wfn.org | Holy Spirit Attends Convocation, Stays Under Wraps

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

28-October-1999 
99366 
 
    Holy Spirit Attends Convocation, Stays Under Wraps 
 
    Even theologians find third person of Trinity elusive 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - After three days of lectures on the Holy Spirit, the Rev. 
Sally Willis-Watkins of Flemington, N.J., conceded that capturing the 
essence of the confession, "We Believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the 
Giver of Life," is, at best, an imprecise exercise. 
 
    "The Father, we can see it. We've got an image for the Son. But the 
Spirit is, as a professor of mine used to say, `poofy,'" Willis-Watkins 
said.  "And yet, that's helpful, because sometimes we think we've got the 
Father and the Son. We've defined God and, therefore, we limit God. The 
Spirit reminds us that we cannot define or limit God. 
 
    "So," she concluded, "maybe the imprecision is a good thing." 
 
    Being more precise about who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy 
Spirit does - while confessing the mystery inherent in the Spirit's essence 
and people's experience of it - was the task given eight plenary speakers 
and fewer than 100 listeners who gathered here Oct. 20-22 for the second 
churchwide theology convocation, sponsored by the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.) Office of  Theology and Worship. 
 
    A second gathering followed immediately in San Francisco. 
 
    Speakers took turns addressing various clauses of the Nicene Creed, a 
confessional statement drafted in 325 A.D. by a church council trying to 
find language that could assert the full divinity of Christ. The need for 
an authoritative statement became evident when a prominent church leader in 
Alexandria, Egypt, known as Arias, began teaching that the Son, having been 
created, was subordinate to the Father, thus establishing a hierarchy 
within the Trinity. 
 
    The Council of Nicaea declared Arias' teaching heresy, insisting that 
the Son is of  "one substance" with the Father and that the Spirit 
"proceedeth from the Father and the Son," and that the three are co-eternal 
and equal in power. 
 
    Or, as Colin Gunton, a professor of systematic theology at King's 
College in London, told the gathering in more contemporary language: "There 
is an eternal communion of love that we call the triune God. The Spirit 
perfects the divine communion by being the dynamic of the Father's and 
Son's being ... It is perfect in itself ... but its very character provides 
the basis of God's movement out into the world to create, to redeem and to 
perfect." 
 
    "God is no lonely monad or self-absorbed tyrant," Gunton said, "but one 
whose orientation to the other is intrinsic to his eternal being as God. 
 ... The Spirit, we might say, is also the motor of that divine movement 
outwards, just as the Son is its focus." 
 
    The lecture series is the second of three planned by the denomination, 
according to the Rev. Joseph Small, coordinator for theology and worship. 
The first, drawing on the creed's language about Jesus Christ, was held 
three years ago in Pittsburgh; the third and last, on God the Father, is 
tentatively planned for 2002. 
 
    The purpose for theological convocations is simple, although the topics 
are not. 
 
      "We're having to answer the questions over and over again: Who is 
God? Who am I? Does God care about me? What does that mean for my 
relationships with other people?" said Small, referring to daily pastoral 
work. "Those are simple little questions, but they don't have simple little 
answers. And this is a time (for) ... trying to make better sense of the 
faith, so that we can help people in churches make better sense of the 
faith." 
 
     Ellen Charry, an associate professor of theology at Princeton 
Theological Seminary, speaking on "The Doctrine of the Trinity and the 
Christian Life," claimed that the essence of the "divine triplicity" is 
based, finally, on human need - so that God does not have to "fight against 
us for us." 
 
    "God is so concerned for the flourishing of creation that the divine 
triplicity ... is for [creation's] sake,"Charry said. "That we know Father, 
Son and Holy Spirit as creator, redeemer and sanctifier suggests that God 
knows and understands that we need more help than simply to be created and 
set going. To this end, God's own being is structured around our needs. 
That the Son and the Spirit are indeed God and sent into the world to 
repair us, brings us face-to-face with our need for precisely the work that 
God does. 
 
    "We need to be confronted by our sins in the cross of Christ, offered 
the hope of forgiveness in his resurrection, sealed with the power of the 
Holy Spirit for new life in Christ, and gifted with talents and skills for 
the love of neighbor and the upbuilding of the entire body of Christ. For 
the second and third `hypostases' (a term coined at Nicaea) of the Trinity 
are not afterthoughts, self-differentiations of God undertaken after the 
fall - to close the barn door after the horses are out, so to speak. 
 
