Have you heard about these biblical Unitarians? Like me, you may have seen their adverts on Amazon and if you google searched for something Unitarian. Which in itself, suggests there's some money behind this.
I sometimes call myself an evangelical Unitarian, but it's a very different kind of evangelical Unitarianism than these folks. I watched this video (all two hours of it) yesterday with half an eye while I was constructing a sofa bed.
Video
Now, there's much I can agree with about what these folks are saying. I am still basically a Unitarian Christian, I might even call myself a biblical Unitarian. I certainly preach from the Christian scriptures or Hebrew Bible 80% of the time. Yet I certainly don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God in any literal or authorative sense. However good the menu is, it ain't got nothing on the meal.
The style of this video is certainly American Evangelical. And the techniques of apologetics used are pretty poor. For example, why do you interview scholars to represent you own opinion and interview people in the street to represent your opponents' opinion? It's pretty easy to outwit a random person in the street, and it's a technique that loads of Evangelicals use in similar videos to this (come to think of it Muslims too). It's also a technique I've seen Richard Dawkins use, talking to school children and the worst kinds of fundamentalists to represent "religion." This is called a straw man. These folks should have had the decency to have this debate with articulate scholarly Trinitarians.
But this all brings up a number of questions for me. How big a movement is this? Is it significant? It's very difficult to tell when a small movement can make such a big noise on the internet. If it is, or becomes, a big movement then what does this mean for Unitarianism? Could the Unitarian situation in America become like the Quaker one, with Evangelical Unitarians and liberal (UUA) Unitarians?
Maybe this is only a small, insignificant group. But consider this: perhaps most global Unitarian growth in the future will come from Africa and Latin America. It seems to me wherever there is Christianity, this is eventually Unitarianism. So what if an emerging group of Unitarians in some African nation begins to search on the internet for others who believe what they do (this type of thing happens all the time) but instead of finding the UUA or the ICUU they find these folks and build up international friendships with these people. It seems in those circumstances biblically conservative Unitarianism might become a significant force in the world, with Christian groups prefering to work with these people than with the liberal UUA-types who do not speak the Christian language.
Part of my instinct is to be in ecumenical friendship with these people. That friendship would be deeply challenging, but perhaps enriching.
I don't know, but the possibilities are intriguing. What do you think?
I sometimes call myself an evangelical Unitarian, but it's a very different kind of evangelical Unitarianism than these folks. I watched this video (all two hours of it) yesterday with half an eye while I was constructing a sofa bed.
Video
Now, there's much I can agree with about what these folks are saying. I am still basically a Unitarian Christian, I might even call myself a biblical Unitarian. I certainly preach from the Christian scriptures or Hebrew Bible 80% of the time. Yet I certainly don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God in any literal or authorative sense. However good the menu is, it ain't got nothing on the meal.
The style of this video is certainly American Evangelical. And the techniques of apologetics used are pretty poor. For example, why do you interview scholars to represent you own opinion and interview people in the street to represent your opponents' opinion? It's pretty easy to outwit a random person in the street, and it's a technique that loads of Evangelicals use in similar videos to this (come to think of it Muslims too). It's also a technique I've seen Richard Dawkins use, talking to school children and the worst kinds of fundamentalists to represent "religion." This is called a straw man. These folks should have had the decency to have this debate with articulate scholarly Trinitarians.
But this all brings up a number of questions for me. How big a movement is this? Is it significant? It's very difficult to tell when a small movement can make such a big noise on the internet. If it is, or becomes, a big movement then what does this mean for Unitarianism? Could the Unitarian situation in America become like the Quaker one, with Evangelical Unitarians and liberal (UUA) Unitarians?
Maybe this is only a small, insignificant group. But consider this: perhaps most global Unitarian growth in the future will come from Africa and Latin America. It seems to me wherever there is Christianity, this is eventually Unitarianism. So what if an emerging group of Unitarians in some African nation begins to search on the internet for others who believe what they do (this type of thing happens all the time) but instead of finding the UUA or the ICUU they find these folks and build up international friendships with these people. It seems in those circumstances biblically conservative Unitarianism might become a significant force in the world, with Christian groups prefering to work with these people than with the liberal UUA-types who do not speak the Christian language.
Part of my instinct is to be in ecumenical friendship with these people. That friendship would be deeply challenging, but perhaps enriching.
I don't know, but the possibilities are intriguing. What do you think?
Comments
Couldn't exactly the same statement be said about U*Uism in the UK and even America Stephen? How many U*Us are there in Great Britain? In terms of official UUA statistics there are fewer than 200,000 adult U*Us in continental North America. That is definitely a small, even *tiny*, group in light of the overall population of over 300 million people. Biblical Unitarians may currently be a smaller group than Unitarian*Universalists in America, or even the UK, but your rather prophetic post here makes some very valid points. Given the right circumstances, Biblical Unitarians could potentially quite rapidly outgrow the UUA. . . Such circumstances may well be ripe in Africa and Latin America where more conservative religion seems to be de rigueur these days.
Are you aware that candidate for President of the UUA Rev. Peter Morales described U*Uism as a "tiny, declining, fringe religion" in, of all things. . . his "stump speech" announcing his candidacy for UUA President? Currently Unitarian*Universalism is a very small group no matter how you look at it and, in many ways, U*Uism is an sadly insignificant group as well.
After all, they've been using Christianity as a straw man for decades now.
We do not believe in the mystery of the "trinity" because, in reality, the bible does not teach it and one but bend the bibles scriptures to try to make Jesus "God the Son". Most of us understand and live daily with the 9 operations of the Holy Spirit Gift. We are strong Christians.
The JW group was founded in the 1870s and Biblical Unitarians have been around much longer, so in my opinion, you are wrong to say that "Biblical Unitarians are a break away group from the Jehovah's Witnesses". Also, if you really understood who Biblical Unitarians and JW are then you wouldn't say that JW "could be very appropriately described as being Biblical Unitatians". Just because JW and Biblical Unitarians are non-trinatarian in their beliefs it doesn't make them identical.
The JW group was founded in the 1870s and Biblical Unitarians have been around much longer, so in my opinion, you are wrong to say that "Biblical Unitarians are a break away group from the Jehovah's Witnesses". Also, if you really understood who Biblical Unitarians and JW are then you wouldn't say that JW "could be very appropriately described as being Biblical Unitatians". Just because JW and Biblical Unitarians are non-trinatarian in their beliefs it doesn't make them identical.
It is time for us to let go of our titles and religious affiliations and unite together as God's children to bring His love to a very broken world. I would like to suggest that the Bible really is our Creator's instruction book. We just need to seek understanding from the Hebrew perspective from which it was written. Now that I have shed my narrow-mindedness I have come to see that there are many valuable teachings in other faith practices (yours included I'm sure) that are taught in the Bible - often stated differently, but still the same. God chose a covenant people to demonstrate His love to all mankind. To be the light to show that His instructions are descriptive of how this life works, and if we follow them our lives will be incredibly blessed - and who doesn't want that! The problem is that nobody has gotten it all figured out enough to see that both the front of the Book and the back of the Book are all relevant to us today. Let's let go of religion and embrace our amazing Creator and each other. Let's stop worrying about the dwindling numbers of our denominations and find our common ground. Thank God that Jesus is coming to teach all us knuckleheads what the real program is! Blessings to you all.