Why Do We Study Secondary Doctrine?

By Benjamin Booth
GCCA Upper School Teacher

On January 10, 2022, Grace Classical Christian Academy will be hosting a friendly debate/discussion between three individuals on the Millennium of Revelation 20. In preparation for this debate, I thought it would be helpful to give you the reasons for why we study secondary doctrine at Grace Classical Christian Academy.

First, the language must be defined. What do we mean by primary and secondary doctrine? For starters, we do not mean important and unimportant doctrine. All doctrine found in the Scriptures are important, or else God would not have inspired them. What then do we mean? 

Gavin Ortlund, in his very helpful book Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage, notes that there are four categories of doctrines that Christians refer to.[1] First, there are primary doctrines, doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith and salvation. Examples of these doctrines would be the virgin birth and justification by faith alone. One cannot be a Christian and deny the virginal conception of Christ, and likewise, one cannot have a true gospel apart from justification by faith. Second, there are secondary doctrines, doctrines that are not essential to salvation but do in fact cause Christians to separate into different churches. These doctrines/practices affect where you are a church member. An example of this doctrine would be the proper objects of baptism. What we believe about the question, “Who should be baptized?” often will affect what church we attend. A third category are the tertiary doctrines, which include doctrines that are important but do not affect separation or division among Christians within a local congregation. The debate over the age of the earth and the subject of the millennium is a good example of this kind of doctrine.[2] Finally, there are doctrines that are adiaphora, or matters indifferent. These are doctrines that are relatively unimportant to the gospel or Christian ministry.

When we do not accept a hierarchy in terms of doctrinal issues, a couple errors are bound to emerge. The first error is what Ortlund refers to as a doctrinal sectarianism. Doctrinal sectarianism occurs when one conflates their strong convictions on secondary issues with matters that are essential to the gospel itself. For example, if I took an Amillennial view of Revelation 20 (the view that there is no literal millennium that the church will experience on earth), and argued that if you deny Amillennialism, then you are a denial of the gospel, I would be unnecessarily be dividing the church with a tertiary doctrine, thus being in danger of sectarianism. When we commit this error, we recognize little to no distinction between primary and secondary/tertiary doctrine, and we compromise the unity of the church. No matter how strongly we may feel about secondary or tertiary issues such as predestination, baptism, the age of the earth, or the millennium, we must disagree as brothers and sisters in Christ, respectfully and charitably. 

I think that most however are not prone to the first error of doctrinal sectarianism. Rather, most of us are prone to the error which Ortlund calls doctrinal minimalism. Doctrinal minimalism occurs when one conflates the distinction between primary and secondary doctrine with the distinction between important and unimportant doctrines. There are no unimportant doctrines that Scripture teaches. Take the issue of baptism for example. We may disagree on how we should baptize, but no Christian has the liberty to argue that the way we baptize is unimportant, or unworthy of discussion. If the Bible talks about it, you must be sure that it is not unimportant. This error is very serious because it produces people who don’t care what the Bible teaches on what they deem “secondary matters.” This demonstrates a lack of respect for the vast majority of what Scripture teaches (Note: What we refer to as primary doctrine is very little of what the Bible covers. The vast majority of the Scriptures cover what we might term secondary or tertiary doctrine). An interesting historical fact is that there has never been a martyr or theological giant in the history of the church who has argued that secondary doctrines do not matter. This is because of the obvious fact that it takes no courage to make such a claim. As J. Gresham Machen once noted, “Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith.”[3] Take the debate between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli over the Lord’s Supper for example. Both men held to their view of the Lord’s Supper so strongly that it tore the Protestant church in two, which was a serious tragedy. But as terrible as it was, it would have been a greater tragedy, says Machen, if Luther would have said, “Brethren, this matter is a trifle; and it makes really little difference what a man thinks about the table of the Lord.”[4] Whatever we think about secondary and tertiary doctrines, we simply cannot say that they do not matter. Such an attitude requires a violation of the third commandment in treating the Word of the Lord with contempt. 

When I teach secondary doctrine in my Bible classes, I am very careful to avoid two errors. On the one hand, I do not teach secondary doctrine as divine truth, for to do so would be to usurp the authority of the parents and pastors of these students. At the same time however, I do not teach secondary/tertiary doctrine in such a way as to insinuate that they are unimportant. Rather, I attempt to teach various perspectives of the doctrine (ideally while reading primary sources), so that the students are familiar with each view.

I encourage you to think on these things before the debate/discussion on Monday. This discussion is an in-house debate. One may be premillennial, postmillennial, or Amillennial and still be a Christian.[5] They are not doctrines essential to salvation. However, where one stands on these issues will probably affect the way in which we read the Scriptures as well as our relationship to the culture around us. So, let us be respectful of one another, while not treating revealed doctrine with contempt.

[1] Gavin Ortlund, Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020) 19.

[2] Though GCCA speaks of young-earth creationism as primary doctrine, she does not intend to communicate that young-earth creationism is essential for salvation. Rather the school is merely trying to communicate that this is a doctrine that our school teaches as divine truth.

[3] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (New York: Macmillan, 1923) pp. 50-51.

[4] Ibid. 

[5] If you do not know what these terms mean, be sure to come to Parent Academy Monday night to find out.