Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
Christian theology is famously dogmatic in the modern imagination. We have things we believe and treat those concepts as set and ordered, almost obvious. Something easy, that children can be taught and adults all know with total conviction.
This, friends, is hilarious. Because Christianity isn’t like that and has never been like that. One of our most famous doctrines took centuries to develop and requires a loose grip on certainty to contend with honestly.
We say that God is three (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). And one. At the same time. And at all times. Always three and one and also never not three and one.
We can struggle to make this make sense. And many do. But here’s the deal. We can’t have it any other way. We’ve tried. It doesn’t work. God can’t go into something and become Jesus. Jesus can’t stop being God, even for a second. It’s messy and also elegant and makes more sense the less you struggle with it, like a finger trap. Because the problem is when you pull, defiant, certain that this is the way, that you have it all figured out.
Eastern Christianity compares it to dancing, to relationship, to communion. This still feels fresh to modernist American Christians obsessed with certainty and order, structure and definition. This is also important as we add in other elements like divine, human, sin, and grace. Because all of it boils down to our relationship with God and with one another.
With love,
Drew+
