SUMMARY DATES [6-19-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—SUMMARY DATES [6-19-24]

 

No, not summery dates. I had a few of those, back in the day, and they were quite nice. Summary dates are hooks on which you can hang history. They have names like council [Chalcedon, 451] or declaration [Independence, 1776] or treaty [Versailles, 1919] or controversy [Filioque, 1054]. They summarize the period since the last council or declaration or treaty or controversy. If you know their dates, and what they summarize, you can see the sweep and progress of history.

At least that is what I told our grandson, who is studying to be a history teacher. I told him that is what I did as an undergrad history major, and as a seminary church history student.

Thinking back, though, I don’t think it was a plan. It just happened. Those were the big dates, and so they stuck. It’s a good plan, though, and I do use it now whenever somebody at the coffee shop wants to argue Docetism vs Donatism.

Especially in church history, a council usually issues a summary statement or creed, like Nicaea in 325. Many churches still recite the Nicene Creed as part of their liturgy. It tells you which theological points the church was arguing about, like the Meletian schism. Meletius of Antioch supported the Homoean Formula which said that “…the son is like the Father without reference to substance or essence.” That’s why the Nicene Creed declares “…begotten, not made.” Explain that one at VBS.

I’ve always been sympathetic to the heretics, who got rejected at the big councils. That must have stung. After all, they didn’t lead the church any further astray than the guys whose ideas got codified in the councils and creeds. They were all equally guilty, for arguing about such things. The only creedal statement that counts is John Wesley’s death-bed exclamation, “The best thing is, God is with us.” Do we really need a council to tell us that?

I claim to be the world’s leading expert on patripassionism. There is not a lot of competition for that role, but I thought it would be neat to be called as an expert witness in a heresy trial. Of course, that’s not going to happen, for patripassionism is now the most-believed of all theological maxims.

It was considered a heresy to say that God suffered, which is what patripassionism means. In the Trinitarian division of labor, only the Son suffers, not the Father or the Spirit. Now, preachers assure us, and we assure one another, that God suffers along with us in all life’s trials.

Alas, I’ll never get to be an expert witness, not only because folks believe that God suffers with us, but because there are no heresies anymore. As that great theologian, Cole Porter, proclaimed, “Now everyone knows, anything goes.”

John Robert McFarland