The Eternal Dance: Armstrongism in Contention with Nicene Christianity

Fair use

The Eternal Dance

Armstrongism in Contention with Nicene Christianity

By Scout

“Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance,

and there is only the dance.”  T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton”

 

Dance is my analogy for the relationships between the God Persons in the Trinity.  Everything that we say about God is an analogy.   We know only the created realm and he dwells in the uncreated realm.  When we think of him or describe him, we use the earthbound categories that we know.  We talk only in symbols, in metaphors.  The whole of creation is his poem.  He is not just the tribal God of the ancient Hebrews. He is the sovereign uncaused first cause of the reality that we know.

I am going to briefly examine some of the conclusions concerning the Doctrine of God drawn by the early church around the time of the Council of Nicaea and a few centuries thereafter.  I am going to compare these conclusions to the classical Armstrongist Doctrine of God. In this essay, as I speak about God, I am limited to analogical language and I understand that. In accord with Analogia Entis, it is the most that I or any of us can attain to.   I will start with co-equality.  

What Trinitarian Co-Equality is Not 

I used to think that God in his divine nature was comprised of three identical persons joined together in some essential way.  And at some point, the three in conclave decided that one would be Father, one would be Son and one would be Holy Spirit.  But since they were all identical, this organization was simply a matter of arbitrary election.  So, the Father Person could have been the Son Person and the Son Person could have been the Father Person, for instance, and that alternate arrangement would have been just as valid as the present arrangement.  My naïve model of these divine interpersonal connections is not the model advanced by Nicene Christianity. 

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

The Nicene Model is that the Father eternally generates (begets, Greek “monogenes”) the Son (John 3:16) and the Holy Spirit proceeds (John 15:26) from the Father.  A post-Nicene modification, originating in Spain, added “and the Son” so that the Holy Spirit was asserted to proceed from the Father and the Son (John 15:26).  This addition is what separated Eastern Christianity from Western Christianity.  The point is that the Divine Persons are not undifferentiated.  They are not equal in the sense of being exhaustively identical.  They are equal in ontology (existential essence).  But differ in interpersonal relationship and economy (role, activity).  

The brothers back then had to look at the data and come to a conclusion. Arius was insufferable. Arius elevated the transcendence of the one God (1 Cor 8:6) and correspondingly diminished Jesus. Constantine wanted everyone to speak the same thing.  It hardly mattered what it was.  The brothers knew that God was eternal and unchanging (Malachi 3:6).  And whatever “beget” meant, it did not mean that eternal Jesus (Hebrews 7:3) was created like the Arians asserted. So, they concluded that Jesus had been generated by God from eternity.  God always was and Jesus always was by divine nature.  And that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally.  So, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three beings that are indistinguishably the same.  They are different in that they naturally and eternally exist in a community defined by different interpersonal relationships.  “Father” is not just a moniker.  The designation is based on the fact of begettal.  They are together one essence and one God but have different economies.  The Nicene view resonated well with the Biblical data concerning divine personhood, ontology, Monotheism and economy.  

The Nicene Model may seem awkward.  But is not because the Bible is a spurious document and Christianity is a spurious ideology as atheists would claim.  It is because human language and categories are not adequate to the task.  Yet, we should resist the temptation to tame all this complexity by imposing human simplicity on it.   That is what classical Armstrongism has done and I will turn there next. 

Family By Itself Means Bitheism

The first WCG minister that ever visited with me was a pastor of the local WCG congregation.  A few years after we talked, he left the WCG and started a Unitarian denomination.  He was regarded by the WCG as a rebel and a heretic.  But, actually, he was a reactionary.  he went back to the early roots of the Armstrongist denomination.  The first leader of the Church of God Seventh Day was Gilbert Cranmer and Cranmer was a Unitarian.  The Church of God Seventh Day was Arian like the earlier Adventists. Unitarianism and Arianism had a profound, nontrinitarian influence on the formation of WCG theology.  And a theme that runs through Unitarianism and Arianism is the subordination of Jesus in his capabilities and his scope.  

Armstrongism is not just Trinitarianism with the subtraction of the Holy Spirit to form a Binitarian theology.  Armstrongism asserts a different kind of relationship between the Father and the Son.  Armstrongist belief is that the Father and the Son form an expandable family to which other sons will be added through the salvation of Christians.  But the family model is based in the biological human family where each member of the family is a separate person.  Any connection between members is only matter of agreement in viewpoint and is not ontological.  In the Armstrongist family model, the Father does not eternally generate the Son and the Holy Spirit is like an energy of God and not a personal being. Armstrongism claims Monotheism in the sense that God is one family.  This assertion is internally inconsistent because the family relationship does not provide for the unity of persons at the level of essence.  God may be like a family but that is not the full picture.  Family is a weak and limited analogy. The Trinity transcends family because of its special unifying relations as already described.  

