"You aren't a Christian if you don't accept the Trinity."
The history of that statement is quite shocking, and almost nobody who says it knows that acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity was once enforced by exile, fire, and death.
Here is what happened.
For the first 300 years after Jesus, Christians did not agree on how He related to God the Father. They argued about it constantly. There was no official rule. That was just normal.
Then a priest named Arius said the Son came from the Father and was beneath Him. Not equal. Not eternal. A lot of Christians agreed with him. A lot. This was not some fringe group. For stretches of the next century, his side was winning.
Other Christians said the opposite. The Son was fully God, equal to the Father, no beginning. Two camps, same Bible, opposite conclusions.
The fighting got bad. Riots. Mobs in the streets. Christians brawling over the nature of God.
So the Roman emperor stepped in. Constantine. He had just won a civil war and he wanted his empire to stop fighting. He was not even baptized. He did not care about the theology. He cared about order.
In the year 325 he called the bishops to a town called Nicaea. He paid for it. He ran the meeting himself. And they voted. They ruled that the Son was equal to the Father, fully God, one substance with Him. That ruling is the core of the Trinity. It got settled in that room, by that vote, on one word that is not even in the Bible.
They wrote the ruling into an official statement of belief. A creed. Every bishop was expected to sign it.
That is the part people think is the story. It isn't. The shocking part is how they made everyone accept it.
Constantine made the bishops sign the creed. The few who refused, he banished.
Then he ordered every book Arius ever wrote to be burned.
Then he made a law. If you were caught hiding one of those books, you were put to death.
Even after all of that, the Trinity did not win for good.
A few years later Constantine changed his mind. He brought Arius back. And he exiled Athanasius, the bishop who had won the argument at Nicaea. That man got banished five separate times in his life for believing the thing the church now says you have to believe.
For the next fifty years it flipped back and forth. One emperor said Trinity. The next said no. Whoever sat on the throne decided what was true. The official belief about God changed every time power changed hands.
It finally got locked in by another emperor named Theodosius. He made the Trinity the law of the empire. Disagree, and you were a heretic. Not in some spiritual sense. By law. Backed by soldiers.
A few years after that, the empire executed a bishop for his beliefs. The first time the state put a Christian to death over doctrine. It would not be the last.
Then came the document that says it out loud. A creed written around the year 500. Almost five centuries after Jesus. They named it after Athanasius, that same bishop. He did not even write it. They put his name on it for the authority.
It opens by declaring that anyone who does not hold the Trinity, whole and complete, will perish forever. Believe it or be damned. Put in writing, and made the test of who gets saved.
So that is where the line comes from. Not from Jesus. Not from the apostles. From emperors and councils who needed a divided empire to fall in line.
The Trinity did not become the rule because the argument was settled. It became the rule because the side that held it had the throne, the law, and the sword.
The next time someone says you aren't a Christian unless you accept the Trinity, remember what it took to make that rule stick. Exile. Fire. And death.
The richest man in America signed a document that could have gotten him hanged, and when someone sneered that he was safe because no one would know which Charles Carroll to come for, he picked up the pen and told the British exactly where to find him.
His name was Charles Carroll, and the colonies were crawling with men who shared it. His own father was Charles Carroll of Annapolis. So when the Declaration of Independence came to him for signing in 1776, a delegate made a cruel little joke. He said Carroll risked nothing by signing. There were so many Charles Carrolls that the King's men would never know which one to hang.
Carroll didn't argue. He leaned over the page and added three words to his signature: "of Carrollton." The name of his estate. His address. He was the only signer in the entire room who wrote down where he lived, and he did it on purpose, so that if the British wanted to come hang the traitor, they would know exactly which door to knock on.
That is who Charles Carroll of Carrollton was.
Here is what makes the moment even sharper. He was not a man with little to lose. He was the single wealthiest man in the thirteen colonies and the largest private landowner among them. While George Washington and John Hancock get talked about as rich men, it was Carroll who topped them all. When he signed, he was wagering the biggest personal fortune in America against a noose.
And he was the last man anyone would have expected to be there at all. Carroll was Catholic. In colonial Maryland, a colony founded as a Catholic refuge that had since turned on its own, Catholics could not vote. They could not hold public office. They could not worship in public. The most educated, wealthiest man in America was, in the eyes of the law, a second-class subject barred from the very government he was helping to create. He had spent seventeen years being educated by Jesuits in France and spoke five languages fluently, and back home he still could not legally cast a ballot.
So he became the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, putting his name on a revolution that he hoped would build a country with room for men like him. That was its own enormous bet, made by a man the existing system had already shut out.
Then he simply outlived everyone.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same astonishing day, July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the Declaration. When they were gone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the last living signer left on earth. For six more years he was the final human link to that room in Philadelphia, the last hand that had signed, a living relic of the founding that ordinary Americans traveled to see and shake.
He finally died in November 1832 at the age of ninety-five, fifty-six years after he wrote his address on a treason document and dared the empire to come find him.
The richest man in America. The only Catholic. The last one standing. He had more to lose than any of them, every legal reason to stay quiet, and he signed his full address anyway.
We remember the names we were handed in school. We forget the man who made sure his couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's.
Which Founding Father do you think history shortchanged the most?
A PARENT’S JOURNEY THROUGH YOUTH SPORTS:
Age 5: “He’s got a cannon.”
Age 6: “He’s the fastest kid out there. Coach said so.”
Age 7: “Rec ball isn’t challenging him anymore.”
Age 8: “We tried out for select. Obviously made it.”
Age 9: “$2,800 for the season. Plus uniforms. Plus tournaments. Plus hotels.”
Age 10: “Cooperstown is basically a family vacation, right?”
Age 11: “He needs a hitting guy. And a pitching guy. And probably a mental performance coach.”
Age 12: “I’m not a crazy sports parent. The OTHER parents are crazy.”
Age 13: “We changed schools. For academics. (And also baseball.)”
Age 14: “Showcases are a requirement at this age.”
Age 15: “Ya his ranking just ticked up. We’re cooking.”
Age 16: “He just needs to get seen by the right school.”
Age 17: “The D1 schools want him to walk on. He’ll earn a spot by sophomore year.”
Age 18: “Okay, D2 is actually really competitive.”
Age 19: “He’s redshirting. Strategic.”
Age 20: “He’s focusing on school now.”
Age 21: “You know what? He’s so much happier.”
Roughly 7% of high schoolers play in college.
About 1.5% of those get drafted.
Less than half of draftees ever play one day in the big leagues.
The odds of our kids going pro are somewhere between “struck by lightning” and “find a $100 in old shorts.”
I love youth sports (all my kids play a bunch of them) just keep a good perspective my friends. ✌️
“As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free”
Chills every time.
Here is the Tabernacle Choir and the West Point Band performing Battle Hymn of the Republic 🇺🇸🎺
A must-listen this Memorial Day:
Time in Federal Government…
Alexander Hamilton: 5 years
George Washington: 8 years
Thomas Jefferson: 10 years
John Adams: 12 years
Bernie Sanders: 35 years
Nancy Pelosi: 39 years
Mitch McConnell: 41 years
Chuck Schumer: 45 years
It explains everything.
Founders vs Grifters
@BoiseState4Life infertilityis the suckiest of all of the sucks. Been there. You can’t see it or feel it now, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know what yours will look like, but the end of the tunnel is there! Hang in there, my virtual friend!
"Come on, Jose, come on!” There’s no doubt about it. Charging down the stretch Golden Tempo knew exactly whose voice cut through the roar of 150,000 people. Golden Tempo’s trainer Cherie DeVaux, the first woman trainer to win the Derby in its 152 Yr history. Odds 23-1 Pure joy 🐎
@Bless_ThisMess7@FaithLikeAbish2 Lehi dreamed a dream and saw that Laman and Lemuel would not take the fruit. He knew they would never come to the tree, but read 2 Nephi 1-4 and hear his tone of hope and love for those two. He KNEW the were gone, but still loved and hoped.
This has helped me a ton!
The song “A Child’s Prayer” includes the lyric:
“Some say that heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.”
I believe that’s true.
But I also know this:
During my bout with depression I didn’t “feel [heaven] close around me as I pray[ed].” When I prayed, I felt nothing. No closeness. No comfort. Just silence.
If you’re in that place, it can be terrifying. You start to wonder if something is wrong with you. If you’re doing something wrong. If you have no worth or are unworthy. If God has stepped away.
But that’s not what’s happening.
Sometimes the struggle isn’t spiritual; it’s neurological.
That’s because your mind, which includes your imperfect brain, can make you feel numb or oblivious to spiritual promptings from above.
Your mind can become so heavy, so exhausted, that you can’t register light the way you normally would. Even spiritual light.
That doesn’t mean heaven is far away.
It means you’re fighting something real.
And in that fight, the adversary is quick to step in - whispering lies about your worth, your standing, and your future.
Don’t believe him.
Even if you can’t feel it right now, please know this:
- You are loved - perfectly and completely - by your Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. That love doesn’t turn on and off based on what you feel. It is constant. So if all you can do is keep going, then just keep going.
- Continue to pray even if you don’t want to or feel like it works. Little by little, you will be blessed even if you don’t see it.
- Talk to someone, including trusted family and friends.
- Seek help from certified professionals. Participate in counseling or other therapy. Take prescribed medications if needed.
- Take care of your body, even in small ways. Strive to eat more healthy, get enough rest, exercise, and get outside every day.
And if everything in you feels like letting go:
HOLD ON!
Please stay.
Your life matters more than you can see right now. Your family needs you. Your friends need you. Those you have yet to meet need you.
This season you’re in? It’s not the end of your story.
Light will come again.
YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!
***Friends: if you have no one you feel like you can talk to, please reach out to me. I am willing to be that someone. Please take care of yourselves and one another.***
#SaintsOnX #FloodXwithTruth #depression #anxiety #mentalhealthawareness