I AM A PHILOSOPHER
This morning, May 19, 2016, I have accepted that the fact that I am a philosopher, a lover of knowledge!
This realization did not rush upon me . It whispered to me softy, sweetly, consistently, over many years, in many ways. It breathed!
It probably began in grade school and in Sunday School, particularly.
Our Sunday School literature that was utilized in our Meacham Park, Missouri, based, St. Matthews CME (Christian Methodist Episcopal Church)--whose "C" in CME, formerly meant "colored,"--was so pedantically "white," in form and in substance, that I found it revolting!
I was affronted by such even as a child! Where was l? Where are we?
Naturally, when I asked these kinds of questions, I was soon whisked out of the adults ' Sunday School class at age 12, in the choir stand, and was relegated back down to teaching the accepted rote, formulary "Catechism" to our church's younger children, many of whom were my siblings in our very humble, small church in the 1960s.
Anyway, without reciting, here, the nonessential details of my own, complicated spiritual journey, it will suffice to say that, when reading 3rd century, African Christian "church father" Tertullian's THE APOLOGY last night, I was struck
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian
First, I was amazed by his erudition. Next, his eloquence was lyrical. But the biggest surprise was in the fact that Tertullian has not, as yet, in my incomplete reading, mentioned the name of "Jesus" in his definition of God, nor in his recitation of the earthly attributes of God, in his excoriating polemic to Rome's Senate in defense of our faith!
No wonder he is not deemed a "saint" by the present Roman Catholic Church. It has placed an asterisk besides his name; that of Origen, another church father who I am now reading, and quite a few others, who predate the Council of Nicea in 325 AD when doctrinal consensus was achieved under the helm of Rome and under the hands of Roman Emperor Constantine I, who was himself a pagan in power!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Unraveling philosophy is arduous! But, I love it, and must roll with it!
Thursday, May 19, 2016
I AM A PHILOSOPHER
I AM A PHILOSOPHER
This morning, May 19, 2016, I have accepted that the fact that I am a philosopher, a lover of knowledge!
This realization did not rush upon me . It whispered to me softy, sweetly, consistently, over many years, in many ways. It breathed!
It probably began in grade school and in Sunday School, particularly.
Our Sunday School literature that was utilized in our Meacham Park, Missouri, based, St. Matthews CME (Christian Methodist Episcopal Church)--whose "C" in CME, formerly meant "colored,"--was so pedantically "white," in form and in substance, that I found it revolting!
I was affronted by such even as a child! Where was l? Where are we?
Naturally, when I asked these kinds of questions, I was soon whisked out of the adults ' Sunday School class at age 12, in the choir stand, and was relegated back down to teaching the accepted rote, formulary "Catechism" to our church's younger children, many of whom were my siblings in our very humble, small church in the 1960s.
Anyway, without reciting, here, the nonessential details of my own, complicated spiritual journey, it will suffice to say that, when reading 3rd century, African Christian "church father" Tertullian's THE APOLOGY last night, I was struck
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian
First, I was amazed by his erudition. Next, his eloquence was lyrical. But the biggest surprise was in the fact that Tertullian has not, as yet, in my incomplete reading, mentioned the name of "Jesus" in his definition of God, nor in his recitation of the earthly attributes of God, in his excoriating polemic to Rome's Senate in defense of our faith!
No wonder he is not deemed a "saint" by the present Roman Catholic Church. It has placed an asterisk besides his name; that of Origen, another church father who I am now reading, and quite a few others, who predate the Council of Nicea in 325 AD when doctrinal consensus was achieved under the helm of Rome and under the hands of Roman Emperor Constantine I, who was himself a pagan in power!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Unraveling philosophy is arduous! But, I love it, and must roll with it!