[OBW]

God's Triune-ness does have meaning. And it has purpose. And I don't understand it. At least not fully. (And you aren't suggesting that you do either.)

Do you understand electricity? At some level, I do. But not entirely. Yet it is simply physics. There is this flow of electrons. And a generator is creating them. Yet if nothing is turned on, where do they go? What is flowing?

Too simple. But it provides a glimpse into the God that I believe in since he is often described in terms that are never much more than incomplete and/or not fully understood. Except when God himself is the one describing. And when he describes, he sticks to one thing at a time. He finds no need to juxtapose Three with One. There may be hints of Three when One appears to be speaking. Or Oneness (unity) when there are the Three (or any two).

But too many of these different thoughts all strung together to create a patchwork of understanding starts to sound too much like a training banner song. Or one of those metaphors that Lee milked every possible nuance out of no matter how far-fetched it may be.

Let's talk about God. Let's focus on this or that. It is even fine to note many aspects that we aren't sure how to push together into this Three-One / One-Three being(s). But when we wander into the realm of using these views to put some certainty on it, I think we are off-base. Not because we are simply wrong in conclusion, but because we are going wrong in focus.

(So. Since Piper is on the block, is God simply male, and Christianity a masculine/paternalistic religion? I don't think he was the spearhead on this, but I do think he chimed in at least a little on the topic. (Or maybe he was the center of the recent firestorm. I can't remember.) I don't really want to discuss this.)

And — as a final note — while I think that being more general and open rather than defining and closed (and I am not saying you are closed, just that more definitions too often lead that way) is part of the "more excellent way," I do see some of the kind of ways that Lee went as being far from "excellent" and even having a potential for detrimental impact on those who follow him. I fear that in our zeal to combat the anti-Modalism Gestapo from the Bereans we are too quick to gloss over the actual negative impacts of Lee's errors in teaching. It may be that some of these particular teachings were somewhat innocuous, but taken as a whole, each marginal error gave him room to get by with worse than marginal the next time. And while there is something about God to be appreciated as One, he is described almost constantly as Father, Son, and Spirit in the NT in a manner that is not simply One. So all of Lee's teachings that limit the idea of separateness lead his followers away from what scripture was actually saying. It might be harmless. But seeing the overall impact of Lee/LSM teaching on the faithful, I suggest that nothing is as harmless at it may seem.