Church mulls 'phrasing' change for Holy Trinity

The Washington Times ^ | June 20, 2006 | Richard Ostling

[pageonetoo]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- At some Presbyterian churches the Holy Trinity -- "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" -- will be out. "Mother, Child and Womb" is in.

Delegates to the national assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted yesterday to "receive" a policy paper on sex-inclusive language for the Trinity, a step short of approving it. Church officials are enabled to propose "experimental liturgies" with "alternative phrasings" for the Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them.

Besides "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer, Friend," options include:
• "Lover, Beloved, Love"
• "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier"
• "King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love"

"This does not alter the church's theological position, but provides an educational resource to enhance the spiritual life of our membership," legislative committee chairman Nancy Olthoff, an Iowa laywoman, said during yesterday's debate on the changes.

The assembly narrowly defeated a conservative bid to send the paper back for further study, which would have killed it.

A panel that worked on the issue since 2000 said the classical language for the Trinity still should be used, but Presbyterians should seek "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder."..

[aculeus]

"Father, Son and Holy Spirit"

Bah! Holy Ghost was better.

[Remole]

Buddabing

Buddabang

Buddaboom

[LonePalm]

Tinker, Evers, & Chance?

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,*
Making a Giant hit into a double--
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

In 1910, New York newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams immortalized the Cubs double play team Joe Tinker (SS), Johnny Evers (2B), and Frank Chance (1B) in verse, cementing their legend and helping them gain election to the Hall of Fame as a trio 36 years later.

* A gonfalon is a flag or pennant.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[dljordan]

It's paganism.

[Protagoras]

Best of luck with your fight for orthodoxy.

Thanks. But what ever happens, it will be his will.

Yet another split may come, there are other issues to be voted on in the next day that could make this look like a smaller issue.

A proposal to essentially let all congregations go their own way on matters of essential beliefs. If that is adopted, I personally think schism is inevitable, and probably sooner rather than later.

[resistance]

The math test for a cult is if they do one of the following:
Add to the Word of God,
Subtract from the diety of Christ,
Multiply the ways to get to heaven, or
Divide the body of Christ.

[NYer]

The delegates sang a revised version of the familiar Doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow" that avoids male nouns and pronouns for God.

Youth delegate Dorothy Hill, a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, protested that the paper proposing changing the language of the Trinity "suggests viewpoints that seem to be in tension with what our church has always held to be true about our Trinitarian God."

Miss Hill reminded delegates that the Ten Commandments say "the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name."

And a child shall lead them .... but only if they will listen.

Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[Reaganesque]

How's about: Parental Unit, Offspring and the Religiously Significant Non-Corporeal Being?

[Protagoras]

Thanks

[Hydroshock]

Where are we going and why are we in this hand cart?

[AnAmericanMother]

Wow, I see some unintended consequences on the horizon here (in addition to the obvious ones.)

Most orthodox denominations will not accept a baptism as valid unless it is performed in the name of the Trinity.

I recently saw something from Rome declaring invalid baptisms in the name of "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer," (the one you hear most often in ECUSA when they go to a nutty formula).

Now here's the problem (which was noted in this communique or whatever it was I read): when you get baptised in a lot of denominations, you're an infant, and you have NO IDEA what the minister said. Or you're baptized as an older child, but you just don't remember the formula. Once the CPUSA [sic!] approves this, even as an option, all their baptisms will become invalid because you can't be certain that the goofy non-Trinitarian language wasn't used.

Some folks are going to get cranky at having to be re-baptized. Conditional baptisms may become popular . . . "Si non es baptizatus/a, ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

[Notwithstanding]

Modern Episcopalianism: the inevitable eventual result of breaking from Rome.

When authority and doctrine are based on popularity of persons and theology, the hard doctrines evaporate and those who advance easy doctrines become the leaders.

[Martin Tell]

"Rock, Redeemer, Friend,"

Why not "Rock, Paper, Sissors"? Makes as much sense.

[StoneColdTaxHater]

this kind of crap is why I avoid church, it has come to mean nothing when you can't even stick to your guiding document, The Bible

[Inwoodian]

I'm surprised that one of these nitwits didn't suggest Moe, Larry and Curly. I guess the Shemp faction blocked it.

