Two conversations I had today bring this up. One where folks on one of my IRC channels were mocking Mormons and Catholics for some aspects of their beliefs and the other because of a friend's discussion of beliefs that used a Scripture passage incorrectly. Both of these problems are matters of doctrine. Both of them demonstrate why doctrine is important and why the evangelical tendency toward diminishing the importance of doctrine is fatal.
Doctrine is "a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party, or other group" according to the Oxford American Dictionary. The Bible often uses the word "faith" as a synonym for doctrine. Doctrine is what sets the Mormons apart from Evangelicals and sets the Catholics apart from both. However, doctrine is very weekly emphasized in all three (at least for the most part). I'd take a guess that at least 50% of the people professing to believe in Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity, and Catholicism can actually name the beliefs of their particular sect accurately and most can probably only name a couple things that are important, like "there is a God."
But why are there different beliefs at all? All three find their origins in the same historical figure, Jesus Christ (members of all three sects refer to themselves as "Christians" though that means something quite different in each case). How did this happen?
There is no simple reason, but I'll try not to write a book. However, I am going to use the doctrine I believe to point out the reasons. First and foremost, mankind is fallen. God, in his perfection, chose to create mankind in His image. That means He gave us the free will decide right from wrong. If we choose to do right all our lives, always doing what is best for God, those around us, and ourselves we choose to truly be as much that image as God intended. However, no person ever has done this. Every person rebels in small and large ways and in doing so, we reject the perfection of the image and twist it. Because of the severity of the first such mistake, this has become our first nature: we are sinners.
Because we seek our own way, we seek to create our own religion. This may include God, it may not. Yet, God hasn't left us alone. He gave us prophets like Noah, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Elijah, Peter, and Paul. They were given the words of God with authority, evidences, and miracles to prove their reliability. From this we've received the Bible.
The Bible is a book, but an amazingly consistent one, especially given the span of time over which it was written and the number of different authors involved. If you are patient and careful it teaches many things and very little of it is difficult to read and understand. However, there are parts of it that can be confusing and there's enough text that you can make it say nearly anything if you take a sentence alone without knowing it's context.
Because of this a heretic can twist the truth if there aren't people that are educated to know doctrine as the Bible teaches it. If a larger enough and out-spoken enough group is not able to defend the Scriptures teaching, the door is open for such a heretic to come in and destroy the beliefs held by a church. Evangelicals seek to extend the work of the reformers by attempting to understand the Bible and Christianity on the same terms as Paul and Peter would have understood it. However, if Christians are not taught carefully what those things are and how we come to believe them, a convincing liar can come in and ensnare those who aren't wary and do not know better. This is a terrible flaw in the desire of Evangelicals to avoid teaching doctrine because of it's potential to divide and offend the "seeker."
Catholicism became what it is through centuries of subtle additions and changes that neither Paul or Peter ever taught. These changes were made possible because of the increasingly political nature of the Church. Mormonism has come to what it believes because one young man became disillusioned in all the different (and heretical) ideas about Christianity being taught in "revivals" during his time. Joseph Smith found his own religion on ideals he built out of whole cloth and based loosely upon the Bible.
There are many Evangelical sects that have done both of these things over time as well. As for myself, I will do what I can to make sure my family and friends do know the truth when I can.
Cheers.
>"Catholicism became what it
>"Catholicism became what it is through centuries of subtle additions and changes that neither Paul or Peter ever taught."
First, all the doctrines of Catholicism are found 100% in the Bible, either explicitly or implicitly. Catholics have not added a single doctrine which is not found in scripture.
Second, when did only Peter and Paul teaching something become the gold standard as to whether something is doctrine or not? What about the other 10 apostles, like Thomas and Andrew. Are their teachings not doctrine also? Their doctrines are alive and well among all the Catholic Churches, all 23 of them.
I don't believe that to be true.
I'm not going to say that Catholics go to hell. I don't believe that's true.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that their doctrine is 100% in the Bible. In fact, I wouldn't believe anyone who said their church or a church or a person or a teacher finds all 100% of his/their doctrine in Scripture. That's just a rhetorical pitfall if nothing else. While God is perfect, He has allowed humans to run our own churchly affairs and to choose what to believe. Because of that and the flawed nature of humanity, the likelihood that any human or group of humans is 100% correct in every understanding and interpretation is too unlikely for me to believe.
However, I would have agreed if you'd said something like nearly all Catholic doctrine originates in the Bible or that Biblical justification is provided for nearly all of it. For this is true. However, of the interpretations provided for some Catholic doctrines that I have seen, I have not found the Scriptural basis to be convincing. It is very easy to take any one Scripture passage to mean anything you like, particularly if your church permits the use of allegorical interpretation as the Catholic Church does.
I could, for example, argue that God wants us to be devious on the basis of how Jacob deceived his brother, his father, and his uncle. However, that wouldn't hold with Scripture as a whole, which condemns the acts of Jacob.
As another example, I could say that the Bible wants believers to be healthy all the time and never get sick based on certain verses in Scripture that talk about healing. Any sickness you have would then be the result of your own lack of faith. However, that wouldn't really match up with the fact that Paul had great faith and yet had his "thorn in his side" or that Jesus himself sweat blood (an illness) leading up to his crucifixion.
Neither of these are Catholic doctrines. I merely use them as independent bad interpretations to show that it is possible to misinterpret Scripture by simply making Scripture mean something that isn't taught.
The Catholic Church spent too many centuries interpreting Scriptures without proper critique in place to balance those interpretations. This happens to all human organizations. The same problem remains to this day in the Church. None of the major doctrines that Luther objected to so seriously have ever been renounced even if they are not actively practiced by the Church.
I realize this is probably offensive to Catholics (and possibly Mormons too). I will only apologize if you can show that I've misrepresented or if you can show me the flaws in my understanding of Scripture. Otherwise, I will stand my ground and argue vigorously for what I believe.