Fred Sanders re-posts an excellent article introducing and critiquing the anti-Trinitarianism of Oneness Pentecostalism:
It is a disturbing fact that the most vigorous form of anti-trinitarianism currently on the market is to be found within the sphere of conservative evangelicalism. In the nineteenth century, the dominant variety of anti-trinitarianism was the old-world Unitarianism which found fertile soil in America. . . . For evangelical Christians of a conservative temperament, Unitarianism as a theological movement was as easy to ignore as any version of liberal theology. It offered a pervasively non-supernatural interpretation of Christianity, and thereby rendered itself irrelevant to churches which were committed to a range of traditional doctrines such as incarnation, atonement, miracle, revelation, the inspiration of scripture, and heaven and hell.
Today, however, there is an altogether different kind of anti-trinitarian teaching putting itself forward, one which bears no relation to the old liberal Unitarianism, and requires a completely different response from either Unitarianism or the more obviously non-Christian Jehovah’s Witnesses movement. In this brief analysis, I would like to describe the movement known as Oneness Pentecostalism, identify its theological core, and explain what is at stake in arguments over Oneness doctrine. I will not cite Oneness authors at length nor interact with their arguments directly. Instead, speaking as an evangelical trinitarian to other evangelical trinitarians, I would like to recommend the strategic direction that evangelical engagement with Oneness groups should follow.
I’d encourage you to read the whole thing.
For a judicious response to James MacDonald’s defense of inviting T.D. Jakes to the next edition of The Elephant Room, I would recommend Carl Trueman’s blog post, Is Nicene Christianity that Important? An Historical-Ecumenical Note. An excerpt:
. . . To place Nicene orthodoxy in the category of over-scrupulous doctrinal precisianism is, in effect, to declare the entire church (except for strands of American evangelicalism, apparently) from 381 to the present day to be wrong-headed. True catholic Christianity has always regarded Nicene orthodoxy as vital. An evangelicalism which argues for the basic irrelevance of such is simply not part of that catholic tradition; rather than being generously connected to other believers, it effectively isolates itself from the mainstream Christian tradition. Maybe there are consciences here bound to scripture. I would certainly never demand that a man subscribe to something which he does not see in scripture; but for myself, I need more than a few brief blog comments to understand why I should abandon Nicaea as crucial to salvation, revelation and my doctrine of who God is and what he has done. I want to know how and why Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and Owen, to name just eight representatives of Trinitarianism, considered this to be more than a matter of over-scrupulousness. A humble listening to the past is important for the church in any circumstance; in the context of the creeds, such listening is absolutely non-negotiable.
