The World Council of Churches (WCC) has always sought to tear down the manmade barriers known as denominationalism which seem to frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit in calling men, women, and children to repentance and salvation and membership in the universal body of Christ . . . "to call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in one eucharistic fellowship" (ix). To this end, the WCC began a new theological work in 1982, "Towards a Common Expression of the Apostolic Faith Today" (vii). Following the publication of a provisional document in 1987, and a number of subsequent meetings between then and 1990, the WCC's Faith and Order Standing Commission published Confessing the One Faith: An Ecumenical Explication of the Apostolic Faith as it is Confessed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381), Faith and Order Paper No. 153 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1991).
Although the WCC seeks to unify all major denominations which constitute the Church today (or at least cause them to recognize and accept one another), a number of prominent denominations tend not to associate with the work of the WCC, presumably because they find ecumenism a threat to their stature or independence as a church. Notably, in America, this includes the Southern Baptist Convention and a variety of Pentecostal denominations. However, over the course of the various major meetings which underlie the publication of Confessing the One Faith, even the Southern Baptist Convention and a few Pentecostal churches sent a few representatives to participate in the process.
Confessing the One Faith represents a significant effort on the part of the major denominations of the world to seek a common denominator upon which to begin rebuilding a universal, or catholic, Church. Most denominations base their creeds (or, if "non-credal" (like the Baptists), their statements of faith) on the principal formulas expressed in the Nicene-Cons...