Not long after I became a Unitarian Universalist, I was lurking on a UU chat list when a conversation began about the Trinity. Someone argued that a great deal of Trinitarian Christianity, in the United States, was largely binitarian: lots of emphasis on Jesus and God the Father, almost nothing about the Holy Spirit. This was not only the kind of interesting conversation that made me very happy to have found UUism, and “binitarianism” an accurate description of most of what I heard on Christian radio, but it made something click for me, because I thought, “Geez. The Holy Spirit is the only aspect of God I actually believe in.”
So I am troubled by The Onion’s news brief headlined God Quietly Phasing Holy Ghost Out of Trinity. It was just called to my attention today, but it’s dated 2003, and apparently the Holy Spirit has been out of the picture since Easter of that year.
Oh well. It can be in exile. I still like it, love it in fact, and it’s still the only part of the traditional Trinity that I consider divine. God the Father, if He exists, is not someone to whom I would sing praise. Annie Dillard wrote, “We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet,” and while I think that is overly sweeping (there are kind gods out there), it does apply to the God described in the Bible, who frequently neither demonstrates compassion nor asks it of us. Jesus, in contrast, begged us to be loving, and I aspire to follow many of his teachings, but his presence in the Trinity is problematic on account of his being purely human. But the Holy Spirit? A force, invisible but palpable, that moves us to create beauty and goodness? That’s what moves me to deep reverence.
One strand of historical Unitarianism rejected the Trinity because the Biblical evidence of a Holy Spirit was thin. But if, as the old joke has it, Unitarians are those who believe in “at most one god,” then for me the Holy Spirit–elsewhere known as the Ruach HaKodesh, which translates “the Breath/Spirit of the Holy,” or the Shekhinah–is a good candidate.
Sermons in Stones 
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June 2, 2012 at 7:56 am
David Zucker
This palaver about the Ghost (old english, which I prefer) opens a can of worms for me (ordinary worms). I don’t cotton to any of the trinity, even the Son. By the way, in his magnificent epic, John Milton goofed on presenting in book 3 the father and son palavering about human destiny. A poor theological digression from the rest of the poem, which is rich and rare.
But if I had to believe (forced under torture to choose one of them), I’d go for the Ghost, who at least has the advantage of lurking, like on UU sites, in our business, which appeals to the snoop and gossip in us. I guess delegated by the father and maybe the son.
Complicated non human stuff; not sure I want to go further with it.
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June 2, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Erp
UUs could try invoking Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom, though she never made it into the trinity (did get a large church in Turkey).
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June 2, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Kimc
I don’t know about Hagia Sophia specifically, but I always got the impression that the Holy Ghost was the female in the family.
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June 3, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Beth Williamson
I am a unitarian– not a trinitarian, but I, too, like the idea of a holy spirit moving in the world. I am a modalist, seeing the holy spirit as a manifestation of the life force, not a separate person. I have been in meetings, both religious and non-religious, in which the movement of the spirit was obvious to many of those present and led to positive developments for the good of the group and the larger world.
The term “modalist” is new to me but fits my beliefs as well. Thanks! –AZM
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