06079
Feb. 11, 2006

Council approves report on the Trinity

Document affirms triune nature of God
as source of ‘love overflowing’

by Toya Richards Hill

LOUISVILLE — After more than five years of study and revision, a comprehensive report affirming the importance of the three-fold nature of God is on its way to this year’s General Assembly.

         The General Assembly Council (GAC), acting on a recommendation from the Congregational Ministries Division Committee (CMDC), approved “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” on Saturday (Feb. 11). It next goes to the Assembly in Birmingham, AL, in June.

         “I have a deep hope that this will be helpful to the church,” said the Rev. Rebecca Button Prichard, moderator of the working group that developed the report, which reviews the doctrine of the Trinity in Presbyterian theology, worship and life. It was written in response to an instruction from the 212th General Assembly (2000).

        “What the paper tries to do … is articulate how glorious this notion is that God is Trinity,” said the Rev. Charles Wiley, associate for theology in the Office of Theology and Worship, part of the Congregational Ministries Division (CMD). Wiley also was a member of the Trinity Working Group.

         “God is bigger and more expansive … through this three-in-one relationship,” said Prichard, the pastor of Tustin Presbyterian Church in Tustin, CA.

        The report resulted from “a very engaging process,” Prichard said, noting that the group’s activities ranged from formal consultations on seminary campuses to posting the report online and soliciting comment by email.

        “There have been some criticisms,” she said, but even those followed “a very constructive line of thought.”

        “The vast majority of the church was very responsive to thinking more seriously about the doctrine of the Trinity,” Prichard said.

        The report has three sections:

• “Confessing God’s Overflowing Love,” summarizing the PC(USA)’s theological convictions
  
  
• “Participating in God’s Overflowing Love,” showing how Christians participate in the life of God as they worship together
  
  
• “Embodying God’s Overflowing Love,” about the specific ways in which Christians are called to embody God’s love of God in mission and service — in the life of faith, hope and love
  

        One of the key subjects addressed in the report is the naming of the triune God. It calls for “discipline and rigor” in language used to refer to the Trinity, Wiley said.

        “An action of God cannot be restricted to one of the three persons,” the report says. “All of the acts of the triune God are indivisible. The persons of the Trinity do not work independently. Each of God’s acts is always the one work of the whole Trinity.”

        The report will be widely distributed throughout the denomination.

        The GA will be asked to have it published it in its minutes, have study materials prepared in print and electronic forms, order related liturgical resources and make available historical resources on prayer and worship relating to the Trinity.