Evolution

Now we arrive at the heart of my argument, or at least what I hope will be the heart of my argument.
The greatest problem in the Church, and especially in theology, is that it refuses to evolve. I don't mean to suggest the Church ought to radically alter its stance or go the way of popular opinion. The Church does need to have a position, and it needs to be an anchor of sorts for Christians. Truth, as we understand it, does not change, which is something the Church very much holds on to.
But therein lies the problem. I don't mean we need to take a "survival of the fittest" approach to intellectual or spiritual ventures, but we need to be flexible. It is incredibly arrogant to assume that we know all truth, in the first place, and in the second, if we actually wish to learn the truth, we must be open to it. As society is evolving, so is our understanding of the world. Something like the concept of "two natures, one person" or "three persons, one nature" may have made sense to ancient Christians, but it means nothing to us today, while on the other hand we have a much more expansive understanding of the universe than did first-century Christians. 
Of course here we have an obvious conflict. On one hand, Christianity must be based in something, in a faith in Jesus of Nazareth as Lord and Savior that has existed for nearly 2000 years. On the other hand, we cannot hold onto this faith blindly and dismiss all other facts about the world we live in. Some men and women, especially in the sciences, hold these two things in tension somehow, but there is something truly disingenuous about believing on Sunday that the world was built in seven days only a few thousand years ago and believing the rest of the week that the universe is billions of years old. 
It is my opinion that Christianity needs to do two things: First, it needs to re-evaluate its tenets of faith and decide which doctrines and dogmas are really necessary to be "Christian" and which are merely appendages. This should be done with real seriousness and an attempt to root out any dogma that stands as purely polemic. Second, Christianity needs to find a way to incorporate our new understanding of truth in a way that is meaningful and life-giving.
I think most Christian dogmas are appendages. Even the Chalcedonian Creed (Nicaean Creed) has superfluous material in it, including "consubstantial with the Father." We need a bare-bones set of doctrines which will probably include the Incarnation, the moral truth of the Bible, the virgin birth, and probably a few other things. We will have to work hard to take out needless dogmas like the infallibility of the pope or even apostolic succession.
Then, we will have the more difficult task of integrating our newer understandings of the world into this faith. Of course faith includes things such as miracles, so understanding biology does not negate God's ability to be made flesh through a virgin. However, we can understand the universe as created by God over time, and the creation of humans as being a process of evolution. We can understand our biological drives and instincts as natural and God-given while insisting that Christians need to live to a higher standard of living.
Better yet, we can finally fully integrate a notion of God's created goodness that requires our care in environmental ethics. We can understand that sex not simply biological, but also psychological and spiritual. We can understand our place in the universe as unique, since we are the only intelligent beings we are aware of within the vastness of the universe. 
We need to evolve as a faith. At this time in our history, the main focus of Christian leaders seems to be in disagreeing with each other over whether we're persecuting the marginalized enough, following the naturalistic fallacy enough, or reciting the awkward English translation of a Latin rite correctly. The aspects of our faith that were supposed to be nurturing and life-giving have become a source of conflict, and the main Christian theme of meekness and humility is nowhere to be seen. Nuns are being condemned for performing the works of mercy, bishops are preaching against the right for two people to marry and nobody is taking responsibility for the real sin of child abuse. There is very little that is Christian going on within the Catholic Church, and many Protestant churches are just as bad. 
Imagine, then, if we admitted that the beatitudes are more important than Augustine's "Let Nuns Go Out in Groups of Three," or that the love command had priority over Row v Wade. It seems that Christianity is either maintaining a neutral or a negative influence on society--there is not much done in terms of love or mercy or kindness, but much done in the way of argumentation and strife. Jesus commands us to build up the Kingdom of God, but at this time, it seems like the Kingdom will have to wait for Jesus' return. As long as we are stuck in the old dogmas of the past, we cannot embrace the true essence of Christianity.
But, dear reader, don't believe that this is only a case of the corrupt hierarchy vs the enlightened faithful. If I have learned anything over the last two years while studying theology, it is that theologians are often times the least Christian people in the Church. I am probably as guilty of this as any, but I have noticed so many times that professors who teach theology are often less inclined to be merciful and more inclined to try to force your own belief than any other professor. 
With this I leave you with my own conundrum, which I believe is relevant to all the faithful (though I say that with a sense of the irony of such a proud statement). I am to be starting my PhD in ethics in a few months. At this point in my life, however, I am not sure if I want to be involved in the largely un-Christian enterprise that is studying theology. I am afraid that I will lose faith as I continue to study and find fewer and fewer true Christians as colleagues. I am afraid that I will become discouraged and bitter, and that I will become obsessed with asserting my own voice over finding the truth. Indeed, I can see that I do that now. But this is much like the task required of Christians in helping the Church evolve. It may be easier to maintain one's true Christian identity by avoiding the arguments and disputes that surround Christianity today, but at the same time, the Church needs people who are willing to stand as voices.
I do not offer you a solution to this problem here. I merely pose it to you, the reader. Do you stay in the Church to make a difference while risking the corrosive effects of intellectual and spiritual battle with your fellow Christians, or do you abandon the Church in order to avoid the seemingly unimportant conflict and miss an opportunity to make a difference for the better?

