Trinity Conspiracy

This will probably offend some and shock others, but it's something I've been thinking about for a very long time. My thoughts would be considered heretical, but I feel that what has happened to Christianity down through the ages from the time of Jesus has been corrupted by political intrigue and greed. I blame this on the Catholic Church, but Protestant sects are also to blame. The Protestant Reformation did not go far enough and was a failure. What is needed is a revolution.

Let me state for the record that I've had four years of theology in college and training to be a religion teacher. I know the Bible and I understand current Christian theology, not that this would in any way make me an expert. However, I feel that there is a problem with modern Christianity. My belief is that the Christian church of today is not what Jesus envisaged. I also feel that the theology that is the cornerstone of Christianity is confusing and misleading.

There are two aspects to Christianity that need reform:

The corruption that has infected the institution.
The theology of the Trinity.

I'll start with the institution.
First of all, Jesus did not command the Apostles to go out and build a powerful religious institution. Let's go back to the passage in Mathew 16:18-19 where Jesus told Peter; "And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." The word for 'church' in Greek (ecclesia means assembly) and Latin when traced back to its Hebrew meaning is not an institution but rather a community. It definitely means a group of people not an institution. Remember that Jesus knew Hebrew and Aramaic and possibly Greek so the word he used means a community.

There is also a lot of controversy about Peter being associated with the 'rock', which is a feminine word in Greek. The Catholic Church ran off with this idea and recognized Peter as the first Pope and then established a succession of Popes, some of which were not very holy or even concerned about religious matters. There are many books out there that relate the shortcomings of the papacy and the underlying causes for the Protestant Reformation.

Jesus established the idea of liturgy when at the Last Supper he told the apostles to take the bread and wine as his body and blood, which would be poured out unto remission of sins, and eat and drink it. He told them to do this to remember him. At this point Jesus was making a new covenant with us. The original covenant was made with Abraham. This new covenant would be the forgiveness of sins upon his death and resurrection.

At no other time do we see Jesus establishing a worship service or the idea of a church. Jesus was a Jew and as such was accustomed to going to the temple. At one point he made a whip and chased the moneychangers out of the temple. The reason there were moneychangers is that the Roman currency had the image of the Caesar (emperor) as a god. No such blasphemous object could be taken into the temple. Jesus told the money changers that the temple was his father's house and that he didn't want them there selling doves, lambs and oxen. Essentially, the Temple was the only church that Jesus knew about. There is no place where Jesus told his apostles to form a huge institution with churches and the accumulation of money. He told them to go out with minimal goods and money. He even told them not to accept payment and only rely on the charity that people would provide them.

Jesus also told the apostles to go and spread the good news, which is what the word Gospel means. The good news was that the kingdom of heaven is near. In Matthew 10:14 he told them; "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of you feet." Basically, Jesus told them that they would be persecuted and put to death in his name. Nowhere did he tell them to kill anyone if they didn't believe.

Another concept of church Jesus had was that of ministry, as in preaching the good news, healing, baptizing and teaching, not accumulating wealth. In Mark 10:20-22 when Jesus confronted a wealthy man who wanted to know what he should do to follow him and inherit eternal life and said to him: "One thing thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come follow me. The wealthy man went away. This indicates that following Jesus and spreading the Gospels is not consistent with the accumulation of wealth.

Jesus would never have authorized the Inquisitions or the formation of a religious political power like the Holy Roman Empire or even the Vatican. He constantly complained about the political powers that held reign over the Holy Land. The only kingdom he was concerned with was the Kingdom of God. The lesson to take from this is that Jesus' idea of a church is not consistent with what we see today. Christianity has been rifled with corruption and scandals. It's certainly inconsistent with the Gospel accounts.

Now for the second part:
This institution problem is not the main reason that Christianity has gone awry. The real problem is in the theology, which turns out to be manufactured for political reasons, not religious ones. The whole sordid affair goes back to Constantine, the emperor who established Christianity as the state religion in order to reinforce his power over what was a divided (East and West) Roman empire. He was also the emperor who commissioned the Council of Nicaea in 325 to produce a theological statement of Christianity called the Nicene Creed. He also sent his wife to Jerusalem to establish the Holy Sepulcher as the tomb of Jesus. Constantine essentially established the Papal claim of temporal power. At this point Christianity strayed far from what Jesus had intended. The Orthodox Christians made Constantine a saint and the Western Christian church did the same. Needless to say, books have been written about this controversial historical figure, known as Saint Constantine the Great.

