Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 37:1 (Winter 2023)
Article: Book Review "Three in One: Analogies for the Trinity" by William David Spencer (Kregel Academic, 2022)
Author: Christa L. McKirland

PP 37:1 (Winter 2023) p. 29

Book Review
Three in One: Analogies for the Trinity
by William David Spencer (Kregel Academic, 2022)

Christa L. McKirland

Christa McKirland is a lecturer in systematic theology at Carey Bible College in Auckland, New Zealand. She earned MA and ThM degrees from Talbot School of Theology in southern California and a PhD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She founded Logia International, an organisation that encourages women to pursue postgraduate divinity education for the sake of the academy and church (see https://LogiaTheology.org). Christa has published various books and articles and served as associate editor for the third edition of Discovering Biblical Equality (IVP Academic, 2021).

I was recently at the Evangelical Theological Society conference scouring the book booths for an ideal text to use in my course on the Trinity. Personally, I enjoy reading books on the nuances of the doctrine’s historical development, or detailed accounts of the metaphysics of consubstantiality, simplicity, and inseparable operations. However, “joy” is not how most of my undergraduate students have felt in engaging these texts. Frankly, most of my students want to know why this doctrine even matters. On the other hand, I have found accessible texts that make a case for the doctrine’s relevance to the Christian life but often fail to: seriously engage primary texts, show sensitivity to global perspectives, substantiate gendered language for God, or value partial pictures of the Trinity. Finally, across both the erudite and the conversational forms of books on the Trinity that I have read, most Western Trinitarian scholars do not consider their own positionality as they come to this doctrine. After all, “why should who I am matter if I am talking about a mind-independent reality such as the Trinity?”

In addition to benefitting my students, William Spencer’s book is of value to readers of Priscilla Papers for at least three reasons: It gives insight into the use of gendered language for God. It adds another expert’s voice to the discussion on the absence of hierarchy in the Trinity. It gives context to debates about these and other questions. That is, we are better able to understand focused discussions when we also study the broader doctrine within which those discussions happen.

Fortunately, I was recommended this book by a friend who recognized the needs I perceive as I encounter scholarship on the Trinity. Dr. Spencer’s introduction lays out his own cultural heritage and why he wrote this book. While the Trinity is the focus, his students are his audience. And they are not a passive audience, for he weaves their multi-cultural voices throughout the volume. Many of these students know English as their seco...