The Scopes Trial and the Problem of Fundamentalism

Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the trial.

When I look at your heavens, 
the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars 
that you have established;
what are human beings 
that you are mindful of them, 
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them 
a little lower than God, 
and crowned them 
with glory and honor.
Psalm 8:3-5

On July 21, 1925, ninety-three years ago today,  John Thomas Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution to a high school biology class in Dayton, Tennessee and fined $100 (about $1300 in today’s dollars). 

The trial was something of a circus.

And it was a circus, at least in part, because the participants wanted it that way. It was not clear that Scopes, who was a substitute teacher, had actually violated the Butler Act, the state law which made it illegal to teach human evolution in a state funded school. But the trial was seen as a way to bring publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, and both sides were quite willing to participate in the spectacle.

The prosecution recruited three time Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, and the defense lined up Clarence Darrow, who was famous for defending Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, and sparing them the death penalty.

In his summation, which was printed for reporters but not actually presented to the jury, Bryan was clear about his understanding of the role of science in society. But his view is more nuanced than the caricatures would have predicted. And in his advocacy for a Christian worldview, he says nothing about Jesus dying to redeem a sinful humanity. 

Echoing a theme more often associated with the Social Gospel than Fundamentalism, he asserts that it is the moral teachings of Jesus that have saving power for the world:

"Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm-tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endanger its cargo. In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane, the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times as bloody as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future. If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the moral code of the meek and lowly Nazarene. His teachings, and His teachings alone, can solve the problems that vex the heart and perplex the world."

Although Bryan was a devout Christian and Darrow was an agnostic, the trial was not about religion versus secularism as much as it was about two competing Christian theologies. 

It pitted the Fundamentalism enshrined in the Butler Act against theological Modernism. 

The Fundamentalists believed that every word in the Bible was literally true and that only by interpreting the Bible literally could Christians be faithful. The Modernists believed that in order to understand the meaning of the Bible, modern Christians needed to use all the gifts that God had given them, including science, reason, and historical criticism. 

The Fundamentalists believed that evolution was incompatible with Christianity. The Modernists believed that understanding how life evolved was not a threat to the meaning of life which they saw in God’s creative spirit. 

The trial was not about theology versus science. It was about one brand of theology against another. Although Fundamentalism won in the courtroom, it suffered severely in the court of public opinion. 

In recent years it has become fashionable to ask candidates for President of the United States to renounce the theory of evolution as evidence that they were “real” Christians and truly believed in the creative power of God. 

But in the many decades after the Scopes ruling, that question would not have been asked because most Christians outside of a small circle of Fundamentalists did not believe that there was any inherent conflict between science and religion.

The verdict was overturned by the Tennessee State Supreme Court, which called the case bizarre and encouraged the Attorney General to avoid pursuing similar cases in the future. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Grafton Green made an interesting observation about the relationship of evolutionary science and religious belief:

“We are not able to see how the prohibition of teaching the theory that man has descended from a lower order of animals gives preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship. So far as we know, there is no religious establishment or organized body that has in its creed or confession of faith any article denying or affirming such a theory. So far as we know, the denial or affirmation of such a theory does not enter into any recognized mode of worship. Since this cause has been pending in this court, we have been favored, in addition to briefs of counsel and various amici curiae, with a multitude of resolutions, addresses, and communications from scientific bodies, religious factions, and individuals giving us the benefit of their views upon the theory of evolution. 

“Examination of these contributions indicates that Protestants, Catholics, and Jews are divided among themselves in their beliefs, and that there is no unanimity among the members of any religious establishment as to this subject. Belief or unbelief in the theory of evolution is no more a characteristic of any religious establishment or mode of worship than is belief or unbelief in the wisdom of the prohibition laws. It would appear that members of the same churches quite generally disagree as to these things.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

The Complaint Against Jeff Sessions

"If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Matthew 18:15-17

Jesus outlines a three step process for confronting sinners.

First, go to the person in private. Second, visit with the person again and bring other church folks with you. And then if steps one and two don’t work, bring your complaint to the church.

