Does religious dogma always prevail? Should it?

For the April 19 edition of the Boston Globe Ideas, James Carroll wrote a piece entitled, The American Heresy: When should religious dogma bow to experience?. Carroll begins the piece by telling the story of a Roman Catholic Priest, Father Feeney, who, in the 1950's, preached that only those who were in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church would be saved. That was not a new idea. It went back at least to 1302 in the Papal Bull, Unam Sanctam, and was summarized in the phrase "there is no salvation outside the church".

According to Carroll, Father Feeney took great delight in singling out the Jews as the recipients of God's wrath. At the time, the sister of Richard Cushing, the archbishop of Boston, was married to a Jewish man. Cushing ordered Feeney to stop his preaching. Feeney repeatedly refused. Cushing finally excommunicated him, even though Father Feeney was preaching in strict accord with church doctrine. The priest appealed the ruling to Rome and, surprise of all surprise, Rome backed Cushing and not Feeney.

That leads Carroll to speculate about the on-going battle in all religions between the accepted teaching and the personal experience of the believers. He wrote,
Every religion has its version of the contest between dogma and experience. Jews must test ancient assumptions about the Land as seal of the covenant against the here-and-now challenge of war between Israelis and Palestinians. The worldwide Anglican communion divides between those who give primacy to doctrinaire notions of marriage and those who see cruel exclusion of homosexuals as an affront to everything Jesus meant. Islam hears the voices of women demanding to have their experience weighed equally in the scales with tradition. Fundamentalist Christians say no to any experience, any evidence, that contradicts the dogma of biblical "inerrancy."

This battle has been especially strong in our country with our adherence to the enlightenment ideals of truths that are self-evident and the religious ideals of the Protestant Reformation, especially in non-creedal churches, emphasizing the right of private conscience and personal interpretation of scripture.

How do you feel? Do you hold to a view that is not supported by the 'official' or 'unofficial' teaching of your church? If so, how do you justify going against the 'orthodoxy' of your faith tradition? If not, can you think of a circumstance that might cause you to question the official teaching of your church?