By Rev. Dr. Ronald Ryan, Unitarian Christian

A Holy trinity-believing “Unitarian” is no longer an oxymoron (nor, any other kind of moron, necessarily), because in the absence of a creed (Upper case C) people are free to make sense of the world and any or all of its aspects (including spirituality) and some Unitarians may, indeed, determine that at least some of their belief structure or spirituality can be encapsulated by the metaphor of trinity of some kind.

And, note that to say that we Unitarian Christians have no creed is NOT a creedal statement! To suggest otherwise is word play and deliberate – and maybe malicious – deception.

Some “Unitarian Christians” may be dualists , as most Christians were at one point, particularly those coming from a Gnostic religious context; others may perceive themselves as holding a four-aspect Godhead, as some Christians were for several hundred years until they were all murdered by the church. Other Unitarian Christians, such as me, believe that the Great Mystery, which some people call God, has just so many aspects that no trinity, however formulated, could contain it all.

Keep in mind that there was no Holy trinity in RC church dogma until around AD 800. Note: church dogma, not in the Bible! In fact, as long ago as the 1750s RC theologians – backed into a corner by the then-Unitarians who were searching the scriptures seeking certainty, and particularly a Holy trinity, and finding nothing but the trinity in 1 John 5: 7: For there are three that give testimony– the Spirit, the water, and the blood) which didn’t make sense to them – admitted that there was no Holy trinity to be found in the Bible, much to the consternation and anger of other Christians all of whom insisted that there was, even if they were not able to find it. And, the RC theologians should know what was and is in the bible: The RC church wrote the Bible. So, it was no more than continuation of old practice to insert a trinity to support Church dogma. The church has been redacting the Bible for almost 2000 years, subtracting what it didn’t like, adding stuff that supported Church views, and manufacturing out of the air (dirty air, obviously!) new revelations. In fact, the Church revamped the Bible so much that we can have no assurance that which exists, at the moment, bears even a nodding acquaintance with the original scriptures. In some cases, such as John, it was a total fabrication from beginning to end.

In fact, there was no Holy Trinity to be found in ANY Bible until the 1960s (a mere 60 or so years ago) when the catholic church published the Jerusalem Bible in which they inserted a Holy Trinity.

But, many people are extremely uncomfortable not having certainty and in an effort to assuage their anxiety will stop at nothing to provide that salve of certainty, even murder. The pastor, mentioned below, would no doubt have happily stood with John Calvin, that man of God who couldn’t distinguish between himself and the godhead, when he danced around the fires that was consuming Michael Servatus. These people, such as the pastor, cannot abide questions.

But, in fact, there are, in general, only questions, few if any definitive answers. Unitarian Christians are comfortable with ambiguity (maybe because there are no real alternatives and they acknowledge that they really do not have any choice in the matter) and do not need the crutch of certainty, because there is no certainty. Certainty is delusion and, what is worse, self-delusion. The only certainty is uncertainty. We can play with words all we want, but word play does not produce certainty and may only contribute to the confusion.

What is more serious is that certainty inevitably produces arrogance, and arrogance leads to confusion, to one thinking that he is a stand-in for God, that one thinks he becomes very God, as did the fundamentalist pastor who, in these pages if you recall, several months ago, called me Antichrist, thereby, by vilifying me, denied me my humanity and insisted that I was demonic. That was what the Church did during the middle ages, when it burned at the stake, 250,000 “witches” and when the Church colluded with the Nazis to destroy 30 million Jews, first by objectifying them, thus depriving them of their basic humanity.