Lately we Methodists have been pretty much skipping steps one and two. Although, given the nature of recent complaints, I don’t think that matters much.

I am not really a fan of the complaint process, at least not as it has been most frequently used in recent years. Those complaints have all been about gay clergy or clergy officiating at same sex marriages. And the complaints have often been filed by folks at a distance with no real connection to the supposed offenses. 

The good thing about the complaint brought against Attorney General Jeff Sessions is that it moves us from the imaginary sins of same sex relationships to the real sins of oppression and marginalization. Mr. Sessions is a member of the Ashland Place United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama and regularly attends the Clarendon UMC in Alexandria, Virginia. The complaint is addressed to the pastors of those churches.

The letter of complaint was organized by the Rev. David Wright, an elder in the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church and chaplain at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. It has been signed by over six hundred clergy and laity of the church.

There is no doubt that these are very serious issues. And by every standard of Christian faith and ethics, the policy of separating children from their parents at the border is misguided at best. Our vilification of immigrants should be of deep concern to every Christian, and to every American. It is wrong and it is not a small matter.

But is it a good idea for us to point fingers at one another within the context of the church?

The answer, I think, is complicated.

It’s not a good idea to point fingers. And in our United Methodist context there is the very real possibility that the Sessions complaint will be seen as morally equivalent to the many complaints related to LGBTQ inclusion or exclusion. But that is a false equivalence. Our government has inflicted real harm on folks at our southern border. That is in no way equivalent to a clergy person officiating at a same sex wedding.

It is bizarre to think it might even be necessary to make that statement!

And the complaint against the Attorney General is largely symbolic. He will not lose his membership in the church or be asked not to attend. There will be no real consequences. This is only about raising consciousness and stimulating discussion. 

It is important to remember that at its core this is a moral issue. It is an issue of faith and practice. It is about our vision of the Kingdom of God. We in the church need to address the issue of immigration and the arguments surrounding it as a fundamental part of who we are. The Sessions complaint reminds us that though we must always "speak the truth in love," we must nevertheless speak the truth.

And that’s a good thing.



This is the complaint:

Pursuant to Paragraph 2702.3 of the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline, we hereby charge Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Attorney General of the United States, a professing member and/or active participant of Ashland Place United Methodist Church (Mobile, Alabama) and Clarendon United Methodist Church (Alexandria, Virginia), with the chargeable offenses of:

• Child Abuse (examples: advocacy for and implementation of documented practices that indefinitely separate thousands of young children from their parents; holding thousands of children in mass incarceration facilities with little to no structured educational or socio-emotional support)

• Immorality (examples: the use of violence against children to deter immigration; advocating and supporting the separation of children from their families; refusal of refugee/asylee status to those fleeing gang or sexual violence; oppression of those seeking asylum or attempting to enter the United States with refugee status; directing employees and staff members to kidnap children from their parents)

• Racial discrimination (examples: stopping investigations of police departments charged with racial discrimination; attempting to criminalize Black Lives Matter and other racial justice activist groups; targeting incarceration for those engaged in undocumented border crossings as well as those who present with requests for asylum, with a particular focus on those perceived as Muslim or LatinX)

• Dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church (examples: the misuse of Romans 13 to indicate the necessity of obedience to secular law, which is in stark contrast to Disciplinary commitments to supporting freedom of conscience and resistance to unjust laws)


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Faith Is Not about Orthodoxy; It's about Following Jesus

Jesus said to them, “Come and follow me . . .”
Matthew 4:19

According to the Gospel records, Jesus issues that same simple invitation repeatedly. He tells the fishermen that he will teach them to fish for people and he calls on a rich young man to first, “go and sell all that you have, and give it to the poor.” He asks Levi to leave his work as a tax collector.

The invitations are simple and direct.

He does not ask them for an affirmation of faith. He does not ask them to believe in him or have faith in him or believe anything about him. He does not ask them to believe anything at all. They don’t have to affirm a doctrine or recite a creed, or even say a prayer.

They are simply invited to follow.

