Just Another Jim: My Niece's Wedding excursis 1

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Chapter 1: A Conversation with a Cult Member
Excursis 1: Why My Niece Doesn't Believe in the Trinity
Excursis 2: The Monophysite Conundrum
Chapter 2: A Tale of Two Weddings
Chapter Three: Sacraments – Redefining an old idea
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Why My Niece Doesn't Believe in the Trinity

Excursis 1

One of the great mental exercises for a Bible College or Seminary student is that of trying to grasp the history of the doctrine of the trinity. It is a derived doctrine in that scripture never directly speaks of the trinity. The simple, cleaned-up version that we learn in Sunday School, or confirmation class (or wherever that stuff was learned in your tradition) is that there are several oblique references to the Holy Trinity in the New Testament such as the trinitarian benedictions at the end of several of Paul's letters (“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”) and there is the baptismal formula Matthew (“baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ...”) Furthermore we learn that Jesus, in his earthly ministry claimed to be the Son of God and his listeners understood that he was claiming to be God when he said that and promptly tried to stone him for blasphemy. In Campus Crusade for Christ circles it's the old Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument developed by Jon Braun. [see footnote] The argument says that Jesus claimed to be God. The claim was either true or false. If it was true he was indeed the Lord of all. If it was false he was either a liar or a lunatic. Disciples don't die for liars and lunatics so it seems clear that Jesus was indeed Lord of all.

This basic presentation of trinitarian doctrine is correct in what it says, but the history of the doctrine is actually much more complex, and at times, sordid, than this Sunday School/Confirmation class version might indicate. Of particular interest to the detractors of the doctrine is the fact that it was a minority view among both Bishops and Christians in general when it was adopted. The emperor liked the champion of the pro-Trinitarian side and was willing to put out an edict that if any of the Arian Bishops (the anti-trinitarian side) showed up in the capitol (where the council was held) they would be arrested. A few Arian Bishops called Athanasius' bluff, but most stayed away, and even though Arianism was by far the largest portion of the church, they lost the vote at Nicea (a suburb of the capitol, Constantinople) because the military was there keeping them out of the council by force. It's a pretty ugly bit of history and may be the most outrageous and egregious act by a Bishop in the history of the church.

And so the question arises, can God's truth be sorted out even in this most shockingly unchristian setting? Theologians, teachers, and leaders of the church have studied these matters for over 1500 years and have come to the conclusion that even though the politics were deeply sinful, they got the answer right. But those not in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity point out that history is written by the winners. Might doesn't necessarily make right. Honest Christian theologians agree, only adding that God works in mysterious ways. Over and over in the Bible God used sinful people doing sinful things to carry out his perfect will. By faith we accept that this too was the case with Athanasius.

And then there's the whole issue of the platonic and neo-platonic philosophy used in order to define the trinity. This is a very long story that many doctoral dissertations have been written on so we cannot cover it in depth in this excursis, but the fact is that Christian theologians faced a conundrum when trying to explain what the Bible said about Jesus, God, Jesus the Son and the Father that he prayed to, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus said was of the same essence as himself, etc., etc. There were many, many arguments and much blood was shed over these issues. Using the ideas and words of platonic philosophy but modifying them where necessary, Christian theologians developed a grammar and lexicon that did justice to all of the scriptural data as well as the experience of the church in worship. The result is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of Christ – doctrines that cannot be found directly in scripture.

In talking with my niece it seems that Victor Paul Wierville (the founder of The Way) and those that followed him found this messy political history and constant dabbling in Greek philosophy just a bit too much to bear. They sought a purer and simpler faith that adhered to the scriptures without all the excess sinful baggage of history. In short, my niece honestly desired holiness and purity and holiness and purity are, quite frankly, a rarity in the traditional church, of which I am a part. I deeply admired this sensibility in my niece. It is why we Bible Church folks were in the Bible Church rather than a mainline church. It is why we attended Bible College rather than Presbyterian, United Methodist, or American Baptist seminaries. We Bible Church folk saw our history and were horrified, and so we abandoned it, returned to scripture as best we could, and started afresh.

After a long conversation with my niece it seemed that she was doing precisely the same thing we were doing, except that her view of history was much longer than ours. We were upset with the last century or two. She and her fellow travelers had looked back 1500 years (good historical data beyond that is a bit hard to come by) and were disgusted with it. So like us, they tried to create a new start.

The difference between me and my niece was not our sensibilities but rather the differing conclusions. (And I suspect that this is largely a function of age – she was barely 20 and I was in my 40s.) After dabbling in new starts, attempts at pristine faith based on the Bible alone, etc., I came to the conclusion that re-inventing the wheel is far more difficult than it at first seems. Furthermore, after 40 years of struggling with my faith, of failing more often than I like to admit, it suddenly became a point of grace rather than a point of scandal when I realized that God worked with sinners (not just people who made little mistakes but sinners of the first order, well-intentioned people who did truly evil things). If God's truth continued to shine through folks and events such as that, I too could rely on God's grace.

I ended that conversation with a new conundrum of my own. My niece clearly rejected the two key formulations of what has historically made Christianity Christian and distinct from other religions. Yet, she was deeply committed to scripture, knew it inside and out, and was committed to God, to Jesus, to the Word, and even to the Holy Spirit, to the Body of Christ, to fellowship among believers, to discipline within the body, and she used solid biblical language to explain all of these things. If we had never actually talked about the Holy Trinity or about the hypostatic union of Christ (like I say, she knew her stuff – how many of you, dear readers, can either defend of critique the hypostatic union?) I would have concluded that she was not only a fellow Christian, but one with whom I had a great deal of common ground. My conundrum: just how important are the ancient creedal formulations that were written in a very foreign language, using a very foreign philosophy.

I didn't answer that question. Instead I thanked God that it was in God's hands and not mine. And I prayed that God would lead her because she was deeply committed to scripture and I was confident that through scripture God would guide her to the truth. I suspect her prayer for me was the same that night.

FOOTNOTE:

I believe stories about theft of intellectual property deserve to be told. This incident does not seem to bother Fr. Jon Braun to any great extent, although several of his friends continue to have a sense of outrage about it and the following story was corraborated by two different people. During his tenure of leadership of Campus Crusade's campus ministries division Jon Braun developed an extensive set of lecture notes having to do with evidence that Christianity was true. Jon Braun was kind enough to leave the lecture notes with the office when he resigned Campus Crusade. The next director of campus ministries, Josh McDowell, thus inherited the notes when he took up his position. He later brazenly published the notes, with a few revisions and updates, without any accreditation to Jon Braun. The book, now revised several times, but still essentially Jon Braun's work, is still available as Evidence That Demands a Verdict. After hearing the story and having it corroborated by one of Braun's fellow Campus Crusade workers and then grudgingly by Braun himself, I contacted Campus Crusade about the authorship of the book. Their official stance at that time was that the material was authored jointly by the staff of the college ministries division. Since Josh McDowell was head of the division at the time of initial publication he was listed as author merely as a convenience. (Multiple authors and group authorship are complicated for the book industry, according to Campus Crusade.) Since that time I have seen Josh McDowell on the John Annenberg show and a few other places. I have never heard him make any reference to a group effort in publishing the book. He has always said he himself wrote the book. There is a striking similarity between Athanasius and Josh McDowell. The work of both has stood the test of time, but that doesn't change the fact that both were a result of a travesty.

Just Another Jim "An Exploration of Christianity" or This Essay's Waaay Too Long, pt 2

Why My Niece Doesn't Believe in the Trinity

Excursis 1

Just Another Jim
"An Exploration of Christianity" or
This Essay's Waaay Too Long, pt 2