Doctrine Is Not “Church”



 

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A curious thing happened after the close of the Democratic National Convention last month. Sales of pocket-sized versions of the U.S. Constitution skyrocketed.

That’s right, the document, sold for $1 by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, became the second-best-selling book on Amazon, according to the Washington Post. And Google searches for the pocket constitution increased ten-fold the day after the convention.

The unlikely increase is ascribed to the image of Khizr Khan, father of fallen Muslim U.S. soldier Captain Humayun Khan, waving his pocket-sized constitution in the air at the convention. Responding to Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, he took the document from his breast pocket and asked Trump, “Have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”

It’s easy to see why the constitution hasn’t always been a best-seller. Written in the English of 225 years ago, it’s a formidable read. It’s not always clear and not many Americans are willing to give the time and effort to actually read it. I must admit I haven’t since my school days.

Happy to Have It

Still, I believe the vast majority of Americans are happy to have a constitution. Although we seldom refer to it, we know it’s there in the background, defining what the United States is and stands for, providing an unseen safety net against the risks of democracy.

I believe church doctrine is similar. Few people read it or refer to it, and many people are absolutely put off by even the idea, seeing it as making a church rigid and unyielding. But its existence is essential to the existence of a church. It describes what members believe and why. And as the constitution is supplemented by reams of court decisions, so official church doctrine is supplemented by thousands of years of commentary by scholars and saints.



But like the constitution, all that is in the background. Doctrine doesn’t define the church, which is a community of believers, and for Christians, the Body of Christ. The Church is defined by how its members live out their faith in their daily lives.

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Pope Francis has a refreshing view of doctrine, as evidenced in the recent papal document, The Joy of Love. He was writing specifically about church doctrine on marriage and the family, but much of what he has to say applies to doctrine in general.

He acknowledges that church doctrine isn’t the last word, that God is not bound by it and that there are “various ways of interpreting some aspects of the church’s teaching or drawing certain consequences from it.   

“This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does.”

He also acknowledges that church doctrine was not handed down to us as the commandments were said to be handed down to Moses and that doctrine and church practices can, and do, change.

“Neither today’s society nor that to which we are progressing allow an uncritical survival of older forms and models,” the Pope wrote.

As always, distinctions have to be made between what is essential and what is not, and that’s the hard part: How to distinguish, and who decides?

Sheer Authority
“It is true that there is no sense in simply decrying present-day evils,” writes Pope Francis, “as if this could change things. Nor is it helpful to try to impose rules by sheer authority. What we need is a more responsible and generous effort to present the reasons and motivations for choosing marriage and the family, and in this way to help men and women better to respond to the grace that God offers them.”

But, he continued, “we also need to be humble and realistic, acknowledging that at times the way we present our Christian beliefs and treat other people has helped contribute to today’s problematic situation. We need a healthy dose of self-criticism.”

One of the greatest difficulties of people who belong to a “doctrine-heavy” community like the Catholic Church, to which I belong, is forgetting that love trumps everything. It’s obviously an important principle for the pope, but everybody searching for the God of Christians and Jews should keep it in mind. 

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus reminds his listeners of the Hebrew Bible’s greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”