Allen2 said:
Hi Karaite: I am trinitarian but with a different twist on it. Tho I am evangelical, for yrs I had trouble with the way it was commonly taught. I NOW believe that to understand God you have to begin with the person of Christ, the final and complete revelation of the Father. I'm curious, how have you worked out your beliefs in this matter?
Welcome, Al
As a child, I was told, a few times, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. I always believed that He was the Son of God. It was not until I was 19, when I first began my religious quest, that I found out that "christians" are supposed to believe that Jesus 'IS God'--funny, it was from the mouth of Muslims that I learned this, first. I was working in a place where there were some Muslims, and I had gotten interested in talking to them. One of them once told me, "you christians believe that Jesus is God"--I laughed at that statement, I thought it was foolishness of the Muslims to completely misunderstand what we actually believed (i.e. that Jesus was the Son of, not God Himself). But when I told a lady who was a Christian, that the Muslims had misunderstood what we believed, she simply told me that "I will see" (in other words, that I will eventually learn that we do believe that Jesus is the God).
The first months, or perhaps year, in the faith, I reviewed some information that they gave me at the church I was attending, and many of the explanations seemed inconclusive, though in light of the popularity of the belief, I assumed that my best bet was to take it on blind faith, and it would eventually sink in. Well, I developed different ways of explaining to both myself, and others. However, as I look back to my explanations, today, I see that never did they show any traits of the common trinitarian explanations.
I finally decided to stop ignoring my intelligence, and use it in the right way. I could not make myself believe something that simply did not make sense.
That is the short story of how I am where I am.
In my opinion, your stance of non-trinitarian has no bearing on your salvation.
Thanks for the support. But doesn't that mean that you don't accept the Athanasian creed?
Salvation is strictly by believing in Jesus and his work on the cross. That you believe that he is one and the same with the Father does not change your dependence on his work on the cross.
Just a little correction. I am not a Oneness/Modalism believer; I am quite a different type. I believe that Jesus was a full person/being, not just a mode, or personality of God. God was revealed in Christ, but that did not take away from the person that Christ already was. I believe in the pre-existence of Christ, and could even accept a conceptual [?] "eternality", but not the idea that the Father and the Son are equals--for the Son declares "the Father is greater than I am."
Well, I don't think I need to go into details right now.
OTOH, it is legitimate for a group of people of like minds to define for themselves what it takes to be a member.
Yes, a group can decide what they want to believe, and what should not be accepted "among them". But we all know that that has never been the case with the orthodox. Those who believed different were labeled heretics, and were persecuted by these orthodoxs in hopes of forcing them to either change their beliefs (accepting the "standard" beliefs) or die. And I don't doubt, if they had the power to do it again, that they would still do it today.
One might legitimately say you are not a Christian as defined by the creeds with which most Catholic/Orthodox/protestants agree.
Of course, those creeds are specifically designed to exclude people like myself.
That is, when one means the Christian religion, you are not a Christian.
I would not label it "religion", because to me religion is the proper word used to identify the worship of God. But I would agree that I do not fit the Traditionalist Christian role. I am not a christian by traditions.
Sure.