Last weekend, and damaging doctrine

I spent last weekend visiting a group of friends from Christian Union when I was at university. It was an amazing time of Christian fellowship, plain old fun, and R&R. Many of them are now involved in more mainline evangelical churches and organisations (e.g. UCCF, or the North West Partnership) than I am. This meant I had some interesting discussions because my theological pilgrimage over the past 2 years means I am now in a slightly different place to them. Having said that, if you scratch the surface to see below the books I read etc. I really have not changed that much (praise God). It was challenging to me to have discussions where the idea of doctrine being damaging was in issue. I was challenged that some of the books I read, though they have interesting ideas that are really beneficial to me, may not be morally good books. As I reflected on this I concluded that the idea of damaging doctrine was only held by them (and me, though I had almost forgotten it) because they (like me) believed doctrine should and can be beneficial and essential to the Christian’s life and is not just intellectually interesting.

I thank God for last weekend. It was something I need to hear. But how you balance ‘praising the good where you find it’ (as UCCF say) with saying suggesting people should look elsewhere for teaching, I have not quite worked out.