I am speaking both historically and present tense. But, I am primarily talking about the last 400 years of history. You see, prior to the Enlightenment, the verb BELIEVE had a very different meaning than how the word is used today. The “object” of the verb was always a PERSON! Can you say Jesus? And then along came the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is often closely linked with the arriving of Scientific Revolution, for both movements emphasized reason, science, and rationality, while the former also sought their application in comprehension of divine or natural law. And immediately the church got “defensive“.
The Catholic church particularly ostracized and put on trial all those scientists who challenged their cosmology only to find out that the scientists were right. Embarrassing to say the least!
The church then needed some way of holding the faithful, keeping people tied to the coat tails of the church. So, one no longer believed in a PERSON, but in a statement- a creed!
Can you say Nicea? Maybe Chalcedon?
One was questioned as to if they “believed in that” or if they “believed in this“. If you got the answer right you were a friend. If you answered wrongly you could be burned at the stake. Many were!
The Enlightenment challenged the church in some of it’s wacky ideas: like the sun standing still in the sky. The new way of understanding our universe, as heliocentric and not geocentric, put the church on a collision course with their own hithertofore unchallenged beliefs.
Inerrancy of the Scriptures? No way! 
When dozens of errors were brought to light in the Bible, the church dug it’s heels in even further. It’s like do you really think the reality of who Jesus was and is, is dependent upon a library of 66 books (unless you are Catholic) having no errors? Why would one want to even take that position anyway?
What’s the point?
The last 50-100 years has put the traditional church in an even deeper hole. All because of what’s perceived as a NEED to believe in certain denominational statements. Believing in the person of Jesus, the Christ will really be all that’s needful. And He’s much easier to defend (as though He needed defending) than some of the wacko church doctrines and creeds.
Know what I mean? 
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