The three great crises of Christianity: what is God? what is the Church? what is man?
“The situation was summed up by the Cambridge historian Richard Rex, who suggests that there have been three great crises in the history of the Church. The first, in its early centuries, revolved around the question ‘What is God?’. That is to say: how many natures were in Jesus Christ, how many persons in the Trinity, and so on. Then, during the Reformation, ‘What is the Church?’. The third crisis, he argues, is happening now, over the question of ‘What is man?’. This relates – as he memorably puts it – to ‘an entire alphabet of beliefs and practices: abortion, bisexuality, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, family, gender, homosexuality, infertility treatment…’This is a quote from an interesting article in the “Spectator” magazine.
I feel for my Christian relatives and friends because I see another great schism on the horizon. For me as an atheist, the answer to the first question is: there is no God. Therefore the second question does not matter to me. The third question needs to be answered with tolerance and acceptance and respect as people decide who they are and what they want to do with their body.
April 17th, 2023 at 4:00 am
very interesting research and thoughts.
but, there might be god, and even gods! He or She just doesn’t want to interfer human’s life as much! Nobody truely knows, does he?
third question is even more confusing and complicated. what is man? a very big question. Very divided. Maybe this question is even harder than the first one. We still need answers…