Do we make it harder than it has to be?

I'm not objecting to theological study, but I'm wondering about our various creeds and catechisms. Christianity seems to do a lot of arguing over who is right, and some of it gets pretty specific, down to what the bread is and what should be in the cup.

Churches split over theological disagreements. Sometimes believers will tell other believers "you are not Christian" over some of these matters.

I wonder how much doctrine is actually required.

For the Ethiopian eunuch, it could be explained during a chariot ride:

Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?"

Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

- Acts 8:28-39, NRSV

How much information could have been exchanged? It's hard to know for certain, but I don't think it was a complicated theology.

There are many question about who God is, how and why the universe was created, and at what time and in what sort of space should we worship, and these are good and interesting questions on which we can disagree as we search for answers.

But I suspect the essentials of what it mean to be Christian are fairly simple. Perhaps something we can share in a car ride.^{27282930313233343536383940}