Various Christian denominations are nontrinitarian and reject the doctrine of the Trinity. Nelson's guide to denominations J. Gordon Melton - 2007 "Later in the century, various leaders also began to express doubts about the Trinity, and a spectrum of opinion emerged. Jesus was not God, but a man. Reagan identified himself as a born-again Christian. However a number of other Catholic doctrines about the Virgin Mary . At the First Council of Nicaea, in the year 325, people met and defined the idea of trinity. He was baptized, confirmed, and became a communicant in the Presbyterian church in a single ceremony February 1, 1953, just 12 days after his first inauguration, the only president to undergo any of these rites while in office. There have been at least four nontrinitarian presidents. [66] It has been stated that in the original Greek in Mark 12:29, there are no "plural modifiers" in that Greek word there for "one" (heis), but that in Mark 12 it is simply a masculine singular "one". Quakerism is, by its nature, not circumscribed by doctrines, but even so it is hard to determine whether either Hoover or Nixon had much adherence even to Quaker practice. Nontrinitarians (both Modalists and Unitarians) assert that Athanasius and others at Nicaea adopted Greek Platonic philosophy and concepts, and incorporated them in their views of God and Christ. A reason he gave for his belief was, that in view of the Order and harmony of nature which all beheld, it would have been More miraculouis to have Come about by chance, than to have been created and arranged by some great thinking power.[27]. Eisenhower's religious upbringing is the subject of some controversy, due to the conversion of his parents to the. His funeral was held at the Reformed Dutch Church in Kinderhook with burial in a family plot at the nearby church cemetery. What are the four dogmas of the Catholic church? Where do most Catholics live USA? McKinley is the only president to include exclusively Christian language in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation. "9 Faith Groups That Reject the Trinity." [67] At Deuteronomy 6:4, the Tetragrammaton appears twice in this verse, leading Jehovah's Witnesses and certain Jewish scholars to conclude that belief in a singular (and therefore indivisible) supremely powerful God is essential to the Shema.[68][69]. In John 1:1 there is a distinction between God and the Logos. Denmark follows closely behind with 1,867 Global Elites. Was married to his wife Melania in the Episcopal church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. This page was last edited on 23 September 2022, at 14:29. A number of Latter Day Saint sects, most notably the Community of Christ (the second largest Latter Day Saint denomination), the Church of Christ (Temple Lot),[107] and derived groups, follow a traditional Protestant trinitarian theology. Like many others of his time (he died just one year after the founding of institutional Unitarianism in America), Jefferson was a Unitarian in theology, though not in church membership. Only the spirit part of us is real; matter is not real. Updated on January 16, 2020. There is but one God; 2. the Father, the Son and the Spirit is each fully and eternally God; 3. the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is each a distinct person.". Deism No sitting president has ever come out and said they are an atheist. Has the United States ever been formally condemned by the United Nations? Learn Religions. No president has openly identified as atheist. Christian apologists and other Church Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, having adopted and formulated the Logos Christology, considered the Son of God as the instrument used by the supreme God, the Father, to bring the creation into existence. @JMS: Sure, but my point is that one can be both a philosophical Christian and an atheist/agnostic, which would certainly disconcert the religious Christians - if they understood the distinction. When one meets with a nontrinitarian "Christian," a set of contradictory views and opinions are usually found with that person. The information is generally available in the statements of the presidents themselves; for example, John Quincy Adams left detailed statements of his beliefs. Socinians praised Islam, though considering the Qur'an to contain errors, for its belief in the unity of God. Those who believe that the Father, the resurrected Son and the Holy Spirit are different aspects of one God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons: Those who believe that Jesus Christ is Almighty God, but that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are actually three distinct almighty "Gods" with distinct natures, acting as one divine group, united in purpose: Those who believe that the Holy Spirit is not a person: The acceptance of the pre-human existence of Jesus as the (, The doctrine of the timeless generation of the Son from the Father as it was articulated by Origen in his effort to support the ontological, The acceptance of the idea that the son of God is of the same transcendent nature (, The acceptance that the Holy Spirit also has ontological equality as a third person in a divine Trinity and the final Trinitarian terminology by the teachings of the, This page was last edited on 6 November 2022, at 12:22. when we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus, when, in short, we shall have unlearned every thing which has been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples. It is important to note that Oneness Pentecostals do affirm the deity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Mainline Protestants predominate, with Episcopalians and Presbyterians being the most prevalent. He is higher