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Letters

May 7, 2007

Well, I am off on a “girls weekend” but before I left, I edited the letters and whoa, did we have them! So, sit back and enjoy the great comeback of letters. I must admit, I have really missed hearing from all of you!

Re: “Oneness vs. Trinitarian Pentecostals”

I appreciate your desire to see an increased, thoughtful, articulate, and charitable dialogue between Trinitarian Pentecostals and Oneness Pentecostals.  It is badly needed.  As you noted, both parties are guilty of creating false caricatures of the other, and guilty of focusing on the differences to the fault of virtually ignoring our commonalities.  But I am afraid that even after we have cleared up our misunderstandings, improved our language and attitude, and recognize the depth of our similarities, the Great Divide will remain.

After all the smoke clears, the fact remains that we are separated by important theological differences that cannot be brushed under the rug, or relegated to second fiddle as our shared Pentecostal experience takes center stage.  Experience cannot trump the doctrinal differences for a practical reason: doctrine is the interpretation of our experience.  It is the framework through which we understand who we encountered when we received the Spirit, what it means, and its significance.  Trinitarians and Oneness believers have very different answers to these questions.  So long as experiences need interpreting, doctrinal differences will continue to divide us.

Of course, doctrinal differences abound even within our own organization.  (For example, some are pre-tribbers, while others are post-tribbers.)  And yet we fellowship the differences.  Why can we fellowship those differences, but not those that exist between the Oneness and Trinitarian views on God and salvation?  Because the former are secondary, or perhaps tertiary issues in a taxonomy of doctrinal importance, while the latter are primary doctrines (which should not, and on a practical level, cannot be fellowshipped).  They get to the heart of the Christian faith: Who is God, and what is required for salvation?  The different answers we provide to these questions are not semantical, but conceptual in nature, and extremely important.  Trinitarian dogma has an entirely different framework through which it understands God and salvation than does Oneness theology.

This is not to detract from our similarities, but it is to be realistic about the nature of the Great Divide.  Both Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostals believe (1) God is one, (2) Jesus is both God and man, (3) the Father, Son, and Spirit are God, (4) Scripture makes a distinction between the Father, Son, and Spirit, (5) repentance is necessary, (6) baptism is normative, (7) and the Pentecostal experience is still available today.

But we differ in the following ways: (1) Trinitarians believe the one God subsists in three eternal persons, while we believe God is unipersonal, (2) Trinitarians believe the second person of the Trinity became incarnate, while we believe it was the undivided, singular person of God, (3) Trinitarians believe “Son” refers to an eternal person in the Godhead, while we believe “Son” refers to the one divine person’s temporal existence as man, (4) Trinitarians understand the Biblical distinction between the Father and the Son as personal in nature, while we believe the distinction is incarnational in nature; (5) Trinitarians believe baptism is not essential to salvation, whereas we do, (6) Trinitarians use the Triune baptismal formula found in Matthew, whereas we use the Jesus’ name formula found in Acts, (7) Trinitarians do not believe speaking in tongues is the universal evidence of having received the Spirit, whereas we do.  These differences are no small matter.

Again, I encourage civil, informed, gracious dialogue between us.  I just don’t think it will result in a bridging of the Great Divide.  At best it will bring clarity to the issue, and may result in people refining their theological understandings closer toward the truth.  But so long as different people espouse the different positions, there will exist a Great Divide, because the two doctrines are divided on the nature of God, and the nature of salvation.  Our shared experience cannot overcome that.

Jason Dulle, California

Re: “Your New Home Page Layout...”

Please, go back to what it used to look like; this one is not very good at all. No offense, but this one is not an improvement. It’s really hard to access things, it’s like a maze. Help!

I love you guys and what’s great doesn’t need improvement! God bless!

Elaine Hodges, California

Re: “TV & the UPC: The Debate’s All Wrong”

Extremely well-written! I think the three described camps—traditionalists, reluctant progressives, and initiators—are dead-on as well. I guess I see myself as a reluctant progressive with strong initiator leanings.

But here’s my quandary—I don’t get the crux of the debate. Do the traditionalists fear that if advertising is allowed on TV that the TV medium will just become generally accepted? Because if that’s it, then it’s already too late. lol. I’d venture to say that the majority of A/Ps I associate with are regular TV watchers. Of course that changes according to whether the person is a “minister.” But, from my experience, it seems that among the laity, TV is not this huge anathema maranatha thing anymore.

Sometimes it seems to me that some of the items in the Articles of Faith are like those old, unenforced laws that are still on the books in some states but that no one has the heart to remove.

Chantell Smith, Alabama

Re: “Healing the Great Divide”

While Mr. DeGraffenreed is obviously a scholar and has written well, it is apparent he is not familiar with the Bible. Baptism is an essential element to salvation and there is no other name than Jesus to be baptized under. Moreover, there is no triune God; there is only one. To say that Oneness Pentecostals as a body deny the Father is ludicrous. However, I recognize the manifestation of the Creator, the Savior, and the Spirit in one man—Christ Jesus—and apparently Mr. DeGraffenreed does not. His view makes as much sense as saying that because he is a son and has a life force [spirit] moving within him, he cannot be a father. Phooey!

The reason for the new birth experience, and Dr. Bernard’s many writings support this, is to support personal spiritual revelation. Until an individual has repented of his sins, been baptized is Jesus’ Name, and received the infilling of the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in tongues, he is in no position to speak on God’s behalf.

