Doctrine or Dogma?

I am currently reading a book by Patrick Keifert, entitled We are Here Now, in which he begins outlining the structural and cultural dynamics associated with the missional church.  It is really a good book, and Keifert has caused me to start thinking about the role of the missional church within the churches of Christ.  It is not as if I haven't pondered missional church before.  In fact, I have spent a lot of my time following the missional movement from within the C of C.  Anyways, Kiefert talks about progress and conversation as key markers of missional churches, assuming some level of commonality, and the truth is that I am continually taken back by our (again, I speak primarily from within the church of Christ) lack of common doctrine.  I mean, we are always asking the question why do we spend all of our time arguing about doctrinal matters?  It is as if we feel that only the high-church systems with their written dogma should be wasting their time with doctrinal disputes.  Indeed, our doctrine is contained in the Word of God - the Bible - so, shouldn't we agree on the issues?  What is the deal?

I was talking with a good friend of mine today and we got into this conversation.  He is a fellow CofC-er and I was taking him to the Episcopal church here in town so that he could experience a new kind of worship - particular for the liturgy.  Anyways, we started talking and ended up critiquing high- and low-church models.  High-church for their abuse of structure and low-church for their/our lack-there-of.  The point of the conversation which especially was interesting to me was the sentiments toward written doctrine in the autonomous church-form (ie- CofC).  These feelings were readily expressed in my friend's feeling in the matter.  My critique of the autonomous church model is that we do spend our time in doctrinal disputes, primarily, because of our minimal, or complete lack of, written doctrine.  Being (a) Bible-based church(es) we claim that our theology emanates from the inspired Word of God - the Bible.  Thus, we take a very hard and twisted view of sola scriptura - resulting in the claim that scripture is the exclusive word of God.  Here and there, I have argued that a broader understanding of the word of God would be beneficial for the church of Christ.  Unfortunately, our restricted understanding of the word of God has led to an unhealthy approach to church doctrine.  Claiming scripture as our doctrine, falsely assumes that all readings of scripture will yield a common interpretations.  Unfortunately, reading is interpretation and all interpretation is necessarily relative.  Therefore, although we assume that our reading of scripture can suffice as our doctrine, we must come to grips with the reality that church of Christ doctrine is the the unwritten conglomeration of a multiplicity of readings and interpretations of scripture.  Hence, we spend most, if not all, of our time in heated debates over proper CofC doctrine instead of in constructive conversation.  Rather than viewing common written doctrine as dogma, we might begin to see it as the starting point for conversation.

This is the major point of emphasis.  Written doctrine should not be considered to be our ontological treatise on God - such would be dogma.  Instead, a clearly articulated common doctrine provides the church with common ground to begin discussing, rather than circularly debating, the theological framework of our faith.  Written doctrine cannot be considered the ultimate declaration of our faith, or else we risk idolatry, but should be considered as a starting point in our journey toward discovering who God is (not).  I offer this as a suggestion from a young theologian who is frustrated by the lack of theological clarity in his heritage and wishes to build upon the rich tradition of the CofC without drowning in the ambiguity of unwritten doctrine.  To God be the Glory