesto, is a statement of beliefs, and Mary says in this post,

Throughout history, individuals and groups have written down their creeds. These have variously been called Declarations, Resolutions, Statements of Belief, Doctrinal Statements, Confessions, or Manifestos. . . . Written creeds have played a vital . . . role in history—in philosophy, politics, and culture, as well as in the Church.

You can think back in history about some creeds, some manifestos that have played a vital role. For example, the United States was founded on a creed called The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” It was a creed. It was a manifesto.

“The Communist Manifesto”—first published in 1848—dramatically changed the political landscape for generations.

You may not be as familiar with the “Humanist Manifestos,” two of them. The first Humanist Manifesto was published in 1933, the second Humanist Manifesto was published in 1973. These were signed by many leading politicians, scientists, philosophers, educators. The second Humanist Manifesto included that famous line: “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”

This was the doctrine, the philosophy that was being put forth, and over the past several decades, the tenets of those Humanist Manifestos have penetrated and infiltrated our culture and have become the prevailing worldview of our time.

Now, creeds have also been important in the history of the Church. There have been many critical points, when heresies or issues arose in the Church, when church leaders have realized that a course correction was needed when people have gotten doctrinally off-course. Those creeds have attempted to clarify what the Scripture teaches and to call believers to affirm sound doctrine.

Perhaps you can think of one or more of those church creeds. The most famous one probably is the Apostles’ Creed that was written in the first or second century. We’re not sure exactly when, but that creed emphasized the full humanity of Jesus, that not only was He fully God, but He was also fully man.

It was a creed that was written in response to the Gnostic movement of that time, which taught that the physical world was evil and that Christ did not actually take on human nature. The Apostles’ Creed was written to correct that heresy.

Then in the fourth century, another heresy cropped up. The Arians were a group of people in the church who taught that Christ was not fully God, so the Nicene Creed was written to affirm the deity of Christ.

Then you remember Martin Luther’s “Ninety-Five Theses.” That was a creed that countered the practice of indulgences and sparked the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, and that creed, posted there on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel, the “Ninety-Five Theses,” radically altered the course of history.

Another creed, “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” may not be as familiar to you, but it was a creed that was signed by hundreds of Bible scholars and Christian leaders in 1978. It was formulated to defend against the trend toward liberal and neo-orthodox theology, so it became an important course corrective.

Mary Kassian says in her post on creeds,

History demonstrates that creeds are profoundly important. They are documents that challenge people to change, counter, or correct a current trend of thought . . . Creeds clarify beliefs. Creeds set direction. Creeds create movements.

And that is what we’re believing God for in our day—a movement of true women of God.

Mary Kassian goes on to say,

Creeds are like signposts at a junction. They require travelers to choose and commit to one path or another. Ultimately, this choice determines whether the traveler and those who follow will arrive at one destination, or at a different one, miles apart from the first.

Now, there are a number of significant declarations found in the Scripture, public declarations—“I believe . . . this is my creed.” You remember in Joshua chapter 24 as Joshua came to the end of his life, and he was wanting the next generation in the Promised Land to live in accordance with God’s Word. He said to them, “Choose you this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (v. 15, KJV). He made a public declaration. “This is what I believe.”

In 2 Kings chapter 23, we read about King Josiah who led Judah in making a covenant before the Lord, a covenant that they would obey Him, and they would keep His commandments. It was public. It was corporate. It was a signpost saying, “This is what we believe today, and we’re passing this on for generations to come.”

In Daniel chapter 3, remember the declaration of those three Hebrew young men who said to the king in public, “We will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (v. 18). It was a line in the sand. It was a marker. It was a signpost.

Each of these declarations in Scripture was made in the face of opposition. Sometimes it was cultural opposition, political opposition, even religious opposition at times. In each case there was a risk involved. There was personal expense, but at times there is a need for us to make a public, corporate declaration, to draw the line in the sand, to make a spiritual marker for future generations to look back and say, “That’s the truth. That’s what they believed.”

So the True Woman Manifesto is a line in the sand. It is, as Mary Kassian called it, a signpost, and it highlights some major points about what we believe the Bible says to women. It challenges Christian women to commit to traveling that direction.

Now, just a few words about what the True Woman Manifesto is not. First of all, it’s not intended to be a comprehensive statement of the Christian faith. It doesn’t cover everything that matters. That’s why we have the Scripture.

It doesn’t cover every important truth that Christian women need to embrace. What it does do is it highlights and addresses specific points that we believe need to be recovered and emphasized in our day.

Then the True Woman Manifesto is not intended to add to or replace Scripture in any way. Our hope is that this little document, fallible as it is, will point people to the Word of God. It will get them into the Scripture.

This manifesto is not inspired. It’s not infallible. The points are drawn from and supported with the Scripture, and you can see that at the end of the True Woman Manifesto, but it is merely a human document.

It was carefully written. We had a lot of input on it. We had review from Bible scholars and theologians, but as with every other creed written by humans, you could debate certain aspects of the wording, what was included, what was left out. Some people think there was a little too much emphasis on this point, and some people think there should have been more emphasis on this point.

