Agapetus was a pope who ruled in the sixth century. He is celebrated for being steadfast in excommunicating people who would not agree with the Church’s doctrine. Butler describes one such crowning achievement:

[T]he holy man was inflexible, and at length Anthimus (a good and caring man) went back to Trebizond (i.e., away from Agapetus), for fear of being compelled to receive the council of Chalcedon. The pope (the previously identified “holy man”) declared him excommunicated, unless by subscribing that synod he declared himself a Catholic . . . .

So Anthimus fled rather than be subjected to papal interrogation over his belief (or failure to assent to the proposition) that Jesus Christ was (as a group of men voted on at Chalcedon in 451, so therefore it must be) of two unconfused, unchangeable, indivisible, inseparable natures, with each nature–divine and human–being fully present and without diminution in one, singular sensation (well, one person). It’s a doctrine rather akin to the old Certs commercial, but instead of being two, two, two mints in one, Jesus is two, two, two natures in one. And, if you do not subscribe to that formulation of the nature of Christ (voted on four centuries after his death/resurrection by a group of powerful church males) then you were to be cut off from the Church and forever damned!

I have watched Tibetan Buddhists silently create amazing sand mandalas and then, upon their completion, destroy them. Perhaps “destroy” is not the right word–they immediately mix the sands together and the mandala image no longer exists as a static entity. This is, to my mind, the only way that doctrines don’t suck. When doctrines represent the words that worshipping communities proclaim in order to give voice to their experiences of the Divine at a particular time and in a particular context, then doctrines can be powerful witnesses that may well open the eyes and hearts of others! But such words should never be committed to paper, should never become a requirement for others to express, should never be anything other than a gateway (like the sand mandala) to a deeper connection to the Ineffable–and should just as quickly float to the ether.

Certainly, just like the grains of sand might again be used to create something else that is beautiful and meaningful, words and phrases from doctrines might later be used (or not) by subsequent worshippers to give voice to their understandings and yearnings and ideations! But when one group at one time says “this is what we decided that we believe and therefore it is what you MUST believe”–then doctrines are reprehensible tools of manipulation and control. In short, doctrines that become required affirmations by others than those who formulated them suck.