The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian Bishops in what was ancient Turkey. There were as many as 1800 Christian bishops back then, but only about 318 attended the council. The main issue facing this council was the relationship of the Son to the Farther. In other words, what was Jesus? And, this is where I believe that theology went awry.

One thing that I must point out here is that Jesus identified himself as being the Son of God when Peter told him that it was what he believed. Jesus mostly referred to himself as the Son of Man, but he acknowledged Peter's belief that he was also the Son of God. There have been many books written about Jesus referring to himself as the Son of Man, but it could be interpreted as saying that he was human. The phrase appears in the Hebrew texts. This is yet another problem that has plagued scholars.

It was also right after the exchange with Peter when Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain and transfigured to demonstrate that he would rise from the dead. This was a demonstration of the resurrection but the Apostles didn't understand what he meant by it until much later. They could not accept that the Messiah would die. Remember that the Jews believed that a Messiah would come and release them from Roman rule and establish their primacy. The apostles had that in mind when they followed him.

The issue then becomes what Jesus thought his relationship with God the Father was. This is where it gets very tricky because Jesus seems to have put forth two separate ideas about his relationship with the Father.

God the Father is the one God. That's well established and is consistent with the Old Testament concept of God. God told Moses in Exodus 3:13-15 that 'I am that I am'. This is equivalent to saying that God is existence and has no beginning or end. 'I am' is present tense.

What's really odd is that in the first chapter of Matthew, the writer went to a lot of trouble to reveal the lineage of Jesus all the way back to Abraham and to state that Jesus was the Son of Joseph. This doesn't make sense because right after this in Matthew1:18-21, it says that: "But when he (Joseph) thought on these things, behold, and angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus:" Remember that that Jesus' birth was prophesized in the Old Testament.

The gospels skip the childhood of Jesus, except the time he surprised and worried his parents when he stayed in the temple with the teachers. When his mother asked him what was going on, the young Jesus told her that "I must be in my Father's house." This is told in Luke 2:49-50. It also says that; "Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

In Luke 4:1-13, Jesus goes into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and is tempted by the devil. The chapter begins with "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned form the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness. The devil called him the Son of God.

Jesus had been at the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. At that time "The heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and the a voice came out of the heaven, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased." Then the writer goes through a lengthy linage to show that Jesus can be traced all the way back to Adam. Why would that be necessary? It's almost as if the writer wanted to emphasize Jesus' human nature.

So far, we see three entities: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These are the three figures of the Trinity. However, there seems to be some confusion about what relationship in the scriptures these three figures had.

There is no question that Jesus had a direct connection to God. This is well established. However, God exists and has no beginning or end. Is this also true for Jesus? That's the big question. Jesus' linage seems to indicate that he was created in time.

Jesus seemed to favor the Holy Spirit over himself. In Luke 12:10-11, he tells his disciples; "And every one who shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven." If they are both God why the difference?

Another problem is that Jesus was crucified and died and then rose on the third day. His Resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity. Without it, there is no Christianity. However, God cannot die. This is where the dilemma lies. We know that Jesus was born as a human and that he lived like a human, but it's also obvious that he had amazing powers to heal and even resurrect the dead. And, there is no question that he was the Son of God. How is this even possible?

That's where the Arian controversy comes in. Arius was a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, and he proposed the idea that God the Father existed before the Son did. The Nicene Creed concept of Trinity makes the Son equal with the Father and of one essence (consubstantial). Arianism was condemned by the Nicene Council and considered a heresy. According to the Arians, Jesus was created by the Father, which would fit the idea of being beget, the term used in the Nicene Creed. Although, the argument is that beget was used in the Creed to indicate that Jesus was not made but was brought into being from the substance of the Father. That doesn't make sense. If he were brought into being, then it would mean that he was not eternal, but had a beginning. Why the confusion?

The Arian theory is that God the Father gave Jesus the power of divinity. This would also suggest that Jesus had his own will. One of the arguments against this concept is in John 10:30-31 when Jesus said; "I and the Father are one."  And In John 10:38-39 when Jesus said; "the Father is in me and I am in the Father." However, it seems that the Holy Spirit commissioned Jesus at his baptism. This is consistent with Jewish practices as illustrated in the same passage, John 10:36-37, Jesus said: "do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God?' This confirms that Jesus considered himself to be the Son of God, but he also considered himself commissioned and even consecrated. This would suggest that he wasn't born as divine but was made so later.

