Friends, fans and bearers of doctrine and theology got together this past week to confront the many skewed representations of the Gospel they have seen even among evangelicals and to reaffirm the centrality of doctrine in a postmodern era.
"We live and minister in an anti-doctrinal age or at least an age that thinks that it's anti-doctrinal. We live and minister in an age which is anti-theological or at least it claims it's anti-theological," said Dr J Ligon Duncan III, senior minister of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi, during the T4G (Together for the Gospel) conference, which concluded Thursday.
"And so we need to look to the Scriptures to learn how doctrine ... is essential for faithful pastoral ministry if we are going to effectively respond to the anti-doctrinal, anti-theological spirit of the age," he added.
The April 15-17 conference in Louisville, Kentucky, was the second time well-known and respected theologians came together to encourage thousands of other pastors to stand for the Gospel of Jesus Christ at a time when more people are rejecting absolute truth.
Some 5,000 pastors attended - up from 3,000 from the first ever T4G event in 2006 - to hear theologians affirm sound doctrine.
"I want to argue that the very ideas of doctrine, theology and systematic theology are under great duress in our own time," Duncan told the large crowd.
Doctrine is under great suspicion today, with many rejecting it and instead embracing a "postmodern uncertainty about truth", Duncan said.
"I want to suggest that is the opposite of what we need to do," he stressed.
Stepping into the highly debated doctrine of faith and works, Duncan rejected the increasingly accepted assertion that Christianity is a life and not a doctrine.
