“Doctrine is dead.” That seems to be the state of the Christian Church today. We no longer see doctrine as useful, or, even worse, we see doctrine as a dividing point, something to be avoided, rather than something to be accepted, understood, or even sought after. To quote from Brenham Church:
This just in from the Associated Press”¦Doctrine died today. The news of Doctrine’s demise, while tragic, was not entirely unanticipated. It had been battling a terminal illness for many years. Doctrine’s storied history is well known”¦from its powerful birth in the Apostolic Age; to its rapid rise to a firm place of centrality in the Christian life during the early days of the Church; to its serious injuries and repression throughout the Medieval Period; and finally its terminal diagnosis during the Enlightenment.
….
Reaction to this news has been swift and fairly consistent. One leading evangelical leader wrote, “While we are saddened by this news, we are glad to know that Doctrine’s suffering is finally over. Now we can get on with more important matters like relationship building, loving our brothers, and changing lives for Christ.” Another pastor commented, “Our hearts go out to all of those who loved Doctrine, and stood by it until the bitter end. We pray that they will gain closure and move forward quickly. We invite them to stop living in the past. Come join the rest of us in mainstream evangelical Christianity as we seek to change the world through love, peace and goodwill, rather than the divisiveness of credalism.”
If doctrine is dead, how did we get here? Primarily through the path of ignoring anything other than doctrine, of placing doctrine on a pedestal to the point of ignoring Christian living. What does the death of doctrine really mean? In theory, it means there will be less division in the Church, and more love. That there will be more attention paid to the Christian life, in a practical sense, which will make Christianity more “competitive” in the market of ideas.
Three problems, however, quickly rear their head once we declare doctrine dead. First, there is the problem of jumping to the opposite conclusion. That what you believe doesn’t matter, only what you do. Any fair reading of the Scriptures shows this to be untrue. In fact, a fair reading of the Scriptures shows that what you believe controls what you do, not the other way around. Second, there is the problem of motive. Why does it matter if the Church can “complete” in the marketplace of ideas? Why does it matter if the Church is liked? Is there any point in the Scriptures where God says the Church should be liked?
But let’s set these two problems aside for a moment, and look at the third problem. Let’s go over to the curtain, and rip it open, to see who is manipulating the controls on this whole push to destroy doctrine. We walk over, pull the green curtain back, and we find…. Another doctrine! Those who declare doctrine dead say that what you do is more important than what you believe. But isn’t this, itself, a belief? Isn’t the belief that doing is more important than believing itself, a belief about God, and about the path of salvation?
So, behind the curtain we actually find one doctrinal system attempting to kill off all other doctrinal systems in the name of killing doctrine. Doctrine really isn’t dead, it’s just behind the curtain, pretending to die, so you won’t pay attention to the doctrine you’re being taught.
Related posts:
I have to laugh; every time I have interacted with an Emergent on the subject of doctrine or whether or not someone can know truth from Scripture, or read an Emergent book containing attacks on the idea of knowable doctrine, the people I’m interacting with will trot out doctrinal statements, often derived from Scripture!
It has been really weird sometimes. Can I know from Scripture that homosexuality is sin? Hard to say, hard to say, comes the answer. But you can know for sure that Amos teaches wealth redistribution via the police power of government!
Ahh, the toll of post modernism. Interesting post.