Wednesday, December 24, 2014


The holy day has dawned

It's dawned in Australia where I live, anyway.  Because of international time zones America is nearly a day behind.

So today Christians celebrate something very implausible -- the incarnation -- when the great God over all poured himself into the body of a baby and subsequently lived a life as a normal human being.  It takes a lot to believe that and the whole thing was a matter of great dispute among the early Christians. Jesus himself did after all say: "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28).

But along came Athanasius' Egyptian doctrine of the Trinity to quell disputes and to make some  sense of it all:  The doctrine of three persons in the one God. It's not a doctrine mentioned anywhere in Christian scripture  -- as I often point out -- but perhaps it is needed to make sense of the implausible.  That we cannot hope to understand Godhead is after all a reasonable claim.

I attended a service at my local branch of the Church of England yesterday evening: Holy Trinity Anglican Church Woolloongabba.  It's a nice-looking church, and well-maintained



To my amazement, the church was full with a good cross-section of people . I rather liked that as I see Christianity as a civilizing influence.  I thought initially that most came simply for the Xmas carols  -- which were promised and delivered -- but it seems I was wrong.  It was a Communion service and almost all of the congregation went forward to get the biscuit.

Rev. Paschke's sermon  was pedestrian, with God "rolling up his sleeves" rather a lot  -- an image I could not get with at all.  But one expects an Anglican sermon to be inoffensive junk.  I just went there for the carols.

Given my very fundamentalist early life, there was a lot more Popery in the service than I liked but I guess that I am a bit of a dinosaur there.  "Popery" is probably condemned only in Northern Ireland these days

5 comments:

Doom said...

As bad as current Popery is, it is probably the one thing that might save that denomination. The choice was that or oblivion. At this hour, a slim choice. As good, I suppose, as it gets. It's why you weren't alone there. Still, were I yet of a sister denomination, I would understand the... reluctance. I left the sister denomination because of it's anti-popery gay "married" bishop, and secular humanist, well, and general direction. Choices, I suppose.

I suspect the pope that is in office is some sort of proof by God that the worst of possible popes is still better than complete secular humanism. May the need for such proof be... short lived. *cough*

Wireless.Phil said...

I don’t even bother with holidays anymore, used to work everyone of them.
Now alone, why bother.

Anyway, enjoy what's left of the year and hope for a better one.

Wireless.Phil said...

Only movie I watch at Christmas.

It's a Wonderful Life movie, a commie film?

Only movie I watch for Christmas.

*Ayn Rand helped the FBI investigate whether 'It's a Wonderful Life' was commie propaganda
Raw Story‎ - 1 day ago
Enough coincidences abound that Seneca Falls now holds a yearly “It's a Wonderful Life” ...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/ayn-rand-helped-the-fbi-investigate-whether-its-a-wonderful-life-was-commie-propaganda/

*It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946), originally made for Liberty Films, is one of the most popular and heartwarming films ever made by director Frank Capra. Frank Capra
http://www.filmsite.org/itsa.html

Wireless.Phil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
locomotivebreath1901 said...

Athanasius, as a 'pillar' of the early church (4th century), helped to codify and defend the concept of trinity contained in the Nicaean Creed, but the evidences of trinitarianism predate both the man and creed.

Theophilus of Antioch speaks of these trinitarian evidences 150 years before Athanasius. And Tertullian, a Latin theologian, pre-dates Athanasius by nearly 100 years.

Their source material is, of course, the Bible.

Examples include Genesis 1:26 (Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...); Matthew 28:18-19 (..All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,...); In John, chapters 14-17, Jesus gave an entire dissertation on 'I dwell in You; You dwell in Me; and the Holy Spirit dwells in all (including people), plus confessing to His disciples the Glory He has with the Father 'since before the world existed.' The ten dollar word for that brain cruncher is 'circumincessio.'

Sadly, Angelicanism is to Christianity as cotton candy is to a nutritious diet.

Merry Christmas!

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