I believe Jesus is Lord but not God. That is to say, I believe he is a human being whom God has been pleased to exalt to the position, or rank, of Lord over all other things (besides God himself), but I do not believe, as most Christians do, that Jesus is actually God, one among three persons of a trinity.

My reasoning is simply this:

First, I believe this is the plain testimony of the scriptures, that is, the testimony of writings I believe (based on internal and external evidence) are specially-inspired revelations of God. I believe this is the only reasonable explanation of the data in scripture relating to the nature and identity of Jesus (and God) when the data is examined in an unprejudiced manner. (There are a number of good websites devoted to showing this. One of the better ones is www.biblicalunitarian.com.)

Second, it seems self-evident to me that a man cannot be God, or God a man. Therefore, only if we had an unambiguous revelation from God to the effect that Jesus, a man, is God would I believe this is the case. But we do not have such a revelation. (Even trinitarians must admit this seeing that there is not an argument that has been used to support the doctrine of the trinity that has not been rejected by at least some eminent trinitarian scholars. Hence a book like this one published in 1845.)

“But what about the long trinitarian tradition?” one may ask. Or “What about the fact that most Christians today are trinitarians?”

As for the long tradition of trinitarian belief, I have no regard for this tradition, since the record shows that the trinity doctrine was established and has been maintained through the manipulation of state power and the persecution and murder of dissenters. Therefore this tradition is no evidence of the truth of the trinity doctrine. On the contrary, it is evidence of its falsity, seeing that those who rejected the doctrine were willing to face persecution even death for doing so and seeing that it is a weak position indeed that resorts to manipulation of state power, persecution, and even murder of opponents, in order to maintain itself. This is all the more the case when the very one under whose name (Jesus) you are politicking and persecuting could not stand more stongly against these things (as is very clear from the Gospels).

As for the fact that most Christians today are trinitarians (by confession anyway), I have no regard for this either, for I know from my own experience that most Christians, including graduates of seminaries and divinity schools, are uninformed of the history of the doctrine as well as the reasoning of non-trinitarian Christians. In addition, I know that people in general, including Christians, tend to be close-minded, especially regarding cherished beliefs, most of all cherished religious beliefs.