Theological Triage: What, How, and Why (Not)?

People disagree on anything it's possible to disagree on, especially theology. How do we resolve these disagreements? Answers throughout church history have included church councils, systematic and dogmatic theology texts, and more recently, theological triage. Come along as I take a layman's look at this most recent phenomenon from an Anglican/Lutheran standpoint!

How did I get interested in theological triage?

My theological journey started in the LCMS and is now in the ACNA. These church bodies are very similar in many doctrines and practices, and the key differences between them help to explain my more recent interest in how doctrines are ranked in importance, but the differences between them have mainly been matters of practice. Specifically, there is a tendency on the one denomination's part to settle everything that is not adiaphora into the "right" or "best" view; and a tendency on the other denomination's part to leave some ambiguous questions open and up to the individual congregation or diocese.

This difference in tendency exemplifies the differing value placed on the intellectual life, indeed, on the Christian mind, between the two denominations. In my experience and reading, to have a Christian mind includes (1) some de-compartmentalization of left- and right-hand kingdom topics, (2) high value placed on reason as a servant to the Scriptures, and (3) a nuanced, historically-minded view that seeks to interpret written and oral records in the context of when and where they were produced (authorial intent) rather than imposing a later/current philosophical viewpoint on them (reader-response).

Although I am not on board with the ecumenical movement as a whole, I am a strong proponent of orthodoxy and think that there are "best" ways of thinking about the various doctrines. Husband is doing a lot more work on this topic than this post will go into, so hopefully I can convince him to supplement the post at some point. 

(To somewhat explain the photo above, that was the bottom book in a 14" stack of history of philosophy, history of theology, and other topic books necessary to perform triage well--because, after all, doctrine is not something to be messed with. You have to know doctrine, especially not your own, in order to triage it!) 

I hadn't heard of the term "theological triage" until I read Gavin Ortlund's Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage (2020). We'll get to talking about that book shortly.

Who has been talking about triage?

Short answer: Baptists! Read on to see why. (I am looking at this conversation as an outsider, because there are no Baptists in my family. Please bear that in mind if you see where I may have made an error.)

What should a non-Baptist know about Baptists before reading on?

I didn't know very much about Baptist distinctives before working on this post, save that they will only baptize persons who have made a profession of faith (credobaptism - versus paedobaptism, or the baptism of infants). Diving a little deeper into the "why" behind the (to me) simplified assertion that infants cannot have faith, I found two lesser-known doctrinal stances in which credobaptism makes sense.

The first of these is soul sufficiency (also termed soul competency). What is generally meant by this is that the individual human soul, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is enough to correctly interpret all parts of the Bible, and that the church serves more of a community function and less of an interpretive-authority function. This teaching stems from a very particular interpretation of "priesthood of all believers" that I doubt is consistent with the rest of Scripture and church history.

The second is a differing emphasis on the definition of saving faith. In the LCMS and other paedobaptists' view, faith is primarily leaning or depending on the person and work of Jesus Christ (LCMS website, definitions 2 and 3). In credobaptists' view, there is much more emphasis on intellectually assenting to (and expressing) the narrative and teachings of the gospel (good news in toto) (Baptist view). The main implication of this, were it accurate, would be that infants cannot have saving faith. However, what about other persons who cannot intellectually assent or verbalize--including those with advanced dementia, or anyone while they are sleeping?

A third factor connecting the logic of soul sufficiency/competency and what one means by saving faith is the philosophical distinction between voluntarism and intellectualism. Voluntarism focuses on the concept of the will (from the Latin verb volere) first trusting in something before fully understanding, and ultimately leads to the LCMS view, while intellectualism focuses on the conscious, intellectual grasping of something (without doubt) and then believing or trusting in it.

A fourth factor--not doctrinal, but cultural--is the United States environment of rugged individualism in which the majority of the Baptist church has grown up. The concept of doctrinal triage (below) seems to be more a response to the cultural context in which it is important to establish majority agreement and perhaps less important to preserve orthodoxy no matter how few people hold to it. (While I suspect nobody in denominational leadership consciously thinks this to be the case, it's a very human thing to assume that we are in the right on whatever we think, and others who don't agree with us are simply mistaken.)

Who originated the phrase "theological triage" or "doctrinal triage"?

Al Mohler, past president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, coined the phrase around 2004 (article reprinted in 2010). He noted that the concept of triage involves sorting items into priority categories, to optimize resource utilization. He also recognized that all of Christian doctrine fits together within Christianity--one cannot take different pieces from different places and expect them to be a logically coherent whole. His suggestion for doctrinal triage involved 3 levels:

1. Central or essential doctrines, often seen in the ecumenical creeds specifically the Apostles' Creed, which cemented orthodoxy by excluding heresy. He places justification by faith and the two natures of Christ in this category. Essential doctrines delineate what it means to be a Christian versus a non-Christian.
2. Boundary-setting doctrines, which divide Christians into denominations and congregations. He places Baptism here . . . more on that later.
3. Doctrines which may divide individuals within a congregation but do not result in broken fellowship. He places eschatology (the study of last things) here.

Who else has written about triage after him?

I found several thoughtful takes on Mohler's idea written over the last few years. The first is by Baptist pastor Marc Minter in 2018. He emphasizes that all doctrines are important, but that not all doctrines are as important as each other. Simplifying and rephrasing Mohler's 3-level system, he stratifies and adds a 4th level:

1. Dividing Christians from non-Christians
2. Dividing one local church from another
3. Varying among Christians without dividing them
4. Matters of conscience because Scripture is unclear. These would be true adiaphora, or "indifferent things."

