DOCTRINE! I have heard many times this past year that doctrine is unnecessary, boring, dull or lifeless. Frankly, a lot of so-called doctrine is all of that and worse. It needn’t be, but it can be. Sadly in some circles, doctrine has become a replacement for God. In certain circles, Christians have been taught that certainty in doctrine is essential and that one must believe “right doctrine” in order to be saved. This way of thinking places the cart before the horse. We do not put our faith in our theology, rather we trust in the living and true God manifested in Jesus and present to us by the Holy Spirit. Our theology is our best linguistic approximation; it is the way we articulate our experience of God in our corporate worship and how we understand God to be working in our midst. As Diana Butler-Bass points out “Indeed, the word ‘doctrine,’ a word fallen on hard times in contemporary culture, actually means a ‘healing teaching,’ from the French word for ‘doctor.’ The creeds, as doctrinal statements, were intended as healing instruments, life-giving words that would draw God’s people into a deeper engagement with divine things. When creeds become fences to mark the borders of heresy, they lose their spiritual energy. Doctrine is to be the balm of a healing experience of God, not a theological scalpel to wound and exclude people” (Christianity After Religion [HarperOne, 2012], p. 134). We were never meant to have faith in our doctrines, but our doctrines can enhance our faith as they bear witness to the gracious and beautiful work of God in reconciling and transforming us. As I travel and speak to diverse audiences I often encounter those who say that we don’t need theology or doctrine and what I think they mean is that we don’t need statements that bear little or no relation to our real world existence and how we understand God to in, with and under these experiences. I wholeheartedly agree. Doctrine as abstract, doctrine as definition kills. Doctrine as creative expression, doctrine as faithful witness brings life. So let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let us continue to work out a new paradigm of grace and rethink all of our previously held doctrine and imagine a new theology that is faithful to the God of the Gospel of Jesus. We have a message of exceedingly good, indeed great news for a world starved for relational reality, for compassion, for acceptance. We have a message that is life-giving. Even so, until my last breath, I shall proclaim the good doctrine of the good gospel of the good God revealed in Jesus! ~ ~ ~ Michael Hardin
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 08:11:07 +0000
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