Cheryl Schatz

int3grity,

You said:

I would be interested to see if there are recorded prayers of the early Church fathers and contemporaries of the apostles which show the early Church directed prayer to Jesus rather than the Father.

Early Christians prayed to both the Father and the Son not just one or the other. The earliest prayer to Jesus is recorded in scripture in the book of Acts.

Acts 7:59 They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

Paul also wrote the book of Corinthians to all those who call on the name of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

When a Christian prays to Jesus, he is calling on the name of the Lord Jesus.

You said:

The question that I have is regarding orthodoxy. The original question was whether the orthodox position of the Church has historically been roles within the Trinity or if the egalitarian position which removes those distinctions apart from the incarnation was the historically orthodox view of the Church.

The orthodox teaching of the Trinity never involved the teaching that because of some “roles” that the Word of God in the Trinity did not have equality i.e. equal authority, yet this is exactly what is being taught by those who teach that there are separate “roles” in the Trinity. This is the part that is considered not orthodox. Jesus is not less than the Father in any way in the Trinity. He does not have any less authority, or less power, or a subordinate will. All three in the Trinity share the same authority, power and will.

You asked:

So how can it then be said that complimentarians hold to arinism and unorthodox views when the writtings of the early Church fathers, including Athenatias himself, seem to line up clearly with the complimentarian position of roles within the Trinity?

Those who hold to the view that Jesus is not equal in authority with the Father are not the same as full arians as the Jehovah’s Witnesses are, but they do share some characteristics with them. They share the teaching that Jesus will be eternally subordinate to the Father and that Jesus does not have the same authority as the Father and consequently Jesus cannot be prayed to.

You said:

It seems like there are misrepresentations of bothe positions in this debate.

I don’t think that the egalitarian position misrepresents the complementarian position when they point out that there are similarities with the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When one is clear in what the similarities are, then one should not be considered guilty of misrepresentation. Of course there are some complementarians who do not believe in the eternal subordination of the Son. They are unwilling to negate the equality of Jesus in the Trinity because of their views of women. I heartily applaud complementarians who will stand strong and true to Jesus and thus honor the Father by their refusing to lower Jesus’ authority.