What are primary issues? And have you made your secondary issue into one?

‘No, this is important!’ I said over the breakfast table to a small audience that was slowly losing interest. ‘You can’t sit on the fence about it, you need to make a decision – don’t you think that Oasis was a more commercially successful band than Supergrass?’

Perhaps the breakfast table at my very middle class, conservative-evangelical Bible college wasn’t the best forum to exhort my passion for 90’s Brit Pop, but that didn’t deter me. I thought it was important – so everyone else had to too.

It’s easy to say, ‘make the main thing the main thing’ or even ‘don’t get caught up in secondary issues’, but in reality, a secondary issue that we are particularly passionate about, will always be to us, a primary issue. But what truly is a primary issue? What’s a secondary issue? Who decides and are those really the only categories we have to work with?

And so, the debates continue, the arguments grow louder, and the church appears to be more tribal, polarised, and argumentative.

Knowing the difference between what makes a difference

Bishop Tom Wright preached a farewell message at Durham Cathedral in 2010 in which he famously said, ‘one of the most important lessons is to tell the difference between the differences that make a difference and the differences that don’t make a difference.’

When it comes to Christian theology, I believe there are four ‘layers’ of theological priorities. At the top you have the non-negotiables, and at the bottom you have areas with lots of movement for disagreement. Here’s what it looks like in my opinion:

The Core

At the top I would say are core gospel priorities that you just can’t mess with. These all surround the person of Jesus; He came, He lived, He died, He rose, He ascended, and He is coming back. Fundamentally this covers things like divinity, incarnation, atonement, etc.

These are core because they contain all the creedal distinctives of our faith. Put another way, if you over or under-emphasise  any of them, or – heaven forbid – reject any of them outright, then your religion will be resultingly something other than Christian.

These should be the main things we preach and build our lives upon. They are all hills to die on, and the battles we should always choose. In truest form, to reject or significantly reshape any of these would be what would classically and technically be known as heresy.

The immediate

Just under the core I would say is a group of immediate priorities. These are doctrinal areas which, if you were to significantly disagree with or change, would affect the core realities above.

The big way to differentiate the core from the immediate is each doctrine in the immediate category could have several ‘acceptable’ versions that would still result in a clear gospel core, but plenty of other interpretations that would consequently mess with the core.

Taking the doctrine of creation as an example; disagreeing over whether or not creation took place over seven literal twenty-four-hour periods wouldn’t change the gospel core, however saying that Jesus himself is a created being would change it.

So, these are somewhat debateable areas worthy of meaty discussion and hearty-yet-respectful disagreement. For me this list includes, but is not limited to,

The nature of God, the nature of humanity, creation, revelation, eschatology, idolatry, kingdom/covenant, etc.

The sacramental

The next layer of theology connects the immediate and the core to the main practices of worship, ministry and mission. It’s how we mirror and respond to the theology that we believe in.

Each of these areas are very important in that they will significantly affect our journey of sanctification – or how much we look like Jesus – but each is a longer process with less immediate biblical data, so has a bit more wiggle room for practical disagreement.

This layer will include areas like baptism, communion, worship, prayer, canonical inerrancy, the nature of the church, the place of the Old Testament law, spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare, leadership/authority, etc.

There is quite a lot of room here for difference, and unless your practice of these things seriously undermines the immediate or the core – or drastically over-emphasises some immediate or core doctrines over others – then there’s lots of room for generous difference.

The temperamental

I’ve broken this final category into two areas: the ethical, and the cultural. What unites them is they all allow for a whole host of pretty wildly differing views without affecting the fundamentals of what we believe.

These are temperamental as they can easily follow the whims of our oftentimes changeable human nature, and as such, frequently change shape and form and invoke different levels of passion at any given time.

That said, even these temperamental areas can still potentially affect practice, which can in turn affect immediate or core doctrines. So, they are not unimportant, and they should be given due attention when they warrant it. However, they shouldn’t be treated with the same level of passion or given the same amount of continued focus as the categories above them in all instances or on every occasion. I’d expect to hear about Jesus at every church service, for instance, but I wouldn’t expect to hear about sexuality at every service. I also wouldn’t really expect sexuality to consistently be the main focus of a Christian’s Facebook wall.

