When one of our pastors, speaking at a denomination-sponsored peacemaking conference, asked the rhetorical question, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?” shock waves vibrated around the church.
Dirk Ficca, the executive director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, wasn’t intending to sound dismissive when he asked that question on July 29, 2000. He was pressing folks to see Jesus as a revelation of God’s will for the world–downplaying the claim that Jesus is the only instrument of salvation–in the hope of building better interfaith relationships.
Ficca’s proposal generated wide outcry. For good reason. Presbyterians cry foul when anyone minimizes Jesus’ work of redemption. The next two meetings of the General Assembly Council wrestled over it. The following GA struggled clumsily with it. The one thing that GA did get right was to direct the Louisville Office of Theology and Worship to prepare a response for a subsequent GA to consider.
The nearly unanimous 2002 GA adopted the OTW report, “Our Hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ,” a document that affirms the singular uniqueness of Jesus. He is, simply put, the only person ever to be fully God and fully human. He is the only person proclaimed to be the atoning sacrifice for human sin. He is the only person ever resurrected from the dead and then ascended to heaven. There is none like him. At the same time the document does acknowledge that God is free to apply the atoning work of Jesus to save whosoever God will. Rightly so.
At the same time, popular, Hollywood-styled spiritualities were lifting up the experience of gods and angels, but seldom mentioning Jesus, no less the whole Godhead. New Age mysticisms and some popular preachers were enjoying booming popularity to the disregard of the Trinity. What’s more, many folks troubled by gender-exclusion were steering clear of “Father” and “Son.”
So a month before Ficca’s infamous speech, the 2000 GA commissioned the OTW to coordinate a study on the Trinity. That task force presented a paper to the church in 2004 to solicit feedback. With those responses in hand, they then presented the 34-page document, “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing,” this last spring.
The Birmingham GA considered the paper. They did not adopt it. Instead they voted “to receive it.”
Commissioners understood that the paper clearly was affirming the core traditional affirmation that there is one God in three persons, primarily known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They amended the report to declare specifically that all baptisms in the PC(USA) would be conducted explicitly “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” They understood that the report reflected the fact that biblical writers often used names for God that are highly metaphorical. They also realized that metaphorical names offered in the paper have been used at some time in the past 2,000 years by church leaders who history counts as heroes of the faith.
Commissioners understood all those points, but they together also recognized that the paper could be misunderstood. So they opted not to adopt but simply to receive the paper. It holds no official standing in the PC(USA).
What does hold official standing in the PC(USA) are the Nicene Creed and the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Confession of 1967, the Scots Confession and the Brief Statement of Faith. These and all their counterparts in the Book of Confessions declare in no uncertain terms
…that Jesus Christ is Savior–he delivers from sin,
…that Jesus Christ is Lord–he is sovereign,
…that Jesus Christ is healer–he recreates body, mind and spirit,
…that Jesus Christ is prophet–he is the living Word of God to the world,
…that Jesus Christ is priest–he is the mediator between God and humanity.
All of which leads us to the season of Advent. As stores again fill with shoppers, as homes get draped with decorations, as parties overflow with revelry, when somebody asks, “What’s the big deal?” the simple Presbyterian response is to point, as did John the Baptist, to Jesus.
–JHH
