Is it really Christ OR doctrine?

To put it another way: do we need to choose between Jesus and Doctrine?

We just have to share this from Jason Harris over at his blog.

His basic contention is with the “Only love Jesus” crowd, and makes the following salient points:

“Doctrine, you see, tells us about Christ. It’s not enough to say we love Jesus and that’s it. Who is Jesus? What did He do for us? How does He save us? As soon as you start answering those questions, you’ve entered the realm of doctrine.
Think about it for a minute. Who claims to love Jesus? Well, Jehovah’s Witnesses do. So do the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Are those groups Christian? If loving Jesus is the standard and doctrine is unimportant, we would have to answer yes. What about Muslims? Jesus is a prophet in Islam, is He not? Do they love Jesus? They might. But what if all these groups get Jesus completely incorrect and therefore have a different Jesus? Then what?”

What do you think?  Church history, and the Holy church herself, is filled with confessions, articles of faith, and creeds.  For example, the early Church strove valiantly with the heretic Arius who denied the divinity of Christ based on his private interpretation of biblical texts.  The Church responded with the Nicene Creed which affirmed the two undivided divine and human natures in Christ.  Or, should we forget the creeds and embrace the deeds?  Do we just love Jesus, or ought we not also confess that he was indeed “resurrected in the flesh”?

Caravaggio’s “The Incredulity of St. Thomas”