    "The fact that Christians understand these things to be co-eternal and 
of equal status," Charry said, "indicates that the divine triplicity 
anticipates the full force of human need from eternity." 
 
    Most of the speakers focused on how that triplicity is experienced in 
the life of the church. Adhering to the words of the creed, the Rev. 
Cynthia Campbell, the president of McCormick Theological Seminary, 
addressed " ... who has spoken through the prophets"; Leanne Van Dyk, a 
professor of systematic theology at Western Theological Seminary, covered " 
 ... one baptism for the remission of sins;" and Miroslav Volf of The 
Divinity School of Yale University discussed " ... One Holy, Catholic and 
Apostolic Church." 
 
    Campbell said the Spirit illumines God's word so it may be understood 
by the people that God created to "talk back" - although it is often hard 
for humans to hear and understand prophets in their own midst."The problem 
with the prophet," she said, "is that the prophet speaks a word from the 
Lord" - sometimes harsh judgement but at other times grace.  "But often, 
for us, a word of grace is just as hard (to hear) as a word of judgment" 
 
    Later, responding to a question about distinguishing between prophets 
and heretics, Campbell said prophets are terribly difficult to hear. "It is 
a difficult process ... and it simply will not happen without debate, 
argument and pain." 
 
    Van Dyk said the Spirit is the aspect of the Trinity that gives humans 
glimpses of God's presence in their life, and the most dramatic and visible 
model of God's action is that of Christian baptism, a daily reminder of 
Christian identity conferred by the Holy Spirit. 
 
    "Salvation through Jesus Christ must become visible through lived 
experience," Van Dyk said. " ... Human beings in community. Visible. 
Particular. Concrete. Noticeable. One can see it. Sense the quality of it." 
 
    According to Volf, the Spirit is essential to move the church into 
mission - for the forgiveness of sinners, fellowship with the outcast and 
care of the needy.  "The Spirit moves the church into the work of 
reconciliation of people ... which is intrinsic to reconciliation with God, 
since there was such divine self-giving to reconcile humanity," adding that 
when the church is torn between reconciliation and liberation the priority 
ought to be reconciliation, because liberation does not necessarily lead to 
peace. 
 
    "The church does not seek to draw attention to itself, but to Christ," 
Volf said, describing the complex interplay within the community of faith. 
He said it doesn't matter whether the church does its work from the margins 
or the center of society.  "What matters profoundly," he said, "is where we 
draw our identity." 
 
    The Rev. Elizabeth Nordquist, an assistant professor of spirituality at 
San Francisco Theological Seminary, drew on the works of John Calvin to 
remind listeners that the Spirit's work is to confirm in the heart what 
believers know in the mind. She insisted that failure to pay attention to 
the Spirit truncates the church's life and growth. 
 
    Addressing the topic "Holy Spirit and Christian Spiritual Formation," 
Nordquist said, "Holiness takes time."  She urged the denomination to 
recover Protestant traditions, practice contemplation on the Sabbath and 
use models that teach an attitude of listening to the Spirit. 
 
    The Rev. Fritz Bogar, interim pastor of the 1,100-member Westminster 
Presbyterian Church, just east of Atlanta, told the Presbyterian News 
Service that finding ways to experience and articulate the experience of 
the Spirit is essential in the church now, when so many people are 
spiritually starved. 
 
     "Individuals are yearning for something more," Bogar said. " ... One 
of the traps of contemporary worship is that people want the latest drug; 
they want a pill ... but what they need is not something they've identified 
for themselves. They've just identified a lack and are trying to put 
something in it. 
 
    "Our responsibility," Bogar added, noting that conferences like this 
one lifts up neglected parts of the tradition, "is to give them something 
constructive, enriching, as opposed to the next drug." 
 
    Working at finding the words to express the experience of the Spirit, 
and creating ministries where it may be witnessed, are imperative, 
Willis-Watkins said.  "There's definitely a deep longing in people ... 
People are turning to the New Age, even gangs, in a search for meaning, for 
a sense of belonging somewhere ... and that's a judgement on us as the 
church," she noted. 
 
    "We've got a banquet, where people [could be] eating turkeys, but 
they're gorging themselves on junk food. And it will not ultimately 
satisfy. It only temporarily fills the void." 

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