The “Christian Right” has been in the spotlight in recent years, from Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, to Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, Taking America Back for God, to Lerone Martin, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover, to “Shiny Happy People”—the list could go on and on, of books telling the story of American Christians pursuing power in a vast number of ways. Even back in 2016, one reviewer noted that “Studies of late twentieth century American evangelicalism inevitably focus on the rise of the Religious Right.” Add, since then, this the rise of Donald Trump, the resurgence in Christian Nationalism, the sexual abuse scandals and the #ChurchToo movement, and there has been a lot to “focus on” on the Right.
“Theology,” said Stephen Holmes, “is more than collating the Biblical passages; it is, in the classical tradition, mostly the task of trying to imagine what must be the case for everything in the Bible to be true. It is a creative task, requiring great efforts of imagination, as well as careful exegesis and precise logic”
“Hear, O Israel: The YHWH our God, the YHWH is one” (Deut 6:4).
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19).
“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 For 8:6).
What must be the case for all of these statements (and many more) to be true? Such is the task of trying to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity. Over the years, Christians have exerted great efforts of imagination in trying to do do justice to the Scriptural witness to God as three-and-one. Yet all of our efforts are constrained by our finiteness and in particular, our historical situatedness. Specifically, the language available to us, given our time and location, determines the words we will use in our attempts to make coherent sense out of all that the Bible says about God. This has been true ever since teachers in the church undertook their task 2000 years ago, and is still true today.
Randy Woodley
This paper will explores Augustine’s account of trinitarian language and its limitations, as well as some critiques of his particular construal of the doctrine. Augustine’s example provides us with a helpful example to explore the phenomena of “linguistic finitude” in our doctrine of the Trinity. Then, we turn to a contemporary Native American theologian, Randy Woodley, who draws on his own culture’s conceptual resources to approach the doctrine of the Trinity. We then follow the trajectory set by Dr. Woodley in order to offer a sketch of a fresh way to approach the doctrine in terms of Shalom, or “peace.”
βιβλιοσκώληξ 