Biblical Unitarian Christians in New Zealand (Zach Mayo)
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Something is going on in New Zealand...and I'm excited to tell you about it. In today's interview I speak with Zach Mayo who along with his wife, Kayla, were serving as youth pastors at an evangelical church when they came to change their minds on the doctrine of the Trinity. Now they're organizing a conference to unite one-God believers in New Zealand and invite folks from Australia and beyond to come.
To register for the upcoming conference, use this link: www.eventleaf....
More about the Restitutio Podcast here: restitutio.org...
Really enjoyed your interview guys! So looking forward to the Conference here in New Zealand. David & Marlene
See you there🎉🎉
hope to see you there
Sean what you do is very valuable. I also devour a lot of online content from true apostolic christian position.
Good interview Zach. Looking forward to get together.
Great interview. I worked with a NZ orthopedic surgeon. Great guy-retired now, but he was a fantastic surgeon. Kinda funny, he didn’t care to be called Australian😂. We’d agg him to throw another shrimp on the bar-b.
Seriously, beautiful people, land, culture….✌🏼
I wish someone would have a UCA conference for Washington State. We are 3,000 miles from Latham.
For the record, New Zealand is also west of Latham. Lol. We are hoping to come to the western USA in 2025...no promises yet, but we're aware that there's an under-served population of unitarian Christians out your way.
Sounds like you got treated very similarly as we did Zach in a much smaller church. The elders did a 3-4 part teaching on the Trinity, and I just began to study the things they said and found major problems. After a few weeks I brought them the Sh'ma and a few other things in private and said I was having problems with their view on the Trinity. So then, I spent months more looking at it and they came and confronted me to see where I was. Instead of answering my initial objections from months earlier, they essentially peppered me with questions(3 on 1) and handed me Brown's book on Jewish Objections to Jesus. I read through his book, found it was very badly argued on the Trinity.
I wrote a bunch of notes and continued studying---about 5 months later(almost a year of study on this subject alone). I told the elders we knew well for 3.5 years I didn't want to disrupt the church and probably wouldn't return with my family. However, I wanted to have a good 1 on 1 talk with one of them before leaving in case they'd consider it further. They initially said they'd have a meeting, but then when the meeting time came they just ignored me, didn't message me, and told me a week after it was supposed to happen that "God told them not to meet with me." (Sigh) 3.5 years of close fellowship with a small church was gone like that, didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone else in the church or explain our position even if they disagreed. Oh, and then they did a teaching on why "Jesus is God" in Hebrews right after we were booted. Couldn't have someone there to challenge it though!
Good to hear your testimony. so typical.
For my part I had already left churchianity because of the glaring issues around money and empire building and sunday "concerts" driven from "stage down."
I was attending a small mens friday night fellowship from a number of denominations.
I made the false trinity and three other issue discoveries while that friday thing was going on, and I influenced one other member. As i learned of these issues I told the others, and had some heated discussions in the first few months.
I found as you did, three of them would bomb me with the usual trinity bombs, but when it was my opportunity to speak about their proof verse they would laugh, murmur, make derisive noises and treat me to that religious false smile, closing their ears.
I learned if i kept quiet and put up with their chatter about god dieing for them, and dead christians currently off to heaven, then we could remain friends and get along.
They were decent guys who were earnest about being christians, but didnt dig very deep.
Over a couple of years the group dwindled till there was only me, the leader and the brother who listened, who had become the venue holder.
At the end I asked if it was me who had caused the others to leave, and the resigning leader on his last visit said yes.
So instead of being kicked out I caused them to leave. LOL.
It really is too silly for words, the worst part is seeing their fear of disturbing their own view. Fear of doubt, which one man told me would be sin. He said if he doubted his faith he would be back in sin, so went with the crowd. Sheep indeed.
As for accents mate, north islanders sound like Aussies. LOL.
The supreme statement of orthodox Christianity, The Nicene Creed, makes it clear that the Father is the one God:
"I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible."
Further, it says that Jesus is: "God from God." God Almighty is not from anyone or anything. He is the self existent one. He has always been. Jesus gets his being from God. He is begotten. God is not begotten. Jesus is called God in the bible in Jn 1 and by Thomas. However Jn 1 makes it clear that Jesus is not all that God is ( Jesus is theos' not ho theos). The modern trinitarian view that Jesus is fully God is not supported by the Bible, Nicene or Apostles Creed.
A biblical Unitarian is like non-alcoholic whisky. No such a thing.
How so?
That's a interesting comment to make. Why do you say that. ? For many biblical unitarians it makes perfect sense of who God is and who Jesus is from clear teachings found all through the Bible
People often get confused by the name. The term "biblical unitarian" is a way to distinguish ourselves form "unitarian universalists." It's about method. We are committed to scripture. Hence, our belief in the one God of Jesus is based on our reading of the Bible. This is good news for trinitarians, because it means they can engage us in scriptural discussion.
I think trinitarians are like whisky With Ice and With water.
Jesus was one in principle, so pray-tell how it doesn't exist?