Doctrine Divides No More

It occurred to me yesterday that doctrine is not the real divider in churches any more. For example, even conservatives, reformed conservatives, are beginning to say that what you believe on the doctrine of baptism is not essential to church membership. This would make sense with a real emphasis on community churches in recent years and the removal of any doctrinal belief from a church’s name, and in light of the overall de-emphasis of the importance of doctrine. There has been a fight to reclaim certain doctrines within the church, but I fear the fight still sees them as less important than what the truly are. The divider now appears to be the emphasis of a church. Emphasis meaning things like, being relevant to the culture, traditional or contemporary worship, social needs, being seeker sensitive, etc.. This appears to dispel the idea that doctrine alone divides, but rather it is pride in the sinful nature that divides. But now instead of something substantial and essential dividing we are allowing preferences to divide and create new “Denominational” lines.