Heresy. What an intense word. It is heretical, from a Christian point of view, to question the concept of a “trinity.” This concept was created early on in the Christian faith to make it easier to understand the person of God, yet it did not make it into Christian doctrine until possibly 400-600 years after Yeshua left.

I’ve been doing a lot of research concerning, Sabellianism, Modalism, Patripassianism, and  Trinitarianism. All of these are attempts to solve the concept of God in multiple beings. According to scripture, God is Echad (One). What is really interesting is that people label things heretical without knowing what that truly means. I think most Protestants would be considered a heretic if you really look at the definitions of the word.

Watch this short video concerning Modalism (versus the ever elusive trinity) quickly labels it as heretical and is against the Orthodoxical view of God:

From the video, he says “Within standard Orthodoxy… Modalism Doesn’t Fit.” Modalism is just one of probably thousands of theological terms that are seen as heretical. Let’s look at some definitions:

Heretic: a person who differs in opinion from established religious dogma.

I differ on many levels compared to the established church. Let us also look at the Wikipedia definition of Orthodoxy:

Orthodoxy (from Greek ὀρθοδοξία orthodoxía “right opinion”) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. In the Christian sense the term means “conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early Church.” The first seven ecumenical councils were held between the years of 325 and 787 with the aim of formalizing accepted doctrines.

The Councils

1. First Council of Nicaea (325)
2. First Council of Constantinople (381)
3. First Council of Ephesus (431)
4. Council of Chalcedon (451)
5. Second Council of Constantinople (553)
6. Third Council of Constantinople (680–681)
7. Second Council of Nicaea (787)

Protestants, like in that video above, hold on to Orthodoxy but I would argue that most have never looked into the Church’s creeds and councils. Let’s look at these councils that define “Orthodoxy”:

There are issues within all of these Councils, but who has time to correct all of them? Christianity has gone so far away from 1st-century Judaism that no Jewish aspects exist today.

The First Council had some core issues with their theology as Constantine was still a sun-worshipper. I recommend reading the whole article because “We are destroyed by lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6),” but I’ll focus on the break away from the Biblical, aka God-given, dates. They were conforming to man’s traditions, not God-given months and seasons.

Concerning Easter:

The controversy between those who argued for independent computations and those who argued for continued reliance on the Jewish calendar was formally resolved by the Council, which endorsed the independent procedure that had been in use for some time at Rome and Alexandria. Easter was henceforward to be a Sunday in a lunar month chosen according to Christian criteria—in effect, a Christian Nisan—not in the month of Nisan as defined by Jews.

The article did clarify that this council did not decide that Passover will never coincide with Easter, that concept came shortly after:

Nor did the Council decree that Easter must never coincide with Nisan 14 (the first Day of Unleavened Bread, now commonly called “Passover”).

If you haven’t read my article “What Happened to Dan and Ephraim?“, I highly recommend doing so. The short of it is, God doesn’t like it when people move away from the God-given dates and seasons. In fact, the ancient Israelites were cut off from His people if they did not celebrate the holidays as commanded. This was a deliberate shift away from Judaism, and probably an intentional shift toward pagan traditions of the time such as worship of Tammuz (my article on Lent), Ishtar (Easter) and sun worship (Sunday).

The Second Council

The second council I’d look to look at is the First Council of Constantinople, specifically the seven canons (Wikipedia). I didn’t want to copy the whole list so here is my “Updated and Easy to Read” version of the canons:

1. The concepts of Arianism (Jesus is subordinate to the Father), Macedonianism (denies the Godhood of the Holy Spirit) and Apollinarianism (Jesus was not fully human) are not accepted. But we haven’t landed on the term “trinity” yet
2. Bishop junk
3. Bishop junk and Rome is good
4. Kick out that Bishop
5. Bishop junk
6. Bishops do no wrong (Limiting the ability to accuse bishops of wrongdoing)
7. How to handle heretics

I have my thoughts on the “trinity” and I’ll address the first point at a later date, but I see no scripture to support the Catholic structure that the Church is found upon. Why does the church support a concept of a Pope, Cardinal, Patriarch, Archbishops, Diocesan Bishop, etc.?

To date, the Roman Catholic Church is the only church that supports that, but that split took over 1,000 years and most dogmas from the Catholic Church did not go away and are still affecting the Protestant churches today. But, from what I can tell, the Reformed split of the Church (Anglican and Protestant) kept the canons of the first four councils (Donald S. Armentrout; Robert Boak Slocum (2005). An Episcopal dictionary of the church. Books.google.com. p. 81. ISBN 0-89869-211-3.)

Then the major issue of “no wrongdoing” of Bishops. That’s insane. I would gladly go against such an Orthodoxical view like that.

Conclusion

There is a never-ending list of theological terminology, and just from writing this alone I have learned more than I ever thought I would about Sabellianism and Macedonianism alone. Reading an article is one thing, creating one and making sure I am historically and theologically accurate takes a long time. But as always, it is worth the time spent to know where I stand.

Here is my question concerning orthodoxy, if the definition of a heretic is one who objects to a canon, shouldn’t more “Christians” be labeled heretics?