Doctrine Divides ... as it should

Authors: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy Padgett

Elizabeth Eaton, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, recently announced that the denomination is dropping the filioque from its liturgy. According to Eaton, the change is part of a 40-year-long quest for better relations with various Eastern Orthodox groups. She called the move a “significant breakthrough” toward “reconciliation” and “healing age-old divisions,” and she rejoiced that the “filioque is no longer church dividing.”  

What Bishop Eaton did not argue is that the change was doctrinally necessary, or that the new position brings the denomination closer to biblical truth. Instead, she appealed to “unity in the body of Christ,” something the ELCA has been willing to violate over many other concerns, especially homosexuality. As pastor and creator of Lutheran satire Hans Fiene wrote on X: 

Things the ELCA will give up to heal divisions with the Orthodox: the filioque. Things the ELCA will not give up to heal divisions with the orthodox: sin.  

The word filioque is Latin for “and the Son,” as in, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This is from the Nicene Creed, a widely accepted summary of Christian doctrine, which emerged from the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and was finalized at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. The original text read only “who proceeds from the Father.” However, over subsequent generations, Christians in Western Europe included “... and the Son.” Eastern Christians did not. 

Those three words in English, (and just one in Latin) carry enormous theological weight. Though other issues were at play, this was the final straw that led the Pope in Rome and the Patriarch in Constantinople to mutually excommunicate each other in 1054. For Western Christians, at issue is preserving the unity of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, who always works in the Name of Christ. For Eastern Christians, it’s a question of authority. For both, at stake is how best to understand the inner workings of the Godhead. Though certainly an issue of theological precision, the filioque is a matter of no small theological importance. 

... except, apparently, for the ELCA. For Bishop Eaton, what Lutherans should believe about the Holy Spirit is not as important as maintaining unity. On the other hand, for the ELCA, maintaining unity is not as important as embracing brand new categories of sexual morality and identity which violate the historic moral teaching of the church and Holy Scripture.  

“Doctrine divides” is a phrase often repeated to argue that Christians would be better Christians if they focused on “loving people” instead of theology. Of course, any specifics about how to love people immediately puts us back into the realm of doctrine. For example, if “love” means to affirm things that Jesus clearly considered to be sin, we must adopt wholly different understandings of sin, salvation, Christology, and anthropology. In the process, questions of transcendent truth are made subservient to more immediate concerns, such as being affirming and inclusive. 

Christianity drained of doctrine is not Christianity at all. The Bible is very concerned that our hearts and minds align with God. It matters if we call Him by the right name, worship Him in the right way, and think with proper understandings of His nature and will. It matters whether Jesus was killed as a social revolutionary willing to challenge the empire or because it was ordained by God before the foundation of the world as the means of atoning for the sins of the world. After all, Christians were not targeted by Roman emperors, Islamic jihadists, and Communist states because they cared for the poor. They were targeted because of theological convictions about who was God and who was not. Similarly, Jack Phillips was not targeted, first by the state of Colorado and then by a trans-identifying lawyer, because he refused to bake cakes for Halloween. He was targeted for his theological convictions about sin and same-sex marriage. 

In other words, doctrine does divide. In fact, it should divide. Without it, we cannot clarify right from wrong, good from bad, and truth from falsehood. We should always, as the Apostle Paul wrote, speak the truth in love, but we cannot abandon one for the sake of the other. If what is true about God matters to God, it should also matter to us.