Just think about the word "indoctrinate" and the first thing that comes to mind is "brain washing"
"Doctrinal statements" are used as tests to see who is in and who is out; if you can recite your denomination's "doctrinal statement", then you are fit to be part of the in-crowd there. (If you can't then, well, perhaps you need to be "indoctrinated"!)
These aren't very pretty ideas, but it was never intended to be that way. Jesus spoke words of healing; a far cry from the litmus tests of right belief according to one denomination or another
Diana Butler Bass has this to say about "doctrine" on pages 134 and 135:
"Indeed, the word doctrine, a word fallen on hard times in contemporary culture, actually means a "healing teaching", from the French word for doctor. The creeds, as doctrinal statements, were intended as healing instruments, life-giving words that would draw God's people into a deeper engagement with divine things. When creeds become fences to mark the borders of heresy, they lose their spiritual energy. Doctrine is to be the balm of a healing experience of God, not a theological scalpel to wound and exclude peole."
What do you suppose we can each do to help "doctrine" to be used for healing, rather than as a tool to sort out who is in and who is out? Something to think about.
