Nicholas M. Steffens

“ I prefer to call these movements anti-Trinitarian instead of Unitarian, because they are a reaction from the Trinitarian development of the Christian faith. It is true, modern Unitarians look upon their conception of God as an advance upon the traditional Trinitarian development; their view, they maintain, is more in harmony with culture and science, than our Christian faith in the triune God. ”

“ That the Churches of the Middle Ages were not entirely uprooted during all the upheavals and catastrophes of those dark days, that they were able not only to keep their own faith but also to spread faith in regions beyond the civilized world of that day, they certainly owed to their firm belief in Christ as the Son of God, which virtually is belief in the triune God. ”

“ In Christian Monotheism alone the transcendence and immanence of God are so intimately joined together that the transcendence of God fills us with awe and reverence, which leads us to adoration, while the immanence of this transcendent God binds us to Himself with the cords of love, creating within us filial confidence and devotion. ”

“ The unity of transcendence and immanence, although it is beyond our comprehension, is more easily understood than the abstract Monotheism of the anti-Trinitarians. When we say that we believe in the triune God, we indicate thereby that we believe in a God who is separated from His creatures, having placed His majesty above the heavens, and who is near them in His Son, who was willing to be His servant, and assumed our nature in order to be obedient unto death. ”

“ Trinitarian Christian workmen, full of the Holy Spirit, are the only ones who have reason to expect success in their work anywhere, and especially among Moslems.
Unitarians may succeed in extending Western culture, but people are not saved by culture. Cultured Moslems, stripped of their fanaticism and superstition, remain what they were — enemies of the cross of Christ and of the doctrine of the Trinity. ”

“ We believe in progress on the right and safe tracks, but modern Unitarianism is an advance along a wrong road; it is a descent and not an ascent; it does not represent progress but rather retrogression. I also prefer the term anti-Trinitarianism to that of Unitarianism, because Christians are, as far as their relation to polytheism is concerned, Unitarians, Monotheists in the true sense of the word. ”

“ If we are unwilling to preach to the followers of Islam the truth, nothing but the truth and the full truth, it would be better to give up the evangelization of the Moslem world and to leave the field to modern Unitarians, who soon would find out their affinity with the followers of Mohammed in the doctrine of God, and be convinced that they have nothing to give to hungry and thirsty souls who long for righteousness. Cultured Unitarianism has a hopeless task to perform in grappling with the fanatical Unitarianism of superstitious Moslems. ”

“ It influences the doctrine of man in his integrity as well as in his sinful condition; and especially is the doctrine of salvation obscured, when there is no place for a divine Saviour. It sometimes seems that we are not always conscious of how great the treasure is, that we have in faith in the triune God. ”

“ This would involve a compromise, which is impossible for a loyal Christian who believes that Christianity is the religion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It would be a calamity if anti-Trinitarian leanings ever obtained a foothold in mission fields among Moslems. Of course, missionaries should make use of common-sense and pedagogical wisdom in presenting the revelation of the triune God to fanatical opponents, but as followers of Jesus Christ they must also have the courage of their convictions. ”

“ They need the Father in heaven, who sends down from thence His Son as His servant to rescue them from perdition, objectively through His atoning work and subjectively through the application of this work through the Holy Spirit, whereby they learn to apprehend it by faith in Jesus Christ. ”