For some Christians, the word "doctrine" does not exactly set the heart racing. It can sound academic, technical – perhaps even divisive.
Doctrine belongs in theological colleges, weighty books, and debates between people who enjoy using words nobody else understands.
What ordinary Christians need, we are told, is something practical – but that creates a false choice. Sound doctrine is practical. In fact, there are few things more practical than knowing what is true about God, Christ, salvation, sin, suffering, eternity, and ourselves. Theology is not a distraction from the Christian life. Theology shapes the Christian life.
Faithfulness in a 'post-Christian' Britain
There was a time when much of British public life at least assumed a broadly Christian moral framework. That did …