I thought about the simplicity of that original invitation as I read a recent post by Mark Tooley on the “Juicy Ecumenism” blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). His essay is a critique of a blog post by Rev. Roger Wolsey, a United Methodist elder, who was writing about Progressive Christianity.

Mr. Tooley begins by quoting what Rev. Wolsey says he doesn’t believe:

“Friends, Jesus isn’t God. Jesus didn’t die for our sins. Jesus wasn’t killed instead of us. God isn’t wrathful or vindictive. There isn’t a hell (other than ones that we create here on this earth). Going to heaven after we die isn’t what the faith or salvation is about. God didn’t write the Bible."

That sounds a lot more radical than it is.

One of the hazards of Progressive Christianity is that it is too often more about what we don’t believe than about what we do believe.

But one of the reasons Progressive Christians expend so much energy on what they don’t believe is because allegedly “orthodox” Christians say so many things that require response. The affirmations of the current “orthodoxy” are often little more than a thinly veiled biblical and creedal literalism. And sometimes the literalism is not veiled at all. Consequently, Progressives often find themselves correcting notions they thought had been laid to rest in the middle of the twentieth century.

Tooley does not quote the whole paragraph of Wolsey’s disbelieving. And the last part sounds more like mainline Christianity:

“Jesus’ resurrection didn’t have to be understood as a physical one for it to be a real and meaningful one (Paul and many of the early disciples encountered a spiritually risen Christ). Science and faith aren’t incompatible. God didn’t create the Creation in 6 literal days. The earth isn’t only 6,000 years old. Human aggravated global warming isn’t bogus. God isn’t male. Women are fully equal to me. Homosexuality isn't a sin.  Being transgender isn’t sinful or to be rejected. Racism is sinful. And Christianity isn't the only way for humans to experience salvation.”

Given his perspective on the far right end of what he calls “orthodoxy,” Tooley’s critique is not surprising, and he makes his points without a great deal of rancor. At the center of his criticism of Wolsey is his rejection of what he calls “the old modernist Protestant liberalism,” which he declares to be “mostly dead.”

He correctly identifies the major problems with the old modernist liberalism as the deification of science and rationality.

But his critique of Wolsey’s progressive Christian vision has two major problems.

The first is inherent in the very idea of “orthodoxy” itself. It’s a long way from the original invitation of Jesus. The spiritual journey to which Jesus invites his followers ought not to be confined by a narrow orthodoxy. It ought to be broadly expansive and open to new ideas and insights. We should be looking for more light and more insight, not trying to find ways to limit our thinking. The Council of Chalcedon (or any other) may be a great subject for historical inquiry, and that study can certainly teach us things, but it ought not to limit our faith.

The second problem is identical with his critique of modernism.

The current rebirth of biblical literalism might seem to be the very antithesis of the modernist “deification of science and rationality,” but it isn’t. Literalism is anti-science, but it arrives at that position by treating the biblical witness as if it were its own kind of science.

Scholarship and science argue that facts matter. Literalism counters by turning faith into fact.

The majestic poetry and deep religious symbolism of the Bible are reduced to factoids. The narrative is just a list of events. The warmth that was so vital to the evangelical witness is lost in the insistence on facts.

Rooting out heterodox theology is not the path to authentic faith. Maybe we could just help each other follow Jesus and see where he leads us.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Prayer and Protest: Fox News Gets It Right

Jesus said, 
“Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 
   Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9-10

Fox News was widely criticized for airing a news report showing Philadelphia Eagles players kneeling in prayer before a game and claiming that they were protesting the National Anthem. The photos provided a background visual for a news report on the President’s cancellation of a planned White House visit by the Philadelphia Eagles to celebrate their Super Bowl Championship.

The President had disinvited the team because only a small number of the players (less than ten) were planning to attend. In reporting the story, Fox used pictures that purported to show Eagles players kneeling during the National Anthem, when in fact none of the players had kneeled during the anthem at any game all season. The pictures actually showed Eagles players kneeling in prayer before the game and before the playing of the anthem.

