In my online forays, I've observed it's increasingly common for
people to explicitly reject a doctrine, or the notion of orthodox
teaching in general, on the basis of its abuse. You'll often read
something along these lines: "I grew up in a church that had a heavy
emphasis on doctrine X (depravity, judgment, sola scriptura, etc.).
My pastors and elders used that doctrine to berate people, cow them
into submission, or excuse horrible evils." So now, whenever they hear
doctrine X, they can't accept it because they know (feel) it's a tool
being used to control them or bring about another harmful result. In
fact, some will go further and elevate this reaction into a principle of
theological methodology: if a doctrine could be or has been used to hurt or damage, it must be rejected out of hand.
I understand the
impulse. For those who have been beat down with the Bible like it's a
weapon, or doctrines like they're billy clubs, when they see someone
pick them up—even as agents of healing—some post-traumatic stress makes
sense. It can be hard to distance or differentiate a doctrine from its
uses, especially if that's all you've ever known. It doesn't matter if
someone's trying to offer you an oxygen mask; if someone used one to
choke you out in the first place, you're going to flinch when you see
it. Continue at Derek Rishmawy
