On "core" doctrine: Some possibly relevant soundings

CHARLES HEFLING*

The substance of this article was given as an address at a conference on "core doctrine" sponsored hy SEAD (Scholarly Engagement with Anglican Doctrine) and held at St. John's Church, Stamford, CT in May 1997. Some revising was done afterwards, partly in the light of discussion at the conference, but the condensed and informal style of the original remain.

I. SORTING OUT THE QUESTION

The phrase "core doctrine" was introduced in a particular text, as part of a particular argument intended to resolve a particular issue. With these particulars the present conference is not directly concerned. Instead, I take it, the basic question here is whether the phrase designates something appropriate, valid, accurate, illuminating, helpful. In short, what are we to make of it? Since the question of appropriateness depends on having a clear idea of what the phrase "core doctrine" means, or might mean, that is where I shall begin.

The first thing to note is that "core doctrine" is itself a doctrineof a particular kind. It is a second-order doctrine, a doctrine about doctrine. It draws a distinction within doctrine, such that doctrine is to be divided into two kinds or categories, of which one is "core" and the other an unspecified but different "not core." And besides saying there is a distinction to be drawn, this doctrine-about-doctrine seems to say that the distinction regards importance. On the one hand, not everything that is de facto taught, not everything that falls under the heading of "doctrine," is worth insisting on, worth emphasizing. But, on the other hand, some things are.

So much, it seems plain, "core doctrine" must mean. What more it means is a question that I find it helpful to address by considering what the opposite of this basic meaning would be. The distinction that the idea of "core doctrine" draws means two things, and so there are two opposites, two ways to oppose or negate or deny the idea. They are not the same, and the difference between them is quite important.

Opposing the notion (1)

One way to take a stand in opposition to the whole idea of "core doctrine" would be to say: "No, the distinction is invidious. It is not true that `not everything which is taught is worth insisting on."' Or, taking out the double negative, "It is true that everything is worth insisting on." And this first way of denying the notion is not just an abstract possibility. It is a position held, and held by Anglicans, though not for the same reasons. For, on the one hand, you can hold such a position on catholic grounds, by maintaining that the wholeness of the catholic faith is such that to suppress or belittle any part of it affects, for the worse, the coherence and consistency of the whole. Or, on the other hand, you can begin from an evangelical stance, maintaining that the authority and inspiration of Scripture are such that to sort Christian teaching into "core" and "other" threatens the authority, truth, unity of "God's word written."

Either way, however, this first kind of opposition to "core doctrine" rests on the idea that Christian doctrine is like a chain: Every teaching depends, directly or indirectly, on all the others, so that the whole falls apart if any item is omitted. Or, to put it less mechanically, Christian doctrine is like a human face: Alter any feature, and you distort the whole. But face or chain, the metaphor suggests quite a different construal of doctrine from the one implied in the metaphor of core and periphery (or whatever the other-than-core doctrine is named).

Here it may be appropriate to add a familiar historical observation. The "formative" Anglican divines were faced with analogous pressures, exerted from outside their own communion. From one side the Romanists complained, "You are heretical, for you deny the teaching of the church." To which the answer was, "We have departed on no essential point." From the other side, continental Protestants of some persuasions complained, "You have failed to uphold all that Scripture teaches"-notably in matters of church order and discipline. To which the answer was, "Such indications of ecclesial polity as can be gleaned from Scripture are not of the essence of Christianity." To both complaints, in other words, the Anglican answer was, "We have kept to the `fundamentals.'"1

My point in mentioning this bit of Anglican history is not to wheel out the standard apologetic of an Anglican via media, nor to suggest that relying on a core of fundamental doctrines is uniquely Anglican, nor to propose that our late twentieth-century situation is significantly similar (though I think it is). At present I want only to say that the idea of drawing some kind of distinction within doctrine, with regard to importance, is not a new idea for Anglicans. It has been with us from the Elizabethan settlement on.

Opposing the notion (2)

Still, the fact that it is not a new idea does not mean it is a good idea. This leads to my "second opposite," a second and different way to deny or oppose the whole notion of "core doctrine." For if the meaning of that phrase is that not all doctrine is worth insisting on, though some doctrine is, it can be countered by saying, "No, none of it is (worth insisting on)." Where the first kind of opposition sees all doctrine as equally significant, this second kind sees it all as equally insignificant. Why? Because doctrine itself is not "of the essence" of Christianity.