For the longest time as a student in preaching school (and once graduated), I understood that the Holy Spirit was a topic to avoid. Only the radical nutcases who no longer faithfully operated from the Word of God would go near the subject. Or, so we taught and thought. Eventually I changed my mind about Him, wanted to learn of Him, and wrote a very elementary book regarding the Spirit of God.
I was immediately labeled and shunned by so many in the church.
The Father, Son, and Spirit are expressly mentioned throughout the Bible as vital to our existence and performance. To function in faith with one of these missing (eliminated) would be like trying to drive from New York to Los Angeles with one flat. It would be a treacherous trip of unnecessary frustration when all it would take would be to put some air in the tire.
The Holy Spirit is our air; our God-air. He's like the wind. In scripture, at times, He's portrayed as a dove...soaring, moving, landing, taking off in multiple directions. Fundamentalists don't like this dimension of the God-head because we have such a need to control Him, what we believe, and what we think others should believe. All the while, we are supporting a false doctrine that the Holy Spirit activity has expired.
The Holy Spirit is not a train wreck to religion because He's out of control. He's a train wreck because we've cut Him off from participating in the most elaborately thought out plan ever...the Kingdom of God. He's willing to participate; but only where we will welcome His presence.
Without the Holy Spirit inclusion, we are trapped with a Father/Son format which leaves the church driving the religious bus out of fear, out of division, and without enthusiasm for life. Left with two-thirds of the godhead, we've learned to be both critical and suspicious. Our Go into all of the world command died when the essence of the Holy Spirit was basically removed from the written Word...which He wrote in the first place.
The Holy Spirit isn't a train wreck to religion because He participates. No. He's a train wreck to religion when a faith system eliminates Him and is left to function on its own human prowess.
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