Philadelphia tight end Zach Ertz, one of the players shown kneeling, expressed his frustration on Twitter:

"This can’t be serious.... Praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem, is being used for your propaganda?! Just sad, I feel like you guys should have to be better than this."

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Judd Legum was sharply critical:

“Innocent mistake? Possible, but unlikely. Fox News commentators have been railing against NFL protest kneelers for some time. ‘And you have to ask, what are we kneeling for at this point?’ said host Pete Hegseth last September. ‘Because you talk about social injustice. This is the least sexist, least racist, most free, most equal, most prosperous country in the history of humankind.’ Tucker Carlson: ‘They’re attacking the flag and the country, and I’m just telling you that when the richest people in a society decide the country they are supposed to be running is corrupt, it falls apart’ Sean Hannity: ‘Patriotism under fire’.”

Eventually, Christopher Wallace, the executive producer of "Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream," issued this apology:

"During our report about President Trump canceling the Philadelphia Eagles' trip to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win, we showed unrelated footage of players kneeling in prayer. To clarify, no members of the team knelt in protest during the national anthem throughout regular or postseason last year. We apologize for the error."

The pictures were deceptive. 

But there is a deeper issue here.

The complaint is that Fox News misrepresented prayer as protest.

But at the deepest level Fox (unintentionally) got it right: prayer is protest.

Karl Barth liked to say that, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” ("Hände falten im Gebet ist der Anfang des Aufstandes gegen die Unordnung der Welt!")

Prayer is a rebellion against violence and injustice. Jesus instructed his disciples that when we place ourselves before God our first petition should be for the coming of God’s kingdom of social and economic justice, peace and non-violence.

Even the simplest prayers at meals or at bed-time point toward a different reality than the one we normally encounter. We ask forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and we protest our own failings. Our protest in those moments is introspective, but it is real.

If prayer is not protest, it is not authentic prayer.

It is important to be clear with regard to the NFL players. Fox has consistently misrepresented the issue. No one is protesting the National Anthem. They have been protesting racial injustice and police brutality, which disproportionately impacts people of color. 

When Henry David Thoreau was in Concord prison for his refusal to pay the poll tax as a protest against slavery and the Mexican-American war, legend has it that Ralph Waldo Emerson asked him, “What are you doing in here?” And Thoreau responded, “Waldo, what are you doing out there?”

The exchange is apocryphal, but the question is true.

If we are at all familiar with the issue of racial injustice in America, the question is not, “Why are some of the players kneeling?” The question is, “Why isn’t everyone kneeling?”

As Christians, we should be kneeling in prayer and in protest.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Biblical Literalism Is Unbiblical

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
Matthew 5:17-18

Last week I participated in a United Methodist clergy discussion group which began with a question about sexual orientation and the Bible and very soon devolved into an argument about biblical literalism. 

Historically, United Methodists have not been biblical literalists. But you would have never guessed that from the discussion.

Which brings us to the Zen question of the day: does biblical literalism cause homophobia, or does homophobia cause biblical literalism? Do folks embrace biblical literalism in order to support their homophobia or is it the other way around?

Either way, they are deeply intertwined. And the literalism does broad damage beyond the issues of LGBTQ inclusion or exclusion. 

Once upon a time I rejected biblical literalism because, as Paul said, “when I became an adult I put away childish things.” Literalism seemed irrational, and I wanted to see myself as a rational, thinking person. One of the things I always cherished about Methodism was our oft-repeated statement that “when we go to church we don’t leave our minds at the door.”

But the biggest problem with biblical literalism is not that it is irrational; the biggest problem is that it is unbiblical. As John Dominic Cross emphatically states, “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”

Beyond the mistake of trying to reduce symbolic religious language to a narrow and stunted literalism, there is another issue built into the structure of the biblical witness itself.

Early in the passage we know as “The Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus tells his disciples that he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And then he says that not one letter, or even the stroke of a letter of the law, will be lost. The Torah, the written word of God is eternal. It will always exist and it will exist in the form in which it was originally given to Moses.

That might seem like a strong affirmation of the literal meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures, but just a few verses later Jesus launches into a series of teachings all of which begin the same way: “You have heard it said,” Jesus recalls, “but I say to you . . .” In those declarations, Jesus rejects whole chapters of the Torah in favor of a new teaching.

