Jeremy L. Berg

We recently had a free-for-all Q & A night with our students.  In order have a fruitful yet friendly “debate” over hot-button, controversial beliefs such as “Can someone lose their salvation” or “Does God elect certain individuals salvation and not others?” we talked about distinguishing essential beliefs from non-essential beliefs.  I used 3 broad categories to break down each question: dogma, doctrines and opinions.  Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen discusses breaks things down even further with the following chart.

I believe this is an important lesson for evangelicals to learn.  We have got to “keep the main things the main things” and not let peripheral issues divide us.  We must unite around the central core of the gospel, the saving work of Jesus, the authority of Scripture, and our call to bring the message of salvation and “new birth” to the world.

As a teacher and pastor, there are certain topics that I’m wisest to stay mute on and this shouldn’t be the case.  For example, the Genesis 1 debate, the age of the earth and the evolution debate.  It’s just safest to avoid these issues since many think it apostasy if one believes God might have use some evolutionary mechanism in the process of creation. But friends, this is nowhere near an essential Christian doctrine.  And many, MANY people daily blow off even considering the main claims of the Christian faith because they’re repulsed by certain hard stances some evangelicals choose to take on peripheral scientific questions. This should disturb us to no end.

Take an hour this week reading the Gospels and tell me where Jesus waxes eloquent on matters related to geology and the fossil record. Good luck!  I am more interested than most on getting to the truth in such non-essential matters. And the scientific questions are just one of many issues we shouldn’t divide on. Others include political views, theological debates such as the extent of God’s foreknowledge, Christians and the military, gender roles in marriage, women in church leadership, and more.

So let’s keep seeking to rightly distinguish the essentials from the non-essentials.  Check out Patton’s full post HERE.