“What do you… um… what do you think of the Bible?” the hesitant church member asked me at a large luncheon during my interview weekend. After giving a snarky “I’m in favor of it,” I went ahead and gave my serious answer: the Bible is the bedrock of Christian teaching and, as such, should always be read reverently. The church member didn’t seem quite satisfied though, and he sounded out each word as he asked another cautious question: “But, I mean… what do you see as the essentials of the faith? You know, the real nonnegotiables?” I rattled off a few theological concepts central to my faith —love, the Trinity, grace, redemption, community, holiness—, and while the cautious church member continued to grimace a little at me, he asked no further questions. The event went on, and afterward, I noticed the church member leave fairly immediately. “What was that about?” I asked a member of the search committee later on in the afternoon. The committee member sighed, “He was baiting you; he’s probably mad you didn’t mention homosexuality. For him, it’s a core issue.”

All of us have core values through which we understand the world, and if you’re part of a religious community, your core values and religious views have likely shaped one another. I wonder though, if you were to list out your religious views and core beliefs and then try to place them in three columns (essential, important, or peripheral), what would it look like? Is a literal 6-day creation core to your beliefs? What about the virgin birth of Jesus? Just how crucial are Heaven and Hell or the existence of Satan?

Now that you’ve got your three columns, are there places where your core values and those of your faith community significantly differ? Or perhaps more challenging still, how would your list square up with Jesus’s?

As you think over your columns, ask yourself this last question (a question I hope you’ll find liberating):
What things have become nonnegotiable for you when they don’t need to be?
As such, which of these supposed “nonnegotiables” can you let go?