Christianity is a worldview, a set of beliefs and practices about reality. The content of Christian belief has taken shape over centuries in various creeds and confessions of faith, some of which were painstakingly debated for years. Doctrinal belief has traditionally been of utmost importance to the Christian Church. And yet it occurred to me that in around 25 years of church attendance I have never attended a church – or even heard of one in my native Northern Ireland – that provides a dedicated course for doctrinal teaching. This strikes me as grossly negligent.
I remember as a young graduate being asked to assist a presbyterian minister in leading an Alpha Course. I was charged with leading group discussion through the issues and attempting to answer questions that were raised. I was a bit nervous about it but was pleased to discover that a church elder was placed in my group to assist me. I remember one discussion around the doctrine of the trinity. It quickly became apparent that this church elder hadn’t the foggiest idea how to state and defend the doctrine. Even worse: he hadn’t even got a clue concerning the pertinent biblical texts. He had been an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland for years and was completely lost how to state and defend a central Christian doctrine. How can that happen?
It happened because this church – with so many others – neglected to equip its members to understand, articulate and defend their Christian convictions. For many church attenders their only teaching is a 20-45 minute weekly sermon that, frankly, tends to be something of a meandering ramble around a biblical text, often at the mercy of the minister’s interests. From one week to the next sermons are rarely connected, and there is little to no systematic expounding of what Christians believe and why.
And yet it strikes me as crucial that Christians have a sound grasp of what they believe and why. It might seem a little quaint these days, but the bottom line is that Christianity is an entire worldview and as such commits followers to a set of beliefs concerning reality: God exists, God has certain properties such as omnipotence and eternity, God created the world, humankind is fallen and in need of redemption, God the Son became incarnate to provide atonement for sin, Christ rose again from the dead, and so on and so forth. Simply by being a Christian a person is committed to a set of basic beliefs, and the Christian can thus be a good theologian – understanding and defending his/her beliefs – or a bad one – like the elder who had no idea how to articulate his belief let alone find any biblical basis for it.
Unfortunately, too often these days Christians are challenged simply to live a certain way: be good to others, love our enemies, and experience the love of God. As important as such things are, there’s no getting away from the intellectual elements of Christianity. How does one live like a Christian if one cannot understand what a Christian is? An atheist can be a good person and love her enemies too, but that’s not enough to make someone a Christian.
There are important aspects of Christian faith that require a good understanding of Christian doctrine. For instance, one biblical tradition calls us to love God with all our minds. In fact, when asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Studying and reflecting on the nature and person of God is surely one element of this.
Furthermore, the importance of being able to articulate and defend one’s belief is crucial for anyone, particularly in western culture. Being able to lay out a belief and say why you hold it is a basic requirement for anyone who seeks to discuss faith in secular culture. There is no getting away from that. I almost never – ever – speak to people about religious issues without having to address why certain beliefs are held. If you want a place at the table of ideas these days, you simply cannot ignore the giving of reasons for the things you believe. Without doing so, you cannot hope to influence culture, and in fact you simply contribute to the cultural assumption that not only are Christians unable to defend their beliefs, they cannot even state them. People are interested in rational arguments. They almost always engage and naturally ask the “why” question. It seems to me that if anyone has a chance winning the ear of any such people it will be those who understand their faith and who can state and defend it.
Of course, the kind of systematic learning I’m speaking of isn’t for everyone. However, I think we often underestimate people and assume they have neither the time nor intelligence. However, embarking on a basic systematic study needn’t take any more time than an hour or so a week, and the average person watches TV for 3-5 hours a day! Further, the intellectual acumen required isn’t beyond the reach of adults with an average education – we’re talking the basics here. Sadly, we often patronize people. I remember hearing a youth pastor say that the finer points of doctrine would be beyond his group. This group included young people who had embarked on university courses in subjects like biology and chemistry. So, these students can be expected to grasp the workings of biological systems, electrons, scientific formulae, but don’t have the ability to learn how to state and defend central Christian doctrines? They have to be fed a diet of cutesy motivational nonsense instead?
We need to give people more credit than that. Not only do Christians deserve better, but an unbelieving world deserves a better class of Christian.
Stephen J. Graham
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