Sorting Through Primary and Secondary Doctrines

I’ve been preparing to lead a men’s study at my church this weekend on “Why We Should Study Systematic Theology” and I plan on addressing the issue of how to sort doctrine into primary and secondary categories. There are many opinions on what doctrines are more important than others, and often we can harm relationships or churches by taking stands on secondary doctrines as if they are primary doctrines. Other times we forgot to highlight the areas of unity among the primary doctrines in order to affirm our partnership with other Christians and organizations.

So, any help on this tricky matter is appreciated.

I remembered back in my seminary days, the subject of open theism rose to the top of the evangelical debate. I remember hearing lectures at conferences and seeing one book after another published either for or against open theism. At that time, Wayne Grudem contributed an article in a book titled Beyond Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity (edited by John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth).

In this article, Grudem gives help I am looking for on sorting through doctrinal matters. Here are his conclusions, and I hope they help you as well (pgs. 339-370):

“For what doctrinal and ethical matters should Christian organizations draw near boundaries?

1. Certainty. How sure are we that the teaching is wrong?

2. Effect on other doctrines. Will this teaching lead to significant erosion in other doctrines?

3. Effect on personal and church life. Will this false teaching bring significant harm to people’s Christian lives, or to the work of the church?

4. Historical precedent. Is the teaching contrary to what the vast majority of the Bible-believing church has held throughout history?

5. Perception of importance among God’s people. is there increasing consensus among the leaders and members that this matter is important enough that the false teaching should be explicitly denied in a doctrinal statement?

6. Purposes of the organization. Is the teaching a significant threat to the nature and purposes of the organization?

7. Motivations of advocates. Does it seem that the advocates of this teaching hold it because of a fundamental refusal to be subject to the authority of God’s Word, rather than because of sincerely held differences of interpretation based on accepted hermeneutical standards?

8. Methods of advocates. Do the advocates of this teaching frequently manifest arrogance, deception, unrighteous anger, slander, and falsehood rather than humility, openness to correction and reason, kindness, and absolute truthfulness?

9. Some wrong questions to ask: Are the advocates my friends? Are they nice people? Will we lose money or members if we exclude them? Will the academic community criticize us as being too narrow-minded? Will someone take us to court over this?”