1. Today we tend to see our Unitarian movement as inclusive and diverse to a remarkable degree, but we should never cease to be aware that our roots are in Christianity, and that many Unitarians – of whom I am one – identify as Christian, albeit of an extremely liberal hue. There was a time, not so long ago, when Unitarians defined their beliefs as being Christianity freed from the “corruptions” of centuries, as “Christianity in its most simple and intelligible form”, as “the religion of Jesus, not the religion about Jesus.” Of course, it could never actually be “the religion of Jesus” because Jesus was a devout first-century Jew, but what Unitarians meant was that their religion is based on the teaching and example of Jesus as set out in the New Testament – in particular in the four gospels. The “religion about Jesus” which they rejected is made up of the theological speculations, creeds and doctrines that grew up about Jesus, many, if not most, of which have little foundation in the gospels. In particular, Unitarians took issue with such doctrines as the Trinity, the deity of Jesus, the Atonement, human depravity and Original Sin. Rather they affirmed that Jesus was a human being as we are, that God is One, and that Christianity consists in loving God and our neighbour, as Jesus taught. The Christian vision is the one that Jesus had, in succession to that of Hebrew prophets like Isaiah – namely of a world of peace, justice and human unity which he called the Kingdom of God, and which we could establish in our hearts in anticipation of its establishment in a world that badly needs it. To be a Christian, in the Unitarian sense, is about following Jesus the man, the man “who went about doing good” (Acts 10: 38), not worshipping him as a god or part of a god. And yet this is what so-called “orthodox” Christianity chose to do, and still does.
2. It is probably the case that many theoretically “orthodox” Christians are actually Unitarian in their understanding of God and of Christ, regardless of the official creeds of their Church, creeds composed over fifteen hundred years ago but several centuries after Jesus lived and died. By this time the ‘official’ Church, under the pervasive influence of Greek philosophy and Roman politics, had become obsessed with the minutiae of theology and the imposition of uniformity. Its structures and organisation had become a reflection of the Roman Empire’s rather than that of the first Christian communities. It would be a mistake, though, to suppose that Christianity, in its first three or four centuries, was a united and uniform movement. From a surprisingly early date, it divided into sects and factions. The first big split, as we know from the New Testament was between two groups. On the one hand were those Jewish Christians who wanted to remain within Judaism – for whom following Jesus meant recognising him as Messiah and establishing God’s kingdom through the agency of a renewed Israel, and whose leader, according to the New Testament, was initially James the Just – a brother of Jesus. On the other hand were Hellenised Jews – people already influenced by Greek and Roman ideas – and Gentiles – non-Jews – who saw in Jewish, then Christian, monotheism a more satisfactory spiritual and ethical path than contemporary paganism. To some it provided better answers to philosophical, ethical and existential questions. To others – especially women, slaves, the poor and the socially disadvantaged – it offered and provided a spiritual community dedicated to love and to fundamental human equality before God. It was these elements that allowed Christianity to take root and to spread, not only throughout the Roman Empire, but eventually into other parts of the ancient world, such as Persia, India and even China and Korea. But as Christianity grew and spread, it changed.
3. The Jewish Christians faded away. They failed to convert the generality of the Jewish people, and were then unable to survive the catastrophes of the Jewish revolts against Rome in the years 66 to 70 and 132 to 135, and the terrible consequences of their defeat. But the Gentile Church flourished, despite intermittent persecution and official disapproval. The encounter with the Graeco-Roman world with its various schools of philosophy, its official pagan beliefs and the influential ‘mystery’ religions that entered the Empire from the East and from Egypt, combined with the development of differing theological ideas to produce a bewildering array of Christian sects and sub-sects. Some were large and influential like the Valentinian Gnostics and the Arians, others were transitory and marginal. In my own reading I have come across at least thirty-three. But one among them became dominant. This was officially recognised by the Empire in the 4th century and became known as “orthodox” or “catholic”. Even this supposedly united Church harboured significant differences, though, especially between its western and eastern sections, which looked to Rome and to Constantinople respectively for leadership. These differences were eventually to create a schism that has yet to be fully healed.
4. It was the desire – not least of the imperial authorities under the Emperor Constantine and his successors – to impose a coherent uniformity on the Church. The result was the creeds of orthodoxy and a commonly accepted canon of the New Testament. The New Testament, more or less as we now have it, was not agreed until the year 382. Before then different churches had their own versions, some including books that were eventually dropped and others excluding books that were eventually accepted. Among the books that proved controversial was John’s gospel, now the favourite of conservative Christians but once regarded as heretical by many. It was a late addition to the official canon. The large number of Christian writings surviving from the early centuries of the Church would surprise many who are only familiar with the New Testament as we now have it. And, if you are interested, they provide a fascinating insight into the multifarious varieties of Christian belief and practice that once existed. One such document which I have been reading recently is the Acts of John. This is an account – supposedly – of the journeys of the apostle after the death and Resurrection of Christ. It is full of miracle stories, especially regarding raisings of the dead, which were much used for missionary purposes. My own favourite is the one about the bed-bugs! The Acts of John, which dates from about the mid-2nd century never made it into the New Testament but it enjoyed great popularity and inspired works of art as late as the Renaissance. It was probably suspect because it has content that was later deemed heretical. This includes a hymn deriving from Gnostic Christianity. It seems to have followed a ‘call-and-response’ format and to have accompanied a circle dance. Supposedly led by Jesus prior to his arrest, with an unspecified number of his disciples taking part, it was probably used in the worship of the sect which produced the Acts of John. It gives an interesting insight into the worship and beliefs of a Christian community at a time when theology and worship were still flexible and there was no central authority to govern them.
5. What is striking about accounts of the Church in its early centuries is how obsessed it became with theology and doctrine, with disputes that were acrimonious, bitter and even violent. Once the Church achieved power under Christian emperors it was able to proscribe, persecute and silence dissenters and those who took a different path. Maybe this imposed a degree of unity which ensured the survival and triumph of Christianity, at least where it did not later face the rise of Islam in the 7th century. But where the doctrinal divisions persisted the way was open to this new force with its clear and simple unitarian theology. This, of course was in the Middle East and in North Africa, where Christianity was reduced to a minority religion. After the ‘great schism’ of 1054 the Eastern Orthodox Church went its own way but in the west the imposed unity of the Roman Catholic Church was not seriously challenged until the Reformation of the 16th century. Out of this came a new proliferation of sects, among them our own forbears. And when those early Unitarians reviewed those centuries of Christian history they decided to skip all those theological disputes, all those arguments about the minutiae of doctrine, all those creeds and confessions, and instead go back, as best they could, to Jesus and what he had taught for the good of humanity. And that was what Unitarians came to call “the religion of Jesus”, which I believe is where our roots are, and which remains crucial to our witness today.
Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House 