Finding the Right Hills to Die on
Finding the Right Hills to Die on: The Case for Theological Triage
By: Gavin Ortlund
“Pursuing the unity of the church does not mean that we should stop caring about theology. But it does mean that our love of theology should never exceed our love of real people, and therefore we must learn to love people amid our theological disagreements.”
Gavin Ortlund, brother to Dane Ortlund (Gentle and Lowly), has written a great book reminding us that we must be careful not to battle doctrine at the expense of people- God’s image-bearers, and the very souls we are trying to save with our theology.
His plea to us is to exercise theological triage as we interact with other people and churches with differing theological viewpoints.
This term, coined by R. Albert Mohler, plays on the medical term of triage and poses a system of theological prioritization. Ortlund presents us with these four tiers:
Doctrines that are essential to the gospel
Doctrines that are urgent for the health and practice of the church such that Christians commonly divide denominationally over them
Doctrines that are important for one branch of theology or another, but not such that they should lead to separation
Doctrines that are unimportant to gospel witness and ministry collaboration
[An alternative gradation mentioned is: absolutes, convictions, opinions, and questions.]
He gives a couple examples for each tier and briefly discusses the opposing sides, but his goal for this book is not to convince you of his viewpoint (though sometimes his writing turns persuasive). He desires unity in the body of Christ and wants to help us understand how to use wisdom, discernment, and humility to determine what differences are hills worth dying on.
“In this book I am less concerned with convincing others of the particular judgments I have made, and more concerned that, even where we disagree, we do so in a spirit of trembling before the word of God.”
The learner in me just wanted him to provide a nice handy little chart I could reference with every doctrine imaginable placed into the correct tier, but of course, it’s not that simple. And that would be missing the point. If we are too honed in on the letter of the law, checking the list and delivering ‘the truth’, we lose sight of the people it affects. We will have discarded humility for pride.
And so, in that way, this book was really good for me.
He begins the book by acknowledging two basic camps we tend to fall into: doctrinal sectarianism and doctrinal minimalism.
“There is no doctrine a fundamentalist won’t fight over, and no doctrine a liberal will fight over.”
The source of this quote is unknown and technically unfair to both fundamentalists and liberals, as Ortlund concedes, but is somewhat helpful in seeing the difference between these two camps.
It points out that we either tend to fight over doctrine too much (sectarianism) or too little (minimalism).
And further, we then, based on these groupings, form opinions and perceptions of others.
“If our identity is riding on our differences with other believers, we will tend to major in the study of differences. We may even find ourselves looking for faults in others in order to define ourselves.”
“Too often, each side assumes the worst of the other or associates everyone who holds a particular view with its worst representations.”
Ortlund is clear that first-rank doctrines are worth fighting for:
“Biblical authority is one of the most pressing issues for the life and health of the church: it ensures that we remain the judged, not the judges, in our relation to God and truth… One reason first-rank doctrines are worth fighting for is that their denial weakens the authoritative, corrective role that God’s word is supposed to have over us.”
There are dangers when we start using ‘secondary’ synonymous with ‘doesn’t matter’:
“One consequence of downplaying the importance of nonessential doctrines is, however inadvertently, downplaying Scripture itself… Whenever we ask whether something is essential, we must also ask, ‘Essential for what?’ Everything God reveals in Scripture is essential for something, or it wouldn’t be there.”
For me, I lean to the side of fighting too much. So this book was challenging to me some ways. I was good with the chapter on first-rank doctrines but as we progressed I found myself resisting to agree to disagree and saying, ‘But isn’t that still important?’
And to this Ortlund would say- Yes!
Just because it is second or third ranked does not mean it’s not important! And so there are nuances even within each tier as doctrines vary in importance and vary in how it relates to gospel comprehension/adherence and church health. It all must be taken into consideration.
I liked this quote he gave from Kevin DeYoung:
“We should steer clear of theological wrangling that is speculative (goes beyond Scripture), vain (more about being right than being helpful), endless (no real answer is possible or desired), and needless (mere semantics).”
Oof. How easy is it to focus so much on being right that we are no longer being helpful?
