Felix Manalo and the Trinity

Also on this blog:
The Beast
King Jehoram, Felix Manalo and Judas Iscariot
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Our world is made up of patterns. Patterns play a large part in life. It helps us make the world more predictable. We wake up certain that the sun will rise in the morning. It is simply because we woke up to so many sunrises that there is no reason to believe otherwise.

Such is the case with INC. There are just so many patterns to say that Manalo did not deny the Trinity until well after he has founded INC.

Fact 1:
The reason that Manalo left the SDA that the pasugo states is that he disagreed with the beliefs specifically about Saturday worship. Nothing about the belief in Christ's divinity.

Manalos love affair with the Adventists or Sabanistas, ended after he began to question some of their doctrines, particularly their Saturday (Sabbath) observance.
Isabelo T. Crisotomo - May-June 1986 issue of the Pasugo magazine, page 7

Fact 2:
He has retained what he has adopted from the CMA: baptism by immersion, which Leslie Wolfe considered a very vital requirement for validity.

Then he discovered another Protestant group, the Christian Missionary Alliance, known as the Disciples of Christ in the United States, which baptized its members by immersion. Knowing that this practice most closely adhered to the Bible, he joined the Disciples and became an evangelist.
ibid., p.7

Fact 3:
He has retained the church name doctrine (Church of Christ) which he has learned from Wolfe


Fact 4:
Up until 1918, Manalo maintained communion with the Christian Missionary Association, consider the event on December 25 where protestant missionaries laid hands on Manalo, headed by CMA's Leslie Wolfe, and among them, Emiliano Quijano, the CMA pastor who ministered Manalo's marriage with Honorata in 1913 when Manalo was still a preacher for the SDA.

On December 25, 1918, ministers of the Christian Mission honored Felix Manalo as an outstanding evangelist. The certificate was signed by Ministers Leslie Wolfe and Higinio Mayor, attested by attorney V. Dimagiba. The affair, held at the Gloria Theater in Tondo, Manila was attended by Church members and several
Protestant pastors.
ibid., p.9

It is also noteworthy that Felix Manalo did not start ordaining ministers until
after this event.

In may 1919, Manalo presided at the first ordination of Church ministers, laying his hands on Justino, Casanova, Teodoro Santiago and Federico Inocencio.
ibid., p.10

Fact 5:
Leslie Wolfe was very vocal against comity and open membership, so it means that he considered Manalo an ally church consistent with the beliefs of CMA' long after Manalo founded the INC.

Among the conservative members of the Disciples of Christ there began to be concern that some missionaries and mission churches were allowing nationals to become members of the churches who had not been baptized by immersion. The conservatives felt that this practice was contrary to the historic plea of the Stone-Campbell Movement. One country where the controversy was particularly played out was the Philippines. Leslie and Carrie Wolfe were Society missionaries in the Philippines who decried the open membership practices of the Philippine mission and their exposure of what they saw as inconsistencies in the mission added fuel to an already growing fire in the United States which would eventually see polarization of the Disciples into onservative and liberal camps.
Clinton J. Holloway - December 2003
http://www.worldconvention.org/country.php?c=PH

Consider fact 2 and fact 3. This were the tenets that CMA upheld. Another that was vital: belief in the Christ's divinity.

Fact 6:
Leslie and Carrie Wolfe were proponents of establishing independent churches of Christ around the Philippines (this was the predecessor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines - UCCP). Many of those independent churches were called Iglesia ni Cristo. While doing some research a long time ago, I came upon a newsletter from the 1950's: 50 years of Iglesia ni Cristo. But something was not right. It was not the INC that we now know. On the first few pages was a message from Carrie Wolfe. There were old pictures, and there was Carrie Wolfe with church members, and a banner painted with the name Iglesia ni Cristo. Conclusion: the name Iglesia ni Cristo has been used long before the Manalo registered the INC. Manalo's INC was just one of the many, and Leslie and Carrie Wolfe organized them into a united association.

So what has happened along the way? When did Manalo introduce the belief system that denied the Trinity? When did he dissociate himself from Wolfe's society? That is a good topic for research and I pose that challenge to everyone here.

There is also semiotic evidence. Symbols speak to us. Rather than being mute objects, they are articulate witnesses.

Consider the INC logo:














The lamb sitting on the book is strikingly similar the the catholic symbol Agnus Dei. The Agnus Dei symbolizes Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

In the same way, the radiant dove is also strikingly similar to the catholic symbol for the Holy Spirit. The image on the left is from the St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican.

In this regard, we will be assuming that the symbols used by INC are consistent with the Christian symbols and how they are interpreted.

What then is the presence of the triangle on INC's logo? In Christian symbology, this is glalringly obvious. Do a google search quick!