THE FORGOTTEN TRINITY
by James R. White
Bethany House Publishers, 224 pages, $10.99

Ignorance breeds heresy. Most Christians — even those who have faithfully attended Sunday school for decades — are more likely, when pressed, to describe the triune nature of the Godhead in a way more resembling tritheism or modalism than orthodoxy. Moreover, believers seem more satisfied with their error or just passing over God’s revelation of Himself by labeling it a “mystery” than with a desire to study and enlighten their minds.

Apologist and scholar James R. White clearly understands this shortcoming. In the opening chapter of his latest volume, The Forgotten Trinity, he writes just how important the theology of God’s nature is to the believer and notes “the doctrine is misunderstood as well as ignored. It is so misunderstood that a majority of Christians, when asked, give incorrect and at times downright heretical definitions of the Trinity.”

White emphasizes that his book is written for believers to help them to gain a “deeper, higher, more intense love” of the Trinity. Although White does periodically refer to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their theology, he does not use this book to respond directly to arguments of anti-trinitarian sects such as the Watchtower or United Pentecostals. Nevertheless, his efforts can and will achieve just such a goal, as truth always dispels error.

White starts readers with the basics — a simple, yet fundamental, definition of the Trinity. From there he builds to a thorough examination of the person of Jesus Christ through the opening verses of John’s Gospel and other crucial scriptural statements that attribute deity to the Son of God. Next, he moves forward to a discussion of the person and deity of the Holy Spirit. He also goes briefly outside the confines of Scripture by inspecting Church history through the statements of Clement, Ignatius and others. He brings the book to a conclusion by asking (and answering), “Does it really matter?”

The volume is furnished with extensive endnotes and its exhaustive index helps make for easy retrieval of key information. It is a welcome reminder to us of the importance of this cardinal tenet of the Faith. One which, because of our ignorance, is often so successfully assailed.

—MKG

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