T.D. Jakes and the Trinity

This article is adapted from a ThM thesis that I wrote many moons ago. The below was originally written for a Russian audience and can be found here.

T. D. Jakes is becoming one of the most recognized names in international evangelicalism. He is the pastor of the “Potter’s House” in Dallas, Texas which boasts of a membership of over 28,000 people.1 He is also a regular on The Christian Broadcast Network (TBN) and has played in movies such as “Left Behind.” Jakes has sold millions of copies of the more than 30 books he has published. Available in Russian are, Женщина, ты освобождаешься: Слова исцеления и утешения для измученных женских сердец, Помоги, я воспитываю ребенка одна : руководство для одиноких родителей или для тех, кто чувствует себя одиноким, Близость с Богом, Возлюбленные Богом, Женщина, ее возлюбленный и ее Господь, Мужчина, будь свободен!, Папа любит своих дочерей, Торжество бракосочетания, Как победить врага, и Принцесса внутри. This places him among the most accomplished African-American authors in history. He is also a popular conference speaker to men and women’s groups around the world, drawing crowds of over 100,000 people. He is a 6-foot-4-inch, high-powered, charismatic, in-your-face preacher who is best described as a tornado turned inside out.2
In 2001 Jakes appeared on the cover of the popular American TIME magazine in 2001 with the question, “Is This Man The Next Billy Graham?” In 2005 TIME reported Jakes as one of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals" in America. Apart from his comparisons to Billy Graham, he has also drawn the attention of the world media because his relationships with world leaders, athletes, and popular musicians.
Amidst the successful ministry and notoriety, there is a problem: T. D. Jakes does not believe in the Trinity as historically explained in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. A brief look at his history reveals some close associations with outspoken anti-Trinitarians. Additionally, his statements from sermons, interviews, and on his websites convincingly indict him of the ancient heresy of Sabellianism (Modalism). Modalists believe that God is only one person, who reveals himself in different manifestations at different times. Typically, they speak of God as Father in creation, Son in Redemption, and Holy Spirit in sanctification. This heresy is found in the contemporary Oneness Pentecostal and Unitarian movements.

History
Thomas Dexter Jakes was born 9 June 1957 in South Charleston, West Virginia. Jakes felt the “call” to ministry at the age of 17 while he was studying psychology at West Virginia State. He quickly began his own church, which started with only 10 members. The church grew and eventually became known as the Greater Emanuel Temple of Faith. In 1992 Jakes preached a sermon in Sunday School entitled “Woman Thou Art Loosed.” This later became his trademark message leading to the popular book, Woman Thou Art Loosed. In 1993 Jakes reached a milestone when he began a weekly television broadcast “Get Ready with T. D. Jakes” on TBN. His popularity grew exponentially because of television and the release of his most popular book, Woman, Thou Art Loosed in the same year. In 1994, Jakes founded “T. D. Jakes Ministries.” Shortly thereafter in May of 1996, Jakes moved his family and staff members from their former congregation to Dallas to found “The Potter’s House.”

Trinitarian Controversy
An alarming fact in his early days as a pastor is the affiliation of his church with the Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies. The distinctive of the group is strictly Oneness Pentecostal in its view of the Godhead. Although his website only identifies this organization as “a Pentecostal church organization that governs approximately 200 churches,” the “Oneness” modifier for “Pentecostal” is omitted. In spite of this heretical views of this organization, T. D. Jakes has never denounced it, and continues to work with it as “a leader and elected bishop.”3 Secular sociologist Shayne Lee writes concerning a similar association with the modalistic Greater Emanuel Gospel Tabernacle: “When Jakes became a member of Greater Emanuel Gospel Tabernacle as a teenager, he began a lifelong association with Apostolic movements . . . Apostolic Pentecostals reject Trinitarian doctrine . . . Jakes became a regional bishop for Greater Emanuel International Fellowship early in his preaching career, and later was affiliated with another anti-Trinitarian fellowship called Higher Ground Always Abounding Assemblies, which he currently serves as vice-bishop. It is inconceivable that two anti-Trinitarian associations would ordain Jakes as a bishop if he rejected the Oneness doctrine, their most distinctive tenant.”4
The Christian community eventually became aware of Jakes’ Oneness beliefs and began to question him. In a radio interview in 1998, Jakes defined his view of God: “We have one God, but He is Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit in regeneration.”5 This definition is identical to the phraseology used by historical modalists such as Praxeas and Sabellius. It is also interesting to compare Jakes’ definition of God with that of leading Oneness Pentecostal theologian David Bernard: “A popular explanation of Father, Son and Holy Ghost is that there is one God who has revealed [i.e., manifested] Himself as Father in Creation, Son in redemption and Holy Ghost in regeneration.”6 In Jakes’ online doctrinal statement, he writes, “There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (italics mine).7 In his interview with Living by the Word radio program, Jakes describes the Trinity as a complex issue, saying, “I’m not sure we can totally hold God to a numerical system.” Jakes illustrates the many ways in which God has manifested Himself in a sermon where he discusses Exodus 3:14:
God says, Yahweh, “I AM that I AM.” He said, “I am whatever I want to be. I can become whatever I want to become.” When God says, “I AM that I AM” He says, “I can become whatever.” And He showed all from that point on all through the wilderness; he just kept turning into stuff . . . . They said, “We’re hungry.” He started dropping as loaves of bread. They said, “We want meat.” He became quail and started flying through the air. They said, “What are we going to do for water?” He became water, He came gushing out the rock. They said, “It’s hot out here.” He became a pillar above by day. They said, “It’s cold out at night.” He said, “I’ll be a cloud of fire by night.” They said, “We can’t drink this bitter water!” He became a tree and turned the bitter water sweet. I mean, He just kept turning into stuff. One God manifesting in a multiplicity of ways, one God.
Now you don’t describe all those manifestations as different gods: the god of bread, the god of quail, the god of water, the god of tree, the god of cloud, the god of fire [laughter by audience]. Just one God who manifests Himself in many different ways. OK, you with me? Your God is multi-faceted, manifold, many changes . . . .8

