One of the many blessings in my life is that, according to others, I’m kinda smart.  Please understand, I say that not as a way to brag but rather as an acknowledgement of one of God’s gifts to me.  I say “gift” because I certainly didn’t get a say in it.  Not that I would’ve necessarily chosen some other gift in its place, but rather to emphasize it wasn’t my choice.

  I was talking to a kindergarten teacher one day and she shared with me a pretty profound insight.  She said, sometimes “smart” is a “blurse.”  For a moment, I thought I didn’t hear her correctly.  “A blouse?” I inquired.  “No,” she replied, “a blurse.  You know, something that’s both blessing AND curse.”  Her belief was that, for children, that high intelligence was exactly that, a blurse – could be a great gift at times, but it could equally be the cause of a whole lot of bad. 

  There are lots of things like that, if you think about it.  Things that, in the right hands, could bring about tremendous benefit for the world.  On the other hand, given to the wrong people or used in the wrong manner, wow, gifts can curse, can’t they? 

  One of the greatest problems within the Church of Jesus Christ is that sometime in the past, a bunch of “smart” people got a hold of it.  And, when I say way back, I mean WAAAY back.  Second century, really. That’s when the rise of “Christian Philosophy” began.  People like Justin Martyr and Tertullian had tremendous influence upon the thought-life of Christians.  They were attracted to the faith because they, in their human wisdom, could see that what these earliest Christians were talking about made a whole lot of sense.  That is to say that it seemed, “Smart” to them.  And for good reason, right?  Compared to its birth faith, Judaism, Christianity was a quantum leap into easy from complexity.  After all, there are something on the order of six hundred purity laws in Judaism or something like that.  It shouldn’t be missed that Jesus reduced all of the religious laws down to two – love God and love neighbor.

  Now look, one can’t argue with results.  A whole lot of other “smart” people heard about Christianity’s many advantages and began to explore what it was.  And while they absolutely added a measure of clarity to our faith, they also robbed it inadvertently of something essential – simplicity.  That is to say that, in order to keep the faith pure, these thinkers began doing what they always do, add complexity. 

  Some smart people are like that, unfortunately.  They just naturally add levels of complexity.  And, who knows, maybe those first layers of complexity, like the ones generated at events like Nicaea, Chalcedon, Ephesus and Constantinople were helpful.  It was in those first 7 Ecumenical Councils, all held before 800 A.D., that the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ was indelibly established.  These became the standards by which faith was validated.  Consent to these basic doctrines and you’re a Christian, do not and you’re either a heretic or an apostate, you pick your flavor of wrong.   

  I’m not going to say they were wrong but what they did, well, it was sorta arrogant.  After all, after the cannon of our Scriptures was closed long before that point.  Every one of the Church Councils happened AFTER the established cannon of Scripture was closed. 

  So, in a way, what began in the year 325 was a group of smart people coming together to disagree about definitions.  And make no mistake about it – boy, was there acrimony.  The stakes, in their minds, were high.  They felt tasked to figure out how Father, Son and Holy Spirit worked and what exactly Jesus Christ was made of and a host of other big, important questions that absolutely had to be figured out.  That part was true though.  The reason for these councils is because the early Church began arguing about theology. 

  It was, strangely, around that same time that the instances of the church’s miraculous power begin to reduce in number.  That is to say that the “work” the members of the Church performed, “healings and resurrections” gradually started to reduce.  That may just be a coincidence, but I tend to think not. 

  You see, while a certain level of complexity is required in any expansive system, there is a point of diminishing returns.  Take for example, dinner.  Tell people that you’ve got a three-ingredient recipe that’s really good and they might be dubious until they taste it.  Tell someone that you’ve got like 28 ingredients in thing and what many people assume is that it could be better.  Complexity, that is, is attractive to a great number of us.  Not everyone, by any stretch of the imagination, but some, to be sure.