Armstrongism is actually a form of polytheism.  The subcategory of polytheism involving two gods is referred to as Bitheism.  Armstrongism is not Binitarian because it proposes no concept of unity at the level of essence among the God Persons. Binitarianism is a form of Monotheism and Armstrongism is not Monotheistic.  Further, Armstrongism proposes that one day there will be millions of gods who are god-as-god-is-god. 

So Armstrongism took a step forward by declaring that Jesus is God and abandoned its Arian roots in the Church of God Seventh-Day.  But it took a step backward into polytheism by proposing that the unity in the God Persons is only the family relationship modeled on human biological connections.  Family just doesn’t cut it.  

In the Last Analysis: My Two Cents

What difference does it make?  If we must deal in analogies, can we say that one analogy is better than another?  Maybe, at the end of the day, the Arian Model is just as good as the Nicene Model because they’re both just analogies for something that transcends our understanding.  While that reasoning has an appeal, it is not the whole story.  There is a pattern.  The Anti-trinitarians are typically one-off, likely small, religious groups that harbor many other beliefs that are a departure from orthodoxy.  They emphasize works and they have a diminished view of Jesus and the grace he brought to us.  Any organization that systematically downplays the role of Jesus is not going to lead anyone to a good outcome.  Not only is the Nicene Model a better fit to the Biblical data, something we should value, it tends to not co-reside with odd beliefs.

 

 

Crackpot Prophet Goes Wackadoodle Over New Pope Who Could Be The One, But Maybe Not, But Maybe...Possibly

Where would the Church of God be without all of its crazy self-appointed and illegitimately ordained weirdos that latch on to every conspiracy theory or legend out there? From Catholic visions of Fatima, Nostradamus, Malaky, Gary North, and every other crackpot weirdo on late-night AM radio stations, they have all found a following in Armstrongism. The weirder it is, the better it spreads through the church.

No one takes this to the extreme more than our illustrious, illegitimately ordained, and self-appointed prophet to the church, the Great Bwana Bob Thiel. The Great Bwana, though a day late, is not letting the new Pope get by his conspiracy-laden mind.

He has already updated his poorly researched book on the new pope, but all he has done is change a few names from previous popes mentioned to update it to Pope Leo. As usual with all of Bwana Bob's books and articles, it is filled with all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. It is an entire book about "one wonders", "maybes", "could be's," and "possibly," as you would expect from a false prophet who is too big of a coward to really take a stand. Besides, when he talks about all of the "maybes" and "could be's" it is his easy out by never being held accountable for lying to his followers and the public.

Leo XIV will be ecumenical. And, because of the Augustine Order connection, militant in some ways. 

It just frost the Great Bwana's butt that churches might just get along, unlike the Churches of God who refuse to. 

Next, the Great Bwana starts to go whack-a-doodle: 

Because of the timing of his papal election, Pope Leo XIV could possibly fulfill biblical prophecies about a particular False Prophet, the final Antichrist. 

 

But we will need to see if he ends up doing “great signs” and wonders:

11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. (Revelation 13:11-17)

The Great Bwana then goes on to quote his favorite crazy dude, Malachy. Any fellow crackpot he can find to support his craziness, the Great Bwana latches on to them, even after admitting that most people also think these nut jobs are crazy (just not COG folk).

If Pope Leo XIV does not perform “great signs” and never calls fire down from heaven, then he could not be the final Antichrist and would not be the last Pontifex Maximus. But if he does those signs, that would point to him being the final Antichrist. 

 

Now, there is a list of pontiffs that an Irish Roman Catholic bishop named Malachy put together in the 12th century. Over a decade ago, I bought a copy of the book shown above related to the Malachy predictions of 112 future popes. 

 

Though various Roman Catholics believe that the list was divinely inspired, and this also seems to have been the position of the Protestant prophetic writer Hal Lindsey, many (including this author) do not believe that the list was from God. Many make light of the list for a variety of reasons. 

 

Even the expression “malarkey” seems to have originated as a derivative of the word Malachy, possibly because of how some viewed Malachy’s writings. Malarkey signifies worthlessness.

