truth is not singular: it is trinitarian

Truth is not singular: it is Trinitarian
 
It is a truism that belief and action are two sides of human reality. Because an increasing number of males apparently believe women to be subservient, or that because they are male, they are owed something, our Australian culture has become blighted with terrible and often violent male behaviours.  What we come to believe determines what we do.

Clearly the State of Israel believes, and people like Peter Dutton concur, that Israel has the right to control and subvert all of what traditionally had been called Palestine, and that all Palestinians are terrorists for resisting. In these last few days, we have observed the chilling sight of Israeli crowds celebrating in the streets of Tel Aviv as Palestinian children burn to death in Rafah.  Linking Jewishness to the State of Israel is wrong, despite the fact Netanyahu insists Israel is an expression of Jewishness. Josh Frydenberg, I join you in abhorring antisemitism, but if you want antisemitism to diminish, use your voice to unequivocally condemn the actions of the Israeli government and the outrageous rejoicings of those who support them.

If it is believed God singles out a particular class or tribe for blessing and that wrath falls on those whose lives differ from one’s own, or that certain people are born to rule and others to accept subservience, then actions that match that belief inevitably follow.

This week Christians have been celebrating one of, if not their primary, belief – that God is best understood as Trinity.  This statement has been roundly ridiculed as irrationally stupid within, as well as without Christianity by the likes of Thomas Jefferson or Rudyard Kipling, quite apart from predictable suspects such as Richard Dawkins. So, is it best to park this belief in the dust tray of history as the extravagant literary and academic flourish of an Augustine or Tertullian; or is there belief here without which Christians have nothing to say and no work to perform in our troubled world?

(I want to leave aside philosophical debate about ousia and homoousion, or trite metaphors which have attempted to satisfy human reason, and instead focus on what this teaching has to say about the nature of God and, as a consequence, the nature of humanity, how we should act and what we should long for).

Let me start in the obvious place with the oft recited statement that “God is love”.  It would not be possible to make this statement without belief in the Trinity. Love requires an entity to be loved and an outcome of that love. If relationship does not exist within the heart of God, God is not love. For love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and a relationship between them.

“We are created so that we may be caught up in this, so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us, as God loves God”. – Rowan Williams

In other words, relationship is at the heart of God. Bishop Lesslie Newbiggin said: “belief in the Trinity teaches me that relationship is the ultimate truth”. The primary vocation of human beings should be the giving and receiving of respect and honor, as communities, large and small, are formed and nurtured, from the intimacy of nuclear families to the grandeur of planet earth.

The human vocation is not to sit around endlessly telling God how great God is, without mirroring what God does (notwithstanding Allah Akbar is certainly true).  “I hate, I despise your festivals and offerings, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. (Amos 5: 21 – 24).

The Middle East is a case in point.  Many pious statements are made in the name of religion – all religions – but where is justice being worked for, or righteousness celebrated?

Peter Dutton and others have vilified the chant by young Palestinians - ‘from the river to the sea’.  Others also use it. When Zionists use this chant – as they do, and when Hamas uses the chant - as it has, sovereignty is front of mind. When these young students use this chant, politics and sovereignty are not front of mind.  What is front of mind, is a desire that from the river to the sea they will be free, as in, they will live as everyone else lives, without borders, with the same rights and the same freedoms.  It is not for them a racist chant. It is a call for humanity to become what we are called to be, diverse communities living in harmony, respect, and peace with each other.  The cry is a cry for justice and righteousness. It is not a cry for sovereignty. Dutton, you hear it as a cry for power and possession because these are the values that are important to you. Justice and righteousness are what they are calling for – hardly an unreasonable call.    It is an abiding failure of humanity that we hear others through the prism of our own prejudice.

This chant is consistent with belief in a Trinitarian God: consistent with belief that each is enhanced through the embrace of the other. 

It is beyond tragic that many who espouse a conservative Christian faith are more likely than not to support divisive outcomes through conservative politics, rather than supporting sustainable and diverse communities.  It appears that conservative Christians have abandoned Trinitarian belief.  This is particularly so of the Middle East where Christian voices in support of a just outcome for Palestinians has been shamefully muted for decades.  A just outcome for Palestinians does not mean diminishment for Jewish residents. It means sharing the richness of diversity without walls and with reciprocity of rights ‘from the river to the sea’.

The Anglican Church is embarking on an initiative next year titled Hope 25: it’s raison d’etre being sharing the Christian Gospel at a time when much brokenness and despair prevails both in Australia and globally.

One can only hope that this initiative is deeply embedded in Trinitarian belief: commitment to establishing a broad range of communities reflecting respect and trust  – across boundaries of injustice and division.  People of all religious belief are arrogantly in error to think God works only or even primarily within their enclave. Collaborating beyond boundaries in this relational universe is to be surprised by joy.
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Belief in a Trinitarian God must always be central in Christian faith, with outcomes that are subversive to the principalities and powers of our contemporary age.