That’s part of what the Congregational Ministries Division Committee of the General Assembly Council learned about at its meeting Feb. 12. It also got a positive report on the financial picture of curriculum produced by the denomination. The same department that has periodically had to ask the denomination for big chunks of money in the past had in 2003 expenses significantly under budget — it doesn’t need to use $845,000 of the $1.4 million the PC(USA) had provided it last year in unrestricted funds, and net sales of mission education and materials (such things as the planning calendar and mission year book) was up more than $350,000 over what been budgeted.
Sandra Moak Sorem, who leads the curriculum publishing effort, said she’s grateful for the turnaround — and appreciative of the council’s support in the past when things did not look good.
The report on the Trinity has three parts, “which seems right and good,” said Rebecca Prichard, pastor of Tustin Presbyterian in southern California and moderator of the group that’s been writing the paper. The first part deals with doctrine, the second with liturgy, the third with the implications of the Trinity for mission.
“The church’s doctrine of the Trinity proclaims that God’s abundant and costly love is present to the world through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit,” the report now states. “Though not fully developed in the New Testament, Trinitarian doctrine is grounded in the whole of Scripture and has been richly and reliably unfolded in the faith and life of the church over many centuries.”
The paper does address the way in which people tend to use Trinitarian language, Prichard said. For some, it’s the repeated and exclusive use of the words “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” — that’s what they always say. Alternately, others refuse to use those words, repeating “God, God, God, over and over again” with no reference to the Trinity, what some call “functional Unitarianism,” Prichard said.
The working group came up with three metaphors, to affirm that “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” is classic language for God, ‘yet move beyond it, add to it,” what Prichard called “expanding our vocabulary.”
The report speaks of the classic language as a foundation, as roots, and as an anchor “that lets us float and frees us to explore other language for God without losing our moorings” in tradition, in Scripture and in the church’s history, Prichard said. “We are absolutely not doing away with it, we are not replacing it, we are saying it is not the only way to speak of the Triune God.”
According to Joe Small with the Office of Theology and Worship, the paper will not be formally presented until the 217th General Assembly in 2006, but will be put on the denomination’s Web site for people to read and offer comments. With the help of presbyteries, Small also hopes to organize strategic regional consultations to get people thinking about the doctrine as well.
