Christ-Denier Responsible for Church’s Same Sex Marriage Ban
Knowing theological history is good. Most fundamentalists though seems to think Jesus died and then Martin Luther appeared fully formed out of Gutenberg’s printing press. Um, not. So anyway, for the belief geeks, atheists, and agnostics, a little something to counter faith-based arguments about civil marriage equality:
It took more than three centuries after Jesus’ death for the Christian Church–in 343, under the co-Emperors Constantius and Constans, sons of Constantine the first Holy Roman Emperor–to ban same-sex marriage.
But Constantius was a Christ-denying heretic who did not believe that Jesus and God were the same. A follower of the heresy of Arianism from 338 on, Constantius believed the Son was created and thus not equal to God, and actually less than God, which went against orthodox Christian beliefs, including those held now.
In 359 at the council of Ariminum, Constantius revoked the Nicene Creed, the central foundation of Christianity, both Catholic and later Protestant, which states that Jesus is "of one substance with the Father."
So why do Christians accept as law what this heretic said? And don’t get me started on Bible verses.
I understand what you’re trying to do here, I think focussing on the “development of dogma,” is easier. For most of the first 21 centuries after Jesus, Christian leaders always prohibited Christians from engaging in usury. I’m not aware of many thing about which Christians were in more fundamental agreement. It was only very recently that Christian leaders allowed Christians to take jobs as bankers.
Monophysitism is a heresy which states that Jesus is God. It’s kind of the opposite of the heresy of Arianism, which you mentioned. The hyper complex language of the trinity was a fourth century attempt to
get aroundtalk about the relationship between the historical Jesus of Nazareth and a God who is outside space and time. I think a less inappropriate language is that Jesus brought God’s salvation. I don’t, but some Xtians like to insert “unsurpassed” as an adjective, which makes Jesus the unsurpassable bringer of God’s salvation. All religions run into the same problem. Who/what mediates the transcendant into the historical?The overwhelming tendency in world religions is to drain the prophet, historical revealer of the transcendant, of their humanity. It’s what we do to heroes. I would say that the heresy of Monphysitism does much more serious damage to the Jesus tradition than Arianism, but the pope and a lot of fundies don’t agree with me. After Xtians drained Jesus of all his humanity, believers turned to his Mom. Once that happened, the institutional Church drained Mary of all her humanity. Then the worship of the saints followed the same dehumanizing pattern. Part of Luther’s theological genius was recognizing and fighting against that pattern. He called it for what it was, idolatry. That’s why the worship space of reformed Churches is so different from Catholic churches. It’s a personal relationship with our lord and savior, Jesus of Nazareth, who is truly human.
Thanks for all your terrific posts, you’re a lot of fun to read.