John Starke explains for the UCC why “youre not trinitarian just by calling yourself trinitarian”:
Isnt it interesting that when we try to clear God of his trinitarian nature and then try to describe who he is, we only have impersonal terms?Athanasius didnt like the term Unoriginate, and not just because it sounded like a poorly named professional wrestler. He rejected the title because it didnt explain who God is fundamentally. By calling God the Unoriginate, we are defining him by what is in contrast, the originatethat is, creation. And God is not dependent upon the existence of creation, nor is he defined by it. So we must do better than Unoriginate.
But, as Athanasius pointed out, if we call God Father, we immediately contemplate the Son. And here we have something that is fundamental and eternal to both of them: The Father is the Father of the Son; the Son is the Son of the Father. To know God, we must know God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. Otherwise we are grasping for totems of our own imaginations.
And now back to the curious case of the UCC. The problem isnt only their sensitivity to gender-exclusivity in God or their modern sensibilities trumping the Bible. As we saw with the Arians, if you dont have a Heavenly Father, then you dont have a Son. And if you dont have a Son, youve lost Jesus.
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