Jesus is not contradicting himself. He is doing what authoritative Rabbis  are supposed to do. ("He teaches as one having authority")

Jesus believed in the twofold law, the written and the oral.

He believed that the written law had been given to Moses at Sinai, and he believed that law could not be changed even in the smallest detail. But in each generation the great teachers had the responsibility of reinterpreting the oral law for that generation. 

The oral law was not fixed; it was fluid. The authority for reinterpretation came from Moses himself and that ongoing process was part of the tradition from the time that Moses first received the Law.

The oral law, which was equal in authority to the written law, was an attempt to capture the spirit of the Law. Each generation built on the traditions of the elders who had preceded them. In that sense, the law tended to evolve.

When we try to read the Bible literally, we are using a process that Jesus rejected and we are missing the opportunity to understand its meaning in fresh ways for our generation. We would do well to remember that as we debate those verses that relate to same sex relationships. 

Our understanding is supposed to evolve.

They Have Builded Him an Altar

Arlington National Cemetery

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruning hooks; 
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 2:4

When I was a little boy we had a Memorial Day tradition of going to the cemetery to put flowers on the graves of relatives. One time, we stopped for gas on the way home, and my dad went inside to talk with the guys who ran the station, while my sister and I waited in the car with my mother. 

I asked Mom about the flags we had seen at many of the graves and she told me that the flags marked the burial places of veterans. I asked if they had all died in the Second World War, and she said, no, some had died in other wars. But the flags did not mean that they had been killed in a war; the flags marked the graves of all veterans. It meant that they had served in the military.

Then we talked about those who had died in the war and she told me that when a family lost a son they would put a flag in the window (I know there is a tradition of stars, but I think she talked about flags). Mom had been in high school during the war, and she was visibly moved by the memory. 

“That must have been very sad for their mothers,” I said, seeing her emotion. “Yes,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “some families had more than one flag.”

“I wish I had been alive then,” I said. “I wish I had been in the war. I would have killed all those Japanese and Germans who made those mothers so sad!”

I was trying to cheer her up, and I could tell she knew that I meant well. She was quiet for a moment and they she said softly, “You know, Billy, Japanese and German soldiers had mothers, too.”

And I said, “Don’t say that. I don’t want to think about that!”

If we really think about it, it is almost unbearable. But as Christians, it is precisely what we ought to think about. 

Mom’s thoughts come back to me every Memorial Day. 

My other Memorial Day memory is of singing Julia Ward Howe’s epic, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She wrote it with the goal of inspiring the Union troops. Blending biblical apocalypticism with patriotic militarism, she set it to what had originally been a tune used in Methodist camp meetings.

At the time, the music provided the tune for the melancholy, “John Brown’s Body” and Howe wanted to use it for something more inspiring. The result is stirring and encouraging. 

And if you think about it, it is also deeply troubling.

Lest there be any doubt about her belief in the righteousness of the Union cause, the third verse sets it forth with brutal honesty:

I have read a fiery Gospel
writ in burnished rows of steel,
"As ye deal with My contemners
so with you My grace shall deal,"
Let the Hero born of woman
crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on 

The "Hero" is the Union soldier, but the heel that crushes the Confederate soldier (aka "the serpent") belongs to God. Not surprisingly, that verse is omitted from our United Methodist Hymnal.

She is best known for that hymn, but she was also an abolitionist and a suffragist, and she was one of the founders of what we now call “Mother’s Day.” 

Although she never wavered in her affirmation of the cause for which the Civil War was fought, she was appalled by the human cost.

In response to the carnage she had seen in the Civil War, she called for a Mother’s Day of Peace, in which the women of the world would declare a common interest in nurturing and protecting life. Her Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870, presented that bold vision:

Arise then ... women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered 

by irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, 

reeking with carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them 

of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil 

at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, 

to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel 

with each other

as to the means 

whereby the great human family 

can live in peace,

Each learning after his own time, 

the sacred impress,

Not of Caesar, but of God.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*This post includes material originally published on this blog in 2010.