The Triune God

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. As a convert to Catholicism from Mormonism, the whole notion of the Trinity was one that took some time to fully wrap my head around. However, at this point in my career I feel confident that I not only understand it better than most, but I am also in the process of doing research on how others (specifically Mormons) view the Trinitarian relationship.
So it seems to me that this deserves some attention. The early Christians faced several difficult challenges in defining the Trinitarian relationship. The Arians thought that Jesus couldn't be God, but only human. The Manicheans separated Jesus' humanity from His Divinity.
But it goes back further than that. The early Christians were faced with the difficulty of believing somehow that Jesus was a lot more than a human being. The Gospel of John makes Jesus out to be God. The opening words are "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus the tone of Trinitarian existence is set forth from even the first century.
The gospels all set out the tone of Jesus being God. Then comes the Acts of the Apostles. With Pentecost (last week, by the way), the problem of the Holy Spirit comes onto the scene. Whereas the issue of Jesus' Divinity is somewhat problematic, especially with His unity with the Father, the Holy Spirit is a whole new problem all together. Who is this Holy Spirit that does not enter the scene (apparently) until at least Jesus' baptism? After much discussion, and careful prayer, the early Fathers decided that the Holy Spirit must also be God, and also unified with the Father and the Son.
But as most who have taken a basic course in Christian Theology or Sunday School know, the official stance of the Trinitarian formula was not fully developed until the Early councils, especially Nicaea and Chalcedon.
The one tragic part of the Trinitarian doctrine is that the more it was explained and developed, the more people that became Anathema. The Arians, the Manicheans, the Coptics, the Syriacs, the Assyrians, the Chalcedonians, the Nestorians (I apologize), the Maronites, and eventually the Orthodox Church all eventually were cut off from the Roman Church. Ideas such as the theotokos (God bearer), homousious, and the phrase "proceeds through the Father and the Son" as opposed to "proceeds through the Father through the Son" became operative in the the schismatic process.
Similarly, my sister yesterday went with me to Mass and liked to interject at every point that she thought that the doctrine supported her views. That's the real problem. The Trinity is such a blessed mystery that a lot of ways that we use to describe the relationship murkies up the water. Nobody who claims to be God has completely anti-Trinitarian views on the subject, but a lot of the explanations vary.
I think that St Augustine, one of my personal favorites among the philosopher/theologians and a Doctor of the Church explained it best. He described the relationship thus: the Son is God's word, eternally proclaimed, from time immemorial even until now. The Holy Spirit is the love shared between the Father and the Son. The Love is emitted from God to us, the Son is eternally proclaimed to us and the Father is eternally reigning over the heavens and earth.
This is not an easy notion to understand. However, to be fair, I do not believe that having a perfect understanding and knowledge of the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is necessary for our salvation.