📊 Overaccepting Dominative Christianism: The Trinitarian Foundation of Christian Identity
Trinity and identity
Chapter 2 of my project on "Overaccepting Dominative Christianism and Providential Identitarianism" explores the Trinitarian foundations of Christian identity in contrast to dominative religious mutations.
Introduction: Divine Identity vs. National Identity
"You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
These words, spoken at Jesus's baptism in Mark 1:11, reveal the Trinitarian nature of divine identity. The Father speaks love to the Son while the Spirit descends like a dove. This moment reveals God not as a solitary power but as relational communion—a community of love without domination.
This Trinitarian revelation stands in stark contrast to the dominant understanding of identity in Dominative Christianism and Providential Identitarianism. Though politically opposed, both mutations share a fundamental distortion of identity that prioritizes national, cultural, or group identity over Christian identity formed through participation in the Trinitarian life of God.
Trinity as Community Without Domination
The doctrine of the Trinity represents Christianity's central claim that God exists eternally as a communion of three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who mutually indwell one another in perfect love without domination. This "perichoresis" understanding presents God not as a solitary power but as a relational communion.
This Trinitarian understanding has profound implications for human identity. If humans are created in the image of this Triune God, then human flourishing likewise comes through communion without domination rather than individual autonomy or tribal belonging. As John Zizioulas writes, "Being is communion"; our existence is relational rather than autonomous.
The biblical foundations of this understanding appear throughout scripture. At Jesus's baptism, the Trinitarian nature of divine identity manifests—the Father speaks blessing, the Son receives identity, and the Spirit mediates this communion. This moment reveals that identity comes through relationships rather than achievement or group membership.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus maintains this relational identity: "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing" (John 5:19). This mutual indwelling continues in Jesus's promise of the Spirit who will "take from what is mine and make it known to you" (John 16:15). In each case, identity emerges through relationship rather than autonomy.
Dominative Christianism's Distortion of Christian Identity
Nationalist Identity as Primary
Dominative Christianism subordinates Christian identity to nationalist identity, reversing the biblical priority of kingdom citizenship over earthly citizenship. This inversion manifests in subordinating religious symbols to national ones—flags in sanctuaries, patriotic hymns in worship, and nationalistic language in prayers.
This subordination reflects a contractual rather than participatory understanding of our relationship with God. The covenant between God and America becomes primary, with individual salvation understood as participation in this national contract rather than in divine life. Religious adherence becomes a marker of national belonging rather than transformation into Christ's likeness.
When God is understood primarily as a sovereign ruler rather than a communion of love, religious authority naturally mirrors this dominative model.
Contractual Soteriology vs. Participatory Salvation
Dominative Christianism typically embraces a contractual understanding of salvation centered on justification theory. This framework presents salvation as a legal transaction where Christ's death satisfies divine justice, allowing God to forgive while maintaining legal order. While containing biblical elements, this framework often becomes detached from participatory union with Christ.
As Douglas Campbell demonstrates in his analysis of Romans, this contractual understanding represents a misreading of Paul's theology. Paul presents salvation not primarily as legal acquittal but as participation in Christ's death and resurrection—being "in Christ" rather than merely forgiven by Christ. This participation transforms identity from autonomous individual to member of Christ's body.
Functional Unitarianism in Practice
Despite formal Trinitarian orthodoxy, Dominative Christianism often functions as practical unitarianism—focusing exclusively on either Father or Son while minimizing the Spirit's role in communal discernment. This functional unitarianism enables authoritarian leadership models that claim direct divine authority without communal testing.
When God is understood primarily as a sovereign ruler rather than a communion of love, religious authority naturally mirrors this dominative model. Leaders claim to represent divine sovereignty rather than facilitating divine communion, establishing hierarchical structures that reflect imperial rather than Trinitarian models of authority.
Providential Identitarianism's Parallel Distortion
Identity Politics as Theological Framework
Providential Identitarianism similarly subordinates Christian identity to group identity, though focusing on marginalized rather than dominant groups. This inversion manifests in the reinterpretation of theological language through the lens of identity categories—race, gender, sexuality, and social location becoming primary markers of religious authenticity.
Like Dominative Christianism, this approach reflects a contractual rather than participatory understanding of our relationship with God. Salvation becomes a participation in the struggle for the right identity group rather than participation in the divine life. Religious adherence becomes a marker of political commitment rather than transformation into Christ's likeness.
Secularized Trinity as Social Model
Providential Identitarianism often secularizes the Trinity, treating it primarily as a model for social relationships rather than the revelation of God's nature. This approach values Trinitarian language for its political implications while minimizing its theological content, reducing divine communion to a pattern for the human community.
While the Trinity does indeed provide a model for human community, this secularization divorces the model from its source, treating the Trinity as an abstract principle rather than a living reality in which humans participate. The result is a social trinitarianism without a participatory foundation, a model without transformative power.
