Simmons College of Kentucky, an institution of Christian higher education, equips men and women for Christian service in whatever vocation they find themselves through the development of a biblical worldview and consistent Christian character.

GOD:
We believe in one true and living God who has revealed himself to humanity as Three eternally distinct persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This mystery of the Trinity is the foundation for the Bible’s teaching that God is the Creator of all things. God created all things through the agency of his Word and Spirit, and sustains and upholds all things by his Word, who is Christ. This mystery of the Trinity is the foundation of all our hope of salvation. The Scriptures teach that the Father initiates our salvation, the Son redeems us from our sins, and the Holy Spirit applies the redemption of Christ to us in regeneration, sanctification, and he gives spiritual gifts of service.
Deut 6:4; Jer 10:10; Matt 28:19-20; 2 Cor 13:14; Gen 1:1-2:3; John 1:3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:3; John 6:37, 44-45, 65; 3:1-8; Eph 1:3-13; 4:11-13.

THE BIBLE:
We believe God has revealed himself to his creation in a general way in nature, the conscience and providence. God’s supreme revelation comes to us in the Word incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, and the Word written in the Bible. We believe the Bible was written by God-inspired men. It is inerrant, infallible, totally true and trustworthy. We faithfully believe it is the only standard by which all truth claims, including human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be judged.
Ps 19:1-6; Rom 1:18-21; 2:12-15; John 1:1-2, 14, 18; Heb 1:1-3; Ps 19:7-11; Prov 30:5; Matt 5:18; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21; Isa 8:20.

HUMANITY & THE FALL:
We believe that the first man was created by a special act of God and that God breathed into him the breath of life. We affirm a first human couple whom the Bible calls Adam and Eve, and we believe that they were created by God in his image in holiness, righteousness and knowledge of what was good. We believe that God created them with a freedom of the will that made it possible for them to choose either good or evil, and that through the temptation of the serpent they freely chose to sin and fell from this original condition into a state of bondage to sin, misery and death. Adam’s sin involved all his descendants by natural procreation so that all his natural heirs are born in bondage to sin, spiritually dead and wholly incapable doing any good to merit salvation. Every person, therefore, is under condemnation, and as soon as each is capable of moral choice freely chooses sin. This fall has brought upon humanity broken people, homes, racial strife, social injustice and war as well as mental and physical sickness and death.
Gen 1:26-28; 2:7, 21-25; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10; Gen 3:1-7; Rom 3:1-10; 5:12-19; 1 Cor 15:20-21; John 3:36; Eph 2:1-3; Rom 3:23; 6:23.

SALVATION:
We believe the exclusive and only path to salvation is by grace through knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ. We reject as non-biblical any form of universalism, probationism, or reincarnation. Jesus is “the way the truth and the life.” Salvation involves the recreation of the entire person through the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. It consists in the conviction of sin, the new birth, repentance from sin and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance and ultimately glorification.
John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Rom 10:14-17; Matt 7:13-14; Luke 13:24; John 3:1-8; 2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:4-5; Acts 3:19; 20:21; Rom 5:1-2; Eph 1:5; 1 Cor 1:2; Heb 2:11; Matt 24:13; Mark 13:13; 1 Peter 1:5; Rom 8:29; 1 John 3:2.

THE CHURCH:
We believe in the power of the local church under the Spirit to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. In salvation God calls each individual person to become part of his new humanity in Christ and empowers each one by the gifts of the Spirit to serve him so that he or she may do his or her part to build up the church and advance the Kingdom of Christ. Furthermore, we believe in the three-fold historical role of the African-American Church: (1) Personal salvation, (2) Social justice, and (3) Group empowerment.
Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24: 46-48; Acts 1:8; Eph 2:11-18; Col 3:9-14; Rom 12: 4-8; 1 Cor 12-14; Eph 4:11-13.