American Pie, Three-in-One Oil, and the Mystery of the Trinity

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9

In a thought provoking blog post which he provocatively titled, “There Is No Such Thing as the Trinity (Some Dudes Made It Up),” Richard Lowell Bryant argues (And if you were paying attention, you could see this coming . . .) that there is no such thing as the Trinity.

He’s wrong, of course.

If there were no such thing as the Trinity, then Don McLean wouldn’t have given it such an important place in his immortal song, “American Pie.”

After all, McLean tells us that he “went down to the sacred store” and I’m sure they would not have sold him a bogus doctrine.

Apparently Rev. Bryant did not research this a thoroughly as he should have.

In his opening paragraph he writes:

“There is no such thing as the Holy Trinity. There is a means of referring to the relationship between God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy the Spirit which Christians call the ‘Holy Trinity’. We don’t know if that’s what God calls God’s relationships or if the Trinity exists anything at all as we describe. My inclination is to believe God functions beyond language terms and classifications. It’s our word. No one’s gotten a message back from God as to whether God agrees with our system or choice of terms. Yet we, the church, live and die by three in one, one in three.”

The first sentence says that there is no such thing as the Holy Trinity. And then the second sentence tells us what the Holy Trinity is.

In other words, this is about the words. That’s not a bad thing. Theology is about finding the right words and defining the words, and using the words to understand the reality.

What is perhaps even more amusing than Rev. Bryant’s clever sleight of hand was the reaction to it among United Methodist Clergy colleagues. More than a few called for his dismissal from the covenant. “Send him packing,” said one.

Suddenly it was as if being a United Methodist pastor was all about following the rules of doctrine. Never mind thinking for yourself. Never mind searching for new ways to understand something. Forget about how we can understand ancient doctrines in a twenty-first century context. If you can’t stand up and salute a literal reading of the Nicene Creed, then you need to leave. And the sooner the better.

Monty Python said, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

I certainly didn’t expect it in a United Methodist Clergy discussion.

In the great debate about United Methodist schism, this is an issue that looms in the background. The literalism that stunts our understanding of LGBTQ issues is not limited to those issues. It threatens to turn us into medieval Roman Catholics, hunting for heretics lurking behind every attempt at theological inquiry. This is the same narrowmindedness that generated attacks on Bishops Oliveto and Sprague among others, for their intellectual creativity.

The point that Bryant is making (I think) is that the Trinity is not is not a biblical doctrine.

He notes that the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible. It is “a (semantic, logical, cosmological, theological, psychological, and philosophical) construct, a theological conjecture; created by flawed and fallible Homo sapiens who want to understand something no one really understands: the way God relates to God’s self.”

And that is true.

But it is true of all theology.

Theology, all theology, is a human construct. It is an attempt by fallible human beings to think systematically (philosophically and/or biblically) about God.

And what is true of theology is also true of the Bible. Regardless of your beliefs about inspiration, the actual writing was done by human beings.

In his memoir, “Soul on Ice,” the late political activist and early Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver told of his experience with theological reflection while he was a guest of the California Youth Authority.

“It all ended one day when, at a catechism class, the priest asked if anyone present understood the mystery of the Holy Trinity. I had been studying my lessons diligently and knew by heart what I'd been taught. Up shot my hand, my heart throbbing with piety (pride) for this chance to demonstrate my knowledge of the Word.

“To my great shock and embarrassment, the Father announced, and it sounded like a thunderclap, that I was lying, that no one, not even the Pope, understood the Godhead, and why else did I think they called it the mystery of the Holy Trinity?

“I saw in a flash, stung to the quick by the jeers of my fellow catechumens, that I had been used, that the Father had been lying in wait for the chance to drop that thunderbolt, in order to drive home the point that the Holy Trinity was not to be taken lightly.

“I had intended to explain the Trinity with an analogy to 3-in-1 oil, so it was probably just as well.”

Three-in-One Oil is not a bad analogy. Just don’t tell your clergy friends.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.