Thursday, June 19, 2008

How to Make a Comment

Comments on this blog are moderated. This means that they will have to be approved by us before the comment appears. If you want to see your comment, please follow these steps:

At the bottom of each post is the highlighted word 'COMMENTS'. Click on this and see the comments already made and type in your own. If you come up as anonymous, please type in your name or a nickname so we can have a sensible conversation.

Writing a comment.
Keep it short. Two or three sentences at most.
Keep it simple, state your case simply and stay on topic.
Keep it clear, try not to be cryptic.
Keep it good-natured, we are in this together.
Use snippets and give the source of quotes, not the whole quote.
No denigrating or unedifying comments. We are searching for truth, not trying to win an election!

Thank you for following these rules.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Bruce's Profile

The 'Godhead controversy', for want of a better term, first came to my attention when one of our church members, a young woman, stood in the Sabbath School just before we divided into classes to study the Holy Spirit. She said that she had come to believe in a different sort of Godhead. At the time I felt as if she had invaded our space (not the least because I was superintendent that day). The feeling increased as the class she was in, talked heatedly about her new beliefs rather than the lesson the members came to study.

She has since left our local church but I now realise that I failed her by not listening. She had given me a booklet on her beliefs several months before and I had failed to talk to her about it, or even read the booklet properly.

I stumbled into the Trinity debate following Geoff's comments on my "To Win Christ" blog. With little previous experience I naively set out to bring Geoff back into the trinitarian fold. After over a 100 emails (and following up on the references) and carefully reading two booklets (The Godhead in Black and White and Putting the Pieces Together) Geoff gave me, I have come to some conclusions:


  1. This is not 'present truth', yes Godhead is important, but apparently not for now, otherwise it would be much clearer. The fact that we can argue for so long means that the limited information we have is not conclusive.

  2. The Godhead is not one of the pillars of our Seventh-day Adventist faith

  3. Being correct on the Godhead does not determine our salvation. What we need for our salvation is clear and easily understood.

  4. 'Trinity' is a dirty word. It's history has coloured the word for the 'Godheaders', so I think it was a mistake to name our second fundamental belief 'The Trinity'. An honest and unintentional mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, as it has raised the heat of the debate. On the other hand, we need to look at the target audience for the '28 Fundamentals', if it was the general public then I think it was probably the right thing to do. Other Christians would understand the meaning correctly.

  5. This is an argument, largely over language and its use. As with 'Trinity', the same word can carry very different emotional meanings to different people.

  6. Mrs White was inspired. By that I mean God gave her the ideas and she found the appropriate words to express those ideas. Unfortunately she had to use limited human language to express some pretty amazing ideas. Most of the conversation I have had with Geoff has been over quotes from Mrs White and I can see the wisdom with which she handled a difficult idea like the Godhead. I think that wisdom is more than human. Nevertheless it is the Bible we should use to confirm doctrine.

  7. I believe in a Godhead consisting of three 'persons' (in the usual sense of person), the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I also believe that the Son is eternal (that is, He has always existed) I held these beliefs in fuzzy kind of way before, with little understanding, now at least I hold them with some intelligence.




So why stay with the discussion?

I had read and been changed by reading A. Leroy Moore's Adventism in Conflict and his more recent "Questions on Doctrine Revisited". Moore encouraged me to practice:

  1. Priesthood of Believers Principles - allowing me to see my own sinfulness specifically my pride of opinion and self-righteousness. Both things that I wouldn't have seen by myself. Priesthood principles mean that God is not only directly accessible to me but also that God uses fellow believers (and others) to find access to me. I believe God has spoken through Geoff to me.

  2. Listening to what Geoff was saying - enabling me to grasp wonderful truths in the verses and quotes that Geoff sent me. Truths I had forgotten or never heard. I could well have had the same experience if I had listened to the young woman I spoke of earlier. This is something I have done poorly and collectively as a church we cope with doctrinal dissent by ignoring or berating our dissenters rather than listening. In a small way I want to correct that in Geoff's case now.

  3. Placing the best possible construction on Geoff's, and the church's, words and behaviour.



So I stay with it because I think that God purposes, through Geoff and his fellow believers, to remind me and the church, of truths we don't know we have neglected. Truths about the character of Christ and His salvation. I hope to bring these out through this blog.