In this month's Everyday Journal, Dan Porter shared his view on the "Trinity as Doctrine and Confession", which I think is important to consider along with John Mark's notion that American Protestantism clings to one person of the Trinity more than the other, depending on whether you are a fundamentalist, evangelical, or pentacostal.

Dan writes on the basic premise of Trinitarian theology:

Today on the Leonard Lopate show a memoirist and novelist named John Marks was featured in a segment called A Former Evangelical's Crisis of Faith.  Lopate and Marks, who are both not practicing Christians, showed a stunning secular understanding of American Protestantism, being that they are outsiders.  It helped that Marks had been an evangelical before leaving Christianity altogether, but Lopate also showed a surprising knowledge of the differances between charismatic and Pentacostal expressions of faith and worship.  In summary, the segment discussed how:

American evangelical Christianity can be misunderstood by outsiders.  Veteran journalist and former 60 Minutes producer John Marks was born again at age 16, but later abandoned his faith.  His new book about the religion he left behind is Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind.  ... more

Responsible Christian theology speaks of God on the basis of the particular acts of God attested in Scripture. The biblical basis for the tri-unity of God is found in the pattern of the revelatory acts of God throughout the biblical narrative.  Indeed the trinitarian idea emerged formally in the early centuries of the church as an explanation for the Christian belief in the one God who had also been revealed in the person of Jesus and who was experienced through the ministry of the Spirit. The basic premise of Trinitarian theology is summarized by Daniel Migliore: