the trinity

At our meeting on the 2nd June we we looked at the Gospel reading from the previous Sunday (John 16.12-15), which was Trinity Sunday. We had an interesting discussion about the development of the doctrine of the trinity and how long this took to become the established view of the church, finally being decided at church councils 325 and 381.

This lead to a discussion of creeds and how and why they were formed. To some extent at least they were concerned with defining who was and was not an orthodox christian. This still happens today and we looked at an example of a modern day 'creed'. The Evangelical Alliances Basis of Faith Statement, which we look at in more detail next week.

Below are some thoughts of Katharine Jefferts Schori the Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Churtch in North America.

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/004388.html

The willingness to live in tension is a hallmark of Anglicanism, beginning from its roots in Celtic Christianity pushing up against Roman Christianity in the centuries of the first millennium. That diversity in community was solidified in the Elizabethan Settlement, which really marks the beginning of Anglican Christianity as a distinct movement. Above all, it recognizes that the Spirit may be speaking to all of us, in ways that do not at present seem to cohere or agree. It also recognizes what Jesus says about the Spirit to his followers, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:12-13).

Dealing with our differences

This final session looked in particular at the Bible and how we understand it and use it. In thinking about this we considered the following passage:

2 Timothy 3.16-17 "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work"

We looked at this passage in other translations and some used the term 'God breathed' which we liked. This is related to the word 'inspired'. This seemed to be rather poetic language.

The passage says that scripture is 'useful', some of us felt that this was not a particularly strong word. It does not seem to preclude finding other things 'useful' in addition. Some of us felt that some Christians had put too much weight on this short passage and that a doctrine of infallibility was not really deducible from this passage. We noted that Paul in writing this is clearly not talking about what we undertaking as the New Testament which creates a kind of circular argument - ie. scripture is 'inspired' because it says so in scripture. We do not all agree with the statement that "The Bible is factually true and completely consistent."

Although we didn't think every single verse in the Bible contained useful instructions etc. we did feel that sometimes we are surprised by how some passages are understood by different people. For example some groups have found the genealogies very significant as in their culture it signifies authority.

We thought about how we can approach scripture in different ways which don't necessarily invalidate each other. For example the story of Abraham and Isaac can be seen as being about how Abraham was obedient to God and showed great faith, it could be seen as a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice and it could also be seen as a condemnation of child/human sacrifice (not an exhaustive list!).

Other examples of conflict in the Bible. Paul and Barnabas had a strong disagreement - perhaps this is an example of how not to do it? Philemon and his slave Onesimus; is perhaps saying something about how relationships in Christ transcend all other relationships, ie. slave and master. Jesus suggested that anger was at the route disagreement. Matt 5.22

Ultimately we all saw the Bible as important and 'useful' but were all too aware that it could be misused and that people would always 'read' it differently.

Faith and Daytime TV

Faith and Daytime TV

"Our theology has descended to the level of daytime television"

She is talking about how issues get polarized, there is no third way, seemed relevant. I though this quote summed things up nicely.

dealing with early church disagreements

The firsts of 4 studies to come out of the PCC awayday.

The group felt that how we reacted to disagreement depended a lot on the context, who we had the disagreement with and what it was about, eg. how important it was to us.

We looked at Romans 14 which is about disagreements about food and holy days. In general Paul seemed to agree that it didn't mater what you ate or what days (if any) you kept as holy, but for they sake of the "weaker" believer he recommended that people give way so as to not offend.

As a principle we felt we should avoid judging others, that we should have a sense of perspective, eg. just how important is this issue?

Then we looked at Acts 15.1-21 which is about tension in the early church around how much (if any) of the Jewish traditions should be adopted by the gentile converts, specifically about circumcision. Paul had a much stronger view about this issue - he was completely against requiring gentile converts to be circumcised. After an argument with the people proposing this he goes to Jerusalem to have a meeting of Church leaders to discuss this. This issue was seen as more important, more fundamental to the faith. It was tackled by having a meeting to hear all sides and then an agreement was reached, although it is interesting to note that only the speeches against the adoption of circumcision are reproduced here. It can also be seen that there was a slight compromise eg. gentile converts were to avoid certain foods and sexual immorality.

As a principle we could see that listening to the other was extremely important. Also to respective the other person and their motives even though we disagree with their position. In the speeches we have in this passage reference is made to what is happening in the world, to what God is doing in the world, ie. that the gentiles have the spirit. Reference is also made to scripture. So another principle would be to look to the bible and also to what is happening in the world for guidance on how to settle disagreements. We also felt we should be open to other opinions.

We have two quite different pictures of how the early church tried to deal with conflict, to apply them today would mean trying to distinguish between what are relatively unimportant issues (even if the people involved see it differently) about which it is ok for people to believe and do different things and those issues that are more important or about which is not possible to have to views/practices happening at the same time. For example I think that the issue of woman becoming Bishops in the Church of England is such an issue. Woman either can be/are Bishops are they cannot be Bishops.

Hope the above is a fair reflection of our discussions. Please add your own comments, especially if you disagree or think I have left anything out :-)