Lynn Allen, Texas

Re: “UPC and TV”

In 2004, when I converted to Oneness and holiness I didn’t need or have anyone instruct me to stop watching television. God told me himself and I laid it down, and I have stopped watching. I live with my dad who has a TV and watches it; occasionally I catch a few minutes every few months. I purposefully ignore TV.

As far as the debate goes I am of the persuasion of the old path, the good old way. The world was turned upside down by the apostles without TV, the Ethiopian Apostolic revival is also a prime example of this in modern times. God doesn’t need TV to change on person or 1 million people! These initiators you speak of and progressives have to ask God what is his one mind on the issue; we are a body one in Spirit, one in faith and mind.

Old-time Pentecostals shouldn’t have to be viewed as outdated. No TV for me was like coming into a harbor after being shipwrecked by sin. I don’t miss TV, and I wish I had never watched it. Every day I have to constantly let the Holy Ghost deprogram my mind from all of the sarcasm I learnt on TV. As far as evangelism is concerned the Lord can talk through donkeys if he has to but he’d rather talk by other means. People such as initiators are saying that we are getting left behind by the tech, etc. They are saying that God is incapable of impacting the world supernaturally. The TV is an idol and everybody should, if urged by the Holy Ghost, cut it out of their life. Nothing is more dramatic, impacting, or life changing than a real encounter with Jesus. You don’t need TV and neither does God. Read a book!

Re: “The Great Divide; Oneness versus Trinity”

Having once been an atheist, then going from binitarianism to trinitarianism to universalism to atheism to universalism again and finally to Apostolic Oneness, you are objective and respectful in the article. But honestly, now that I’m Apostolic Oneness, this is how the issue really is—if you really were a true Apostolic Oneness believer you would never even write the article.You wouldn’t bother unless you were trying to win a Trinitarian or some other persuasion. There is no going back to the Trinity once you realize that Jesus is the Father our God and Savior. Jehovah! One God! You incorrectly assume that there are any Oneness believers that deny the Father; there are none that deny the Father, Jesus is the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost!

You have met people that believe one of two positions in the Oneness movement.

Position 1 is that the mode of office of the Son is a temporal subordinate mode awaiting completion at the conquering of death and the rapture.

Position 2 is that the Son has already given up the kingdom to God and fulfilled everything and finished everything on the cross, thus receiving all power in heaven and earth into his glorified body, thus becoming the Father through transformation at the reconciliation of all things at Calvary; thus all the fullness of the omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent Father is centered and personified in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the single centre of God’s consciousness, power, and authority, thus making Jesus the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The UPCI generally holds to the first position thus placing them in a majority, whilst a lot of the more zealous and militant Oneness Apostolics hold to the second view that the Son is the Father. The UPCI don’t believe that the office of the Son is the Office of the Father, they use the example of “did Jesus pray to himself?” to prove that He is temporarily still completing all things for the Father, whilst still maintaining that they have no distinction of personality or centre of consciousness i.e., that the Son is a temporal mode of operation whilst God is still enabling the true revelation of His monotheistic identity.

UPCI are very similar to the 1st and 2nd century modelists who are the direct offspring of the Apostles. There were no Trinitarians until the late 2nd century early 3rd century. No one ever baptized in the name of God’s titles, everyone according to church history was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in accordance with Acts 2:38. So whilst Oneness believers are being labeled anti-intellectual they are in fact one of the few surviving logical people still with their feet on the ground. If atheism was built upon logic and observation then they have a strong opponent in the Oneness movement, because the Oneness people are more logical than any people on earth. The Trinity makes no logical or sequential sense, if definitions are the foundation of communication then the Trinitarians got an F for failure.

As far as Trinitarians being tritheistic? It goes back to definition; if they are tritheistic then they are polytheistic; and if you are polytheistic then you are going to hell!

Karl Simon Villani, South Australia

Re: “TV and the UPC”

The thing I always wonder is why we debate over TV and not the internet. From what I understand, the internet is as bad, if not worse, than TV. I realize that TV has been around much longer and maybe that’s why we talk about it more. Maybe I’ve had my head in the sand and missed this debate. What have you heard? I’d like to hear a discussion on this topic.

Ann Ahrens, Missouri

Re: “TV and the UPC”

I support advertising on TV. It is time to wake up and realize that the world around us has changed. Technology is part of our everyday living. Here is something to think about: the internet provides access to everything under the sun. Everyone has a choice in what site they choose to go to. Just because a minister doesn’t have a TV in his home doesn’t mean that he cannot access it from the internet.

Lisa Vertrees, Tennessee

Re: “Christianity without the Cross”

This book Christianity without the Cross was written by Thomas Fudge, PhD. You have given the wrong author credit.

I have truly been blessed by your sensitivity to the issue standing before the church.
As a son and grand nephew of two founders of the Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Christ Jesus, Inc. (Hispanic) in the 20th century, I agree with the spirit of unity, after all we are going to spend eternity all together.

God bless,

Daniel Cantu, California

Re: “On the Outside, Looking In...”

My Dear Brother in Christ Jesus:

Our Father’s heart must be deeply broken by the divisions that have occurred through the centuries.  But, the real believers are “coming out from among them” and look what they are discovering—purity of brotherhood, maintaining unity by the bond of the Spirit, based solely upon the Word, and not an additional handbook to explain the Original Word!

Men of like faith in Christ Jesus are showing up everywhere, and from every traditional background / denomination possible.  The central theme..?  Jesus, the only answer to this world’s ills!

As in Ezekiel 37, there is a stirring in the bones, and proper connections are being made by these disconnected parts.  Only God can do this mighty work in us.

And, He is!

Jim Robinson, Texas

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