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Our church is seeing the fruit of majoring on central doctrines & creating space for doubts & disagreements on secondary & tertiary doctrines. Many issues where ppl disagree or r skeptical take a long time to sort thru & take an environment of trust where it is safe to wrestle.
I've been in churches where agreement on every doctrine is required for church membership, & this has at least 2 negative effects: 1) real Xians r not permitted to join a church b/c of their view on a secondary matter, and 2) Xians hide their disagreements w/ some doctrines.
This second effect is toxic in the long run for evangelism and for discipleship. If church members are afraid to doubt & wrestle with secondary doctrines, they won't grow & will slowly feel alienated.
Furthermore, they won't invite non-Christians to participate in community life b/c those ppl r doubting & questioning the central doctrines!
Churches wanting to reach ppl in our increasingly post-xian context shouldn't require agreement on everything & must make space for doubts.
Churches wanting to reach ppl in our increasingly post-xian context shouldn't require agreement on everything & must make space for doubts.
