Hey hang on Pericles. Where is your sense of charity? Where is your reasonableness?

This is a discussion. More in the form of a conversation than a scientific paper. In conversation we humans are generous creatures where we work what we hear to find the meaning intended. We do not demolish, rather we dialogue.

Suffering Servant? Do a Google.

Therein lies some of the mystery of the Church. Power is the handmaiden to service. Stalin, instead of being derisory of the Pope's battalions, would have done well to take instruction from him on servant leadership from the word of Jesus. It is not of this world! It works. The Church is. Pericles's Athens became dust. Communism became dust

Oh.

Sorry, boxgum.

>>In conversation we humans are generous creatures where we work what we hear to find the meaning intended<<

For some reason I had the idea that it was the responsibility of the speaker to make his meaning clear, not that of the listener to somehow tease it out.

Silly me.

>>The Church is. Pericles's Athens became dust. Communism became dust<<

There is no single church, boxgum, so the phrase "The Church is" must be questioned.

Do you mean "Churches are"?

Or perhaps "A church is"

Even in these more accurate forms, the phrase still leaves a great deal to be inferred.

Has "the Church", using your own interpretation of that word, not changed over the centuries? Have we not moved on from the world of indulgencies, or the Inquisition, or witch-burning?

If the intention of the phrase "The Church is", is to posit some form of stable and trustworthy framework, I'm afraid that history is not on your side.

Face it. "The Church" today is significantly distinguishable from its many earlier forms, let alone the multiplicity of alternative manifestations in other religions.

Which undermines this, just a tad:

>>Pericles's Athens became dust<<

Not at all.

The very fact that we still talk about Periclean Athens means that it has not died, but has been assimilated into the sum total of civic knowledge.

The reasons that Periclean Athens does not still exist in its original form are similar to those that distinguish modern churches and religions from medieval or ancient ones.

There is nothing at all unique about "the Church", boxgum. It's just another mental construct, amongst many, that allows some people to safely tag and file some of life's more challenging features.

And it, too, changes with the times. Pretending that it is somehow static and immovable is one of the more self-deluding concepts that Christians maintain.

Sells

The tradition of the Church is very poorly understood these days.
You need only observe the 'mangled' liturgy?? of many modern congregations to see that it owes relatively little to the great tradition.
Im not conservative in the sense that I feel it meritorious to conform slavishly to the patterns (or beliefs) of the past but at least the tradition had a regular form and words that made some sort of sense. Much of contemporary 'worship' consists of random chorus singing interspersed with idiotic, cliche-filled monologues from some poorly trained 'leader' with little or no theological import.
What people call spirituality these days, religious or otherwise, is mere instrospective sentimentality.
Christian spirituality is the strength that underlies the powerful call for justice and mercy. It is the strength of Christ to embrace the outcast, heal the sick and call the rulers to account.
The great tradition is better by far than the slops being dished up in most churches but I wonder if it does not require a radical transformation in order to speak to the 21st century situation.
I would rather, by far, to see 'justice and mercy flowing down like waters' than to see a million chorus-singing, hand-waving coxcombs.

Sells

Unitarianism is closely associated with the movement towards freedom of opinion in matters of religion. No doubt you, being Anglican, judge this movement negatively but you have to admit that it is a powerful idea that has caught on almost universally in the western world.
Given your argument that the tradition ".. has refined itself over such a long time span, and has fought off heretical attacks.. " it is pertinent to note that unitarian ideas have 'been refined' over a period of nearly 500 years and that they have been subjected to scrutiny by many careful thinkers over that time with the result that, at least in the west, the trinitarian churches are now waning. The tests of time and intellectual scrutiny seem to be swinging in favour of unitarianism and its associated ideas of freedom of opinion and universalism.
If you would defend trinitarianism then you are going to need a more convincing argument.
My view is that the trinitarian formula is metaphorical rather than 'scientific' language. Therefore it points to realities beyond itself without being literally true. The problem with unitarianism is that it lacks organising metaphors and symbols. You are entirely correct in your argument that unitarianism represents the loss of faith to enlightement thinking. That does not make untiarianism wrong but it does explain why unitarianism does not produce communities.

Waterboy.
Equivocating about the doctrine of the Trinity would be like a physicist equivocating about the laws of thermodynamics. We can certainly say that Unitarianism is wrong because it misses the centre of Christian faith and results in an attempt at universalising moralism. Because if the death of Jesus was not sufficient for the sins of the world that is all we have left, a religion of good intentions and no hope. I think orthodoxy has more truth and strength in it than anything put forward by the modern age. Rather than changing Christianity to suit the modern, the modern must be lead to the riches of orthodoxy. As we agree, Sunday worship at many churches is awful. My take on this is that it is the result of an accommodation to the modern sensibility. Sure, a tradition set concrete is a dead thing, but a practice that is rooted in the strong traditions of the church that has the flexibility to speak afresh holds much promise. The Roman church is to be congratulated, amid all of our dissatisfaction with many parts of it, for maintaining the form of the mass. This is central to Christian worship.

Peter Sellick

Sells

You said"We can certainly say that Unitarianism is wrong because it misses the centre of Christian faith... ".
If the power of the Trinitarian formula lies in its metaphorical nature then it makes little sense to say it is right or wrong.To the extent that the 'orthodox' churches explore the rich depths of the trinity they have something of great value which the unitarians lack. To reduce the trinitarian formula to a concrete proposition with a simple truth value,however,is to remain as impoverished as the unitarians.

The enlightenment triggered a reaction to religion as a set of propositions. It has become necessary to make a clear distinction between the propositions of scientific language and'propositions'of religion. So, for example, evolution describes a set of propositions which scientists can observe and test while creation deals with the nature of being human in relationship to each other and to God. The propositions of evolution have proved to be very useful and it makes sense to consider and test their truth value as a way of moving scientific knowledge forwards.Creation,on the other hand,is not a proposition to be judged true or false but rather a narrative which exposes many truths about God and being human.

The trinity,likewise,is not a proposition to be judged true or false but rather and organising metaphor which exposes truths about God,Jesus,Church and being human in relation to God.Liturgy is a sacramental engagement with the complex of symbols,metaphors and signs that define orthodox christianity.It has, in some respects, a dream-like function, in that we bring the fragments of our broken lives (both individual and corporate) into the framework of those organising symbols and allow our lives to be ordered, judged and re-formed according to Gods will mediated through Word and Sacrament. This is not achieved by demanding common assent to certain propositions but by invitation to participate in the sacrament and respond to the Word.

As you say, we are too much concerned with the elightenment focus on facts and would do well to recover some of the Hebrew's facility with symbol, metaphor and theological narrative