I have been in conversation lately with a heretic. I do not use the word “heretic” in a demeaning manner, but in the technical sense of one who holds and teaches heterodox ideas that have been formally anathematized by the Church. My interlocutor is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a group who denies the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, among other grievous errors. Many of their ideas are Arian in nature and were anathematized along with Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Each time we, in orthodox churches, confess the Nicene Creed, we denounce such heresy.

It all started when Ed — not his name, but a convenient pseudonym — sent a three page letter to the parish asking us to reconsider, and reject, “the Trinity Doctrine.” What followed was a congeries of biblical references, erroneous exegesis, spurious quotes, and a grand exercise in missing the point. I do not know what possessed me to respond. I have received such letters in the past and simply recycled them. But, this time I did respond, and I am glad I did.

Ed was surprised to receive my response, he wrote. For some years he has been sending this letter to churches — he mentioned Roman Catholic churches in particular but has now evidently expanded his reach to Anglicans — and only very rarely has he received any response. I suggested that an orthodox church receiving his letter would be like the chair of a university astronomy department receiving a letter from someone wanting to promote a flat earth model. That notion was debunked as early as the third century BC by Eratosthenes; there is no need to revisit or reconsider it or spend time debating it. The Trinity is established Church doctrine; there is no need to revisit it and we really have nothing new to add beyond the truth promulgated by the Creeds. So, I am not surprised that he receives few responses. That, of course, did not deter him in the least because he is convinced that the Church and the Creeds are in grave error. So, no appeal to orthodoxy, no appeal to the Church, no appeal to the consensus reading and understanding of Scripture will suffice. All these have been in error for nearly two thousand years, error finally discovered and rejected by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the last hundred years. It is possible, I suppose, but it is a hard sell.

I was struck by the notion that Ed and I do not have the same Scriptures, and not just because the Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own translation worded specifically to support their heretical views. Even if Ed and I could agree on a common translation, we read Scripture so differently that we have, in effect, a different text. I read Scripture with the Church; Ed reads in opposition to the Church. Ed rejects the Trinity in part because the specific word “trinity” does not appear in the text. I accept the Trinity because I see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments. Ed ignores texts that clearly show the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he is convinced that I ignore texts that identify the Son as a created being and the Holy Spirit as a “thing” and not a Person. We do not have the same Scriptures because we do not have the same way of reading our common texts. Nothing I say could ever convince Ed of orthodox doctrine. Nothing Ed says could ever convince me to abandon orthodox doctrine. We were at an impasse from the off. Finally, after three pleasant but futile exchanges, I told Ed that our conversation was stalled, and that I did not plan to continue it. His final response left the door open if I ever wanted to contact him again. It is not likely, and I’m sure he knows that.

What do I make of all this? Ed seems to be a nice guy, someone you would be happy to have as a neighbor. I learned that he is eighty years old, that he has been married for fifty-eight years, and that both he and his wife are former Roman Catholics. What led them to become Jehovah’s Witnesses I do not know. I think Ed is wrong — I’m convinced he is — but I have no reason to think him evil in an ethical sense. I generally close my letters with “Blessings.” I could not do that with Ed because I cannot bless his work, his mission of spreading the heresy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. So, Ed falls in that interesting intersection of Heretic and Neighbor, a good guy in grave error, a good guy who can nonetheless do serious damage unintentionally.

I realize also that Ed and I could never have a true conversation on these matters simply because conversation requires the possibility of changing one’s mind. Any discussion of religious matters would not be honest conversation but veiled — perhaps thinly veiled — evangelism. We might agree to avoid certain topics, but once broached at all honest conversation is out the window, at least related to core matters of the faith, to matters of orthodoxy and heresy. I am happily closed minded with respect to orthodoxy. A mind should be open only ’till it has closed upon the truth. Both Ed and I would agree on that.