Experiencing Bad Doctrine

I'm a firm believer that doctrines and teachings have fruits.  Good or bad.  What I mean by this is that people putting doctrines into practice has far reaching affects on both themselves and other people.  Others can be greatly blessed or greatly harmed as teaching reaches its logical conclusion.  Sometimes doctrines are not known to be bad until these fruits are experienced by others.

We have all experienced the result of doctrines and teachings.  I've experienced some bad results of bad doctrine, and one of the problems with this can be that those who hold to bad doctrine most affectionately simply refuse to believe that bad results are the result of their doctrines.  They place the blame on those who experience the bad things rather than on themselves who cause them.  Or, they place heavy loads on those who will ultimately be affected, without helping them deal with the results.  I'm spurred to write this post after reading this from PlainJane, a guest poster at Lewis Wells' Commandments of Men.  She writes about the doctrine of submission within the Patriarchy movement and how it ended up biting her after getting tossed out of her home by her husband who wanted another woman.  The lack of compassion from her church - and even their placing blame on her - toward somebody obviously wounded shows just how destructive certain ideas can be.

The lessons learned from bad doctrine can be hard, and sometimes the only way to know this is to experience the bad.  I wish it weren't so, and I wish Christians were more open to looking at how their ideas affect people.  But when you're right, those bad things don't happen, do they?