When Paul visited Athens and spoke with the philosophers at the Areopagus, we are told that “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.”
I found a modern-day philosopher, not at the Areopagus, but at a McDonalds. His name is Rafiq, and he describes himself as a “seeker of truth”. I soon learned that he too delights in talking about the latest religious and philosophical ideas. Unfortunately, Christianity is not in that category, and is seen by many like Rafiq as an outdated tool of oppressor cultures and nations rather than the path to a right relationship with God. Instead, Rafiq is looking forward to a trip to Africa to rediscover the religious roots of his ancestors.
For many, the idea of Christianity as a tool of the oppressor begins with a mistaken idea about Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. Many believe the Bible was constructed at this council by the powers-that-be as a manipulative tool to control the masses. This is the beginning of a series of conspiracy theories that delight scoffers and skeptics by appearing to debunk Christianity. Many delight instead in the “latest ideas”, which very often simply means “anything but Jesus.”
So what happened at the Council of Nicaea? Although this gathering of church leaders was convened by Emperor Constantine, it had nothing to do with choosing the books of the Bible. Instead, the Council was called from cities all around the Roman Empire to deal with the teachings of a controversial church leader from Alexandria named Arius, who taught that Jesus was a finite, created being rather than the Son of God as was accepted for generations by Christians. The Council condemned Arianism and affirmed Jesus as the Son of God to be identical in essence with the Father. This led to the writing of the Nicene Creed as a formal affirmation of that belief.
Arianism continues in various forms to be a source of heresy today, such as in the teachings of Islam, The Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormonism, all of which claim to believe in Jesus as a created being rather than, as we read in John 1 - the word that was “with God in the beginning” - Creator, not creation.
My hope and prayer for Rafiq is that he will reconsider the life and claims of Christ, that he will look past the false teachers throughout history who have abused Jesus’ powerful name to further their self-interest, and that he truly will delight in truth, even when he finds it in the words of an ancient Creed.
View our conversation at https://youtu.be/OyD-6NDrZJE on my YouTube channel.
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