Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: murphy@mips.com (Mike Murphy) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Who do you say Christ is? (and other questions) Message-ID: Date: 11 Sep 89 06:54:29 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 62 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >Brendan McMahon writes: > o) Do not most Christian churches teach the divinity of Jesus? What > churches other than the JW's teach otherwise? All Christian churches teach the divinity of Jesus, in fact this is one of the dividing lines between Christian and pseudo-Christian (in my opinion). In some denominations you may find some liberal pastors who question Jesus' divinity despite the denomination's "official" position. > What are some other references that might point to Jesus being God? John is the gospel with the most references to this topic, e.g. 5:17-26, 10:24-30, 14:8-11, to name a few. This all gets into the trinity concept and definitions of "Son of God", which you ask about next. > o) How do other Christians who profess Jesus as "one in being with the > Father", account for apparent Biblical contradictions such as "the > Father is greater than I", "Why do you call me good, only the Father > is good", ... others indicating a separate Father. If you accept the trinity then these are not really contradictions, as Jesus is both distinct from the Father and one with the Father (God as both one and three). The trinity is a bit of a paradox, and many pseudo-Christian churches like Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons disbelieve in it, either by having only one God or many separate Gods. You say that your wife rejects the Catholic church because they believe in the trinity, well, all Protestant denominations do too, so your wife needs to come to grips with this doctrine. I'm not sure about the history of the trinity, but I suspect it came about as an attempt to reconcile these seeming contradictions in Scripture (this space reserved for moderator's knowledgeable comments). The way I personally understand the trinity is to think about how a family/relational unit can act as one, e.g. "and the two become one" (Gen 2:24). Btw, the Mark 10:18 passage ("Why do you call me good") is considered by some commentators to be a rhetorical question, i.e. Jesus was testing whether the man would recognize that Jesus is like the Father and is indeed good. > How does a person in my wife's position go about finding a Church that > best accomadates(sp?) her beliefs? I think the best way is to simply visit the different churches in your area. Most of the Protestant churches are indeed close in doctrine, and I find that there is much variance in the quality of the local congregation from location to location, e.g. not all Presbyterian churches are the same. There is also the question of worship style, which varies greatly from church to church, ranging from "high-church" (formal liturgies, e.g. Catholic, Episcopalian) to "low-church" (informal preaching and hymns, e.g. Baptist), with Lutherans and Presbyterians in the middle, and the charismatic movement affecting the style across all denominations (e.g. is it okay to raise your hands will praising God?). There are a lot of different denominations, and explaining all of them would require a long posting (perhaps the moderator could do this sometime). And there are also independent non-denominational churches that can be good. So use your yellow pages, and also ask around for recommendations (e.g. your Catholic priest will probably know some information about the other churches in your area). I agree that you should try to keep your wife away from the JW's, and I pray that the two of you will find a good church and grow in your faiths. -- -- Mike Murphy -- UUCP: sun!decwrl!mips!murphy -- AT&T: (408) 991-0438