In the spring of 1997, an interdenominational group of church leaders in Ottawa, planning Billy Graham’s mission here in June1998, prayed that God would put Jesus on the front page of the local newspapers to awaken our sleepy consciences and lead to a greater harvest at the mission. God acted. In fact He’d already begun on the media, having prompted Bob Dubroy to start broadcasting 24 hours a day Christian radio CHRI-FM from March 30, 1997, and in early 1998 brought Lloyd Mackay here to publish "Christian News Ottawa." On Friday Oct 24, 1997, God hit the Ottawa Citizen headlines with the stunning quote from moderator Bill Phipps: "I don’t believe Jesus is God."
Born in UK in 1941 as Church of England, but attending a local Roman Catholic primary school at 5, one of my first lessons was the Trinity. I grew up with the concept of three in one and one in three. Mr Phipp’s statement in Bob Harvey’s article shocked me because I had no idea at that time that all churchgoers didn’t believe as I did! My attendance at Billy Graham and Luis Palau missions in England in 1984 had reinforced the concept of the Trinity acknowledged during years in the C of E. Mine was one of the first letters to the Ottawa Citizen expressing dismay. Yet at a large meeting in Parkdale United Church in Ottawa reported in the Citizen November 11, a third of the congregation supported the statements of the moderator. But God was at work. For weeks Jesus was present in the Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald and other papers nationwide. All manner of views were expressed, and I attempted to chronicle them in a website which attracted a certain amount of feedback.
It was at a session of "Reconciling and Making New" that in conversation with a fellow course member, brought up in the UCCAN, she told me that she believed that since Jesus talked to God he could not be God. Since then I have found that numbers of my friends in my adopted denomination have little understanding of the Trinity and its implications. The fact that Jesus forgave sins, cured the sick, was born and rose again miraculously in fulfillment of prophesy in a Book which therefore could not be the work of men, had brought me back to belief from unbelief in my twenties and thirties. Without these truths my journey was in vain and so much waste. Then I realised that I hadn’t heard the Trinity preached in the UCCAN. I also encountered opposition to the Billy Graham mission at local minister level on the grounds of differences with his theology! Billy Graham of course in his resounding crusade never wavered from the universal that Jesus and God are one and the same.
For all these reasons, Dr Andrew Stirling’s article in the March 99 edition of Fellowship Magazine stands out as a landmark, and to me closes the chapter on the "Is Jesus God?" phase. Dr Stirling is senior minister at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto. I had first met him at his last charge, Parkdale United, at the meeting mentioned above. Explained in terms that a child can understand, it places the three Persons in their rightful perspective as manifestations of the one God. The Archbishop of Canterbury in a recent address "The Precious Gift of Unity" (available via http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org) makes powerful arguments for reversing the trends towards ever more fragmented units of Christendom with marginally differing beliefs. With the Trinity in clear focus, most other matters are a lot lower in the scales of importance. If you haven’t got your copy of Fellowship handy, Dr. Dr Stirling’s article: "The Trinity: irrelevant or essential?" can be read on-line at http://www.igs.net/~tonyc/trinity.html.
Tony Copple
Kanata, Ontario
April 12, 1999