by Phillip Williams

Phillip Williams (posting as "Phillip" from "God's Country.ca") was a Canadian poster of Egyptian background who wrote a series of theological essays to talk.religion.christian.coptic and soc.culture.egyptian in late 2006. In the midst of a group dominated by spam and promotional posts, his writing stands out as genuine theological reflection from someone navigating the contested space between Coptic Christian heritage and contemporary faith.

This essay takes as its springboard a contemporary controversy: the dispute within the Coptic Church over apostolic succession (whether a breakaway bishop's lineage traced to Peter or to Mark), and the parallel controversy in Islam over the Egyptian minister of Culture who declared the veil merely cultural rather than mandatory. From these two flashpoints, Williams draws out a broader argument: the desire to authenticate faith by tracing rituals to ancient ancestors — apostles, companions of the Prophet — reflects a misunderstanding of what it means to worship "in spirit and truth."

His conclusion is pointed: to worship in spirit and truth means to worship like a child, without imitation of history, "by one's heart and sensation of the truth." The argument echoes the radical spiritualism of the early Quakers, the Sermon on the Mount antitheses, and the mystical strands within both Christian and Islamic thought — though Williams appears to be working from his own reading of the Gospels rather than from any formal theological tradition.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
— John 4:23–25

There is a perplexing desire in Islam and Eastern Christianity in retracing their rituals of worship to the earliest generations — of Muhammad and his companions, or of the apostles who followed Christ.

This strange concept — of tracing the ways of the ancient — means in Coptic Christianity that if Christians cannot ascertain the rituals of worship and group formation to one of the apostles of Christ, then their faith in God would be doubtful. This argument arose in the recent debacle among Copts regarding the new church that was formed by another bishop who split from the church and claimed that he traced his "bishopric lineage" to the apostle Peter instead of to Apostle Mark, as Shenouda claims himself to be the head of the Apostolic church according to Mark.

In a similar fashion, Islam places a great importance on the sunnah of Muhammad and his companions in ascertaining the authentic rituals of worship (deen) without which one's faith in God is annulled. In recent news, the Egyptian minister of Culture got in trouble with the Muslim brotherhood for stating that the veil is only an ancient cultural practice but not required for faith in God.

Is it not strange that people desire to learn how their ancestors — 2000 years ago — worshipped God, otherwise their worship would be false?

"He said to another man, 'Follow me.' But the man replied, 'Lord, first let me go and bury my father.' Jesus said to him, 'Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.'"
— Luke 9:59–60

Does a child born without any knowledge of his forefathers' history have a valid faith if they worship God in the spirit and truth without any rituals learned from their earthly ancestors — through any established churches or religious brotherhood as Islam?

What does "worshiping in the Spirit and truth" mean? Which spirit? The spirit of God is not timed by a certain generation; therefore worshiping in the spirit of God is not a product of worshiping using the rituals of a particular generation. Worshiping in truth means that one has to engage the conditions of the time that they live in to ascertain the truth in the trials of their own generation instead of the trials of their ancestors' generation.

Worshiping in "spirit and truth" means to worship like a child, without any words or imitation of history, instead by one's heart and sensation of the truth.

"He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'"
— Matthew 18:2–4

God Bless You,

Phillip Williams

Colophon

Written by Phillip Williams and posted to the Usenet groups talk.religion.christian.coptic and soc.culture.egyptian, November 2006. Part of a series of essays by the same author engaging the theological dimensions of contemporary Coptic and Egyptian religious life. Original Message-ID: <UNN7h.340625$R63.285099@pd7urf1no>.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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