How does your church treat doctrine? Does it rank teachings into tiers? Organize them into sets? Or ignore them altogether in favor of vague belief? All of these modern frameworks—doctrinal triage, centered sets, bounded sets—are harmful to the faith. The truth is that if a doctrine is able to be at a secondary level then it is not a doctrine at all rather it is merely opinion. All doctrine is a first tier issue. All doctrines are necessary for salvation. What do I mean by this? All doctrine that is false or adds to the gospel tears away at the assurance and trust that one can have in God and this can lead to one falling away from the faith. You may ask, “Then how can we have unity in the church, there are so many voices?” Unity in the church is not a responsibility put on the individual believer rather it is put on the Holy Spirit through the Church. It is our Pastors that have a responsibility to dialogue about doctrines, correct themselves when they are wrong and to correct their flocks. I am not saying that there are not fundamentals to the faith. There obviously is! But the mindset that we can rank issues by order of importance for the end of fellowship is an evil that is plaguing the churches. It is a nicety that is causing us not to dialogue through doctrine but ignore differences. For example the infant baptism debate. Many churches are now allowing members to decide whether or not to baptize their children or let their children decide for themselves. This has theological implications based on what side you fall on that will crush the faith of the child. For the credobaptist they will have to say their paedobaptist associate’s children are not in the covenant. For the Paedobaptist they will have to affirm that the credobaptist children cannot be treated as members of the covenant until they are baptized. Or both sides will ignore the issues and lie to themselves and treat the covenant as something that can be conformed to the Church’s will. Separation is important in the church and this means separation due to doctrinal differences. This is especially true on a catechetical level. If a doctrine is in the catechism (Ten Commandments, Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Sacraments) then it is obviously a doctrine that can divide. If it’s not in the catechism then should it really be a doctrine or just an opinion? Those things that are not in the catechism or elucidated from the catechism are not truly doctrines at all but rather are opinions. But if you hold to the Catechism then you will hold to the unity of faith found under the undivided church that has founded itself in the Scriptures as expounded by the Fathers and the 7 Ecumenical Councils. We must guard ourselves from superficial togetherness and be bold to disagree and separate in order to dialogue in an era of liberal ecumenism.
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. -Romans 16:17 KJV
A future article must explain what doctrine truly is in comparison to historic adiaphora.
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