The Plague of Trinity Sunday Preaching (Series on “Minding the Web”)

“This is Trinity Sunday. Across Christendom preachers are trying to ex­plain “Trinity” to their congregations. God is one, but God is three. How can one be three we ask? Attempts to explain the Trinity I fear often result not only in dull sermons but, even worse, heresy. Even more debilitating is the reality that the heresy evoked by such attempts is not recognized as heresy. It is not even clear if the person that represents the heresy thinks being a heretic is a “bad thing.”

We live in a time when many Christians think what we think as Christians is our “own damn business.” Thus the presumption that what matters is not whether you believe that God’s primary name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but whether you are a good person. I do not want to sell short that being a good person is important, but I do want to suggest that for Christians what it means for us to “be good” is inseparable from our worship of God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”1

This is the twentieth in a series of posts highlighting captivating, provocative, or simply entertaining quotes from the newly published book Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections by Stanley Hauerwas edited by Robert J. Dean (Cascade).

  1. Stanley Hauerwas, “Trinity,” in Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections, edited by Robert J. Dean (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018), 251.

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