The goal of this survey is to assess the present level of theological agreement within one particular denomination – the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ). If you are from another denomination, you're more than welcome to take the survey and to use it as a template for a similar conversation within your own denomination.
The questions in this survey all begin with the phrase: “Do you believe?” This is intentional. This is not a survey about methodology or missiology. This is a survey about theology. That isn’t to say that methodology and missiology are unimportant – it is only to say that they are secondary. If we do not believe together then we cannot fruitfully work together; but if we do believe together, then a conversation about methodology and missiology would be entirely appropriate. There is an order of operations that must be observed in any attempted restoration of our association and it must begin with the foundational question of what we believe.
Please note: This survey is not intended to reveal who is a real Christian and who is not. That question is beyond the scope of any human inquiry. This is about whether or not the 300 or so churches of our denomination currently have the level of theological alignment needed to sustain a central administration and missiological program.
As much as possible, the wording of the questions has been borrowed from historic Baptist confessions and statements. You may recognize phrasing from The New Hampshire Confession of Faith, The Philadelphia Confession of Faith or the Baptist Confession of 1689 – this is intentional. The questions are intentionally historic and from an obviously “Baptist” point of view. Anyone adapting this survey for use in a Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist or Anabaptist context would want to modify several of the questions to better align with those traditions.
Finally, you will notice that most of the questions are required fields. The goal of this exercise is to press through some of the fog and ambiguity that has overtaken our fellowship over the last 20 years and it seemed that requiring an answer to each question was one way to do that. If you would like to clarify or nuance your answers, you can do so in the comment section below each question. In addition to the body of 25 theological questions, there are a few questions at the start for sorting and analysis.