On The Incarnation

I work in the quality field professionally so 'root cause analysis' is a huge part of what I do. I'm also a systemic, process oriented thinker, something I have only really discovered by being in te quality field. This is not something that others naturally gravitate toward so it makes me something of an oddball in the way I look at things. This includes things religious, including theology. Just don't do 'root cause analysis' when you're spouse wants to go to the hospital or you may get a response such as this one: 'you hate me and want me to die.' Root cause solved.

In my resistance to, repulsion of, frustration with and, ultimately, gravitation toward the Trinity I have found my way back to the Church Fathers. I have been headed down this path for quite some time after having picked up Olivier Clement's The Roots Of Christian Mysticism and Vladimir Lossky's The Mystical Theology Of The Eastern Church. These books crossed my path years ago after going through one of the periodic, though more frequent, frustrations with the modern "evangelical" church in America. Though certainly more my style than the Pentecostal Oneness church in which I entered the stream, something was missing.

As strange as it may sound, there was too much focus on Jesus. Don't get me wrong. It's His Church. I fully understand that. But the Christocentric view started as it still often does to feel like the Oneness church doctrine I just left. "It's all about you Jesus" started to feel like bad theology. Or maybe the church I left was right.

I left that church due to the cult of the leader and the fact that it became ritualistic and predictable even in the midst of 'spontaneous' praise and worship. Something was missing. So we stumbled across a non-denominational church which exuded love. Not the Disneyfied version but something tangible, something real that I did not know could be found in and through church. It changed everything. Weirded me out at first but I began to understand that life is about relationship and life is about others. I am still trying to live out this lesson.

A change in leadership led to us leaving that church as well as it headed back in the direction of legalism and there was criticism of the previous leadership as overly permissive. We called it freedom and could not walk back from that.

We ultimately ended up at a church I had attended roughly ten years prior for one single Bible study with an ex-girlfriend. After going weeks without attending any church one morning it dropped into my head (spirit?) to visit. We walked in and were home and have been there for at least fifteen years now.

However, as someone who is always questioning, never satisfied with being static in my pursuit of the infinite, fissures began to appear. It is mostly mental, though it could also be a rebellious spirit within me. Mostly it was the 'if I hear one more Chris Tomlin song I'm going to scream' variety. The theology in many worship songs is bad. I can't say it is 'wrong' as such but it is certainly fuzzy and mushy and leaves me wondering how the Father, Son and Spirit work together as the line from Jesus to God leaves no room for the others. Oneness theology has infused these songs and for a church that claims allegiance, loosely, to Trinitarian doctrine, it has entered unaware. 

We are either Trinitarian or we are not. I say this not to say theology must reach a point where it is static but in my reading of church history and the writings of the church fathers this terrain has already been covered. We are either reverting to those times of turmoil, often violent and in need of intervention, or we are returning to the 'original' church a la the mythical "Acts church." But we are not in new territory. 

I take the long road to get to my point: we must understand how the church evolved and acknowledge the trail blazed by these early fathers to get us where we are now. The church was, by and large, united around the Father, Son and Spirit but the lack of theological concreteness led to a splintered church across the world. Perhaps this is ok and should be accepted. But can the church stand without a common theological vision? Or does it fade into the landscape as Christianity has been doing over the past several hundred years?