Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Trinity

My brother asked me to write a response to an article in the Birmingham News about the Presbyterian Church USA's acceptance of a report that would allow PCUSA churches to refer to the Trinity as "Compassionate mother, beloved child and lifegiving womb." He posted my response on his blog, but I thought it would be good to post it here too...

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has recently validated a report entitled “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” which explores alternative terms for the persons of the trinity. Traditional the Church in its various forms (Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) have nearly all professed the triune God in terms of Father, Son and Spirit. The report from the PCUSA, which has been accepted by the denomination, gives churches within that tradition the freedom to describe the trinity as “Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace” or “compassionate mother, beloved child and lif-giving womb” in their teaching and their liturgy.

Such an exploration into new terms for the members of the Trinity constitutes a stark theological turn for the PCUSA. The Church from its inception has used the formula – “Father, Son & Spirit” to describe the one, true living God. In the face of heresy in the fourth century, the Church created a creed in 325 AD—the Nicene Creed, which established a tradition and rule of faith regarding the triune nature of God. Specifically, the rule became that the members of the trinity are Father, Son & Spirit. The question to consider in reference to the recent action in the PCUSA is whether or not a reformulation is necessary or harmful.

The nature of the theological enterprise is such that requires Christian thinkers and leaders to constantly reword doctrinal statements in order to remain faithful to the missional call of the church to proclaim the truth of God through Christ to the world. The truth of the trinity does not change, but the cultural context does change. The challenge for theologians is to reword theological statements so that the words use communicate the meaning that they are intended to point back to without changing the truth itself.

The problem’s with the PCUSA exploration of new terms for the trinity, especially feminine terms does more than meet cultural expectation—it messes with the theology. Nothing is more sacred and more central to Christian theology than the Trinity. Any terms used to describe the persons outside of the biblical and creedal terms—Father, Son and Spirit—change the theology. For example, terms like “Rainbow of Promise and “Ark of Salvation” tend to reify the members of the trinity, making them things, instead of persons.

The most controversial of terms, that is, calling God the Father, “compassionate mother” also changes historical, orthodox theology in an unnecessary way. God is not a mother. Furthermore, God does not have a gender, so any attempt to make him more feminine (or masculine) is unnecessary. God does not have a gender, but God is a person and person’s have genders. So Jesus revealed God as Father, as a person with a personality. If Jesus had revealed God as Mother, then I would jump on the sacred feminine bandwagon, but he did not. God as revealed as “Father” does not imply that masculinity is of more value than femininity, but it is the manner in which Jesus revealed him to us and for me, I am sticking with Jesus.

Tribal Women in India Raped for Refusing to Renounce Christianity

This came from my friends at IET. P.G. Vargis says that their office has received reports of ten attacks on Christians in India in the last two weeks. Join us in praying for our Indian brothers and sisters.

M.P. India: Two tribal Christian women, aged 22 and 24, of which one of them seven months pregnant were gang-raped to avenge their refusal to leave the Christian faith. They, along with their families, had accepted Christ through the work of an Indian Evangelical Team missionary.

Both women said the gang rape was in retaliation for their families' refusal to leave the Christian faith. Earlier that day, they said, the same men, whom they recognized as from the village, beat the husband of the younger woman and forced him to drink alcohol, while demanding that he renounce Christianity.

After the incident the women and their family members, all believers of the Indian Evangelical Team’s church in that village, were kept like house arrest by the culprits. They threatened more attacks and death if the matter was reported to the police. After two days, however, the women managed to escape the village and reported the incidents to the police. The police refused to register their cases as the men involved are politically powerful and belong to the frontal organizations of the ruling anti-Christian party in M.P. state.

Meanwhile, the Bajrang Dal, the local anti-Christian militant group, created a ruckus over the issue at the venue of the press conference. They said, "Christian community is changing everyone's religion here. We will not tolerate this with our religion."

The victim insisted they would never leave Christianity, whatever the consequences.
Please pray for:
1) The two women and their families.
2) For this small group of IET church believers. The village is remote and the believers continue to live in fear of further attacks.
3) For Brother P.G. Vargis, who oversees the area, and the IET regional leader, Pastor Chauhan.
4) For the attackers. As one of our missionaries prayed, “May these attackers carry the Bible instead of sticks to attack Christians.”
5) For justice. Pray that the governor of the state will force action to be taken.
6) For Indian Evangelical Team. There has been a significant increase in attacks in the last few months.
7) For South Asia. May His glory fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

The Fruit of the Spirit

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the fruit of the Spirit the last couple of days. I was praying before our worship service yesterday and my thoughts continually returned to the fruit of the Spirit—the characteristics and character that the Spirit is producing in us. I read these verses to open our worship service yesterday morning: Galatians 5:22-23 NIV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. I found it hard to pray about anything else except for these nine qualities.

I have been meditating on each word:
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
self-control

These characteristics are the sum total of our ethical behavior as Christ followers, but these are things that I can never produce in and of myself. Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy says that salvation is not so much right doctrine (the ultra-conservative Christian position) or right action (the ultra-liberal Christian position), but rather the kind of person we are becoming. The nine qualities listed in Galatians 5 sums up for me the entirety of who I want to become. I want to be a person of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These characteristics also describe who Jesus is and I want to be just like him. That has been my prayer: Lord make me a Jesus man...produce within me the love, joy, peace...of the Spirit.

I have been listening to United We Stand by Hillsong United. Good worship from the next generation of Hillsong musicians and worshipers.

Panama City Beach

The family and I, along with Jenni’s mother, Vera, went to Panama City Beach this week for a mini-vacation. We had a great time at the beach and hanging out at the pool. The weather was good, but the beach had a lot of seaweed in it. I monitored my sun intake a lot better than I did the last time I went to the beach. Gone are the days of my old mantra — “Fry me sun, fry me!” I spent a great deal of time under the umbrella and got just enough sun.

We took a boat to Shell Island on Wednesday, which is just off the coast of Panama City Beach. We all enjoyed going to Shell Island, but we didn't really know what to expect. Taylor enjoyed the boat ride. Jenni and I liked the clear water and clean beach. The beach on Shell Island looked a lot like the Caribbean. We all enjoyed spotting Dolphins on the boat ride back to PCB.



I have been reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, which is a novel about life in India around the time of their independence from England. The characters in the novel parallel a lot of historical events that happened in India. I have wanted to read a good novel, so I have been making my way through Midnight’s Children. Rushdie was born in India, educated in England and has a fatwa issued against him by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. A fatwa is a death sentence because Muslim leaders felt that Rushdie blasphemed Isalam in his book Satanic Verses. I am enjoying Midnight’s Children, but I think it will take me most of the summer to get through it.

Accelerate 2006

I returned home yesterday from Accelerate 2006, our youth summer camp, which was held this year at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. It was another incredible week at camp. We did some whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River on Thursday. The water was cold, but it was “the extreme,” my mantra during the 1 ½ hour excursion. Worship, led by Matt Jackson, was smokin’ as always and Michael Rowan did a great job in the evening services. Tuesday night was the highlight for me, as it was for most.

Pastor Michael preached on the brokenness of Christ. He preached—in graphic terms—on the cruelty of the crucifixion and then used a terracotta pot for a great illustration. He took a sledge hammer and cracked the pot into large chunks. He then broke the large chucks in smaller pieces as he preached hard on Christ’s death for our sins. He gave an altar call and led a large group in prayers of repentance. He then instructed those who were responding to take a piece of the broken pottery to remember the brokenness of Christ. It was powerful.

After the service, I grabbed three pieces and put them in my pocket. I told our students that I was going to carry those three pieces in my pocket for forty days as a memorial. I thought the broken pottery was very sacramental. I give God thanks for the incredible work that he did at camp. I pray that our students –and all the students present—will be forever changed into world changers in the world in which they live.