Read that again:  Malarkey signifies worthlessness. There can be no better definition of Bobism than this. Worthless!

The Great Bwana then goes on to say that he thinks the Malacy was demonically inspired, yet he quotes him endlessly, as if what he said were fact. 

I have long believed that the list was demonically-inspired–hence I do not rely on it.

He then goes on to quote it and discuss it:

In both Malachy’s list and the Book of Revelation we see:

1. Reference to the city of seven hills/mountains.

2. The destruction of the city of seven hills/mountains.

3. The end of a power in Rome.

4. Persecution.

5. Troubles/tribulations on the earth.

6. A type of judgment.

7. Events for the end time.

And, produced a ridiculously silly video:

Malachy Prophecy, Francis, Doom in 2027?

Do you know who Malachy was? He was an Irish bishop and saint of the Roman Catholic church who put together a list about 900 years ago. This list has been a source of amazement and interest for centuries and at the same time it has also been a source of ridicule. Recently his list has been making headlines; the publication, Euronews has an article citing “Malachy’s List” and doom in 2027. The reason Malachy’s List is once again front-page news is because of what the list contains, as well as because of health concerns related to Pope Francis. It contains a prophecy of the number of popes until Jesus returns as well as a description of the characteristics of each pope. So, why does this matter? How many popes are on the list? What about the reign of the last pope? Are there any similarities between Malachy’s description of the last pope on his list and the prophecies in the Bible? Does the Antichrist fit in to Malachy’s list? Is it possible that Malachy’s list actually predicts the final judgment and the return of Christ in 2027? These questions are fascinating and provocative. Let Dr. Thiel shine the light of Bible prophecy on the answers to these questions. Answers from the verses of the Bible that bring prophecy to life.

He ends by promoting his "new" book and dancing around everything he said about the new pope. It is "could be" time to the max, except when it's not, then it's not.

In my previous ‘Last Pope’ book of 2013, I wrote:

Pope Francis I … if he does not perform various signs and wonders, the Bible is clear that he certainly would not be (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:13-16). 

 

The same is true for Leo XIV. 

 

That said, my book about the Malachy prophecies and how Pope Leo XIV could be the one to fulfill the last one...

Crackpot Prophet Wants You To Know Turkey Has Roads!

 

One of Bob Thiel's followers just completed a trip to Turkey to visit the sites of the seven church that COG groups love to talk about. Two things stood out for them,  they discovered how pagan all of these cities were, and that Turkey has modern roads. Who knew!  

Then  Bob's follower makes an observation on how those modern roads will allow a United European Army, i.e. the Germans, to have easy access to invade Jerusalem when Bob Thiel's predicted time of the end arrives.

"Dear Dr Thiel, 

 

In March, Shirley and I travelled to Turkey to visit the seven church sites of Revelation 2 & 3. Not only did we experience the remains of these historic cities of Asia Minor, but we also got a little taste of modern Turkey. 

 

All these historic sites had basically one common theme in their architecture and construction, paganism and idolatry were embedded everywhere. If it wasn’t carved into marble or granite it was painted on walls like wallpaper or laid into the floor with mosaics. Any form of true Christianity seemed far removed."

"Today Turkey has an extensive and very modern network of concrete highways 2 & 3 lanes travelling in opposite directions They cut across valleys and mountain sides, through tunnels and allow for travelling speeds of up to 140 km and run the length and breadth of Turkey. 

 

I kept thinking of how a united European army and its logistical support could quickly travel across Turkey and towards Jerusalem. 

 

Regards

RW"

Why can't COG members just enjoy the world around them without imagining some doom and gloom scenario? Prophecy addiction is a major health issue in Armstrongism.

Then, the always astute, illegitimately ordained, and self-appointed prophet to the church and the world makes two mind-boggling observations:

Yes, Turkey has a lot of modern roads. 

 

Also there are signs of paganism all over the world, and yes, also in the areas that once had the seven churches of Revelation.

I guess that diploma from the "Theological School" in India was worth something after all! He is smart, now! He was quick to scrub any link to that school and his fake degree, though he has kept the title they gave him.

I have studied graduate level Early Church History from Fuller Theological Seminary and other schools in and out of the USA like T of CU, where a Th.D. in Early Christianity was earned). A doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) degree was earned from the Union Institute and University where I studied various biological sciences and research methodologies. I also have other degrees/training, and have studied theology, both formally and informally.