The ethical part of this layer then, involves the ways we think people should live even if they are not Christian. This includes sexuality, gender, justice, political leanings, social activities, media consumption, etc. They are all important and can affect not only our practices but how we demonstrate Jesus to a broken world. They are not, however, themselves essential doctrines. These are some of the main areas that I think we need to talk to and about each other far more respectfully than we tend to.

The cultural has much more to do with the style and approaches of our Christian lives and practice. These might be music, preaching length, Bible versions, ministry models, dress codes etc. None of these frankly, in my opinion, should give us theological ground for leaving a church, or speaking poor of it to others.

Both the ethical and cultural aspects of the temperamental layer can affect practice and even essential doctrines, but they don’t do so immediately. There is lots of room here for grace, and none of these areas should be called ‘heretical’ in and of themselves.

So, where is your passion?

It might be that you would group some of the things I have into different categories. You might boost or reduce the importance of some of my examples. That could be fine (I’m sure my views on many of these things will keep evolving!), but do ask yourself why?

I truly believe that God calls us all to care about different things in part, but the same thing in unity. We are all to care about the gospel first and foremost, and if anything overtakes that passion, then we need to take a step back and regroup.

If your passion for sexual ethics overtakes your passion for Jesus, you’re probably getting it wrong. You should be passionate about sexual ethics, but that should lead to and be led by your passion to see Jesus, show Jesus, and be like Jesus.

If your passion for creationism overtakes your passion for Jesus, you’re probably getting it wrong. You should be passionate for how and why creation was done, but that should be driven by your concern that more people see Jesus as creator.

If your passion for the ESV version of the Bible overtakes your passion for Jesus, you’re probably getting it wrong. You should be passionate that people can engage with the Bible clearly and accurately, but in order that they might encounter Jesus more.

It’s important to be passionate about so many areas, but let’s keep everything in context and drive at the main priorities.

Every now and then it’s worth taking a step back and asking what is driving our personal theological priorities. If it’s not clearly and fundamentally Jesus, then we need to take a step back and regroup. We don’t need to reject our passions, just refit them into their proper places.

If you’re calling genuine brothers and sisters heretics; If you’re being rude to or about people that you’ll probably know in heaven; If you’re gossiping, isolating, raging, grumbling, quibbling, hijacking, intimidating, or concealing; If you’re responding to the world at large as if they were actually full of the Holy Spirit; If you’re spending all your time galvanising yourself against other believers; If you continually express your beliefs in a way that fundamentally rejects the character God calls us to – then sorry, you’re probably getting it wrong.

Me too. We need to step back and regroup.

Let’s be passionate about what God gives us, but let’s always keep that in context.

Let’s keep the main thing the main thing!

 

Photo by Danilo Batista on Unsplash

2 replies
  1. Colin Bennett
    Colin Bennett says:

    Thanks so much Tim
    What a vitally important topic. It’s not enough to use the primary and secondary debate as a discussion starter. We all want to be affirmed in the positions we take!
    Like the framework. Really useful to discuss levels. My one suggestion is in a world of numerous frameworks is to make yours more memorable?

    Jesus has given us THE GIFT of eternal life.
    If it were mine I would tweak it to read as follows

    Core = Gospel?
    So why not use the term?

    Sacramental sounds too religious for this framework. Why not use the term Freedom. For this is what Christ gives us in the way we worship him and live the amazing life he has given us?

    Gospel
    Immediate
    Freedom
    Temperamental

    Hope this is useful
    If not please ignore my suggestion
    God bless
    Colin

    Reply
    • admin
      admin says:

      Thanks Colin – this is really helpful. Naming frameworks like this is always tricky, and it’s nice to look at alternative suggestions!

      Thanks for dropping by and keep on going buddy!

      Reply

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