“Can We Do Church Together?” Clarifying the Three Tiers of Theological Importance
Andrew Ballitch
One of my best friends is a Lutheran pastor in Louisville, Kentucky. We hit it off during our seminary days, sharing an interest in post-Reformation history, many of the same concerns about church ministry, and a common outlook on the Christian life. We’ve had a standing Zoom call every week for years, during which we talk about our families, personal struggles, pastoral ministry, and spend significant time in prayer. Our relationship is deep and abiding and builds us up in Christ.
But we could never do church together. Our theological differences are often the subject of friendly banter. Whenever my friend needs to be out of his pulpit I offer to fill in, knowing full well I would never be allowed to preach at his church or even take communion because of his sacramental view of ordained ministry and the ordinances, reminding him that he would always be welcome to preach for me. He smirks and shakes his head. We are brothers in Christ, but we could not be members of the same church. While we share unity in the gospel, we disagree on significant theological issues, on what should be categorized as second tier doctrines.
All Christians agree on some doctrines. Jesus is God the Son incarnate, for instance. Christians disagree on significant doctrines, such as the authority and sufficiency of Scripture or free will. And Christians differ on points that pale in comparison, like tithing or whether the fruit of the vine should be fermented for communion. The idea that doctrines ought to be organized into three levels of importance is nothing new. I was first introduced to the paradigm by Al Mohler and his concept of “Theological Triage” two decades ago [1]. This kind of three-tier taxonomy dates back at least to the seventeenth century debates between Protestants and Roman Catholics yet has seen a fair amount of traction in the past twenty years. Recently, to name only a few examples, Gavin Ortlund weighed in with Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage, Joe Rigney added the metaphor of health [2], and Paul King applied the framework to the C&MA in What Does the Alliance Really Believe? Sorting Out Essentials, Distinctives, and Open Questions in Unified Loving Liberty. Regardless of the labels employed, “first order, second order, third order,” “primary, secondary, tertiary,” etc., distinguishing between levels of theological importance is necessary because, in a fallen world, disagreement is inevitable.
Organizing such discrete categories of doctrine is not only helpful, but also biblical. Paul identifies the gospel as a matter “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3, ESV), while allowing for disagreement about “opinions” (Rom. 14:1) and recognizing varying degrees of maturity in thinking (Phil 3:15). Love “does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor 13:15), but when justification by faith was on the line in the Galatian church, the Apostle vehemently insisted on it. Here’s the point: The Bible distinguishes between levels of theological importance, and we need to do the same if we want true Christian unity this side of eternity.
But which doctrines should go into which buckets? This is the hard part. And it is made harder by the illegitimate pressure of thinking that how we answer the question is a declaration about who is getting into heaven, or that it divides Christ’s church into those who are right and those who are wrong. Add to this the Christian virtue of love and desire to extend grace, and the three tiers often get reduced to who is saved and who is not based on one tier with minimal gospel content and another with everything else, which we can supposedly agree to disagree about. In practice, the second tier often vanishes. But this is no foundation for legitimate Christian unity; in fact, fellowship built upon merely two tiers is naïve at best and in many cases violates consciences.
I think there is a better way. Rather than organizing doctrines subjectively with eternity and relationships at stake, ask the question, “Can we do church together?” Can we disagree on this doctrine and be members of the same local assembly? Moving the discussion into the realm of ecclesiology makes the organizing principle more objective and less emotionally loaded. Here is what I mean.
“Can we do church together?” No, you can’t be part of any church (Tier 1).
In this category belong those doctrines defined by the early church creeds and confessed by Christians throughout the ages. This would include the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, his virgin conception, sinless life, bodily resurrection, ascension, and second coming, salvation by grace through faith, the canon of Scripture, among other things. These doctrines distinguish Christianity from all other religions. Those who deny them cannot be labeled “Christian” in an orthodox sense, no matter how much they might claim the name. Therefore, no true church can legitimately welcome them into membership. Are they regenerate and going to heaven? That is a separate question, a question ultimately between them and the Lord. A church cannot see the heart, but it can and must draw biblical lines around “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
“Can we do church together?” No, but you can be part of another church (Tier 2).
Doctrines in this middle tier primarily touch on issues of polity and church life. Baptism is a great example. Infant baptism and believer’s baptism are mutually exclusive ecclesiological positions. A church must decide whether it is going to baptize babies or not, and however it decides, the paedo-baptists or the credo-baptists are going to have to go to another church. This is no commentary on the sincerity of one group’s faith or whether Presbyterian churches or Baptist churches are true churches, but they can’t legitimately do church together. Beyond the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, things like women pastors, the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, plurality of elders, and the nature of repentance fall into this category. Again, disagreement on these issues does not mean that we are not brothers and sisters in Christ and on the same Great Commission team, but it does reveal a disunity that precludes membership in the same local church.
“Can we do church together?” Yes, we share a common faith and practice (Tier 3).
Here we have doctrines that we can honestly agree to disagree on while consistently being members of the same church. This is not to say that these doctrines are unimportant or that there is some kind of relativism at play. No, these are doctrines that the Bible speaks to and in glory will be straightened out for all of us, but they do not define Christianity (Tier 1) and they are not mutually exclusive issues of church authority and function (Tier 2). This category is quite broad. It includes Calvinist and Arminian soteriology, different views of the millennium, crisis and progressive sanctification, young and old earth creationism, to name a few. We can diverge on these doctrines, exist on a theological spectrum, and even engage in spirited debate, all the while fellowshipping in the same church.
Can we do church together? This is a clarifying question when thinking about the three tiers of theological importance. It brings objectivity to the criteria for categorization, sparing us from the whims of personal opinion. It also protects us from having to make declarations about eternal destinies, violating consciences, and isolationist impulses. If two parties are recognizably Christian, the question is not whether they should love one another and cooperate in obeying Jesus’ command to make disciples, but what that cooperation looks like. Can it be fellowship in the same local church or does it need to be partnership between local churches? This begs the question, what does the application of three tiers of theological importance look like for denominations? Is “Can we do church together?” the same question as “Can we be a denomination together?” While I don’t think they are identical questions, they are intimately connected in a way that is often underappreciated. And might it be the case that the closer one gets to the denomination end of the association-denomination continuum, with greater expectation that membership in one church transfers to membership in affiliated churches, the more the questions become one and the same?