Essays in Unitarian Theology by Kenneth Twinn Lindsey - General ...

I 8 ESSAYS IN UNITARIAN THEOLOGY A PERSONAL AFFIRMATION l
am pleased humbly to call myselfcc Christian ". That
does not mean that I accept any or all of the dogmas
associated with Christianity: indeed, I reject many,
but contend that discipleship, not assent to dogmas, is
the hallmark of the Christian. Thus, for instance, I
cannot bring myself to identify Jesus as " the only-
begotten son of God, begotten of his Father before all
worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very
God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with
the ath her " (Nicene Creed). Jesus, I believe, reveals
God, that is to say, uncovers more of the nature of God
than was understood before, and partakes wonderfully
of that nature, but does not incarnate him in fulness,
even within the limitations of humanity. He does
indeed spiritually out-top humanity, but he is still a
man of the first century of our era, even though that era
justifiably dates from him. I am unimpressed by the
accounts of miraculous events in the records we have of
him : for me they are not only unbelievable, but totally
irrelevant. Jesus speaks to my reason, my conscience,
my heart, " deep calling unto deep ", and that is enough.
Brotherhood
In the light of all that I have hitherto set down, and
especially of the status of man in the universe, the
relationship of human beings to one another is of
paramount importance for my religion. In our re-
cords of the sayings of Jesus there are two, closely
associated, which sum up the whole of his teaching:
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with
all thy strength ", and " Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bour as thyself ". If God is as I understand him, the
supreme prayer is this: " 0 Thou w h art the light
of the minds that know thee, the strength of the wills
that serve thee, the joys of the hearts that love thee,
grant us so to know thee that we may truly love thee,
and so to love thee that we may fully serve thee." If
man's relationship to God is as I understand it, human
beings are bound together by unequivocal ties. If
God is best described as our " Father ", we are brothers
one of another, and all that frustrates this brotherhood
is not only evil but inimical to human life as such, be-
cause human life is impossible but in community. In
the Parable, the Prodigal Son did not cease to be a son
either by separation of distance or of will : it was when
he " came to himself " that he returned to his father,
and while in his new-found humility he did not pre-
sume to acknowledge it, his father received him as his
son. Likewise, if we are children of God by virtue of
our humanity, we cannot " contract out " of our rela-
tionship with each other, however much we may sin
against it: indeed, those who are the more conscious
of it may be called upon to suffer and to sacrifice on
behalf of the unthinking and the evil. In our day and
generation the world is becoming in fact so interdependent
that the concept ofcc neighbour " embraces
-
more and more human beings widely separated in distance.
At the same time weapons of destruction are
becoming more and more efficient, so that war threatens
to annihilate the human race. Brotherhood is, however,
a personal relationship, and the barriers of language
hinder that relationship. That is why I have
learnt the international language Esperanto, which
brings me into personal touch with men and women
of many nationalities, and, potentially, with all.