The Historic Faith is a ministry of the Society of the Good Shepherd, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. This page is about the vision, mission, beliefs, and values that define who we are.
Today, it seems that almost everyone has their own interpretation of what Christianity is all about and what the core message of Christianity is. But there was a time when Christianity wasn't fragmented in the way that it is today. In the early church, for hundreds of years, there was little question what the true doctrines of the faith were. We believe that this unanimity is a powerful witness to what Scripture teaches.
That's why our vision is to see the church return to the historic Christian faith.
We stand within the historic Anabaptist tradition, which since 1525 has sought to recover the believer's baptism, nonresistance, and visible discipleship of the pre-Constantinian church. Our teaching draws on both the Ante-Nicene Fathers and the witness of the Radical Reformation — two streams that, despite the centuries between them, kept asking the same question: what does it look like to follow Jesus the way the first Christians did?
Christianity is not just about what we believe, although that is very important. The essence of Christianity is following Christ—obeying him and becoming like him. Christ made disciples, whom he then entrusted with his message. Through his teachings and through the Holy Spirit, Jesus delivered to these men a complete faith. These men then spread the faith throughout all nations by doing the same thing: making committed, obedient disciples of Christ.
That's why our mission is making disciples of Jesus through the faith once delivered.
Everyone's beliefs are closely related to their worldview. We believe that it's absolutely important to come to the right worldview, so that we can rightly evaluate our beliefs. Here are the foundational pillars of the worldview from which we create our content.
The historic Christian faith is the only true faith, which was once for all delivered by Christ and his apostles to the church.
The Scriptures are our only infallible authority for Christian doctrine.
The commands that Christ and the apostles delivered to their followers are binding on all Christians today.
The life and teachings of Jesus Christ are the center-point of Scripture and should be the chief focus of all Christians. When the rest of Scripture is read through this lens, it harmonizes beautifully as a whole.
The life and teachings of the pre-Nicene church, though fallible, are our best commentary on the Scriptures.
Even if we have the right goals and the right beliefs, we could still have mission drift. To help protect against this, here are the values that we strive to live by as we work out our mission.
Provide content that is intellectually honest and based on sound scholarship.
Have the humility to admit when we are wrong.
Do not explain away any part of the Bible.
Follow the doctrines and commands of the New Testament, but recognize that, given the current church situation, there are elements of the pre-Nicene church that cannot be re-created, such as there being one church communion/denomination. We therefore must live out the faith today in one of the many congregations that still largely maintain the historic faith.
Encourage every Christian to live out the faith in submission to a local church body.
Teach the lifestyle of the faith, not just the doctrines: devotion, self-discipline, submitting to each other, forgiveness, discipling each other, and so on.
Help people see the big picture of God's purpose for humanity.
Help smooth the transitions of individuals and churches to the historic Christian faith.
Follow the primary sources, rather than letting things be filtered through secondary sources.
Understand Scripture through a straightforward hermeneutic. The Bible was written for everyday people (fishermen, tax collectors, etc.) rather than primarily for the highly learned. So we should take the totality of what Scripture says, read straightforwardly, simply, and harmoniously, as the teaching of Scripture.
Browse our courses and begin your journey into the faith once delivered to the saints.
Explore CoursesThe Historic Faith uses a combination of open-source scholarly databases, primary source texts, and modern technology to serve you the best study experience we can.
Our Bible study tools draw on peer-reviewed, open-source linguistic databases including morphology, syntax trees, and lexicon data from academic projects. All interlinear, Strong’s, and original-language data comes from these established scholarly sources.
We use AI as a research tool to help identify connections between Scripture and early Christian writings, generate discussion questions from our content library, and produce modern-English readings of archaic early church texts. Where a modern reading has been created, the original text is always available alongside it for comparison.
We take accuracy seriously. All content is reviewed, and primary sources are always accessible. If you ever encounter something that seems inaccurate or out of place, please let us know so we can investigate and correct it.