Because I know you’re wondering by now what doctrines fall where, here are some examples he gave for each rank and what our attitude should be in handling them:
First rank: the Trinity, virgin birth, justification by faith alone
Attitude: Courage and conviction
Second rank: baptism (infant vs believer), spiritual gifts (cessationism vs continuationism), women in ministry (egalitarian vs complementarianism)
Attitude: Wisdom and balance
Third rank: millennium (a-, pre-, post-), creation days (old vs young earth etc)
Attitude: Circumspection and restraint
Fourth Rank: musical instrumentation during worship
Attitude: More drums and electric guitar (Just kidding. I don’t think he gave one for these, but as a bass guitarist, I tend to side with the drummer.)
I’m sure I’m dying on too many hills and I need to knock it off. I think this book helped me recognize some doctrines that are okay to disagree on, especially in his notation of the various theologians on each side. But there were two places that made me wonder- should this be more important than Ortlund makes it out to be?
The first is the doctrine of women in ministry. I just finished Kevin DeYoung’s book, Men and Women in the Church and, having already read Grudem’s book, Evangelical Feminism, I feel like I’m on an interesting path to discovery. I had not realized all of these different nuances of this debate. It had seemed much simpler to me before.
So my question is this. Based on Grudem’s work, which I tend to agree with, many of the egalitarian viewpoints are based on an interpretation of Scripture that uses trajectory hermeneutics or undermines the authority and inerrancy of Scripture— a method of interpretation that would be detrimental to be applied anywhere else. Wouldn’t that be classified as a first-rank issue? And I’m sure not every counter argument to a complementary viewpoint denies the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, but if it does, would we raise a difference regarding women in ministry to a first-rank doctrine in order that we uphold the very Word of God?
The second is the doctrine of creation. My qualm is not necessarily with an old vs young earth viewpoint. I personally believe in a young earth that God created with age. But for those who believe in an old earth and that God used evolution to bring about humanity, how do they explain and view Adam and Eve? Allegory or historical?
I think it is a first-rank doctrine to believe in Adam and Eve as real historical people who were the first humans. If you don’t have this then how do we understand in Romans that “as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”? (5:18) This seems paramount to understanding salvation— Adam being our literal representative in sin and Jesus being our literal representative in righteousness. Since it pertains to matters of salvation wouldn’t we elevate the importance of this divergence?
The more I think about this book the simpler theological triage becomes and the more complicated it becomes. I think I have my mind wrapped around it, and then I think of a new hypothetical. I kinda wish he had provided more case studies in how this has played out in various churches. Though I understand he probably intentionally kept it from that lest readers take it as prescriptive. But the pessimist in me comes away from this book thinking ‘Will this actually unify the church? Can we really stop dividing over differences? Does this book truly teach us how to do that? Or will we just find all the ways the issues should be first-rank as I’ve done above?’
Even as I disagree with Ortlund in some places or pose my questions in others, I still think this is a very important and good book. If humanity can polarize an issue, we are going to do it. Us vs Them mentality is rampant and is fueling outrage on any topic with more than one viewpoint. So the idea of theological triage is absolutely necessary in maintaining a unified church.
“If maintaining the unity of the body of Christ is not costing you anything—if it doesn’t hurt— then you probably are not adjusting enough.”
An important consideration Ortlund points out is when defending our viewpoint supersedes the presentation of the gospel. We should be wary if any doctrinal ‘fight’ begins to displace the gospel from the focus of our ministry.
At the end of the book (and throughout) he places due emphasis on humility. I love this quote from Augustine:
“If you should ask, and as often as you should ask, about the precepts of the Christian religion, my inclination would be to answer nothing but humility, unless necessity should force me to say something else.”
And Hans Kristensen said, ‘It’s not just about what you fight over but about how you fight.’
I am always due for another dose of humility and this was a good reminder to exercise this in every doctrinal disagreement we have. Satan loves to see divisions in God’s church. He will have no problem championing a specific doctrinal stance in our minds until we’ve ostracized another child of God to maintain it. Let’s not give him a foothold.
“If you can devise any such strictness of opinions, or exactness in church orders, or strictness in worship, as will but help to kill men’s love, and set the churches in divisions, Satan will be your helper, and will be the strictest and exactness of you all... [be not] deceived as to the author of your zeal…” - Richard Baxter
For the health of the church, we must humbly, wisely, and graciously utilize theological triage.
**Received an ARC via Amazon**
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