A Preliminary Response To A Song Of Faith: A statement of faith of The United Church of Canada/L’Eglise Unie du Canada (2006)

While the statement rightly speaks of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it separates itself from both Holy Scripture and the Church through the ages when it speaks also of God as "Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer" (the modalist heresy), "God, Christ, and Spirit", "Mother, Friend, and Comforter", "Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love" (all of which speak tri-theism). None of these alternative ways of speaking of the Holy Trinity is faithful either to Holy Scripture and to the teaching of the Church through the ages.

Moreover, to speak of God as "the fully shared life at the heart of the universe" is to assume pantheism, which is contrary to Holy Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments.

The statement describes and celebrates God as Spirit before it mentions Jesus of Nazareth, who is never described as God the Son, and who is described as "So filled with the Holy Spirit...that in him people experienced the presence of God among them." This is akin to the Ebionite heresy.

The two paragraphs beginning "By becoming flesh in Jesus" and "The Risen Christ lives today" echo the Gospel, but are relativized and made optional by the prior emphasis on the Spirit acting apart from Christ and by the prior Ebionite paragraphs. It is significant that the statement never says that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh or that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, as Holy Scripture, the Nicene Creed, and the Basis of Union Doctrine (Article VII) do.

It is significant that the paragraph beginning "Yet evil does not" speaks of God forgiving, reconciling and transforming before it touches on either the Spirit or Christ Jesus. It sings there of grace, but it has not recognized with St John that "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (Jn 1:17).

In summary: The statement is inclusive of the heresies of modalism and Ebionitism, and of unBiblical pantheism and tri-theism. Its Biblical and orthodox echoes are relativized and made optional by these heresies and man-made religions. Its witness is therefore akin to the religion of those whom the King of Assyria brought into the northern kingdom of Israel. These people "feared the Lord, yet served their own gods," and so the verdict of Holy Scripture is that "they do not fear the Lord" (2 Kings 17:34). The statement includes alien elements that adulterate the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. It is therefore a syncretistic and sometimes heretical document as it stands.

Graham A.D. Scott, 2006.08.09