To Trinity or Not to Trinity?

 On this Trinity Sunday, the Gospel reading is taken from John 3:1-17,

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I once met an elderly western Canadian man who was a devout Christian and belonged to a church that seemed to be very Biblical. He taught Sunday school for decades. As we were talking, the subject of the Trinity came up. After learning that I was from an Anglican tradition, he asked if we pray in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I said yes, and he responded by saying that the Trinity was "nowhere in the Bible." I tried to explain that the Doctrine of the Trinity is based on everything the Bible says about the three Persons. I tried to explain that the Nicene Creed and the Doctrine of the Trinity protect us from the common heresies that we are subject to fall for when reading the Bible and finding in there all three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He remained unconvinced.

We parted amicably, he probably thinking I was the heretic, and I thinking he was being misled.

Will Jesus care who was right in the end?

An Anglican Great Swims The Tiber

 And no, I don't mean me. 

Allan Haley, A.K.A. the Anglican Curmudgeon, has announced on his blog that he has been received into the Roman Catholic Church. I am not going to repeat his stated rationale. You should read his post in its entirety. I know our reader, Katherine, has already done so. Nor am I going to throw out speculations as to any unstated reasons for his departure from Protestantism. Instead, I will post a few of my reasons for not "swimming the Tiber".

I was raised in a heavily Roman Catholic city. My earliest experience with the Roman Church was being told that I had to mind my manners while seated next to the nuns who rode the same public transportation vehicle with me and a few of my classmates when I was going to school in the mornings. That was in the 4th through 6th grades. I was warned by my Catholic school friends that nuns took great pleasure in inflicting pain on unruly children. The nuns would get off at the Catholic school and then we were free to talk, or to chum up to the driver, asking him to pass up other classmates waiting to be picked up.

I also learned to steer clear of the Catholic priests as it was common knowledge among children even back in the early sixties that there were sexual predators in their ranks.

My parents explained the difference between Catholics and Episcopalians simply by saying that their priests were not allowed to marry, and that the Pope was the head of the Church.

The kids at school introduced me to the doctrine of Papal infallibility, and I thought then and continue to believe is a terrible error. 

After I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church and was able to receive the Eucharist, I learned that I would not be allowed to receive the same in a Catholic Church. This is an error that persists to this day as the Magesterium determined that salvation is only for their members. 

My college room mate was a Roman Catholic. Not once did I see him pray, nor did he go to Mass. There were no major differences between us that I could see which would have swayed me to change denominations.

These are just a few of the things that influenced me during my upbringing. As an adult I was, as a student of Christianity and its history, better able to understand our differences. I am still unconvinced of the superiority of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Yes, Protestantism is mess, but so is the Roman Catholic Church.

I am not sure that either option as they stand now is what Jesus intends for us.

It shouldn't be that hard to reconcile Christian denominations that follow a sound biblical theology.

It is just that such denominations are getting harder to find.

 

Happy Πεντηκοστή!

 This Sunday we celebrate the birth of the Church as told in Acts 2:1-11,

When the day of Pentecost* had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’

*The term Pentecost comes from the Greek Πεντηκοστή (Pentēkostē) meaning "fiftieth". The first Pentecost came around the time of the Jewish festival Shavuot which is celebrated seven weeks after Passover. We celebrate Πεντηκοστή seven weeks after Easter. I guess 49 days is close enough to 50.

Without the Holy Spirit there would be no Church.

The transformation of the followers of Jesus into Apostles is shown in the rest of Acts by their acts. 

They left their hiding places and went out into the world spreading the Good News even when it meant ridicule, arrest, and even death.

Nobody at the time would have done that unless they had personally seen the risen Lord and were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Lord, give us the spirit to share the Good News to an increasingly hostile world.

In Finland, Quoting Romans 1 Could Send You To Prison For Years

I apologize for the lengthy excerpt below, but I think readers need the details. 

From the Christian Post, 

A Christian member of the Finnish Parliament is facing six years imprisonment for allegedly committing three crimes, including “hate speech,” for sharing her opinion on marriage and human sexuality on social media, on television and in a pamphlet.

The country’s chief prosecutor has brought three criminal charges against Finnish Member of Parliament and former Minister of the Interior, Päivi Räsänen, according to the Austria-based Christian legal group ADF International.

The politician, who is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and former chair of the Christian Democrats, has been under police investigation since June 2019 for publicly voicing her opinion on marriage and human sexuality in a 2004 pamphlet, for comments made on a 2018 TV show, and a tweet directed at her church leadership.

A medical doctor, mother of five and grandmother of six, Räsänen now faces two years in prison for each alleged crime, the group said.

“I cannot accept that voicing my religious beliefs could mean imprisonment,” said Räsänen in a statement issued by ADF International, which is representing her. “I do not consider myself guilty of threatening, slandering or insulting anyone. My statements were all based on the Bible’s teachings on marriage and sexuality.”

A Member of Parliament since 1995, Räsänen said she will “defend my right to confess my faith so that no one else would be deprived of their right to freedom of religion and speech.” 

She said she holds on to “the view that my expressions are legal and they should not be censored.”

“I will not back down from my views. I will not be intimidated into hiding my faith. The more Christians keep silent on controversial themes, the narrower the space for freedom of speech gets,” she said.