than the angelsbut inferior to God. What president did not believe in God? Pool / Getty Images. Abigail, who had been brought up Baptist, did not actively participate. No president has openly identified as atheist. Pfizenmaier, T.C., "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?" Regional distribution of U.S. Catholics (as a percentage of the total U.S. Catholic population) is as follows: Northeast, 24%; Midwest, 19%; South, 32% (a percentage that has increased in recent years due to a growing number of Catholics mainly in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, with the rest of the Southern states. President Obama being sworn in by the Hulk. Answer. The Episcopal Church has been much larger previously, with its decline in membership occurring only in more recent decades. There have been at least four nontrinitarian presidents. It only takes a minute to sign up. Brown (19281988), wrote a journal article[64] that sorted relevant biblical verses into three classes. During his time in office, he had numerous meetings with Quakers and had investigated a supposed Quaker ancestry. [9], The inner beliefs of the presidents are much more difficult to establish than church membership. Bassuk, Daniel. Unitarians refer to their beliefs as supporting "Christology", the moral teachings of Christ, rather than to themselves as "Christians". I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor saw. Stuart G Hall (formerly Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London) describes the subsequent process of philosophical/theological amalgamation in Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (1991), where he writes: The apologists began to claim that Greek culture pointed to and was consummated in the Christian message, just as the Old Testament was. By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. I find the key to understanding this, is simply understanding the . This was adopted by 3rd and 4thcentury professed Christians as roughly corresponding to "Father, Word, and Spirit (Soul)". The Plato recalled by Constantine is just a name used to cover precisely the Egyptian and Hermetic theology of the "consubstantiality" of the Logos-Son with the Nous-Father, having recourse to a traditional apologetic argument. They acknowledge the Son's high rank at God's right hand, but teach that the Father is still greater than the Son in all things. The synthesis of Christianity with Platonic philosophy was further incorporated in the trinitarian formulas that appeared by the end of the 3rd century. [85][86], Hebrews 9:14 "How much more will the Blood of Christ, who through an eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works, that we may render sacred service to the living God?" In America, Arian and Unitarian views were also found among some Millennialist and Adventist groups, though the Unitarian Church itself began to decline in numbers and influence after the 1870s.[57][58]. [51] Elaine Pagels writes: "In AD 367, Athanasius, the zealous bishop of Alexandria issued an Easter letter in which he demanded that Egyptian monks destroy all such unacceptable writings, except for those he specifically listed as 'acceptable' even 'canonical'a list that constitutes the present 'New Testament'". Succeeded by Joseph F. Rutherford, 1917. [121], The neo-Platonic trinities, such as that of the One, the Nous and the Soul, are not considered a trinity necessarily of consubstantial equals as in mainstream Christianity. What is Maryland named after? Another god, in the form of a porcelain idol to be worn as a charm, shows us Horus as one of a trinity in unity, in name, at least, agreeing with that afterwards adopted by the Christiansnamely, the Great God, the Son God, and the Spirit God.'. Has the United States ever had a non-Christian President? Feb 17, 2012. . The Secretary of the Treasury pays a taxable pension to the president. (1987). Answer (1 of 8): First I'd say to them, "Why does it matter to you?" Also, I would tell them, "Then so is America." In America, 73.7% of the population are some variation of Christian. Nixon. [5], In terms of number of adherents, nontrinitarian denominations comprise a small minority of modern Christians. This is something all men can achieve. As creator of the world. Maryland's name honors Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), . Should Christianity Abandon the Doctrine of the Trinity? To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. Other founding fathers who declared themselves to be Christian but who do not our broad definition are John Adams and Millard Fillmore. He did not experience a physical resurrection. (Philadelphia Church of God, Global Church of God, United Church of God). Stack Overflow for Teams is moving to its own domain! Fairchild, Mary. The Unity Church interprets the religious terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit metaphysically, as three aspects of mind action: mind, idea, and expression. At the same time, this was tempered, especially in early years, by a strong commitment to disestablishment. After the denominations in the Oneness Pentecostal movement, the largest nontrinitarian Christian denominations are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, La Luz del Mundo, and Iglesia ni Cristo. What is the rationale of climate activists pouring soup on Van Gogh paintings of sunflowers? The first recorded English antitrinitarian was John Assheton (1548), an Anglican priest. To answer this question, one must define what being a Christian means. They do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. . He wasn't, but your claim he never self described himself as Christian is an oversimplification. Which presidents of the United States were Catholic? Most