First Council of Nicea by V.Surikov (1876)
Know the Heretics – Fall Adult Sunday School Class
The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable . . . It is always easier to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. — G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
“Christian Heresy – Church History”?
What in God’s name could be less interesting???
That’s what anyone might ask when considering giving some time and study to these topics. However, what I have found is that anyone who is thinking more deeply about God, about Jesus, the Church, and how to live a life of faith – these two avenues of study and conversation are rarely avoidable.
The study of Heresy and Church History is actually the study of these questions:
“Who is Jesus? Is Jesus divine? Is Jesus human? How does the Gospel relate to the First Testament, the Old Testament? How is Jesus the Carpenter also the Son of God? Am I saved and prepared for what lies ahead after my death? How does Jesus save?”
In my own life, as I look back at the walk Christ has shared with me, and when I pray and discern about the walk that remains, I find my experience of God is growing as is my desire for deeper conversation and shared experience with others.
Good people of faith for generations before us have been thinking about these questions – and many of these good people were also eventually given the label of “heretic.” Very rarely have I “listened in” on a dinner party conversation about God, or a car trip conversation about God, or post meeting conversation about God where the thought and experience of Christians who have gone before us would not offer some illumination and counsel.
Essentially the question of these first thinkers is the question that we all face: how do I encounter and conceive of a presence that is both beyond me, as well as within and around me – how can I know God as Jesus? How can I live knowing that Jesus is the Son of God?
From Justin Holcomb, the author of our study, “But not all of these explanations were equally well grounded — many of them owed too much to the spirit of the times or cut out essential parts of the Bible in order to make the explanation fit. This book is the story of those theories — what they were and why they did not become a part of mainstream Christianity.”
In our study we will clarify what is meant by orthodoxy and heresy. We will be answering the question that is first posed to Peter, a question asked of us – “Who do you say that I am?” {Mark 8:29}
The following briefly describes the “heretical” answers given by some of the thinkers we will cover in more detail in this book:
Marcion: The God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament are two different gods.
Docetists: Jesus only appeared to be human.
Arius: The Son was a created being of a lower order than the Father.
Apollinarius: Jesus’ divine nature/Logos replaced the human rational soul in the incarnation. In other words, Jesus’ “pure” divine nature replaced the “filthy” mind of a typical human.
Sabellius: Jesus and the Father are not distinct but just “modes” of a single being.
Eutyches: The divinity of Christ overwhelms his humanity.
Nestorius: Jesus was composed of two separate persons, one divine and one human.
And perhaps more fascinating than meeting those labeled heretics, we will be meeting those who answered their questions on behalf of the infant Church. Folks like Origen of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian of Carthage. They were individuals who were simply living their lives before God offered them the divine interruption of becoming defenders of the faith; they too had plans, hopes, and dreams for themselves before Jesus became more than an imaginary friend and good idea in their lives. Essentially, they were folks like you and me.
We will begin our study this Sunday in the Garden Room at 9:30 – 10:15. Our Sunday School time parallels of our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program for the children, so that our parents might have the opportunity to attend. I often arrive early for conversation and review prior to our start at 9:30.
If you plan on joining us, please RSVP to me or the office so that we might order a book for you.
On September 17th we will have Sunday School with our special guest, Dr. Jay Wellons, and then resume to our regular schedule for the fall. I will be away one Sunday in October to visit a child in college, but will make arrangements with Father Paul for that class.
I hope you will join us. Blessings and Godspeed,
Alston Johnson, Dean – St. Mark’s
The Carpenter's Nail 