A top commenter on Minter's article linked to his M. Div. thesis as a contrarian view, and several other comments likewise assert that "enough" submission to the Holy Spirit will cause all disagreeing Christians, no matter what the issue, to agree with each other on every point. Ortlund is aware of this line of thought but spells out the problems with it in his book.

A second post is by Baptist pastor Michael Lawrence in 2019. He focused the original 3-category system on the subject of complementarianism vs egalitarianism, writing shortly after teacher and speaker Beth Moore moved from the Southern Baptist Convention to the ACNA. She moved in part because of different stances on complementarianism, and naturally there was some opinionated discussion about this. (Maybe more on that in another post.) Lawrence placed complementarianism in the second-tier category by process of elimination, which I agree with--noting that the same doctrine can be a 3rd-tier priority for the individual but 2nd-tier for a congregation or denomination as a whole.

A third post is by writer Trevin Wax (TGC) in 2020, affiliated with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He wisely notes that not all "heresy" is truly heresy, but can cause needless division. The doctrinal context of his post is Calvinism versus Arminianism, which he places as a 3rd-rank doctrine--my two comments are that (1) everyone forgets about Lutheranism in the middle, and (2) one of our pastors falls into each camp, so I agree on the 3rd-tier classification! 

To reach both the layperson and the pastorally educated, Wax reviewed both Ortlund's book and one by evangelical Rhyne Putnam. Ortlund writes for the college-educated layperson, while Putnam expands on and situates theological triage in a larger concept of doctrinal taxonomies throughout church history. A helpful point this book seems to acknowledge is the role of emotions in biblical interpretation. Both books emphasize humility (intellectual and general), reading and talking with others outside of one's own narrow echo chamber, and seeking deep understanding of things one is tempted to discard.

Writing about his own book, Baptist pastor Gavin Ortlund himself wrote in 2021. Somewhat anomalously within his own tradition, he has had significant exposure to and respect for the writings of the church fathers. He co-wrote this particular article, essentially a summary of his book, with Brian Arnold, president of Phoenix Seminary. Arnold has a similar interest in the church fathers as shown by his books on Cyprian and on second-century views of justification.

The Gospel Coalition (TGC) reviewed Ortlund's book with key points being these:

• To "speak the truth in love" is not just to tell the truth, nor just to be loving (permissive . . .)
• Logical fallacies abound in theological and related discourse--but straw men and ad hominem fallacies are neither true nor loving
• It is possible to walk a middle line between doctrinal sectarianism (dividing over everything) and doctrinal minimalism (dividing over nothing)
• Regardless of whether you choose the original 3-tier or Ortlund's 4-tier system, the system is useful and you don't need to agree with his classifications

The last post I found about doctrinal triage is by Baptist pastor Dwayne Cline (TGC) in 2023. With the caveat that contemporary culture/moral discussion is likely no longer predominantly relativistic, I appreciated his point that a great opportunity for triage is in dialogue with friends and family who deconstruct (apostasize) their faith on non-central issues. I also deeply appreciate his emphasis on the importance of using the philosophical and cultural context of the time in which books and texts were written to interpret them, rather than assuming our own cultural ideas have always applied and will always apply.

Uniquely, he uses Scriptural phrasing for a 4-tier framework, with associated actions to take:

1. Sound doctrine (the standard for all other doctrine). When discussing this, use precise language that everyone agrees on at the start.
2. Disputable matters (where Scripture is silent or ambiguous). Here, emphasize unity, which is not the same as perfect agreement.
3. Unsound doctrine (outside of orthodoxy but not quite heresy). An example is slave trading in 1 Timothy 1. Here, rebuke, correct, and refute the doctrine.
4. Heresy (contrary to the gospel). Cline cites Anglican priest-philosopher Alister McGrath to define heresy. If those holding to heresy do not repent, one needs to break fellowship with them.

What do I now think about triaging doctrines?

By now, you have seen hints of my view on doctrinal triage, at this point in what I've learned about it. On the whole, I do like Ortlund's system and was intrigued by Cline's variation on it. From a Lutheran-Anglican perspective, I have several differences in where I think doctrines should be triaged, based on (1) Biblical clarity, (2) integrality of the doctrine to the gospel/salvation, (3) church fathers' clarity, and (4) the effects of the doctrine on the universal church today (Ortlund's system).

Specifically, Ortlund and other sources put Baptism into the second tier. I disagree, and think it should be in the first tier (defining what it means to be a Christian) because there is very clear historical and biblical precedent for infant baptism, if one does not impose contemporary viewpoints or superficial interpretations on historical data. This precedent was well-documented by Joachim Jeremias, a liberal (!) theologian. Baptism is also the normal mode of entry into the family of Christ. Like adoption, it doesn't depend on the feelings or statement of the person being adopted, nor is it to be repeated.

Two doctrines I place in the third tier are the mode of creation and the appropriate use of alcohol by individuals in a social or private setting. These do not define what it means to be a Christian, and individual congregational members can have different convictions on these, based on ambiguity of both Scripture and historical precedent. Some might lump the mode of creation into a second-tier doctrine, but I don't think it needs to be that high. (Again, a topic for later post[s].)

Are there any alternatives to triage?

Let's say that, after reading and thinking through all this, you don't buy in to the concept of theological or doctrinal triage. Is there an alternative for the thinking Christian?

Yes. I don't have anywhere near a fully fleshed out view on this, but two guidelines graciously supplied by Husband during our conversations on the topic are the following:

1. Establish a historical timeline of doctrinal development--e.g., the Trinity was not solidified as a doctrine until after several other doctrines (like the two natures of Christ and the Incarnation) had been established.
2. Acknowledge that while nearly all doctrines have some associated differing voices, in many cases those differing voices are a minority and not consistent with the entire historical thread of how the universal Christian church grew out of first-century Judaism.

Happy thinking!