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Trinity Sunday - June 7, 2020 Heresy VS. Faith by Ann-Marie Montague, MDiv, LLP Several years ago our Daughters of the King chapter met with a lovely group of ladies from the mosque in Greenville. We shared light refreshments and then we sat and spoke about our faiths openly with each other, asking questions and learning about Islam as well as Christianity and how it affected our lives. After our lively discussions, in the end we Christians were faced with a large stumbling block about our faith and theology….namely the Trinity. These lovely Muslim women believed Christians actually worshipped three Gods…Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not the One True God. In November of 2017, when studying at the College of St. George in Jerusalem, one of our lectures was given by a local Iman. At the end of his lecture about Islam, he asked us if we had any questions. Never being very shy, I raised my hand and asked him how as a Christian I could convince Muslims that I would meet that we do not worship three gods but one God. He thought about this for a moment, looked me straight in the eyes and said there was no way for me to do that. Islam’s official stance on the idea of the Trinity is that it is blasphemous. Jesus was a great prophet but not divine; and God is absolutely indivisible. The faith mystery we know as the blessed Trinity has long perplexed many, both simple and intellectual, ever since the time of the early Church. Here the word mystery is used as a hidden truth of faith. First of all, while there are several references to Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Scripture, the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible. The word came into being in the 2nd century and actually explained that there were three persons in one essence. Theophilus of Antioch coined the word in Greek, while it was introduced in Latin as “Trinitas” by Tertullian. Within the history of Christianity there have been many attempts to fully explain the Trinity…..and thus creating many heresies. For example, there was “modalism” which simply said there was no distinction between the three Persons. Then there was “subordinationism” which denied the divinity of the second and third persons; only the Father was God. “Monarchianism” stated that Christ was simply a mere man but was adopted by God when he was baptized in the Jordan River. Moving ahead into the 12th and 13th centuries, we have a heresy known as “Tritheism” telling us there were really 3 Gods, not one. There are several denominations of Christianity which straight out say they do not believe in the Trinity. This includes: the United Church of God, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as well as several others. There were many early Fathers of the Church who alluded to the Triune God and defended this doctrine, including Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. When Theophilus of Antioch wrote in the late 2nd century, he clearly defined the Trinity as God, His Word (or Logos, and His Wisdom (Sophia). The first defense of the Trinitarian doctrine happened in the early 3rd century by Tertullian who named the Persons as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Finally, in the early 4th century we come to the Council of Nicea in which the earliest form of the Nicene Creed attempts to name and explain the concept of the Trinity. It actually took several centuries and several church councils to come to the doctrine of faith that we call the Trinity. One God, three persons…..western Christianity in medieval times created what became known as The Shield of the Trinity. In a simple pattern and design, because few common people could read, this symbol helped as much as possible to explain this mysterious doctrine. Here is how that looked….. (see it at the end of this reading…) Now, after much praying, I have decided to not try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. There have been enough heresies and misconceptions through the centuries without my adding to them. Because of faith, we believe in this special Christian doctrine; because of faith, we believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and that He has co-existed with the Father and the Spirit forever, and that the Spirit is exactly what we profess whenever we pray the Nicene Creed. Do we ever question it?...as humans and in looking back in our history we see many who have questioned….but that is exactly what a mystery of faith will do…it will perplex us and not be able to be explained in any manner….it is a mystery but one that we Episcopalians believe and profess. We believe because of faith. And I will leave it at that. Amen. .
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