| PROLOGUE
A
true story ......
The cemetery chapel was closed for repair, so the members
of the small non-conformist Christian group were sitting in
the adjacent church that had been made available instead.
Outside, the funeral hearse was driving slowly down the road
followed by the car carrying the close relatives of the deceased.
At the door of the church stood their lay minister ready to
receive the sad party and to escort the coffin into the church
so that the service could proceed.
But as the hearse drew up at the door the local vicar appeared,
and entered into earnest conversation with the minister. As
a result the driver was told not to unload the coffin; the
congregation in the church were ushered out again, and the
whole procession proceeded directly to the cemetery, where
the service was eventually conducted in a public shelter.
What
was the reason for the sudden change of plan?
It
was caused by one inflexible rule of the vicar. "I will
not allow any to use my church who do not believe Christ
to be God", he said. His conversation had established
that this particular Christian group did not believe the
doctrine of the Trinity, and so he applied this sanction.
Such
an attitude is understandable, you might think, even if it
was a little hard and uncharitable to insist on such a rule
at an event like a funeral. If a belief in the Trinity is
a such a basic teaching of Christianity, the vicar was justified
in excluding from his church those who do not believe it.
But should the belief that Christ was God
actually be a teaching of the Christian church at all?
That is what this book sets out to explore.
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