This view not only suggests modal thinking, but also borders on pantheism since God “manifests” himself in the form of objects. Additionally, he implicitly attacks Trinitarianism by saying, “Now you don’t describe all those manifestations as different gods.” This is the common attack by Oneness Pentecostals against Trinitarians, namely, that they believe in three gods.
The best example of Jakes’ modalism is found in his interpretation of John 14:11. In this verse, Jesus said, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me . . . .” In a blatant misrepresentation of Scripture, Jakes collaborates with a female reader quoting this verse:
Jakes: I am going to rack your head, I’m going to scramble your heads . . . .
Reader: “Believest thou not that I am the Father?”
Jakes: Don’t you understand that “I am . . . .” – Oh!
Reader: Oh!
Jakes: “I am . . . believest thou not that I am the Father.”9

Attempting to express amazement at Jesus’ confession that He was the Father, Jakes and his reader cry out with surprise, as though this was new revelation previously undiscovered. However, considering there is no Modal translation of the Bible, Jakes must have prompted the female reader to omit the preposition “in” while reading Jesus’ words, “I am in the Father.” His willingness to take away from the Word of God to validate his interpretation is a tactic that draws the condemnation of Scripture itself (Deut 4:2; 12:32; Prov 30:6; Jer 26:2; and Rev 22:18-19).
This is conclusive evidence that T. D. Jakes rejects the historic doctrine of the Trinity in favor of Modalism. Even those closest to Jakes affirm this. Lawrence Robinson, the Senior Associate Pastor at the Potter’s House, has known Jakes since he was young and states, “[Jakes] denies the Biblical position of the Trinity, at one point saying that the Roman Catholic Church introduced the concept of three gods . . . . Jakes has always held this position.”10

Acceptance
It has become clear that T. D. Jakes does not wish the evangelical community to grasp his views concerning the nature of God. To disguise this, he stretches the meaning of words beyond their historical uses and behaves differently in various contexts. For example, when he is with Trinitarians he baptizes in the Trinitarian formula, but when he is with Oneness believers, he baptizes in the name of Jesus alone.11 Commenting on the inconsistency of Jakes’ method of baptism, one author states, “Jake’s core audience clearly has no qualms about the man’s doctrinal ambiguities. For his admirers, whether Jakes invokes the Trinity or the name of Christ alone when baptizing has little to do with the heart of his message of inner healing and empowerment.”12 This was the sentiment that this author saw during a visit to The Potter’s House where an “elder” of the church expressed his ambivalent behavior towards Jakes’ rejection of the Trinity. He said, “We don’t care about all that, we’re just here to worship Jesus.”
TBN has been a major purveyor of the trend to downplay doctrine in favor of pragmatism. During a TBN broadcast in March of 1999, Trinitarian Bishop Clarence McClendon and Oneness Pentecostal Bishop Noel Jones engaged in a discussion on how to have unity amidst their views. Jones said,
. . . . I’m going to become so Oneness in my presentation that I eliminate the revelatory distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (C. M. “Okay”) And if I’m fighting Oneness, I’ve become so extreme in my attitude that I make three Gods, you see so, so, we go from one extreme to the other extreme, instead of coming together on the premise that I need your theology and you need my theology (C. M. "absolutely") to round the body of Christ (C. M. "absolutely"). So, let’s sit down together and let’s restate the Godhead in terms that are cohesive, comprehensiveable [sic] so that all of us can grasp it. Then, after we baptize and after people receive the Holy Spirit, then let’s get up and do what Romans tells us to do to: transform people by the renewing of their minds [claps from audience].13

Jones’ rejection of the Trinity is very clear, and yet, he is a frequent guest at T. D. Jakes’ Potter’s House as well as on The Trinity Broadcast Network. Hank Hanegraaff has written on Paul Crouch’s role in this movement,

Not only does Crouch promote the cultic theology of the Faith movement, but he has gone out of his way to affirm a cult which openly denies the biblical doctrine of the trinity. On a worldwide broadcast of “Praise the Lord,” he said he agreed “a million billion percent” with a former United Pentecostal Church member that to divide over such a doctrine “is a trick of the devil.”14

On one occasion, Paul Crouch admitted to Benny Hinn, “Let’s talk a little bit about theology now. These are issues that I consider to be up for debate, discussion, within the broad spectrum of the body of Christ. You don’t have total agreement on, for example, the Trinity. There is a group, the Jesus Only group, or the Oneness group that believes that there’s only one Person . . . .”15
These trends are a symptom of the doctrinal decline of evangelicalism. Virtually any doctrine may be sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism. Truly this age is in accord with Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:3–4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”