Squeers.

"I like the Blue cross analogy".

My analogy was not a 'cross one'.

It was one from 'The Blue Cross'.

They are different.

I hope this is not how you analyse Eagleboys work.

I do apologise, Blue Cross (and Bushbasher), for my appalling want of subtlety--I beg your indulgence.
I'm now all for dissecting the trinity, and will leave weightier matters to wiser heads.
Besides, Wuthering Heights has just started!

Seano,

Your most recent post concerning Hollingworth and "God save the Queen!" uses a hyperlink to the CBC… So I’d say, “What’s good for the goose etc…”

There should be no confusion if one is to employ one’s index finger and find that the relevant information is perhaps just '1-click' away.

I suspect that you are all tired about me banging on about the Trinity, But I think that it is the key to our present theological dilemma. The validity of the doctrine is not a matter of choice or real dispute. It is deeply grounded in the language of the New Testament, is affirmed by the church councils of the fourth century after some controversy, is central to the theology of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Rhaner and about any other mainstream theologian that you can name. It is also integral to the liturgy of the church.

The books published about the Trinity are expanding exponentially indicating a revival of interest and the recognition of the centrality of the doctrine. Mainline theology is becoming more and more Trinitarian. So for someone like Pricillian to dismiss it with a sentence is just absurd. From the outside it may look obscure but from the inside of the faith it is foundational even if poorly understood.

If the doctrine is poorly integrated into belief we get the sterile simple monotheism that I have talked about or we get Jesuolatry whereby Jesus becomes our best friend and exemplar. The former can only lead to Deism and the latter to an immature mimicry.

It is very important for the church to reclaim its heritage in this, otherwise it will have no real defence against rampant secularization, scientific rationalism and all of the discontents of modernity.

Relda, we must have a discussion about Tillich sometime.
Peter Sellick

Sells, you are grasping at straws with this Trinity stuff.

'Any port in a storm', sort of action.

As for the church being threatened by 'rampant secularisation', what on Earth does that mean?

Do you hanker for the non-secular Afghanistan, or the 'Jewish state' model of Israel? Are we to suffer here in Australia from a non-secular brand of extreme cultish Christianity, as dictated by you, or Hillsong, or The Salvo's... or what?

Should we return to the glory days of the Old Testament and its mad interpretations now in the 21st century?

Do you reject what is clearly a secular influence on the maddest of church thinking- isn't this why we no longer burn witches in Perth's market square?

Are you falling into the Scripture Union, ACL model, where 'secular' means 'atheist'?

I suggest you look at that short list above and start worrying about where they are taking your beloved church, into the badlands of pure politics as they money-grub for moolah with made-up reports of how successful their proselytising chaplains are.

Pell, of course, is also careful to not understand 'secular' too- but he's the theological answer to Wilson-Tuckey, I suspect.

The 'rampant Christianity' we are suffering from, since Howard, and now happily still promoted by Rudd, is far more of a threat to 'the Australian way of life' (such as it is) than 'rampant secularism' ever will be.

And do spare us the traditional list of dictators as the proof of our folly in supporting a more varied, secular, approach to life and I promise not to raise the hounding of Jews by Christians from long before and after Hitler, and all the other cul-de-sacs we could go jointly down.

Your church has adapted to the secular world, and adopted it too. You cannot simply reject 'secularisation'unless you hanker for the Talibanisation of Christianity.

Like the Renewalists in Christianity do.

Peter,
Thank you for mentioning me. I am chuffed. By the way, the name is Priscillian (after the Bishop of Avila, murdered by the church for having a thought of his own).
You can call me Dave.

I dismissed the Trinity concept in an "absurd" way because the concept is absurd. It was absurd in the 4th Century and it is absurd now.
A superficial scan of the Gospels makes it clear that Jesus (the Jew) would not have adhered to this proposition. Even Matthew 28:19-20 does not make it clear that the Gospel writer was thinking in the terms of your concept of "Trinity".
The "Trinity" was a political convenience engineered to silence dissent. Nothing else.