EVANGELISM & MISSIONS:
We believe it is the duty and privilege of every follower of Jesus Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to seek to make disciples of all nations. A church that is not evangelistic fails to fulfill the Great Commission, dishonors Christ and aides in the advance of the work of Satan.
Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24: 46-48; Acts 1:8; 8:4; Rom 10:14-17; Rev 22:17.

METHODS:
We believe the Gospel does not change but ministry methodologies do. We believe in wedding the timeless gospel with progressive methodologies to prepare a new generation of Christian leaders for the 21st Century. No matter what the methodology every Christian should engagingly draw others toward a relationship with Christ.
Gal 1:6-9; 1 Cor 9:22-23.

FAMILY:
We believe that God’s ideal for the family is one man who is the head of the home, one woman, who is the heart of the home, and children, who are the hub of the home. Although the extended family may consist of many members, God’s ideal for marriage is one man joined in covenant to one woman. God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is the duty of every husband to love his wife as Christ loves the Church and lead his family as the spiritual, moral and social head of the family. He is to rear his children in the awe, respect and admonition of the Lord. It is the duty of every wife to respect her husband, to be a competent household administrator, and to give wise counsel and guidance to decisions made by the husband. We believe that children are a blessing from the Lord and should be cherished.
Gen 2:4-5:1; Mark 10:1-12; Deut 6:7, 20-25; Exod 12:26-27; Josh 4:6-7; Gen 2:18; Prov 31:10-31; Eph 5-6; Col 3-4; 1 Tim 5:14; Eph 6:1-4

SOCIAL JUSTICE:
As the sovereign Creator of the universe, God is just. This is particularly seen in God’s defending of the oppressed. Justice is also a central aspect of Christian behavior. Biblical justice defends the weak and oppressed and restores people to community. We therefore believe that racism in any form is a sin. Any act or policy that treats people as less than equal before God undermines the Old Testament’s affirmation that humanity is created in God’s image and the New Testament’s emphasis on equality in Christ. It is then the place of the church to be a voice and defender for the oppressed of all races and stages of life and to oppose publicly acts and policies unworthy of a godly society.
We are saved by grace, not by race. Therefore, any ideology that espouses that one race is superior to another undermines John 3:16 and the New Testament emphasis on equality in Christ.
Gen 18:25; Deut 10:18; Hos 10:12; Isa 1-5; 30:18; Lev 25:35-36; Gen 1:26-28; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; Rom 9:6-15, 25-26; Eph 2:11-22; Rev 5:9.

1. We affirm that historic, traditional doctrine of the Trinity as taught in the Scriptures and expressed in the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325, 381, and doctrine of the incarnation as expressed in the Chalcedonian Creed. We further affirm the divine perfections as traditionally enumerated, especially his sovereignty over and comprehensive foreknowledge of all things, his omnipotence and omnipresence. We deny any teaching concerning the Godhead which diminishes either the Son or the Spirit in their essential deity as unChristian and heretical. We further reject any teaching of the incarnation that denies the virgin birth, Christ’s true and full humanity, or his true and full deity. We further reject all attempts to diminish God’s power or knowledge in the interest of so called relationship or human freedom such as is presented in the Open Theism movement.

2. We affirm that the Holy Spirit worked in and through the human biblical writers so that what they produced was exactly what God, who cannot lie, intended for them to write without obscuring or destroying their personalities, learning, and life experiences. We further affirm that the miracles of the Bible occurred exactly as they are recorded, i.e., that Moses really parted the Red Sea, Jonah really survived being swallowed by a great fish, Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to our Lord, our Lord really and truly healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead; and he really did arise from the tomb bodily and ascended into heaven and will return from there at the end of the age. We deny as unbiblical and unbelieving any interpretation of the miracles that a priori excludes God’s ability to intervene in nature and so explains such events as “myth” designed to communicate a “spiritual” truth or simply the product of a pre-critical age of incredulity.

