In our NXTGEN Pastors Cohort, in which we meet monthly to teach seminary students soft skills, we recently discussed the module “Choosing Wisely: Leadership Triage”. This article is inspired by that module.

A part of the module was based on Gavin Ortlund’s book Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage. The phrase “Not a hill worth dying for” has often been associated with the battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam. The word “triage” comes from the French word trier, “to sort things out.” The word is often used in a medical situation such as “the sorting of patients (as in an emergency room) according to the urgency of their need for care.” In Ortlund’s book, he points to Albert Mohler’s metaphor of theological triage as a system of prioritization (see Mohler’s article “A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity”).

When you consider the doctrines of Christianity, or the theological issues we face, which of those would you consider to be ones that were “worth dying for”? For example, during the Reformation, people were willing to die for theological issues such as justification by faith alone, or the presence of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper. Continue reading →