Alexandrian theology and TBN, Pentecostalists, Emergents, Liberals, Church Growthers, Contemporary Evangelicals

Also posted on our Facebook Wall entitled “Exposing the False Prophets—Reformation Christians Against TBN” found at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=308173344359

1. Alexandrian theology and TBN, Pentecostalists, Emergents, Liberals, Church Growthers, Contemporary Evangelicals. A few miscellaneous notes on “Alexandrian Theology” from “The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992), 31-32.

2. The Gospel was established firmly in Alexandria, Egypt by 150 AD with St. Mark, Peter’s nephew and amanuensis, as the likely participant in its establishment. Alexandria was the second largest city of the Roman Empire. It had the largest Jewish concentration in the ancient Roman world. It seems amazing that St. Paul never preached there. The Council of Nicea, 325, assigned it the second place of honour after Rome and above the see of Antioch. It's importance was diminished by according Constantinople secondary honour by the Councils of Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451). Subsequently, many Egyptian Christians supported a later development called Monophysitism. Egypt fell to the Persians (616) and the Arabs (642), losing its influence as a Christian centre.

3. A catechetical school of renown was established in this ancient city of Alexander the Great, the famous Ptolomies, the home of the famed Jewish writer Philo, and city where the Greek Septuagintal version of the Old Testament was produced. We associate the names of Clement of Alexandria (c. 190) and Origen (c. 202) with this city and school of thought. As an aside, like TBN-ers, Pentecostalists, revivalist Baptists, and Arminians, Clement was a “free willer.” The latter, Origen, was a writer of renown, an exegete, biblical commentator, and theologian. He was known for his hermeneutics of the literal, moral and allegorical readings of Scripture, something that would be vitiated by Reformation scholars and writers. Sloppy hermeneutics is dangerous. Platonic thought was synthesized by Origen with theology; this created problems and was the seedbed that aided Gnosticism. The Platonism was almost over-mastering. Origen’s theology is for another day. Of much later fame and importance for Nicene Christianity was Bishop Athanasius, the “iron-willed” Bishop who helped extinguish Christological Arianism and other Trinitarian deviances.

3. The Alexandrian School found allegories in almost all the biblical texts. Clement asserted the literal, mystical, moral and prophetic uses. Origen was similar. The opposing school, sometimes called the Antiochene school, stressed the common sense, natural and historic hermeneutic, e.g. Chyrsostom. Ambrose and Augustine took a mediating approach. The Reformers, Luther, Melanchton, Calvin and others, explicitly repudiated allegorical exegesis and followed the well-worn principle of "Scriptura scripturae interpres," Scripture interprets Scripture. This is summarized in the great Westminster Confession, Chapter One, paragraph 9: "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly."

4. Re: Christology, Trinity and hermeneutics: this has a connection to the resurgence of deviant, errant, and heretical manifestations on the doctrine of the Trinity at TBN. We find Sabellians and out-right Arians on their programming schedules (for starters).

5. Origen taught the essential and economic subordination of Jesus the Son to God the Father. He taught that there was a “moral and volitional unity” but not an “essential unity” between the Father and the Son. “God the Father, Son the Lesser, and Holy Spirit the Lesser” might get us closer to Arius and TBN. It's more complicated than that, but this give an early sense. The Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Chalcedonian Creeds would address this. We expect Protestant liberals to be disinterested in this; we expect Pentecostals to know nothing of these things; education and thinking is not their interest. We deny both liberal and Pentecostalists on their orientations.

6. Sabellianism also surfaced and was expressed largely through Cyrenaica and Libya of northern Africa. “Oneness Pentecostals” like TBN-preacher T.D. Jakes and the United Pentecostal Church adhere to this. Rick Warren, the “American” Baptist works alongside T.D. Jakes with little interest in Trinitarianism.

7. Arianism surfaced with Arius (c. 317), another man in the Alexendrian School, that denied the Son his eternality. “There was a time when the Son was not” asserted Arius. The term “homoiousios” and “homousios,” the “debate over a vowel (“i”) in the two terms as it was later called, was at the heart of it. “There was a time when the Son was not.“ Was the Son “like the Father in essence” or “essential to the Father in essence?” Gnosticism, Sabellianism, and Arianism had this checkered background leading to the Nicene Council of 325.

