Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

As I remember (and husband agrees), in our coCs, we were taught a fairly conventional, if confusing, Christian view of the Trinity. DH even remembers a sermon on the Trinity given by our preacher (the guy who married us.) However, we both left the coC religion about 40 years ago.

Yesterday I was talking to my niece about various church beliefs. (She and I are friendly/compatible in our own beliefs.) When I mentioned that Pentecostals don’t teach the Trinity, she stated that neither do Mormons or coC. She was raised coC (NI) and converted to LDS for maybe 10 years (her husband was raised LDS). Now they have both left Mormonism and attend a Unitarian Church.

I told her I was quite sure that coC teaches the Trinity. She says that once she bluntly asked a relative of ours, an NIcoC preacher. He told her they DO NOT believe in the Trinity. She was coC much more recently than I was. I wonder if they have changed (horrors!) their beliefs? Or do they just dislike the word “Trinity”?

Can some of you share what you were taught in the coC? It would be helpful to know how long ago you heard the teaching, and maybe which branch of the coC you were in.

No need to discuss your own current beliefs. I just want to know what is currently being taught in the coC.

Thanks,
Moogy

The one mom goes to believes in the classic trinity doctrine. There is one God but composed of three different individuals.

Because of their general refusal to do academic theology and use theological vocabulary, it is sometimes difficult to judge what is being taught. Also, the lack of accountability beyond the local area tends to allow guys to preach for years with odd views of this doctrine. I've heard or read virtually all of the classic trinitarian heresies -maybe not di-physitism- espoused by CoC preachers. My father's teaching is essentially Arian. I've seen preachers who took pride in not conforming to the Nicene creed. And most of these dolts have never even seen the Athanasian creed. Most of these guys are so afraid to teach about the Holy Spirit that they don't have a clue what proceeding from the Father (and the Son) could even mean. In fact, I once heard a preacher admit that in a sermon. The old book on the subject by H. Leo Boles has long fallen out of favor.

Also, I have noticed the younger preachers, who are generally better educated, are actually worse in this regard because they've ditched the KJV and don't have the controversial passage from 1 John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." So it becomes more difficult to 'call Bible things by Bible names.'

I am scared to ask what H. Leo Boles wrote.

In Islam there is no trinity to have to argue about philosophically and theologically. Jesus was a prophet and messiah. The Holy Spirit is Gabriel the angel.

I think one reason there has been so much ruckus in Christianity over the trinity is so much of the doctrine has to be developed from inferentially formed arguments. This is especially true with Christianity's development of its understanding of the Holy Spirit.

I hav always thought the CofC did not have clear teaching about the trinity.

To be clear, the coc doesn't have particular clear teachings on ANYTHING.

That said, CERTAINLY the denomination as a denomination (sorry Charlie, it is indeed a denomination) believes in the Trinity. Certainly I sang (as we all did) 'God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity' and 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost' were invoked at every baptism.

I think that girl simply heard wrong.

As for what I was TAUGHT:
official church teaching: God, Jesus and Holy Ghost: Trinity. God in Three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, Jesus is God etc.

Let me check: is that the trinity? Answer: yes

What I LEARNED, of course, is that God the Father is the OT God, God the Father is angry and difficult and always on the lookout to catch us doing something wrong (like having a passing thought that mom was mean - BOOM! failure to honor your parents! Hell for you!)

Jesus the Son, on the other hand, was sweetness and light and a lamb and loved us ever so much, that when we had a passing thought or doubt about - something - this God would be SORRY to condemn us to Hell forever. However, that wouldn't stop him from doing so: Hell for you! doubts are sinful.

Holy Ghost? God only knows, and I mean that very sincerely.

And that is what I learned in a Coc.

I am sure some preacher or elder in the church would be very upset by that, and tell me I was wrong, but seriously, I was there for YEARS AND YEARS, and no matter what they THOUGHT they were teaching, I know what I actually learned.

I learned to be afraid, be very afraid: only church of Christ members would go to heaven and not even all of US.

This is, I suppose, at least a step above the JW 144,000 or whatever the number is.

Seems like I vaguely remember being told the cofc didn't believe in the "Trinity". But I can't offer any more details.

Statement of Faith

We believe the mission of the Church is to seek the lost and bring them into a relationship with Christ. We recognize the Church is unique since Christ died for no other institution. We recognize there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one body, one spirit, one hope and one God.

At (name of church redacted), we intend to glorify God by sharing His love and His Word with everyone. We intend to honor the Father by correctly handling His Word without adding to or taking from it, to worship Him as He has directed, to praise Him and live in grateful recognition of the tremendous sacrifice of His Son to redeem us from sin.

Taken off the church website today under 'what we believe' with bold print by yours truly - Yep, that's about what I remember: God the Father, God the Son, and the poor Holy Ghost gets no mention at all.

Maybe they are Dualians instead of Trinitarians?

What I remember is there was one God, but there was a Godhead composed of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. I do not remember if there was ever a distinction made between God and the Godhead. I don't remember the term Trinity ever being mentioned. There were attempts to explain the difference in the three but they were never very clear. Holy Spirit as I remember was what possessed people to believe and act in accord with Christian teachings.

All the congregations I ever participated in did acknowledge the trinity more or less. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost...We never got much instruction about that last one; I suppose He's just too mysterious and spooky and it was my experience that the coC had pretty much reduced the Holy Spirit to dried ink on the pages of the New Testament...perhaps that might explain why they seem to actually worship the Bible??? I never participated with any of them that would allow that there was ANY ongoing operation of the Holy Spirit in the world after the Apostles and those they might have laid hands on were gone.