The other day, a friend of mine confessed that he feels less dogmatic about doctrine recently even as he also finds himself becoming more loving of other people who disagree with him. I told him he was needlessly worried, mostly because he was making a very common but false assumption.
See, most people believe that you can either be dogmatic about doctrine or else you can be kind and generous to people who disagree with you. In essence, they think you can either have firm beliefs or else treat people lovingly. And the reason for their view is simple: the vast majority of people with firm beliefs are mean to others who disagree and the vast majority of people who treat others lovingly don’t have firm beliefs.
But the good news is that if an increasing commitment to your doctrine makes you arrogant and mean, that’s just evidence that it’s bad doctrine. When your doctrine is good, the more adamant you become about it, the more humble, charitable, and flexible with others you become. You don’t have to weaken good doctrine to love others more. You have to strengthen it.
If your doctrine makes you obnoxious, it’s not doctrine from God.
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