As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.
When Pat Robertson says there is no constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state, I say he is wrong.
There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.
These are fountains of salvation that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take out from these.
And what sort of philosophical doctrine is thi - that numbers confer unlimited rights, that they take from some persons all rights over themselves, and vest these rights in others.
As I wrote I began to see more strongly that there were inescapable analogies. You couldn't really live through the '80s without feeling how crass and distasteful some of the economic doctrines were. The slave trade is a perfect model for that kind of total devotion to the profit motive without reckoning the human consequences.
Doctrines don't govern policy. They provide a conceptual framework by which policymakers approach their decisions. But there is no such thing as a doctrine that controls policy in every way.
I got really good input up until the age of 11, which is perfect. That's when adolescence starts, when I would have really wanted to rebel. Up until that point, though, it didn't feel like doctrine, and it gave me a great moral structure.
The Galatians are severely censured for giving heed to false doctrines, and are called to pronounce even an apostle anathema, if he preached another gospel.
It is a thoroughly anti-christian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the ministry, to the exclusion of the people.