nontrinitarians agree[citation needed] that the Holy Spirit had no beginning, but believe it is not an actual person. Because Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th president and only counted once, the total is "off by one". Trinitarians contend that the third part of the verse (John 1:1c) translates as "and the Word was God", pointing to a distinction as subjects between God and the Logos but an equivalence in nature. [46] After the First Council of Nicaea, Roman Emperor Constantine I issued an edict against Arius' writings, which included systematic book burning. [120] Nontrinitarian Christians contend that such notions and adoptions make the Trinity doctrine extra-biblical. [112], They say the development of the idea of a co-equal triune godhead was based on pagan Greek and Platonic influence, including many basic concepts from Aristotelian philosophy incorporated into the biblical God. The Religion of James Monroe I can stand it. Given this, would his being the first Jewish POTUS also make him, more generally, America's first non-Christian POTUS? You can adapt a piece of pre-Christian Jewish apologetic, which claimed that Plato and other Greek philosophers got their best ideas indirectly from the teachings of Moses in the Bible, which was much earlier. I belong to no church. [50] His successors as Christian emperors promoted Arianism, until Theodosius I came to the throne in 379 and supported Nicene Christianity. Towards the end of his life, he wrote, "I reverence God as my creator. In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 179899, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, I would give you my views of it. Harrison became a church elder, and taught Sunday school. Assignment problem with mutually exclusive constraints has an integral polyhedron? Van Buren is reported to have attended the. Millard became a charter member. Or stated another way, arguable the United States did not have a Christian President until the eighth: President Martin Van Buren, who was Dutch reform. He joined the Presbyterian Church after leaving the presidency. According to Oneness theology, the Holy Spirit is the Father operating in a certain capacity or manifestation. He is usually overlooked in Dianetics. Some of the Non-Trinitarian Christians include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Armstrongism, Christadelphians, Oneness . Verses 89. @JMS: I think Jefferson intended to say that he was a philosophical Christian, rather than a religious one. [16] Another Episcopal church, Washington National Cathedral, chartered by Congress in 1893, has hosted many funeral and memorial services of presidents and other dignitaries, as well as the site of interfaith presidential prayer services after their inaugurations, and the burial place of Woodrow Wilson.[17]. The United Pentecostal Church teaches that there is no personal distinction between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Winning by a narrow margin in the [] There have been at least four nontrinitarian presidents. She collaborates with Jesus in the spirit realm to draw people to Sun Myung Moon. [citation needed] The word "gods" in verse6 and "God" in verse8 is the same Hebrew word "'elohim",[78] which means, "gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative",[79] and can also refer to powers and potentates, in general, or as "God, god, gods, rulers, judges or angels",[78] and as "divine ones, goddess, godlike one". To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. For more information see Jesus' Two Natures. The Holy Spirit is regarded as an impersonal power or spirit being. Groups from that list that also deny the divinity of Christ include: Latter-day Saints. If the American electorate is so narrow as not to elect a Unitarian, well and good. Truman kept his religious beliefs private and alienated some Baptist leaders by doing so. Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/faith-groups-that-reject-trinity-doctrine-700367. And if they cease not from what they say, verily, a . Nontrinitarians sometimes respond that it is plausible that Thomas is addressing the Lord Jesus and then the Father. No president has openly identified as atheist. The Precepts of the Church. Did Great Valley Products demonstrate full motion video on an Amiga streaming from a SCSI hard disk in 1990? David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 261. Unitarian Christology can be divided according to whether or not Jesus is believed to have had a pre-human existence. The Italian Anabaptist "Council of Venice" (1550) and the trial of Michael Servetus (1553) marked the clear emergence of markedly antitrinitarian Protestants. "Surely, disbelievers are those who said: 'Allah is the third of the three (in a Trinity).'. Jehovah's Witnesses. We've updated our Privacy Policy, which will go in to effect on September 1, 2022. . One of the very basic dogmatic. What does nontrinitarian mean? He had contributed much money to the Unitarian church, including a registered payment in 1848. While the Trinitarian term hypostasis is found in the Bible, it is used only once in reference to God [Heb 1:3] where it states that Jesus is the express image of God's person. (Jefferson to Timothy Pickering) 1821 February 27 [citation needed], On the other hand, there are several presidents who considered themselves aligned with a particular church, but who withheld from formal affiliation for a time. Wilson's father was a Presbyterian minister and professor of theology. Church of the Great God is " non-Trinitarian ." Simply put, this means that we do not believe in the traditional, man-made hypothesis of a triune God (that is, "one God in three co-equal Persons"). 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