Discussion Topics

Why I am a “small-u” unitarian

It is apparent to anyone who has read much of this website that I am a “small-u” unitarian. I understand that God is a single entity, a unity -- which is to say, not a trinity.

From Moses to Jesus to us, our bedrock belief is that God is one. All Christians, of course, claim to be monotheists -- they believe in one God. At least, they believe they believe in one God.

However, if we pray to God the creator, and to Jesus as a separate divine “person,” and perhaps to another divine “person” called the Holy Spirit . . . Well, it can be difficult to think of this as a single God.

Some orthodox Christian theologians have spent a lot of energy to persuade us that these three, the Trinity, are indeed one God. But as I explain elsewhere, the explanations of the Trinity are not simply obtuse or difficult to comprehend. To the extent that they attempt to explain how three “persons” are one God, they are illogical and nonsensical. To the extent that they use the Trinity to point to the mystery of the nature of God, they are not explanations. (If the Trinity is true, but not in the human understanding of the terms, then it is not “three-in-one” in English or any other human language -- so again, it is nonsensical.)

And too often, this turns into a covert polytheism, with three deities who can be separately worshipped and prayed to, as long as we believe they are (somehow) ultimately one. So explanations of why the Trinity is really monotheism sound very much like a Hindu explanation of their gods:

Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the gods of Trinity, are not different gods, but manifestations of the same Supreme Iswara or Brahman. Since ordinary human minds cannot comprehend the oneness of the universe, it becomes difficult for us to understand this concept clearly. . . . at the highest level they are the three aspects of the one and the same supreme Reality. (See http://hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/hindutrinity.htm.)

Now, it is not a criticism of Trinitarian theology to point out that it shares with Hinduism a deep appreciation of the oneness of reality. This is a great insight of the great religions, shared with Hindus (and others) by many Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian Christians. But most of us do not understand that believing in three separate gods, who are somehow one at the deepest level, is monotheism.

Furthermore, it is readily apparent that Jesus himself believed in one, unitary God -- that did not include him. He made it clear that he was a human just as we are. Even Trinitarians acknowledge that the Trinity is not in the New Testament, but claim that it grew from certain passages in John and Hebrews and maybe Paul.

In sum, I believe that the Trinity is unbiblical, logically impossible, nonsensical, unnecessary, and often unhelpful.
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Why I am not a Unitarian

Hence, I am “unitarian” -- I believe that the God of the universe is one, not three, and not divided into separate persons. But, although I am unitarian, I am not a Unitarian. I certainly could be a Unitarian -- there are many fine Christians among the Unitarians with whom I would be honored to be associated. But there are two reasons why I am not.

First and foremost, I am a United Methodist. I believe that there is room in this denomination (and other mainstream denominations) for those of us who question tradition, who believe (with Matthew, Mark and Luke) that Jesus was human just as we are, and who are trying to pass on an understanding of Christian faith consistent with our reason and our best efforts to understand the universe in which we live. I refuse to abandon the established church to fundamentalists and literalists.

(For the scriptural arguments against the Trinity, see the sites listed here>

Second, some years ago, in the early to mid-1800s, the Unitarians considered themselves a Christian denomination (especially in New England). But this is no longer the case. Most Unitarians (with a capital “U”) are members of the Unitarian-Universalist Association (UU). The majority of UUs today do not consider themselves Christians, so the Unitarians (or UUs) can no longer be described as a Christian church. Again, this is not a criticism -- Many fine people may feel at home with the UUs or similar groups. This just is not where I choose to make my faith home.

For those who would be Christian, but don’t want to risk criticism from the more traditional and orthodox, there are specifically Christian groups among the Unitarians -- within the UUs, there is a Christian Fellowship. There is also an American Unitarian Conference, newly formed to promote the tradition of theistic Unitarianism (with a strong Christian presence). See their websites, below.