In October 2000, InterVarsity adopted a new statement of beliefs called “The Doctrinal Basis of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA” (also referred to as our basis of faith). Student Leadership journal is reproducing it in this issue (pp. 15–16) with some brief commentary by Kevin Offner. We interviewed InterVarsity’s president, Steve Hayner, to get the story on its background and development.

SLJ: InterVarsity has had a doctrinal basis in place for decades. What triggered the decision to rework it?

SH: InterVarsity is a profoundly Bible-based movement. We care a lot about what the Bible says and how we work with its message. A very good question came along a few years ago: “How is the current basis of faith being used in the movement?” Well, the truth was it wasn’t being used much at all. Our staff and student leaders were signing it every year, but not many were teaching from it. They found it difficult to use, largely because it didn’t address clearly some of the issues we face on campus these days. 

SLJ: Could you give us a few examples of unclear language or the issues that needed to be addressed?

SH: Some of the language didn’t relate very well to students, phrases like “the necessity and efficacy of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.” That’s not a phrasing that’s very accessible to students, especially those who are unfamiliar with the Bible.

In addition, there are things that were not addressed in the original, and things that are really important to us, things that keep coming up on campus. For example, while our old basis was very Christ-centered, it was not very trinitarian, at least not explicitly so. Also, while there were some important things said about Jesus, nothing addressed his uniqueness or exclusiveness. Universalism, the belief that all people are saved regardless of what they accept or acknowledge, is one of those things we struggle with on campus all the time, and that wasn’t dealt with at all.

So our original basis was really about the fundamental issues facing the evangelical communities in the middle of the twentieth century. This new one provides a framework for addressing the issues of the new millennium.

SLJ: How did InterVarsity go about reworking the basis of faith?

SH: The process started in 1997 with a consultation that pulled together 17 of our staff from around the country. They came from a variety of theological and church perspectives and were known to be fairly astute theologians. We gathered together, not with the purpose of changing the doctrinal basis, but with the purpose of asking three questions: (1) What are the theological issues that our students and our movement are facing these days? (2) How is our basis of faith serving us—or not? and (3) If we were to add, subtract or change anything, what would it be? As we talked, we began to make notes and draft our ideas into something we thought would work for us. By the time we were done, we thought, “Wow, this is really helpful! If we had something like this, we could actually teach from it. This could truly help our ministry.” That started a groundswell of enthusiasm about a new doctrinal basis, even among those who originally had no interest in changing a thing.

After a lot of input from all over the movement and many revisions later, we were ready to take a draft to the InterVarsity Board of Trustees in 1999. After more back-and-forth revisions among the Board, campus staff and field directors, the Board approved the new doctrinal basis in October 2000.

All the dialogs and drafting we did really showed that everyone was treating this very seriously. I think we were able to hammer out a good final document.

SLJ: What has the feedback been since presenting this to the whole of InterVarsity?

SH: The feedback has been truly remarkable, both internally and externally. In fact, several organizations who are developing a doctrinal basis or are reworking their own have seen ours and are asking us, “Could we use yours? Yours says what we want to say.” We’re encouraged. More importantly, we’re hearing from staff that it’s starting to find a place in chapters as a jumping-off point for teaching, which is what we were hoping for all along. I think this is a great teaching outline of the basics of the evangelical framework of belief.