In 2019, Räsänen wrote a tweet questioning the leadership of her church for sponsoring the LGBT event “Pride 2019,” it was accompanied by an image of a Bible verse. As a result, she was accused of hate speech and interrogated by the police.

About the pamphlet, ADF International explained that Räsänen wrote it more than 16 years earlier to outline the official teaching of her own church on human sexuality. “Despite the police previously concluding that no crime had been committed, the Prosecutor General re-opened the file,” ADF International said.

The investigations include her comments on a TV show in 2018 in which the presenter came to her home and stayed overnight. In the program, they discussed religious matters, including Räsänen’s personal beliefs.

In a radio interview in 2019, Räsänen commented on the show’s topic of discussion, “What would Jesus think about homosexuals?”

In her 2019 tweet, she cited Romans 24-27 and posted a picture of the passage from the Bible.

The passage reads: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

I would be sentenced to life if I were a Finn.

When will it come to the U.S.A.? 

Belonging to the World or Not

 In this week's reading from John 17:6-19, Jesus, in the weeks before his death prays to his Father for his followers,

"‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

Every time I feel like the world is coming down around me, I have to remember that while I in the world, I do not belong to it. 

I belong to God, thanks to Jesus, his prayer, his sacrifice, and his love for me.

 

Mass Disobedience

When I read this report at Crisis Magazine, I was shocked that there would be such open defiance of the Roman Catholic Church's official teaching on marriage, 

On May 10, 2021, over 500 Catholic priests throughout Germany will hold a mass blessing of gay unions that will take place in 50 different parishes. Most of these clerics have the unequivocal support of their bishops and have been told that they need not worry about canonical sanctions.  This heterodox and defiant event, which threatens to edge the Church closer to the precipice of schism, is called “Love Wins, Blessing Service for Lovers.” Bishop Georg Bätzing, head of the German Bishops Conference, contends that such blessings are warranted since they reflect the sensus fidelium and represent an evolution of pastoral practice toward same-sex couples. 

The “Love Wins” ceremony loudly proclaims the disapproval of the German hierarchy with the recent Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ban on such blessings. According to the CDF statement approved by Pope Francis, “it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships…that involve sexual activity outside marriage.” But many German bishops and priests seem to believe that “love” conquers all, including magisterial instructions that reflect immutable Catholic doctrine anchored in Sacred Scripture.  

Reports from the field say that indeed blessings tool place, and it is difficult to quantify how many, but reports are that 100 Catholic churches across Germany offered blessings to same-sex couples on March 10, 2021 according to the NYT.

For those who swam the Tiber when they left the Episcopal cult, this is proof that there is no safe haven in Rome, unless the Pope comes down hard on the Germans.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

 

You've Got a Friend

And it's not James Taylor or Carole King although James has that certain shroud of Turin look.

No, you have a friend in Jesus. Why? Because he said so in this Sunday's reading from John 15:9-17, 

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants* any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

*Or bondservants, or slaves

As far as friends go, you  can't count on James Taylor or Carole King. 

Jesus is your best friend forever. 

 

Bad Shepherd: Episcopal Bishop Poses at Same Sex Marriage of One of His Priests

This was the scene last Saturday in Minnesota as the masked Bishop Craig Loya posed at "The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage" of the rector of tiny Saint Edward the Confessor Episcopal Church in Wayzata, MN (ASA 34 in 2019) to his same sex partner (Groom 1 and Groom 2 written on their masks in the picture) .

This was a full marriage ceremony as you can tell by reading the service program here with an exchange of vows, blessing of rings, and communion of the unbaptized. I am not sure if this was an authorized marriage liturgy, but I am certain that St. Paul would be rending his garments and firing off a nasty letter to the church in Wayzata for using his letter to the Colossians 3:12-17 as the reading from the Epistles.

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone
has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven
you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds
everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the
word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;
and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to
God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

The Apostle's words are theologically misappropriated and made to sound as if he were blessing this faux marriage. 

The Bishop's presence is an indication of how far the Diocese of Minnesota has sunk. 

It is unclear as to what role the Bishop played during the ceremony, but we know that he gave the following blessing, 

The Blessing of the Marriage 

The people remain standing. The couple stand, and the Bishop says the following prayer 

Most gracious God, we give you thanks for your tender love in sending Jesus Christ
to come among us, to be born of a human mother, and to make the way of the cross
to be the way of life. We thank you, also, for consecrating the union of two people
in his Name. By the power of your Holy Spirit, pour out the abundance of your
blessing upon Lance and Jason Defend them from every enemy. Lead them into all
peace. Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their
shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their
companionship; in their sleeping and in their waking; in their joys and in their
sorrows; in their life and in their death. Finally, in your mercy, bring them to that
table where your saints feast for ever in your heavenly home; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and
ever. Amen.

The fact that the picture of him with the happy couple disappeared from the broader social audience soon after it had gone public suggests that he still has a tiny amount of shame somewhere underneath his rich vestments and pointy hat. 

Or maybe he was just ashamed that he was not following the CDC's advice that he did not need to wear a mask since he has been vaccinated and was outdoors. 

That's probably it.

 

Fruit of the Vine...

 This Sunday's reading is from John 15:1-8 in which the disciples are pictured as branches in God's vineyard,

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

As modern day disciples, we too are branches from the vine of Jesus.

Are we fruitful?

 Lord have mercy upon us.