You may not agree with everything exactly as it is stated in the True Woman Manifesto. For that matter, you may not agree with everything that is stated on Revive Our Hearts.

We are fallible, but what I want to encourage you to do is to prayerfully consider this creed, this manifesto, and as with every teaching, hold it up to the standard, the plumb line, of God’s Word. To whatever extent it matches the Word of God, then submit and bow your will to it, and say, “Yes, Lord. This is Your Word. This is Your truth. I accept it.”

The True Woman Manifesto is not a list of rules. It’s not a legalistic structure or system of self-righteous moralism—if you can sign this document, you’re more spiritual; you’re a true woman.

Listen, being a true woman is a matter of the heart. It’s a matter of your relationship with and your surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Signing this document does not make you a true woman. Writing this document does not make me a true woman. What makes us true women is being filled with the Spirit of God, living our lives according to His grace and His Word.

Then, just a reminder that some of us may need, and that is that the True Woman Manifesto is not intended to be used as a “club” to bludgeon those who disagree with us.

This document is counter-cultural. We’re swimming upstream, and many people don’t agree with a lot of what’s in this manifesto. In fact, there’s been quite a bit of pushback in the blogosphere since the manifesto was first released.

For example, one woman said that the True Woman Manifesto is, quote, “a recipe for turning God's beautiful, intelligent, and capable female creations into door mats."

Another woman said that this manifesto encourages, "all women to be mindless, passive, incapable blow-up dolls doomed to a 1950s TV sitcom existence in the suburbs."

That’s quite a mouthful. Of course, I don’t agree with that assessment, but there are those who strenuously disagree with what we’re about to teach over these next weeks. Our calling is not to beat them over the head with these truths, but to win their hearts by living out, in the most winsome way possible, by God’s grace, what is contained in this document.

So as we walk through it in the days ahead, I want to explain what is and isn't meant by some of these statements to help people better understand it. I hope it will be a resource to clarify our message and God's mission and mandate in our lives as women—a call to realign our lives with the blueprint that He has given us in His Word.

Now, let me just remind us that, realize it or not, each one of us is basing our lives on some creed and some set of beliefs. So many Christian women today unwittingly are living by creeds that have been set forth by the secular women’s movement.

My question to you is:

• What is your creed?
• What do you believe?
• Do you know what you believe?
• If you say that you believe and accept the Word of God as your creed, your manifesto, your declaration for living, then the question is, does your life reflect that that is your creed?

The challenge over these next days is to evaluate what we believe, and what we believe is evidenced by the way that we live.

O Lord, how I pray that You would, by Your Spirit, open our eyes, open our understanding, open our hearts. Give us understanding into Your ways and Your Word, and make us, by the power of Your Spirit and Your grace and the gospel, make us true women of God for Your glory and for the fame of Your name throughout the world. I pray it in Jesus’ holy name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, kicking off a series called "Foundations of the True Woman Manifesto." We've provided a way to order the brochures she mentioned in the transcript of today’s program, at ReviveOurHearts.com.

If you’re interested in discovering more about the Manifesto and want to learn how these declarations can be lived out in your everyday life, you can get a copy of A 30-Day Journey through the True Woman Manifesto. When you support Revive Our Hearts with your donation of any size, you’ll receive this 30-Day Journey along with a brochure explaining more about the Manifesto. Just ask for it when you donate at ReviveOurHearts.com, or you can give us a call 1–800–569–5959.

As I mentioned earlier, the Manifesto was introduced at the first True Woman Conference in 2008, and our ninth True Woman Conference will be held this fall, September 22–24 in Indianapolis. This three-day event will all be centered around the theme: Heaven Rules. Join Nancy, Mary Kassian, Kay Arthur, Chris Brooks, and many others as you anchor your heart in the truth that Jesus is King. And of course, I’ll be there, too. If you’re thinking about attending, you’ll want to get signed up soon. The cost of registration goes up May 1, so be sure to register before then. Find out all the details and sign up at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Now, what’s the ultimate purpose of the True Woman Manifesto? It’s not about Revive Our Hearts. It’s not about you or me.

Nancy: Well, the introductory statement says that this is:

A personal and corporate declaration of belief to the end [for the purpose] that Christ may be exalted and the glory and redeeming love of God may be displayed throughout the whole earth.

That Christ may be exalted, that’s the goal, that’s the purpose. Ultimately this creed, this manifesto, it’s not about us. It’s not about women. It’s about Christ, and the goal is to exalt Him to His rightful place as Lord in our hearts, in our churches, and in this world.

As Colossians 1, verse 18 says,

He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.

God has highly exalted Him. The goal of this manifesto, the goal of this ministry, and it should be the goal of your life, is to the end that Christ may be exalted.

Listen, if Christ is exalted, it doesn't matter what people think about us, whether our lives are easy or hard. It doesn't matter what circumstances we go through. Paul said, "I'll go to prison, I'll die, I'll live, I'll do whatever, as long as Christ is exalted."

Dannah: And that’s what we’re going to talk about tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts. 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you thrive by calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scriptures are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

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