The language is mysterious and ancient. Yet according to a new survey probing what Americans believe on crucial theological issues, a majority of those polled ”“ 71 percent ”“ believe in the Trinity.
But what about that whole “God in three persons” thing? Not so much.
In fact, 75 percent of Catholics polled by LifeWay Research agreed that the “Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being” ”“ a shocking number in light of the fact that only 52 percent of non-Christian Americans took that unorthodox stance. Among “mainline,” mostly liberal, Protestants, 74 percent denied the personhood of the Holy Spirit along with a small majority ”“ 58 percent ”“ of evangelical Protestants.
The spring survey is the latest to show that most Americans affirm traditional religious beliefs, sort of, but turn into “cafeteria” believers who pick and choose whatever makes them feel comfortable when it comes to doctrinal specifics, said LifeWay President Ed Stetzer. Things can get foggy and confusing in the “mushy middle” of the religious spectrum, where Americans worship a “Christian-ish god,” rather than the God of traditional Christian faith.
I’ve always wondered whether part of the problem here is that we are aware of living in a world of “impersonal forces” in a way our ancestors wouldn’t have recognized. They didn’t know about gravity or electromagnetism, for example. They knew about the wind, but thought it was very mysterious, which is why all that word play in John 3 needs to be laboriously explained in sermons. I think about this whenever I preach that “God is love”, which many people hear as making God an impersonal, abstract force (the the Force in Star Wars) rather than a personal being. St. Augustine says some things about the Spirit as being the love between the Father and The Son that I think runs the risk of de-personalizing the Spirit for modern people in a way it wouldn’t have for Augustine’s first audience.