CC--Christianese 14c: God is a Trinity (part 3 of ?)

--As I mentioned yesterday, one bit of extremely common confusion many Christians have is that our view of God is the same as or compatible with the view of God held by Jews.
--Because Christians have had such a historical tie to Jews and also felt ourselves to be primarily battling paganism and polytheism, we have often allowed our way of talking about God to sound compatible with either “mere” monotheism or even modalism of God just seeming to be three different persons.
--But we do not believe in what I call “mere” monotheism.
--If we did, we wouldn’t be Trinitarians.
--And in fact the incompatibility of our view and theirs shouldn’t come as a really big surprise to anyone who has read the Bible since everyone knows that one of the main reasons the Jewish theologians wanted to kill Jesus was because of His claims to be God.
--Being a prophet or a teacher wouldn’t have been an issue. It was His claims of Divinity and all the behaviors of Godliness that made them kill him for blasphemy.
--Another way of saying this is that Jesus was murdered precisely because He was advocating Trinitarianism rather than mere monotheism. And so, even as we acknowledge the heritage we share with Jews, if we ever find ourselves forgetting that our two views of God are substantially incompatible, we put ourselves in the uncomfortable position of denying that Jesus and the Pharisees were really disagreeing about anything significant.
--In contrast with this, the early Christians also found themselves in trouble with the Roman polytheists not because they claimed that Jesus was God, but precisely because they claimed that God was the only God.
--So the Jews persecuted the Christians for denying “mere” monotheism, and the Romans persecuted them for denying “mere” polytheism.
--And so, these days, finding that you offend everyone is almost a reassuring sign.
--The short version is this. If Jews and Muslims are uncomfortable with the way you describe God’s Threeness, that’s a good sign. And if Hindus and Chinese folk religionists are uncomfortable with the way you talk about God’s Oneness, that’s a good sign.
--If both monotheists and polytheists think you’re wrong, you’ve probably got the Trinity right.