Functional Unitarianism in Practice
Despite its critique of traditional hierarchy, Providential Identitarianism often functions as practical unitarianism focused exclusively on the Spirit while minimizing the Father's transcendence and the Son's particularity. This functional unitarianism enables an immanentized spirituality that identifies divine action exclusively with progressive social movements.
When we understand God primarily as immanent Spirit rather than transcendent communion, religious authenticity naturally focuses on internal experience rather than external revelation. Spiritual authority comes through intensely felt experience rather than tested discernment, establishing new hierarchies based on experiential rather than positional authority.
Participatory Freedom: A Trinitarian Alternative
Freedom Through Participation
The Trinitarian understanding offers an alternative framework for Christian identity centered on participation in divine communion. This "participatory freedom" differs fundamentally from both autonomous freedom (valued by Dominative Christianism) and collective freedom (valued by Providential Identitarianism).
Participatory freedom emerges from communion without domination—the freedom exhibited within the Trinity where each divine person fully indwells the others without losing distinction. Human freedom similarly comes through participation in this holy communion, becoming most fully ourselves by participating in something beyond ourselves.
This understanding draws on the biblical witness to the freedom found through union with Christ: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Here, Paul finds authentic selfhood not through autonomy but through participation in Christ's death and resurrection.
Being With: Incarnational Presence
The incarnation reveals God's way of engaging with humanity—not merely doing things "for" us (benevolent provision) or "to" us (sovereign control) but "being with" us in self-giving presence. As Sam Wells articulates, Jesus demonstrates God's purpose is to be with us, dwelling among us rather than merely helping us from a distance.
This "being with" provides a model for Christian engagement that challenges Dominative Christianism's tendency toward dominative control and Providential Identitarianism's tendency toward distanced advocacy. Both doing "for" and doing "to" maintain distance between helper and helped, while "being with" requires genuine communion across differences.
Communion Without Uniformity
The Trinitarian alternative maintains the biblical tension between unity and diversity, offering communion without uniformity. Just as the Father, Son, and Spirit maintain their distinctiveness within perfect communion, human diversity becomes not an obstacle but a prerequisite to genuine community.
This understanding challenges Dominative Christianism's pressure toward cultural uniformity and Providential Identitarianism's tendency to absolutize difference. The Trinitarian vision offers neither a melting pot nor a salad bowl but a communion where distinct persons mutually indwell one another without losing particularity.
Practical Implications: Recovering Trinitarian Identity
Liturgical Formation Beyond Nationalism
Recovering Trinitarian identity begins with liturgical practices prioritizing participation in divine communion over national or group identity. Worship forms us by what it centers on—the Triune God or alternative loyalties that function as practical idols.
Liturgical renewal involves critically examining how national symbols function in worship, how patriotic elements shape religious imagination, and how cultural assumptions influence theological language. This examination isn't about banishing all cultural elements but ensuring they remain secondary to Trinitarian formation.
Communal Discernment Through the Spirit
Trinitarian identity forms through communal discernment that relies on the Spirit's guidance rather than authoritarian leadership or majority opinion. This discernment involves testing competing claims through scripture, tradition, reason, and experience while prioritizing communal wisdom over individual judgment.
This approach challenges the top-down authority structures common in Dominative Christianism and the experiential authority common in Providential Identitarianism. Both mutations often bypass genuine communal discernment—one through appeal to traditional authority, the other through appeal to marginalized experience.
Boundary-Crossing as Christian Vocation
Trinitarian identity manifests in boundary-crossing practices that reflect God's self-giving love. Since God crossed the ultimate boundary in the incarnation, God calls Christians to cross boundaries that divide humanity into "us" and "them," whether national, cultural, racial, or ideological.
This boundary-crossing challenges Dominative Christianism's tendency to reinforce boundaries between insiders and outsiders and Providential Identitarianism's tendency to reify boundaries between oppressed and oppressors. Both maintain rather than transcend the boundaries that divide humanity.
Conclusion: Identity Through Participation
The recovery of Trinitarian identity offers a path beyond the distortions of both Dominative Christianism and Providential Identitarianism. Rather than subordinating Christian identity to national or group identity, the Trinitarian vision offers identity through participation in divine communion—becoming most fully ourselves by participating in the life of the Triune God.
This participation doesn't erase other identities but relativizes them, making them secondary to our primary identity "in Christ." National, cultural, racial, and other identities remain real but no longer ultimate, enriching rather than defining the Christian community.
The words spoken at Jesus's baptism—"You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased"—reveal not only Jesus's identity but our own, as we too are adopted into this relationship of love without domination. Our identity comes not through achievement, cultural belonging, or group membership but through participation in this divine communion—the Trinitarian life that is our true home.
Key Terms
Participatory Freedom: Freedom that emerges from communion with God and others rather than the mere absence of constraint or collective identity.
Being With: Incarnational presence that engages through relationships rather than merely doing things "for" or "to" others.
Binary Apocalypticism: The tendency to divide the world into rigid categories of good and evil, friend and enemy.
Notes
[1] John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985).
[2] Douglas Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
[3] Samuel Wells, Incarnational Ministry: Being with the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017).