Dr Paul Allen

Icon depicting the First Council of Nicaea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) William Wordsworth sounds the warning: Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things: We murder to dissect . Dissecting Christmas carols can be musical murder. Unless the disassembly fits together again more beautifully and more fully felt. That’s my goal. “O Come All Ye Faithful” is near the top of my favorites. As I ponder why, I see it’s because of three marriages in this carol. Heaven and Earth First is the marriage of heaven and earth. Of course, that is what Christmas is: “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” But this glorious fact is not what I have in mind. What captures my attention here is that, as we sing, we summon all the faithful on earth to come, and we summon choirs of angels to come — both to see and adore Christ . Verse 1: “O come, all ye faithful. . .” Verse 3: “Sing, choirs of angels . . .” And so the “us”...

STATION II: Jesus accepts his cross (Photo credit: contemplative imaging ) In the bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail , the authors claim that in A.D. 303  Emperor Diocletian destroyed all Christian writings that could be found. That’s why, they assert, there are no New Testament manuscripts prior to the  fourth century . Later, Emperor Constantine commissioned new versions of these documents, which allowed the “custodians of orthodoxy to revise, edit, and rewrite their material as they saw fit.” It was at this point that “most of the crucial alterations in the New Testament were probably made and Jesus  assumed the unique status he has enjoyed ever since.” In response to this book, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace , a New Testament Greek scholar, says, “Do these authors know anything about history at all? Diocletian did not destroy all the Christian manuscripts. He did destroy several, but mostly in the East and South. As far as having no manuscripts prior...

English: Icon from Mount Athos depicting the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) This question prompted the First Council of Nicaea started in 325 and concluded with the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.  Setting   &  Purpose The First Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 by the Roman Emperor Constantine . Constantine had hoped to unite his empire under the banner of Christianity, but now saw such unity threatened by a grave theological dispute. Hosius of Cordoba recommended a council as the means to address the brewing controversy and Constantine responded by calling church leaders to Nicaea in Bithynia (modern-day Iznik, Turkey). Somewhere between 250 and 318 bishops from across the Roman empire attended, and the council began its formal deliberations on  May 20 . The major issue the council was charged with addressing was the nature of Christ‘s divinity, and in particular, the relationship between the Father and the...