[Wonder Warthog]

You forgot the greatest of them all:

Moe, Larry, and Curly

[roofgoat]

Protagoras, but it is a huge issue. For leaders to even bring this to the table is very wrong.

Anyway, as others have posted, I too see evil set to turbo lately in every religious and social issue lately.

Although I fear our Country is on the decline and may never recover, I am optimistic. Jesus wants everyone to know him and from what I have read, many in China and Africa are starting to open to Christ. Hungry souls.

Our Country may be close to being lost unless Men get strong, but I think we are a long way from the end times. Too many souls who may be eager to hear the Word.

[markomalley]

why are we in this hand cart?

We've always had an argument with the Calvinists, true. But such a change, if it ever becomes effective, transforms the PC-USA from being a schismatic group into an apostate group that is no longer Christian in any form.

[Wallace T.]

Joseph Stalin is quoted as having said that those who vote do not decide elections, but rather those who count the votes. The seeds of the apostasy in the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA), were sown in the years following the Civil War when theological liberals, influenced by German "higher criticism" that denied the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible, took over many of the seminaries of the old Northern Presbyterian Church. These liberals practiced Gramscian tactics of infiltration and control when the Italian Communist leader was in diapers. Their students became pastors and in due course came to dominate the presbyteries, especially in places like New York, where there were strong liberal influences among wealthy businessmen.

The techniques the liberals used are outlined in the books Crossed Fingers by Gary North, who is a better historian than he is a futurist. The liberals first aligned with conservatives in the Presbyterian Church who opposed strict subscription to the Westminster Standards. (Remember that Billy Sunday and William Jennings Bryan, who were essentially revivalists and "free will" salvation advocates, were Presbyterians.) In the early 1900s, there were two strains of conservatism in the Northern Presbyterian Church: traditional five point covenental theology Calvinists and what could be called proto-dispensationalists. (Many of the founders of Dallas Theological Seminary and Philadelphia College of the Bible, the first dispensational seminaries, were Presbyterians.) The Northern Presbyterian Church merged with the less Calvinistic Cumberland Presbyterian Church and other small groups, further diluting the power of the strict subscriptionists.

By dividing the conservative forces into two camps, the liberals slowly gained ascendancy. Church discipline in matters of heresy had become a dead letter by the 1920s, as over a thousand Presbyterian ministers signed the apostate Auburn Affirmation evidenced. The final assault on conservatism, either strict subscriptionist or proto-dispensationalist, occurred in the 1930s, when liberals took over Princeton Theological Seminary, which had been the center of conservative Reformed theology for a century, and the General Assembly defrocked J. Gresham Machen and his supporters, the remaining stalwarts of conservative theology.

After the liberal coup, which was completed in 1936 after over a half century of subversion, the remaining conservatives either left the denomination or (in most cases) kept their mouths shut so they could get their pensions in due course. As for the Southern Presbyterian Church, the liberal subversion took longer and was less complete when that denomination merged with the Northern church in 1982. However, many Southern Presbyterians left well before the 1982 merger to form the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the second largest denomination named Presbyterian in the United States.

Humanly speaking, the mainstream Presbyterian church is a lost cause and has been so for nearly a century. Granted that today's left wing in the PCUSA is far more culturally radical than their predecessors, they nonetheless remain the heirs of 19th Century theological liberalism which has had the seminaries and most of the presbyteries in its death grip for longer than most of us have been alive. "Mother, child, and womb" or whatever stupid formula is used for the Trinity has its roots in the skepticism and anti-Biblicism of German academia of 150 years ago.

Frankly, I am more worried about preserving the Reformed and Calvinistic witness of the PCA and the conservative Reformed mini-denominations from heresies like those promulgated by Norman Shepherd and Steve Wilkins, who advocate doctrines like baptismal regeneration and works related salvation. I am also worried about evangelicalism in general from the threats of "seeker sensitive" theology that de-emphasizes the evils of sin and the need for repentance and anti-intellectualism in general, where feelings become more important than facts. We have enough to do to fight the subversion of the evangelical church before worrying about long lost causes such as the mainline denominations. We are fighting in Fallujah today, not in Flanders or the Shenandoah Valley.

[Notwithstanding]

1533: accommodate the king's sinful marriage
2006: accommodate the queens' sinful marriage