we are in recession

i hate economics.

mostly because i don't understand how things work - when i was in math classes in HS and college, i usually finished tests pretty quickly, and felt good about them, because the formulas are always the same, and you can trust them, right? well, i never got the scores i thought i should have.... when i thought it was an A, it would be a B, and if i swear it should have been a B, it was a C.

i still hate math, and God has seen fit to make me a steward of finances, so i'm trying to humble myself and seek God's wisdom in that.

but back to economics - it is a study so tied to math that on first instinct i hate it, but there's enough risk and intuition involved that i'm still somewhat intrigued, which makes me hate it more because i still can't understand it. i mean, i feel like i should be able to understand how my retirement account in a Mutual Fund is working, but i seriously doubt that i could explain it well if you should ask, and thus Wittgenstein would argue that i really don't understand it at all.

it seems like inflation is increasing, consumers aren't buying as much (despite record video game sales in which i have participated), and sub-prime mortgages did something i can't explain, and thus we are in an economic recession.

but that's not the recession i was talking about in the post title.

rather, we are in a Trinitarian recession.
we being the Church

bad theology is increasing, pastors aren't studying as much (despite the internet being an incredible shared resource), and more people know the effect of sub-prime mortgages on the economy than they do about the relationships in the Trinity.

there is a term we are using in class, 'economic Trinity,' which references the inter-relatedness of the work and nature of the persons of the Trinity. just as consumers, producers, and the IRS have their roles in the economy with which we are somewhat familiar, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (NOT to be directly compared to consumers, et al.) have specific roles in the work of the God in Trinity, and yet their roles are mutually necessitated.

it seems to me that the Church is in a recession 'economically' with regard to the economic Trinity. Conservative Evangelicals focus on the unity of God (but not all to the point of Oneness Pentecostals), neglecting the distinctions of the three persons and the fullness found in their inter-relatedness. i really feel like i'm on the tip of something pretty significant when i contemplate the Trinity, and the reading i'm doing is only further intriguing me... the Church Fathers (and Mothers), all of the councils, Augustine, Aquinas, the crazy reformers - there's much more to the Trinity than we typically experience from the pulpit and/or the Sunday School classroom and/or the home...

coming next - Rahner (who coined the term "economic trinity"), Barth (for whom the Trinity was central to doctrine), and Zizioulas (anyone heard of this guy?)