The fact of commissioning or consecrating is in the Old Testament. For example, in Ezekiel 2:1-5 we see that the Holy Spirit went into Ezekiel in order to commission him to go and change the rebellious children of Israel. This happened to several of the prophets. It also happened to David when he was made King.

Jesus was aware that he was about to suffer and die. In Mathew 26:31-45, when Jesus went off alone from the apostles at Gethsemane, he prayed to his Father, saying; "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Later on he said; "My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, thy will be done." Who was listening to this? Why would Jesus, if he were God, have to have a conversation with God? That doesn't make sense. Wouldn't he already know the answer?

In Mark 15:34-35, Jesus was on the cross, "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, iama sabachthani? Which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If he was God why was he crying out like this?

Early Christians believed that the Father caused the resurrection of Jesus. The idea of Jesus raising himself from the dead was not the common belief. The expression was that Jesus was raised from the dead.

The Holy Spirit is another mystery. There is mention of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament as the Ruach Hakodesh and the Ruach Elohim. Somehow this idea was taken and made by Christians into the concept of a Holy Ghost in the New Testament. The Nicene Creed identifies the Holy Spirit as The Lord, the Giver of Life. This is augmented when after he rose from the dead, Jesus told the apostles in Mathew 28:19 "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The real question here is whether to delineate these three entities as Gods or Personas of God.

It's obvious that the concept of the Holy Spirit was incorporated into the New Testament at the birth of Christ. It's clearly stated that Jesus was born of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit also came down upon the apostles at the Pentecost in the form of tongues of fire. Jesus had promised that he would send the pereclete to help them. However, was the Holy Spirit a God like God the Father? That's a question that is difficult to answer. It's possible that this Spirit of God is an entity that is a function of God, not a completely separate persona.

Here is a summary of what is known:
1. Constantine, the emperor that converted to Christianity and was baptized on his deathbed, commissioned the Nicene Council in 325 to form a concerted Christian belief. Constantine was not a scholar or a theologian. He was also believed to be an Arian, but he signed off on the Nicene Creed to consolidate his power and influence over both the East and West Roman empires. In other words, the Nicene Creed was approved for political reasons.

2. Only a small fraction of the existing Christian bishops convened the Nicene Council. Although, several notable authorities and scholars were in the list of attendees.

3. Arianism, which was declared a heresy by the Council, persisted until at least 380. Its condemnation was enforced by political power. It resurfaced during the Protestant Reformation, but most modern Protestant sects have rejected it. Jehovah's Witnesses are considered modern Arians.

4. Thomas Aquinas, a notable philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church and a Dominican friar and priest, made an attempt to explain the Trinity in his famous Summa Theologica work. His explanation could be considered using Aristotle's philosophy to rationalize the Trinity. I read this in college and had to take exams on it. It definitely reads like philosophy.

5. The Nicene Creed has many ambiguous terms and statements that appear to be the result of compromises in an attempt to formulate a philosophical explanation of God.

I am not claiming that the principles of the Creed are wrong. What I am saying is that it's unnecessary to manufacture a complicated and confusing explanation for the essence of God. The only thing we really know about God is that He is only one God and is all-powerful and responsible for creation. Trying to split God into three persons is ridiculous and completely unnecessary, especially using terms that suggest Greek mythology. Perhaps it would make more sense if we thought about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit as avatars of the One God, not three persons of the One God.

I believe that the early Church at the time of Constantine created this complicated expression of theology to make the leaders of the Church the repository of spiritual knowledge in order to control and rule over their followers. No one really understands the true essence of God, and that includes me. I have no real idea of what God really is. That's beyond human knowledge and imagination. I do believe that Jesus died for our salvation and the remission of sins and that he was the Son of God, whatever that means. Anything else doesn't make sense. It would require many books to discuss the complicated aspects of this theological mystery. After reading some of them that are out there, my head hurts.

If the Christian church wants to really follow Jesus, they should sell everything and give it to the poor and quit trying to formulate a complicated theology. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that will happen anytime soon.

Thanks for reading.