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Here You should be able to read these without needing a Linkedin account. I have one but was able to access it without needing one. Overall this is an interesting article written by Mark Bernard, a Facilitator for Blessing Point Ministries. The group is not a church in itself (from what I understand, but I could be wrong) but a group that is designed to help with church healing and unity. The article, originally written back in 2021, presents 95 Theses for the Protestant Church pointing out flaws and concerns that this Reverend is starting to see within the Protestant Church. I think that we, as church members, could learn from and be better about. Some of my favorite theses or ones that I find most intriguing: 6. Whereas Protestants rejected extra-biblical authorities and appealed only to Scripture, we quickly made idols of our own favored teachers – repeating the pattern we once condemned. 7. Entire schools of theology arose from our chosen teachers, whose followers became as unbending as the group from which we originally parted. 16. Protestant leaders have overlooked the fact that how they handle a controversy is as important to God as the controversy itself. 17. We have behaved as if every doctrine, no matter how obscure, requires us to proclaim, “Here I stand; I can do no other!” 20. Protestantism infused “being right” (our convictions about “the truth”) with Papal primacy, elevating it over every other Christian virtue. 21. The Protestant need to always “be right” flowed from our insecurity over the pain we experienced (and caused) as the Reformation unfolded. 26. Some of our children witness us devouring each other and flee the church rather than joining our cannibalism. Generations have thus been lost. 27. Others of our children witness our divisiveness and inherit the same brutal spirit. 28. A layman could observe our behavior and astutely ask questions such as, “Where is discernment? Where is wisdom? Why have Protestants been so inclined to make war against brethren who disagree with them? Why wield the sword against one’s own?” (1 Kings 12:24) 30. Again, an observer could ponder, “Perhaps, after 500 years, it’s time for the Protestant Church to ask the question Gideon posed, ‘If God is with us, why has all this happened to us?’” (Judges 6:13) 34. Though we have been unable to stay unified for long, the Gospel has gone forth from us, but it has been tarnished by our divisions. 37. If God reaches anyone through such hostile divisions, it only reflects God’s mercy, or sense of humor. 42.When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church “For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you,” he acknowledges the presence of divisions threatening their spiritual health, yet the church retained its singular corporate identity. (1 Cor. 11:19) I'll stop there for right now. But I encourage the reading of this piece. I found it intriguing. It's caused me to ponder the reformation, the Church, and the purpose of the Restoration of the Gospel as a whole. There's plenty of other good points about the Protestant Reformation that could also be used for the Church as well. The phrase "always reforming" is something that is said in many Protestant Circles, but seems to hardly be really practiced outside of mentally excommunicating other churches for not believing the same thing as their particular church. Which one of these theses do you think most applies to our Church? What are your thoughts on the Protestant Reformation as a whole. I would love to get a Non-LDS understanding of it.

Over the last few months, I've really been interested in the Trinity Doctrine, its development, and what Christians believe about it. This led me to many videos, posts, and comments to try and figure out what people believed about the Trinity. This post is not necessarily a "Godhead vs. Trinity" debate, but to see if people have come to similar conclusions that I have. Obviously one could write an entire paper on this subject (and likely probably has) so I just wanted to share what I found. The most common thing that I think should be understood is the basic belief of the Trinity in a simple sense. The idea the The Father (YHWH) is God, Jesus Christ (the Son) is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. These three are not three separate gods, but are one God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and so on. They are not divided in essence and therefore this is one God. The Trinity is without body parts or passions and a new word even had to be made in order to comply with this. The word being "homoousious" To be considered Christian by the Body of Christ, you must hold to this belief as stated in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. My studies mainly wanted to focus on what regular people understood about this doctrine. To do that, I wanted to go where the people were. Reddit, comment sections, other faith forums, etc. This is what I found. Most of the time it seems to me that people will leave the Trinity up to a "mystery of God" and leave it at that. They pray to Christ and hold that He is Lord of all. When pressed on whether or not Jesus is the Father, some people answered yes while others answered no. These two groups ultimately meant the same thing (that Jesus is God) but had a different understanding of the question. When people were asked to give examples of the Trinity in scripture, you'll go to a few places in scripture. The most common ones being 1 John 5:7 and the ending of Matthew (from my understanding) and the Great Commission. Others were quick to jump on the addition of 1 John 5:7 and how it doesn't appear in the earlier manuscripts, while others commented saying that the ending of Matthew would actually hold a more Unitarian approach (if Jesus is not the Father, then there would need to be more names for God than just the mentioned "name"). Analogies of the Trinity are not something that will ever accurately explain the Trinity, and are mainly used for a more childlike understanding of the Trinity. (Something to help understand that the Trinity is something we believe and this is kind of what it's like). Those who try to use analogies will usually fall into heresy. The most common are modalism (which is how I understood the Trinity) and partialism. Modalism is the belief that God is one but he has different "modes" for different situations. Partialism is the belief that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all "parts" of God coming together to make one God. From my understanding, those who commit the modalism heresy have a hard time trying to figure out how God is one (as per the Shema) and three at the same time (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). Those who commit the partialism heresy mainly are trying to understand the different roles that each member of the Trinity has while still maintaining monotheistic belief. Both parties are more sincere in there understanding than I previously thought. Ultimately after all this time I really could say a lot more about these, but I'll leave this here. I left this whole thing with this scripture in mind: "Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews." (John 4:22) For those that have gone on a deeper dive than me, what are your thoughts? Am I accurately portraying these?