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The famous Congregationalist minister William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) has been called “the apostle of unitarianism.” In this episode you’ll hear the first portion of Channing’s famous sermon given at the ordination service for Jared Sparks in Baltimore, Maryland in 1819. “Unitarian Christianity” is a sort of manifesto of early 19th century New England Unitarian Congregationalism.
In it, Channing explains their approach to interpreting Scripture, and rebuts the charge that they rely too much on human reason. Reason, he argues, is fallible, but is as indispensable in religion as in other areas of life.
He then explains what unitarian Christians think the Bible teaches about the one God and his unique Son. He argues both from what the Bible says and from what it doesn’t say. He replies to the objection that Jesus is (arguably) called “God” a few times in the New Testament, and argues that trinitarian speculations confuse Christian worship and tend to transfer the honor due to the Father to the Son. And the scriptural portrayal of Jesus, he argues, is not what we’d expect if the first Christians believed that in Jesus there were both a divine nature and a human nature.
To make this lecture-sermon comprehensible to 21st century people, I’ve slightly modernized it, changing the occasional word or phrase that has either changed meaning or fallen out of use in American English since 1819.
Links for this episode:
podcast 191 – Ware’s Outline of the Testimony of Scripture Against the Trinity
podcast 189 – The unfinished business of the Reformation
Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 4 – Restraint and Implicit Faith
Loyola: tradition trumps sense perception
podcast 285 – Does the Bible Teach that God is a Trinity? Cole-Tuggy Dialogue – Part 4
podcast 284 – Does the Bible Teach that God is a Trinity? Cole-Tuggy Dialogue – Part 3
podcast 283 – Does the Bible Teach that God is a Trinity? Cole-Tuggy Dialogue – Part 2
podcast 282 – Does the Bible Teach that God is a Trinity? Cole-Tuggy Dialogue – Part 1
podcast 144 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 2
podcast 143 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 1
This week’s thinking music is “Victoria” by Admiral Bob.
