"What are the Boundaries of the Central Truths of Christianity?" Guest Contributor, Josh Wise

What a cool thing it is to connect with so many people, from so many places, and with so many perspectives.  This is a post that was birthed out of my OPEN MIC blog post (BTW- still accepting submission ideas).  I want to hear from others, about how God is at work in their own theological, philosophical, cultural, and social ethics journey.  I personally do not endorse everything that the guest contributors have to say; and it is possible that I will outright disagree with them on some points, but I am always open to dialogue 🙂  Here is our first guest post by a Facebook friend, Josh Wise.

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I was listening to a Q & A on Greg Boyd’s church website (Woodland Hills Church) and he described our beliefs as concentric circles. In the center are the dogma’s, the central truths of Christianity. The next level is doctrine which Boyd describes as usually its a way of explaining the dogma (central truths). This is what churches/denominations usually form around. The outer layer is opinion. These are ideas that you have about the faith that really just opinions.

My question is: where do we draw these lines? I know some individuals who want to take an opinion or a doctrine and elevate it to a dogma. You could also go the other way and reduce the core of Christianity to something that no longer resembles the christian faith. So my question is: where do we as a body of believers draw these lines and what do we do when someone is tries to distort them?