More to the point, what about Maria’s husband, Israel – Israel Folau?

Some have asked me why I have never posted anything about the Israel Folau controversy.
In fact, I did put up a post last year. Before I went overseas for eight weeks, I prepared eight posts in advance, then left – and left each post scheduled to appear automatically, week by week.
One such post was about Israel Folau – his Christian testimony, which I found inspiring.
But, for reasons that will become clear, I removed and replaced it before it appeared.

Folau has been a divisive figure, not only in the mainstream culture around us, but in Christian circles as well. That, by itself, does not condemn him – the followers of Jesus, like Jesus Himself (Matt 10:34-37), have always divided both the religious, as well as the secular, world around them.

From the little I have seen of Folau I quite like the guy; also I fully support his (or anyone else’s) right to freedom of speech.
While I have some concerns about some of the way he has gone about it, I do not agree with most of the criticisms of him.
One critique of Folau I read, by a professing Christian,  condemned him on four counts – all of which it got wrong:

1) If Go Fund Me don’t have a right to refuse to serve him through their company because they can’t support his campaign, why does the Christian baker have a right to refuse to make a wedding cake for the gay wedding?
“The problem with this line of argument is that Folau’s campaign was not one in which he was asking for funds to promote a particular view” – see here.

2) Christians are not called to fight for their rights.
Actually, sometimes we are – see eg. Acts 16:37, 22:25, 1 Cor 9:4. As in everything else, to insist on, or forego, our rights should be determined by what serves the glory of God. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven…” (Eccl 3:1)

3) Does anyone know of a single person who has actually come to faith through Israel’s post? No?
This, of course, is impossible to answer. While I would not recommend Folau’s approach as the best way usually to go about evangelism, I do know of those whose first faltering steps into the kingdom began with a similar confrontational conversation. But, in any case, is this just about evangelism? Should we not also ask how much good was done by Folau’s stand encouraging Christians to stop cowering before, and giving in to, the anti-God demands of a hostile world.

4) Israel doesn’t believe in the deity of Christ… Let’s not pretend that he is representing Christianity.
No, he doesn’t represent Christianity. But to say he doesn’t believe in the deity of Christ couldn’t be more wrong.

Israel Folau believes in the deity of Christ.
Where he has gone wrong is: he believes in the only deity who is Christ.

A one time Mormon, Folau left them in 2011 to become an active member of the Assemblies of God Christian fellowship. He now attends the Truth of Jesus Christ Church established by his father Eni in 2013.
The Truth of Jesus Christ Church, as the name suggests, worships Jesus Christ – only Jesus Christ. They believe baptisms must be in the name of Jesus – and not the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit.
They do not believe in the Trinity: they worship only Jesus as God.

In January last year, Folau explained it this way:

Jesus Christ was the vessel of God, God is a spirit. He formed the body of Jesus Christ and was in him. And the holy spirit is the characteristics or functions of God. But it’s not 3 or the Trinity but just him alone.

This is Sabellianism (also called Modalism, or Oneness theology). It is not Christianity.
Hence I removed my post before it went up.
I have addressed the Sabellian problem in churches today before – here.

Tom Richards, from the Westminster Presbyterian Church, now working in Vanuatu, provides a good critique of Folau’s Oneness theology here:

Izzy Folau and oneness adherents believe that Jesus is fully God… Oneness theology doesn’t deny the deity of Christ; it denies that he is a separate identity within the one God. This is still a serious issue.

The irony is that many Christians who have criticised Folau on this issue, worship in churches that are little more than Oneness in practice, even while professedly holding to an orthodox creed.
Tucked away in a church’s website you may (or, may not) find a statement of faith: “What We Believe” – usually sound, sometimes comprehensive.
But the page that introduces what the church is really like, i.e. “Who We Are”, often bears little resemblance to “What We Believe”.
Here is a typical actual example:

There is an obvious disconnect here between “Who We Are” and “What We Believe”.

There is first of all noticeably a difference between the solemn and weighty things “we believe” and the flippant trivializing that comes with “who we are” (“We are not religious people, and we don’t think religion is very important…”, “…our church is all about Jesus… but when you visit us you might be forgiven for wondering if cake comes a close second!”)

Even worse, though, is this: What is there in “Who We Are” that Israel Folau could not agree with?
If (as is usually the case) “Who We Are” more accurately reflects the teaching and ethos of a church, rather than “What We Believe”, would not Folau fit right in here?

This is serious. I grew up in the middle of last century, during the nadir of the Presbyterian Church in this land. At the time, the Presbyterian Church held to one of the finest statements of “What We Believe” in the world: the Westminster Confession of Faith.
But it had next to no influence on “Who We Are”.
This is a real danger – when what you profess to believe has little or no effect on who you are.

Please, take time to reflect upon that wonderful Trinitarian doxology with which Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians.
Every time I read this now, I want to jump to my feet, overflowing with praise to our wonderful God: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Let it shape who you.
Let it shape “who you truly are”, not just “what you say you believe”.
Let it shape your praise of our blessed, glorious Redeemer, “whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” 1 Pet 1:8-9

Let it shape your church.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.