Alan & Brenda Leonard

> <<The UU Church is not considered Christian by other Christians. >>
>
> I'm just looking into the UU church but the information the church sent to
> me is that their roots are from pre-Constantinian Christianity. When
> Constantine declared Christianity the official religion they needed to
> define it. So the Nicene creed appeared and at this time the Trinity was
> "established", for lack of a better word. Someone else may know better than
> I, but this is the information I got.
>
> Julie

The Trinity goes back before the Council of Nicea (who wrote the Nicene
creed), since Jesus existed before then; and the Bible has him sending the
Holy Spirit to the disciples, and the New Testament writers also predate
Nicea. But certainly there was a time when Jesus and the Holy Spirit were
not so closely linked with God as they have been in the Trinity. The
Unitarians can reasonably claim that earlier time as their roots, and that
would make sense.

However, that doesn't change the fact that virtually all Christian churches
today accept the Trinity, and consider those who do not (like the
Unitarians) "not Christian". That isn't intended as a personal opinion, but
just an observation of how it is. Unitarians are not constrained to accept
other churches' opinions of them, of course. The Mormons don't....they
continue to consider themselves Christian, even though other churches don't
think they are. That's their perogative.

And in the end, if you decide the UU church is the right place for you, what
does it matter what other churches think it is, anyhow! :)

brenda