3. We affirm the biblical doctrines of original sin and total depravity as establishing both our need for salvation in Christ and the imputation of his righteousness to us in like manner as the sin of Adam was imputed to us just as Paul taught in Romans 1:18-5:19. We further affirm that human free will is conditioned by our fallen nature, and so unless enabled by grace, we freely choose evil or righteousness and are totally incapable of saving ourselves. We deny any teaching of sin that reduces sin simply to the act of sinning or affirms persons as essentially good while in their fallen state. We reject as Pelagian heresy any teaching that says human beings have an unencumbered free will or that sin is a learned behavior only and not the result of a sinful nature with which we are born.

4. We affirm that the salvation of any individual is owing solely to God’s grace given in Jesus Christ, and this salvation comes to persons of reasonable age and intelligence through hearing the message of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit convicting, regenerating and converting the sinner so that he or she responds in repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. We deny any teaching that advocates many ways to God (pluralism), the ultimate salvation of everyone (universalism, probationism or reincarnation), or salvation in Christ apart from a knowledge of him and the gospel (inclusivism). We also reject postmortem evangelism as contrary to the teaching of Hebrews 9:27.

5. We affirm the local church as the expression of Christ’s ongoing presence in the community, and as Baptists we affirm the associational principle as the expression of the larger Christian fellowship worldwide. The twofold purpose of the church is to glorify Christ through worship and extend his grace to sinners through (1) missions and evangelism, (2) social ministry, and (3) committed discipleship. It is the task of the church to bring gospel principles to bear on every aspect of human society and human life. The call to faith in Christ is a call to community as well. We affirm that all who are in Christ are one new humanity regardless of their ethnic or social origins. The life of the community is a life of mutual accountability to one another to live according the commands of Christ in love, peace and forgiveness. We deny, then, any bifurcation of the spiritual and the secular that would incline people to think they can profess to believe in one fashion and live in another, and we reject the notion that religion is merely a matter of private and personal choice.

6. We affirm the necessity of evangelism and missions as God’s chosen means for the salvation of lost men and women and as commands of God laid upon his people in the Scriptures. We deny any perversion of the sovereignty of God or the nature of the will of man that makes evangelism and missions unnecessary or denies human responsibility to call sinners to repent and believe the gospel.

7. We affirm that there is only one gospel message by which sinners may be saved, and that to alter this message in any way is to bring condemnation upon ourselves. That message is best summed up in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” (NASB); and Romans 10:9-13: “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, ‘WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.’ 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13 for ‘WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED’” (NASB). We further affirm the necessity of contextualizing the gospel in terms of method of communication without compromising its essential content. We deny any methodological approach that would reduce the gospel message to one choice among many or reduce evangelism to simple salesmanship.

8. We affirm the family, as instituted by God, as the foundation of all civilized society. The family, as instituted by God is created by the unbreakable union of one man to one woman in covenant together. To this God may add the blessing of children. It is the solemn responsibility of parents to rear their children according to biblical principles and pray for their salvation. We affirm the biblical teaching of the roles of husband and wife in the family as rooted in the order of creation and not in temporary cultural conditions. We further recognize that, living in a broken world involves ministry to broken families with forgiveness and healing. We deny any teaching that would excuse sexual promiscuity, adultery, spousal abuse, abortion, or any kind of homosexual acts or unions as contrary to the express teachings of the Bible and contrary to the historic faith of the Christian community in all past ages.

9. We affirm that God created all of the human race from a single common ancestor, and that therefore there is no intrinsic superiority or inferiority in any ethnic group. Each person bears the image of God in his or her person and is worthy of the dignity and respect due to the image of God, even though fallen and defaced as it presently is. God’s redemptive plan includes people from every race and tribe on the face of the earth, and furthermore, in Christ ethnic distinctions are erased and God is making of the many one new humanity in Christ Jesus. A biblical and historic role of the church is to function as the conscience of a godly society. We deny as unworthy of the Gospel any teaching that separates Christ from influencing and redeeming culture. We further reject any teaching, philosophy or attitude that states or implies the superiority of one ethnic group over another or seeks to oppress one group because of its social or ethnic status.