8. Athanasius became the bishop or senior presbyter of presbyters at Alexandria in 328. He also was in the “Alexandrian School,” although different from Clement, Origen and Arius. Athanasius served under Bishop Alexander. Alexander, a Bishop of Alexandria from 313, excommunicated Arius and notified Bishop Hosius of Cordova, Spain, about Arianism. Alexander and Athanasius were energetic opponents of Arianism. Both men participated in the Council of Nicea. Athanasius' “De Incarnatione Verbum Dei” is a difficult but important work to read. He argued that the union of the divine natures, God and man, was essential in the preservation of the doctrine of salvation. “Wholly God and wholly man the Saviour must be” summed up Athanasius. Athanasius also asserted the “essential” deity of the Holy Spirit, “homousios,” with the Father and the Son.

9. Our Facebook page/forum and this blogspot, http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/, is dedicated to the exegetical, biblical, theological, historical and confessional assertion, advance and defense of the Athanasian Creed.

10. We call for the exposure of deviances and belittlements of classical Christendom evinced at TBN, Emergent, Church Growth, and Protestant liberal establishments. We also recognize that Roman soteriology has eviscerated Nicene Christology. We oppose Romanism.

11. This scribe remains thankful for the discipline of the old Book of Common Prayer. It has so many, many prayers that end with “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” TBN, Pentecostalists, Emergents, Liberals, Church Growthers, and Contemporary Evangelicals lack that education, orientation and discipline of worship. It is liturgical sloth. The reassertion of Trinitarian doctrine is essential. It must be done by the one holy, apostolic, Catholic, and Reformational Churches.

12. For the record, below, is an article posted by Peter Otajian, a correspondent at Facebook. Thanks Peter. Enclosed for the record and review. Feel free to join us and post articles germane to our field of inquiry, assertion and defense.
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http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=16025&post=94700&uid=308173344359#post94700

This creed is named after Athanasius (293-373 A.D.), the champion of orthodoxy over against Arian attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity. Although Athanasius did not write this creed and it is improperly called after him, the name persists because until the seventeenth century it was commonly ascribed to him. It is also called the Quicunque, this being its opening word in the Latin original. Apart from the opening and closing sentences, it consists of two sections, the first setting forth the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (3-28), and the second dealing with the doctrine of Christ, especially concerning the two natures (29-43). The teachings of Augustine (354-430 A.D.) in particular form the background to the Christological section. The creed itself appears for the first time in the first half of the sixth century, but the author is unknown. It is of Western origin, and is not recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

(1) Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. (2) Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.

(3) Now this is the catholic faith, that we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity, (4) without either confusing the persons, or dividing the substance. (5) For the Father's person is one, the Son's another, the Holy Spirit's another; (6) but the Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, their glory is equal, their majesty is co-eternal.

(7) Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is also the Holy Spirit. (8) The Father is uncreate, the Son uncreate, the Holy Spirit uncreate. (9) The Father is infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite. (10) The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal. (11) Yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal; (12) just as there are not three uncreates or three infinites, but one uncreate and one infinite. (13) In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; (14) yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty.

(15) Thus the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; (16) and yet there are not three Gods, but there is one God. (17) Thus the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, the Holy Spirit Lord; (18) and yet there are not three Lords, but there is one Lord. (19) Because just as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge each person separately to be both God and Lord, (20) so we are forbidden by the catholic religion to speak of three Gods or Lords.

(21) The Father is from none, not made nor created nor begotten. (22) The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. (23) The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding. (24) So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. (25) And in this trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less, (26) but all three persons are co-eternal with each other and co-equal. (27) Thus in all things, as has been stated above, both trinity and unity and unity in trinity must be worshipped. (28) So he who desires to be saved should think thus of the Trinity.

(29) It is necessary, however, to eternal salvation that he should also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. (30) Now the right faith is that we should believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is equally both God and man.

(31) He is God from the Father's substance, begotten before time; and He is man from His mother's substance, born in time. (32) Perfect God, perfect man composed of a human soul and human flesh, (33) equal to the Father in respect of His divinity, less than the Father in respect of His humanity.

(34) Who, although He is God and man, is nevertheless not two, but one Christ. (35) He is one, however, not by the transformation of His divinity into flesh, but by the taking up of His humanity into God; (36) one certainly not by confusion of substance, but by oneness of person. (37) For just as soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ.

(38) Who suffered for our salvation, descended to hell, rose from the dead, (39) ascended to heaven, sat down at the Father's right hand, from where He will come to judge the living and the dead; (40) at whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies, and will render an account of their deeds; (41) and those who have done good will go to eternal life, those who have done evil to eternal fire.

(42) This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen.