quote:

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Originally posted by Gildas:
That's splendidly put Martin. What the devil do you mean?

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

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Originally posted by Gildas:
That's splendidly put Martin. What the devil do you mean?

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I'm not sure anyone does.

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As I pointed out back in the thread this escaped from, accusations of smug pretty much cancel each other out, as there are also Anglicans who are smug about their position.

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Anglicans? Smug? A likely story!

Actually, whilst I don't really agree with Steve about the whole disestablishment thang, I wouldn't accuse him, or any other Anabaptist, of being smug. If one thinks that getting the hell out from underneath the state is what the church should be about one is perfectly entitled to criticise those churches who have failed to do that.

As an Anglican I think that the establishment of Anglicanism is the least of our worries. If I were inventing the C of E from scratch I wouldn't establish it but I don't think that disestablishing it is a major priority. Which is one of the reasons I'm not an Anabaptist (along with the total and utter dearth of proper tat!) But I wouldn't say on that account that Anabaptists are any smugger than the rest of Christendom.

On a personal note, you aren't any more smugger or wronger than most people who post here. You have a distinctive voice and, IME, add something constructive to the conversation. This unrepentant Anglican thinks you add something of merit to the Ship despite the fact he often disagrees with you!
 

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Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :
 
In many, not all groups that take the passage Steve mentions as the way it must be.
There is a sense of we are right & and everyone else wrong. I know cause I have been there and recovered. Also on reflection
such come apart and be seperate ideas is isolating . My last 20 years of Christianity say that we have to be inclusive, accepting . Not I am just so right. I have been that pompous clot and i now regret that period of my life.
So come let us be together.
Easter blessings
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

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Originally posted by PaulBC:
My last 20 years of Christianity say that we have to be inclusive, accepting.

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Originally posted by Gildas:
That's splendidly put Martin. What the devil do you mean?

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Separatism, then; Like it or not, the NT teaches separateness.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So I was being deliberately provocative over there in Ecclesiantics.

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Duly noted. Be advised that your chosen posting style does not absolve you of responsibility for what you post.

And while I'm at it, please also note that Purgatory exists to debate issues, not to pursue personal attacks, which belong in Hell, and nowhere else.

/hosting
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair enough, although I wasn't aware that I was pursuing a personal attack on anyone in this instance - although I have certainly been guilty of that in the past ...

If it helps, I will re-iterate that I don't believe that Steve Langton is smug, nor that his position is one of smugness.

But I take the point you are making and acknowledge that I can easily cross the line and have done so in the past. I will post more carefully and abide by the rules for Purgatory.
 

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Posted by EloiseA (# 18029) on :
 
'We must all be Sir Percy Blakeney to their Citizen Chauvelin.'

I think Martin was talking about Baroness Orczy's historical novel The Scarlet Pimpernel in which the English baronet Sir Percy Blakeney rescues doomed aristocrats during the French Revolution and outwits the French envoy to England Citizen Chauvelin.

"We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel."
 

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Posted by EloiseA (# 18029) on :
 
Sorry, missed Bullfrog's post. I was wondering if Martin meant that we should be as elusive and mysterious as the Pimpernel and escape Citizen Chuavelin's clutches in that way.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by ;

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You - or your church or congregation - may believe that the NT teaches 'separateness'. However, this is very far from obvious and I've no doubt that many Christians will, in all good faith, happen to disagree with your interpretation (as I do, incidentally).

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Steve Langton often refers to the need to be separate from 'the world' - but how do we achieve this? By sitting on top of a pole? By hiding ourselves away in a monastery or some kind of close-knit community or sect hoping to maintain our purity?

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Originally posted by Gildas:

As an Anglican I think that the establishment of Anglicanism is the least of our worries. If I were inventing the C of E from scratch I wouldn't establish it but I don't think that disestablishing it is a major priority.

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I find it curious when Anglicans say this. Surely disestablishment could have quite a significant impact on the CofE, either for good or ill, and therefore represents a topic of more than marginal interest?

It could lead to the breakup of the Church, with the different forms of churchmanship having no compelling reason to continue living together; to a new vigour born of liberation from the state; to declining media interest in what (arch)bishops have to say; to the potential winding down of the Anglican Communion; to a greater likelihood of union with the Methodists or the URC; to other religious groups jostling for the role of the nation's moral voice; to a reconsideration of the monarch's role as Supreme Governor; to a national willingness to reconsider the role and existence of the monarchy here; to a period of deep reflection among Anglicans as to their role, and indeed, reflection among the nation that looks on while its history and identity change forever....

Or, as some here claim, it might have absolutely no impact on anything apart from having taken up a lot of time that might have been devoted to something far more important. (What would that be?). In a way, though, the very claim that disestablishment is irrelevant itself comes across as somewhat smug. It's almost as if the CofE is so certain of its God-given role in society that the grubby machinations of politicians in dark rooms are of utterly no consequence. Strange!



 

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Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
Seems to me that the church/state thing comes into sharp focus when the state goes to war. Do churches pray for victory or for peace ? Given that all shades of opinion between hawk and dove may be present in the congregation, do the churches try to be equally welcoming to all ? Take sides on the political question or ignore it ?

Anyone know what the Russian Orthodox are saying about current troubles in Ukraine, for example ? Authentic Christian witness ?

Best wishes,

Russ
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 

quote:

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By PaulBC

“Also on reflection such come apart and be separate ideas are isolating . My last 20 years of Christianity say that we have to be inclusive, accepting . Not I am just so right. I have been that pompous clot and I now regret that period of my life.
So come let us be together.

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Can I start here by making a general point – and come back to the thread issues in a bit….

Take ‘loyalty’; many people talk about loyalty as if it were an absolute virtue. To this I tend to respond on the lines of “Hmmm! So it’s an absolute virtue to be loyal to, say, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or that Pol Pot guy in Cambodia?” Just asking that question shows, I think, that treating loyalty as an absolute virtue is at least ambivalent….

From there we could go in two basic directions. In one we could say that anything that AH, JS, and PP would accept as ‘loyalty’ would lead you into all kinds of immoral activity and therefore ‘loyalty’ is clearly not an absolute virtue. In the other direction we might say that ‘true loyalty’ would express itself not merely by being an arse-licking yes-man, but rather by seeking the best for the object of your loyalty – and therefore loyally standing up against AH, JS, and PP and telling them when you think they are wrong!!

I’m not sure that quite makes loyalty an ‘absolute’ virtue; it is still a secondary virtue depending on a deeper moral code; but it at least enables a case that you should and can always be ‘loyal’.

The catch, of course, is that if you were ‘loyal’ in that second sense, and stood up to the dictator you were loyal to – well, they almost certainly wouldn’t consider you loyal at all, and you’d most likely end up in a concentration camp, the Gulag Archipelago, or the ‘killing fields’ … and probably dead sooner rather than later….

My point being that in this argument about ‘separatism’ etc., a lot of words and slogans get used in that kind of way – that is, treated as moral absolutes when actually they are relative and a full understanding needs questions like ‘loyalty to whom?’

“coming apart and being separate” is rather in that category; it’s not a virtue or absolute, but depends on what you are separating from, and why, and what is the goal of the separation, that is, what are you separating positively to or for.

“Inclusive, accepting” is rather the same; can you really be ‘inclusive and accepting’ of everything? I mean, a church might have wanted to be inclusive and accepting towards ‘Moors Murderer’ Myra Hindley – but there’d be an obvious problem in her inclusion while still obviously unrepentant!! “Inclusiveness” is not an absolute either.

I’m not suggesting ‘separatism’ as an absolute. If I was I’d be in the ‘Exclusive Brethren’ or similar and probably nowhere near the Ship. The UK Anabaptist Network is a pretty broad body – we’re probably mostly Baptists/Independents, but our local group is certainly far wider, and the Mennonite couple who’ve just gone back to their native Canada were here while the husband studied for a Master’s degree – very isolated. What I’ve been advocating is one major bit of separation – and even there a major part of my motivation is that actually I regard the ‘Christian country’ business as being divisive rather than uniting as its propaganda suggests, and I believe that separation from the state will if anything be beneficial to Christian unity.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
As ever, I can see both sides with this one ...



On Disestablishment, I can only speak from the Welsh experience but the Disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Wales hasn't - to my mind - had any observable effect whatsoever. It makes no difference whatsoever to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness (however we measure those things) to the Church in Wales or its standing - or lack of standing - among ordinary Welsh people.

Disestablishment within England would, I believe, have wider and more far-reaching consequences.

Whatever those might be, for good, ill or indifference, I don't see it happening any time soon and certainly not within the reign of the current monarch.

To all practical intents and purposes on the ground, I don't see how our local Anglican parishes are any more or any less 'voluntarist' than the various non-conformist bodies hereabouts. The only difference in voluntarist terms would be that they have more of a 'hinterland' by-and-large and also more people who simply turn up at Christmas or Easter.

Whether Steve Langton or anyone else would consider some of the regulars at both parishes to be 'born again' (using his definition) is a case in point - I suspect he would consider most of them to be in the one parish and remain dubious about some in t'other ...

I don't think the sky would fall in if the CofE were to become Disestablished tomorrow but neither do I think - in the current circumstances - it would achieve a great deal either.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
All that said, I certainly believe there is a case to answer in the case of the Russian Orthodox with the Ukraine (as well as the Ukrainian Catholics and others) and with the various ethno/nationalistic shenanigans that have a tendency to bedevil the Orthodox as a whole.



I can understand concerns about the CofE apparently having a monopoly on certain things - or appearing to want one - and certainly take seriously the claims and anecdotes of Baptist and other Free Church ministers/leaders on these Boards about sniffiness and dismissiveness that they have encountered from time to time from Anglican clergy and others.

I've also met a handful - and thankfully not very many - Anglicans who have been rather suspicious of Free Church people in general.

What I don't detect within Anglicanism per se is a kind of ethnocentric, nationalistic approach - although I daresay this may exist in certain rural areas with retired Colonels and so on.

Sure, there are still divisions along the lines of social-class and so on ... and one could argue that Establishment feeds into that - but using the Welsh example again, I don't see how Disestablishment has made a great deal of difference on that score either.

Anecdotally, I've heard that Anglican churches in Welsh-speaking rural areas are appealing to Welsh speakers who would have gravitated to one or other of the non-conformist churches at one time. This is largely because the bottom has fallen out of these rather more quickly than it has from Anglicanism in those areas.
 

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Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I find it curious when Anglicans say this. Surely disestablishment could have quite a significant impact on the CofE, either for good or ill, and therefore represents a topic of more than marginal interest?

It could lead to the breakup of the Church, with the different forms of churchmanship having no compelling reason to continue living together;

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quote:

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to a new vigour born of liberation from the state;

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to declining media interest in what (arch)bishops have to say;

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to the potential winding down of the Anglican Communion;

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to a greater likelihood of union with the Methodists or the URC;

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to other religious groups jostling for the role of the nation's moral voice;

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to a reconsideration of the monarch's role as Supreme Governor; to a national willingness to reconsider the role and existence of the monarchy here;

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to a period of deep reflection among Anglicans as to their role, and indeed, reflection among the nation that looks on while its history and identity change forever....

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Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that the church/state thing comes into sharp focus when the state goes to war. Do churches pray for victory or for peace ? Given that all shades of opinion between hawk and dove may be present in the congregation, do the churches try to be equally welcoming to all ? Take sides on the political question or ignore it ?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I ... take seriously the claims and anecdotes of Baptist and other Free Church ministers/leaders on these Boards about sniffiness and dismissiveness that they have encountered from time to time from Anglican clergy and others.

I've also met a handful - and thankfully not very many - Anglicans who have been rather suspicious of Free Church people in general.

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My point is that Anglican Disestablishment in England would certainly cause more ripples than it ever did in Wales (or possibly Ireland too, for that matter) but it wouldn't be the kind of panacea against all ills that some seem to suggest that it would be.

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It's all a bit hypothetical because I don't see Disestablishment happening any time soon.

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Nor do I see it making that much difference on a week by week, day by day level to the life of individual Anglican parishes. There are those who would argue that the CofE is effectively 'congregational' these days in all but name ...

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What I don't detect within Anglicanism per se is a kind of ethnocentric, nationalistic approach - although I daresay this may exist in certain rural areas with retired Colonels and so on.

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I certainly don't think it would - in and of itself - 'improve' the prospects for church unity nor the quality of Christian witness within the nation.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
What worries me is lots of right-wing types, often young and extremely nationalist, for whom England as a Christian country is part of their muddled perception fuelling their racism and anti-Islamic feeling; the establishment is probably more important to them than it is to most Anglicans.

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Really not sure that the young EDL types have darkened any church door recently or for some time - unless it was for a funeral. They are not very churched in my experience, or interested in religion.

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You think that this kind of person will have his anti-Islam feeling dispelled by the disestablishment of the Church of England?

Because I don't buy that. I'd think it more likely that that kind of person would view disestablishment as a kowtow towards all those multi-culti-lefty-foreigners, and would rile them up more.

Either way, I think making a decision about the Establishment based on the behaviour of the kind of person that joins the EDL would be silly.

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I just made a statement about where that kind of ethnocentrism and nationalism along with references to the 'Christian country' is nowadays often found in my experience. No, such people will not be influenced much by a political disestablishment, and likely would consider it just lefty stuff; that is why the disestablishment (and the wider removal of Christian privilege) would need to come from within the church - from a body that finally realises that it is the international Body of Christ, not a parochial English affair.

You don't make changes like disestablishment because of the likes of the EDL - you make them because you perceive they are the will of God for the Church. Of course the dubious perceptions of people like the EDL might be part of the evidence for the dubiousness of the establishment....
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm with you on some of this, Steve Langton but you clearly haven't understood the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Communion is a world-wide partnership of churches if you like - or confederation or whatever we might wish to call it. The Church of England is part of the worldwide Anglican communion.

Sure, you know that, but why this insistence that Anglicans in England think of themselves as a 'parochial English affair'?

That's not the case.

One might as well suggest that your Baptist church is parochial and sectarian - rather than - as you see it - part of the international family of all the redeemed ...

Sure, there are issues with Establishment. No-one is suggesting that there isn't.

'This Church of England by Law established' carries a lot of baggage. Some of it unhelpful.

I don't doubt your ecumenism and 'catholic' tendencies - in broad terms - but it could just as easily be argued that you are the one who is exclusive and narrow with your insistence on a particular understanding of what it means to be 'born again' and so on.

This nasty, restrictive national Church that you keep railing on about is probably a heck of a lot more broad and inclusive - some would say too broad and inclusive - than you are.

As other posters have said, you seem to have this view that your particular take on various NT passages are self-evidently pointing towards your particular interpretation. They don't. If they did then everyone would understand them the say way you do. As it is, some people understand them differently.

I know you might find that remarkable and hard to grasp, difficult to believe, but that is the case - whether we like it or not.

You seem to have this view that if the Anabaptists stick at it long enough then everyone will eventually come round to a similar or identical viewpoint.

For my own part, I think it's inevitable that more 'intentional' forms of 'gathered' communities will emerge - and are already - from the remains of Christendom - and that some of the values and practices would overlap or correspond to what Anabaptists have been about for several centuries now.

But I'd equally suggest that there are number of other factors - beyond church/state links etc - that would affect the outcome ... how we deal with the sacraments, notions of priesthood and ministry, Christian initiation etc etc etc.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Furthermore, and sorry to double-post - whilst it is leafy and semi-rural here, anyone who imagines that racism and xenophobia doesn't exist here is deluding themselves. I've come across far more examples of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-anyone else sentiment since I moved here than I ever did living in a large multicultural city in the North of England.

My kids were still quite young when we moved here but they were old enough to be taken aback by some of the attitudes they encountered.

I'm reluctant to give details online but in her work as a primary school teacher my wife has had to deal with all manner of racist attitudes from parents - many of them Christian parents. She once organised a class visit to a mosque and you would not believe the reaction she got from some of the parents.

Some of them were Anglicans but the majority of those who boycotted the trip and gave her a hard time were people from a large, independent charismatic evangelical church in a town I won't name.



Of course, not everyone who is involved with large, independent charismatic evangelical churches are racist and xenophobic - any more than all Anglicans are cuddly and inclusive.

But you take my point ...


 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Gamaliel;

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Sure, you know that, but why this insistence that Anglicans in England think of themselves as a 'parochial English affair'?

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you seem to have this view that your particular take on various NT passages are self-evidently pointing towards your particular interpretation. They don't. If they did then everyone would understand them the say way you do. As it is, some people understand them differently.

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But I'd equally suggest that there are number of other factors - beyond church/state links etc - that would affect the outcome ... how we deal with the sacraments, notions of priesthood and ministry, Christian initiation etc etc etc.

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but it could just as easily be argued that you are the one who is exclusive and narrow with your insistence on a particular understanding of what it means to be 'born again' and so on

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This nasty, restrictive national Church that you keep railing on about is probably a heck of a lot more broad and inclusive - some would say too broad and inclusive - than you are.

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Some of them were Anglicans but the majority of those who boycotted the trip and gave her a hard time were people from a large, independent charismatic evangelical church in a town I won't name.

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Oddly, even large independent charismatic evangelical churches can be committed to the 'Christian country' principle, as we've seen and commented on in the NI situation as well. Cromwell was an 'independent' but very much a 'Christian country' person.

And how much of the opposition, in such a case, a visit to a mosque, will have been truly racist rather than religious? It isn't always easy to tell when a religion is very much associated with one ethnic group - look at some of the difficulties there may be in discussing Judaism without appearing 'anti-Semitic' in a racial sense. But I'll say clearly that insofar as this opposition was racist, it was wrong.

Consistent Anabaptist views would obviously not be racist - but I concede not all are consistent.

I took your reference to retired colonels as cue for a bit of teasing; but also the serious point that the 'Christian country' ethos, of which' like it or not, the CofE is a major part, is a significant contribution to right-wing racism and serious Christianity should oppose such attitudes - and that opposition is somewhat handicapped by the implications of being a national established church. Indeed non-Anglican opposition to such attitudes is handicapped by there being a national church which just by existing gives implicit support to that kind of racism....

And again, the NT itself tells us to 'come out and be separate' - which seems more than a bit of a contrast to 'being established and if anything discriminate against the pagans'. Again anyone who thinks they have a better interpretation of the passage is welcome to expound it; shouting at me without such exposition isn't very helpful - if I'm wrong I'd like to know....
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I could easily exposit the passages in John 3 and come up with a different conclusion. I won't because my soteriology isn't a million miles from yours. But it can be done. The RCs and Orthodox have been doing it for centuries. That doesn't necessarily make it 'right' of course, but it does mean that there isn't one single, immediately obvious plain-meaning interpretation.

That's the point I was making and I happened to pick this as just one example.

As I keep saying, I have a lot of sympathy with your views on Establishment and so on and the ironies and inconsistencies that this throws up - and you've highlighted them.

I'm sure I could come up with some others too.

So could other people on these Boards.

I also agree that there are unfortunate links between nationalism and ecclesiology in some quarters - less so in the CofE, I would argue, than in some historic Churches I could name.

I don't see how the very existence of Establishment in its current form in England justifies or condones racism or xenophobia in any way, shape or form.

And yes, lots of independent congregations have a 'Christian country' mentality that can, at times, be linked to chauvinist or even racist views. You see this in the US particularly, I think.

So, Disestablishment in and of itself is hardly a barrier to extreme nationalist or chauvinistic views - although one could certainly argue - as you do - that individuals and groups who espouse these things may do so because they've inherited a particular mindset from Christendom ...

I'm no fan of Establishment and I'm in an awkward position by apparently having to defend it. I'm only doing so because of the particular stance you're taking - if that makes sense.

Which makes me an awkward and bolshy so-and-so ...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I apologise if my tone became a bit 'shouty', Steve. That wasn't my intention, although I had become slightly exasperated.

The fact is, though, for all the laudable things that are said along the way, I find some of the Anabaptist material I've read to be pallid, joyless and pernickety in the extreme.

I'm sure he's a decent bloke but I've read Stuart Murray Williams's books on Post-Christendom and how churches should look Post-Christendom etc etc and I came away feeling short-charged. I came away with the impression that these guys were distinguished more by what they were 'against' than what they were 'for'.

There was no joy or colour in it. All it was pernickety bloody carpings about flags and uniforms and whether to allow boyscouts and girl guides and so on because the uniforms had 'militaristic' overtones ...

Ok, I'm exaggerating to make a point but that's where this stuff ends up - the Anabaptist equivalent of arguing about how many angels can fit on the point of a pin.

Back in the 17th century some Baptists tied themselves in knots arguing about how many buttons or how much lace it was permissible to have on the bodice of ministers' wives.

Of course, the same kind of cheese-paring pernicketiness can be found in other traditions ... such as some of the gruesome Orthodox spats over which fingers to cross oneself with and so on and so forth ...

That's the context to my reactions here. The principle all sounds wonderful, but in practice ...

The other thing I'd say is that not everyone is coming at the expository aspects from the same direction as you are either. Which is why you're not going to get very far with what you take to be a Sola Scriptura approach when not everyone takes such an approach and when even those that do aren't agreed on what it should look like.


 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Steve Langton, a few points.

Firstly, you must surely know that most Anglicans, like RCs and Orthodox, do not rely on the Bible alone. Tradition is important here too. I am happy to follow in the Tradition of my church regarding things like baptismal regeneration. You are clearly not a fan of Tradition, that's fine - just don't tell others that they can't follow Christ when clearly they do, just differently. 'You don't interpret the Bible in the exact way I do, therefore you are not following Christ' is very rude and just not true.

Secondly, the biggest obstacle to the disestablishment of the CoE is the government, not the church. Do you really think Parliament can be bothered to spend time and money on an issue very few people care about when they could be spending it on vote-winners? I don't think the CoE hierarchy is particularly for disestablishment, but getting it past Parliament would be the real hurdle.

Lastly, even if I agreed with you that establishment is worth leaving a church for, where could I go? Someone like me who honours Our Lady and the saints, but is also for female clergy and partnered LGBTQ clergy, doesn't really have a spiritual home in England outside of the Anglican church. For me, those issues are far, far more pressing than establishment or disestablishment. Where would you suggest I go??
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Steve Langton, a few points.

Firstly, you must surely know that most Anglicans, like RCs and Orthodox, do not rely on the Bible alone. Tradition is important here too.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I also believe that as Christendom continues to dissolve then most, if not all, churches (and Churches) will find themselves adopting a more 'gathered' or 'sectarian' model in order to survive. I don't see any way around that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

Small and orthodox is surely better than large and heterodox - not that one can't be large and heterodox, but in a world were relativism rules the roost I can't see any other way round it: a faithful remnant.
[...]
A lot of the criticism of "Christendom" is really quite unfair. Once the rulers and the majority of their subject convereted it was always inevitable that the questions would be asked: How should a Christian monarch rule? What is the relation between the state, whose ruler and citizens are Christian, and the Church? Should it ever be again that the rulers and the majority of their citizens be Christian then they'll face those same questions. One solution is that the stae and Church cooperate. Another solution, a much worse one if you ask me, is that we forbid Christians from having anything to do with the state.

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Is this a contradiction? Preferring 'small and orthodox' religion while also claiming that a 'Christian monarch' leading a 'Christian majority' is a perfectly acceptable reality? Of course, both situations pertain when a society like ours takes on an official but not especially spiritual Christian identity for the masses and their rulers, while forms of more devout Christian belief and practice are limited to the few. But the question is whether this model works, and whether it'll work in the future. (The past is interesting too, but let's leave that to one side.)

The arguments made here in favour of the status quo haven't impressed me, to be honest. 'Who cares?', 'Who's got the time?' and 'Who'll notice any difference?' seem to be the favoured arguments for Anglicans, but other religious establishmentarians are unlikely to be inspired by them. I suspect that many evangelicals, Methodists, Muslims, Hindus and Jews etc. want to ensure that in a secularising society God is somewhere in public life, and having an established church is one way to ensure that. This is a more honorable position IMO, and I wouldn't mind being convinced of it.

However, I'm not convinced, because the very secularisation that Methodists and Jews want to be protected from isn't any respecter of a state church. I really don't see how the CofE (or anyone else) will benefit from its role as the state approved sounding gong and clanging symbol; in fact, it could end up (if it hasn't already) as simply an object of ridicule engaging in a public game of role-play that barely anyone notices or understands. I don't see how this is a better outcome than disestablishment, which would be more honest, and would allow the CofE to be more authentic and coherently representative of the realities that we all face.

But the time clearly isn't quite right. If God grants me a long life I'll be very interested to see which way the wind blows in another 20, 30, 40 years.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There are potential contradictions on both sides with this one, SvitlanaV2.

I was quite surprised at Ad Orientem's post at first, but when I thought about it a bit more it didn't seem so contradictory.

It's only contradictory if we assume that a Big O Orthodox position automatically involves Church and State being linked in a Byzantine model. Orthodox Churches function in places where there isn't a model of that kind.

Even when the Orthodox do make a big deal about the idea of Christian society and concepts like Holy Russia and so on, my understanding is that they are not claiming that this ipso facto makes every person within that society a Christian or even particularly devout.

This can be how it appears but I suspect the reality is actually more nuanced than that.

On the Establishment aspect of the CofE - yes, you will find evangelicals who argue that Establishment provides a platform for witness in an otherwise rapidly secularising society. I suspect the reason you'd not seen this viewpoint articulated on this thread or rarely, if ever, on these boards it's because the evangelicals who post here aren't generally the evangelicals who would make that particular case.

There may be a few around and they are welcome to add their two-penn'orth.

I'll own up to sounding world-weary and cynical about the whole thing and perhaps I ought to apologise for that - but given the experience in Wales where Disestablishment has caused barely a ripple and to all intents and purposes nobody has really noticed - then it's not an issue I feel that passionately about.

I can understand Steve Langton's passion and in some ways I admire it - but for my money Jade Constable's point is a good one ...

Where would someone like Jade who is very Catholic in her theology and spirituality yet who accepts women's ordination go if the CofE wasn't there in its current form?

She couldn't find a home among the Anabaptists, for instance, her sacramental theology, concept of Tradition and veneration of Mary and the Saints would preclude that.

Methodism? Well ...

Rome? Orthodoxy? Well, neither of those appear about to accept women's ordination anytime soon.

Of course, one could argue that it would be possible for a Disestablished CofE to make room for people like Jade - and that the Church in Wales already does so - and were she living in Wales then I've no doubt that's where she'd be.

But alongside the separation of Church and State there is more to the Anabaptist position ... I'm not sure how Steve Langton's Anabaptism could accommodate Christians with views like Jade's.

Of course, there could be independent sacramentally inclined congregations and connexions ...

I'm no fan of Establishment but would point to issues like this too. Unless all the sacramentally inclined people and the paedobaptists (whether Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregationalist, RC, Orthodox, Coptic ...) were going to abandon their position and adopt a baptistic one then Steve Langton's Anabaptist ecumenism isn't going to get very far ...

One could argue that as well as the perhaps laudable attempt to disentangle Church and State, our friend Steve may be attempting the less laudable aim of dislocating the scriptures from tradition (or Tradition) or the scriptures from the Church ...



You pays your money, you makes your choice.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Ad Orientem;

quote:

---

A lot of the criticism of "Christendom" is really quite unfair. Once the rulers and the majority of their subject converted it was always inevitable that the questions would be asked: How should a Christian monarch rule? What is the relation between the state, whose ruler and citizens are Christian, and the Church? Should it ever be again that the rulers and the majority of their citizens be Christian then they'll face those same questions. One solution is that the state and Church cooperate. Another solution, a much worse one if you ask me, is that we forbid Christians from having anything to do with the state.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I also believe that as Christendom continues to dissolve then most, if not all, churches (and Churches) will find themselves adopting a more 'gathered' or 'sectarian' model in order to survive. I don't see any way around that.

---

That is the only way. Small and orthodox is surely better than large and heterodox - not that one can't be large and heterodox, but in a world were relativism rules the roost I can't see any other way round it: a faithful remnant.

---

quote:

---

Steve Langton, for instance, appears to promulgate a kind of inconsistent 'catholicity'. He is all for universality and catholicity when condemning the sins and hypocrisy of the historic 'Constantinian' Churches - but all of a sudden that doesn't apply when dealing with any faults or failings that there might be within proponents of his own tradition.

So, for instance, the current CofE is somehow tainted by the Spanish Inquisition (even though that was never connected with the CofE in any way, shape or form) and the Crusades (which predate the CofE under its 'new management' as it were) yet the Anabaptists somehow don't share in the sins of Munster.

---

quote:

---

Firstly, you must surely know that most Anglicans, like RCs and Orthodox, do not rely on the Bible alone. Tradition is important here too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Believe you me, SvitlanaV2, I can understand your unease and I can understand your position - but having grown up in Wales and lived in England for most of my adult life I don't really see a great deal of difference - other than certain cultural and regional ones.

I can't see how religion in Wales is any more or less honest than it is in England.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that simply because the CofE is Established this somehow makes it 'dishonest'.

---

quote:

---

As far as Anglicanism and Establishment goes, yes, there are plenty of inconsistencies and yes you'll find plenty of Anglicans who shrug it off or suggest it's no big deal.

I can see why that might sound frustrating but as far as things go on the ground that's the reality of the situation. It's where things are at. They may change over time and I'm sure they will. But at the moment we are where we are.

It might sound blaise and off-the-cuff to shrug and say, 'Ah well, but there are other and more important issues ...'

But that's the way it is.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
Tradition is the scriptures understood properly...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Exactly.

So it's not tradition we need, but the Holy Spirit, working through the proper functioning of our minds.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
You're just playing with words. One's mind is not the life of the Church, rather it is the ancient liturgies, the holy councils, the holy fathers, the lives of the saints etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
...I would suggest that by critically examining that tradition, I am actually respecting it more than if I just blindly, unconditionally and uncritically submitted to it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Believe you me, SvitlanaV2, I can understand your unease and I can understand your position - but having grown up in Wales and lived in England for most of my adult life I don't really see a great deal of difference - other than certain cultural and regional ones.

I can't see how religion in Wales is any more or less honest than it is in England.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that simply because the CofE is Established this somehow makes it 'dishonest'.

---

What's more honest is that the institutional position in Wales reflects the reality - which is to say that the Anglican church there is both legally and practically the same as other churches. It's not simply pretending to be just like all the other churches when its legal status is something very different.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
I'm not sure I follow. Maybe we're just talking past each other, I don't know. No one is trying to create a square circle here. Quite what you mean by "does the content of these things make logical sense?" I don't know, because you haven't provided an example except an abtract one about square circles.

The Tradition is manifested in the things I mentioned before and the test is the Spirit, as the Apostle tells us, not human reasoning.

---

quote:

---

And perhaps the safest way of putting it is this: that we must give up talking about 'human reason'. In so far as thought is merely human, merely a characteristic of one particular biological species, it does not explain our knowledge. Where thought is strictly rational it must be, in some odd sense, not ours, but cosmic or super-cosmic. It must be something not shut up inside our heads but already 'out there' - in the universe or behind the universe: either as objective as material Nature or more objective still. Unless all that we take to be knowledge is an illusion, we must hold that in thinking we are not reading rationality into an irrational universe but responding to a rationality with which the universe has always been saturated.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Of course it matters what they say and mean. Does "homoousios" mean anything to you? Acceptance by the whole Church is one of the signs that the Holy Spirit has led the Church into truth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
Of course it matters what they say and mean. Does "homoousios" mean anything to you? Acceptance by the whole Church is one of the signs that the Holy Spirit has led the Church into truth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
In otherwords, it proves that Arius was a rank heretic.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
In otherwords, it proves that Arius was a rank heretic.

---

Although I doubt Jesus Christ Himself would be too fussed about Arius' view, considering that He didn't seem concerned that all the people He went around healing and blessing saw Him as nothing more than a prophet. See Matthew 16:13-14. In fact, He even commanded His disciples not to divulge His true identity to the people (v. 20). I have a client (whom I also regard as a friend) who is a Unitarian. I must admit that I (a Trinitarian) have never felt the Holy Spirit expressing a desire for this bloke to be burned at the stake or similar. Funny that.

The Church has spent centuries obsessing about the precise nature of the Trinity and the incarnate Christ. Christ, on the other hand, is - and has been - more concerned about how we relate to each other and to God.

"Tradition" seems to have got its priorities wrong.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Er, if that's your definition of "honest" then arguably the Church in Wales position, through no fault of its own I hasten to add, is in fact more dishonest than that of the CofE - in that it really isn't like all the other churches in Wales either whilst people make a virtue out of how it's disestablished and just like all the others!

Although technically disestablished, and very much disendowed (and how the University of Wales must be grateful), the CiW is really quite unlike the other churches of Wales:
[...]
there are many other anomolies, which constantly seem to surprise people. Because the lovely friendly disestablished CiW has nothing to do with the state does it? Because it's been disestablished. Arguably, at present the CofE is more independent of the state in some ways as an Established church, than the CiW is as a disestablished one....

---

Well, there you go! Very interesting. Up is down and in is out! Nothing is as its seems. That's an excellent strategy, truly!

Interestingly, some of the sociologists I've come across talk not simply in terms of state churches, but of 'quasi' state churches, or of 'Mono-Protestant' (or 'Mono-Catholic') churches. In other words, legal disestablishment doesn't ensure complete equality between churches. There often seems to be some sort of preferential treatment given to the traditionally dominant church, even if it loses some of its official standing.

I still insist that you have to start somewhere - and be willing to keep moving - for the sake of equality and authenticity, but I can see that this line of thought is unlikely to be pursued by members of the CofE themselves. Perhaps in the future, militant atheists and radical Muslims will come together in a bizarre marriage of convenience in order to help the process on its way! Maybe there'll be a few Pentecostals and independent charismatics cheering them on, too! (The other Christians will be an endangered species by then, so no one will have to pay them much attention.)

Interesting times lie ahead.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm treading carefully ...



I agree that reason is reason but context is everything.

Take an example like the veneration of Mary and the Saints. That makes complete rational sense if one has a 'high' view of Tradition and a high Christology - although one can still, I would argue, have a high Christology without such veneration.

If one holds to an Anabaptist position like Steve Langton or to a 'lower' view of Tradition/tradition in general - as per varying shades of Protestantism - then it begins to make less rational sense.

Both views, it seems to me, have their own interior logic.

It ill-behoves us, I think, to become unduly binary over some of these issues. It's all a question of degree.

And binariness can occur on both sides.

I remember as a boy reading a comment by a 'High Church' Church in Wales clergyman to the effect that, 'Unless you are a good Marian, you are a good Arian.'

Neat quote. But does it stack up?

To a certain extent, yes. The whole point of a 'high' view of Mary is to maintain and preserve a 'high Christology' - if Christ is God then Mary is the Theotokos - the God-Bearer.

To deny Christ's divinity and to go in an Arian direction necessitates - in this view - a lower view of Mary ...

Of course, there are plenty of Protestants around who accept Christ's divinity and who do so without seeing any necessity to venerate Mary to the extent that the Orthodox or the RCs do - or even at all.

Steve Langton and others here on this thread will undoubtedly be among that number.

However - it is certainly the case that the tradition that Steve Langton represents can very easily find itself slipping into Christological heresy - the whole history of Anabaptism, Baptist and Congregational and Presbyterian groups is a catalogue of tussles between a more orthodox Christology and various heretical versions.

This isn't to single them out for particular censure - after all, there is no new heresy and all of the various Christological heresies arose in the East at one time or other and were challenged/combated by what became the prevailing Orthodox view.

And yes, as Ad Orientem suggests, these things tend to be recognised in retrospect ...

As to whether these things tally/accord with human reason - which is God-given as we've been reminded - well, yes ... but in some ways that could suggest a certain reductionism. I don't know.

I think it's perfectly possible to come to an Orthodox conclusion on the 'filioque' for instance - but I'd suggest that it's a moot point as to whether would have come to that conclusion if the Orthodox viewpoint hadn't been there already.

It's a bit chicken and egg, I know, but there it is.

None of us come to these things in a vacuum - and as Baptist Trainfan has reminded us further upthread, ALL of us rely on tradition (whether Big T or small t) to a greater or lesser extent.

I may get pilloried for suggesting as much by certain posters who don't even believe that I am a Christian believer, but it's another of these instances which are surely both/and and not either/or ...
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@SvitlanaV2 - one could indeed argue that.

Here's a question for you, though.

What possible vested interest do I as someone who sometimes reluctantly attends his nearest parish church have in maintaining the Established status of the CofE?

Yet here on these Boards I've not been making a big song and dance about it being either good or bad. It's a mixed blessing, I'd suggest. It conveys certain privileges, surely, but at the same time it causes other problems. Swings and roundabouts.

I'd also suggest that, strictly speaking, the CofE doesn't - or isn't supposed to - have 'members' in the sense that a Baptist or a Methodist church does ... although to all intents and purposes most parish churches, I would suggest, are 'gathered' or intentional communities to an extent.

Anyway, in both our cases as individuals - mine as someone who admires Anglicanism in lots of ways but doesn't always feel 'at home' in an Anglican setting - yours as someone who is attending Anglican services pragmatically because your immediate Free Church alternative has disappeared - it's all a bit of an academic issue.

I don't see how it affects either of us other than something to beef about - in your case - or tolerate in mine.
 

---

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well, the only reliable 'tradition' is that of Jesus Christ Himself. He blasted the Pharisees for their attitude towards other people, but seemed remarkably relaxed towards the 'heresy' of the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, simply telling them that they were 'mistaken'.

It's a very interesting contrast. Jesus was angry at moral failure (by which I mean a failure to love), but not as angry about doctrinal errors, even one as serious as the denial of the resurrection.

How different the history of the Church has been!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Tradition and Scripture are both ultimately the work of human hands, and so are not inerrant.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Tradition and Scripture are both ultimately the work of human hands, and so are not inerrant.

---

Certainly not. The holy scriptures, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, have God as their author. Tradition is also the work of God, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit leading his Church into all truth.

---

So God wrote about stoning rape victims who don't scream loud enough?
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Not another Marcionite. I stumbled across one on another forum the other day. I didn't know they still existed.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Of course it's not a coincidence.

There'll be plenty of reasons why the Anglicans here who have posted in favour - or loosely in favour in a vague Anglican way - of Establishment will have done so.

Some, like me, will think it's no big deal, whilst readily accepting that there are issues and problems with it.

All I can say is that I've been involved with 'new churches', older Free Churches and with Anglican churches and to all intents and purposes Establishment doesn't appear to make that much difference on the ground.

Sure, I can understand why non-conformists might be pissed off about it - and not through jealousy at priviliged status and so on - but one could argue that at least Establishment keeps religion in the public eye and the public domain to some extent.

As far as the general public go, the man (or woman) on the Clapham omnibus, then I can imagine them saying:

'Anglicans I've heard of, Methodists I've heard of, Baptists I've heard of ... but Anabaptists - who the heck are they?'

I'm not saying that Christianity would become invisible if it wasn't for Establishment but to an extent it does provide a public platform.

And yes, that brings other problems with it - but all I'm saying is that we live in a messy world. Establishment is messy. Disestablishment is messy. Separatism is messy ...

As for facing honestly and openly religious decline - I can't see how Establishment militates against that. Everyone with any sense can see that religious observance has declined dramatically in this country. One could argue that it might have declined even more dramatically without the Establishment of the CofE ... but that, in my view, would be to invest the whole thing with far more significance than it warrants.

On the equality/inequality thing ... one could argue about whether there should be an upper and a lower House in Parliament and whether Anglican Bishops should be peers and so forth - yes, there is room for debate.

But I don't see how non-conformist Christian bodies are somehow 'losing out' in practical terms. It's not as if non-Anglicans can't go to university as was the case back in the early 19th century. It's not as if non-conformist Christian groups - or Jews, Muslims or any other religion - can't practice their religion or appoint leaders, purchase property, benefit from covenant tax returns ...

I want to know where these practising Christians are who 'take for granted their status as the physical representatives of a 'Christian nation':'

For goodness sake, whilst Justin Welby is saying that the UK is still a 'Christian nation' to some extent (and you have to read his words carefully) his predecessor is saying, 'Oh no it isn't ...'

And again, you have to read his words carefully too.

If the CofE was Disestablished tomorrow what would happen? The sky wouldn't fall in, that's for sure. But neither would we have nirvana - as everyone here has acknowledged.

Nor would it solve the problems that all Christian churches are facing in this country.

Everyone knows what a frightful state the churches are in. You don't need to Disestablish the Church of England to see that.

Established or Disestablished the CofE would still be in a state and so would all the other churches.

Besides, we'd still all have to get up and go out to work - if we've got it - we'd all still have to wash our socks and when we'd been to the toilet we'd still have to wipe our backsides.
 

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Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
That's just a false dichotomy. And in the Gospel of John, for instance, Christ is very clear that the Holy Spirit will lead the Church into all truth. And as for who Christ is, the confession of Peter shows us that it does matter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It's a very interesting contrast. Jesus was angry at moral failure (by which I mean a failure to love), but not as angry about doctrinal errors, even one as serious as the denial of the resurrection.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Such bodies tend to be a natural consequence of Constantinianism...

---

quote:

---

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Such bodies tend to be a natural consequence of Constantinianism...

AO; No. Just because something happened it doesn't make it a "natural consequence". You'd have to demonstrate that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Ad Orientem;

quote:

---

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Such bodies tend to be a natural consequence of Constantinianism...

AO; No. Just because something happened it doesn't make it a "natural consequence". You'd have to demonstrate that.

---

Given what Constantinianism is, it would be rather UNnatural if bodies like the Inquisition and its Anglican equivalent didn't happen. Do I really need to prove that TB is a likely result of TB germs?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
That's not what I said. That comment of yours shows that there's no point in continuing this discusion.

---

quote:

---

EE's argument doesn't follow, SCK. Throughout the gospels Christ is ready to correct the errors of others. Whether or not Christ lost his rag or not is no proof either way that one is more important than the other. It's a nonsense argument. EE's logic quite obviously isn't as great as he'd like to think it is if he can't even see that.

---

Actually, SCK, my argument does follow, because the way we say things is nearly as important as what we say, if not as important (and perhaps in certain situations more important). If that is not true of Jesus, then why did He use such strong terms against the Pharisees, such as "sons of hell", "brood of vipers", "whitewashed tombs with dead men's bones inside" etc? All this is very strong language, compared to the very mild "you are mistaken" directed at the Sadducees.

So there is sound logic to my position, based on the real world of communication.

[ 07. May 2014, 22:20: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Or that smugness and lack of generosity of spirit are TB-like germs that develop naturally within separatist and perfectionist groups?



For goodness sake, Steve - there is no longer any Anglican equivalent of an Inquisition even if there used to be.

How does the fact that there was - or might have been if we accept your version of events - at one time sully someone's involvement with the CofE today?

Why not separate yourself from the Model Railway Group because the treasurer happens to have some personal habits you disapprove of ... or because one of the blokes there has cheated on his wife at some point ... or whatever else.

Yes, the Anglicans treated the non-conformists pretty badly. They will acknowledge as much.

Where's the forgiving and forgetting?
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
EE's argument doesn't follow, SCK. Throughout the gospels Christ is ready to correct the errors of others. Whether or not Christ lost his rag or not is no proof either way that one is more important than the other. It's a nonsense argument. EE's logic quite obviously isn't as great as he'd like to think it is if he can't even see that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, an obvious one might be Jesus saying to Peter, 'Get behind me Satan!'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Or calling the Pharisees 'blind guides' and 'hypocrites' and so on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
He drove the traders in the Temple courts out with a whip of knotted cords.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem
Whether or not Christ lost his rag or not is no proof either way that one is more important than the other. It's a nonsense argument.

---

quote:

---

Nicely avoided. So I can take it then that you cannot show that it is a "natural consequence". Thank you.

---

quote:

---

For goodness sake, Steve - there is no longer any Anglican equivalent of an Inquisition even if there used to be.

How does the fact that there was - or might have been if we accept your version of events - at one time sully someone's involvement with the CofE today?

---

There was something very like the Inquisition in the CofE precisely because of its established status ('Might have been'? - try telling that to Bunyan who was under something a little more severe than house arrest, and all the others who were penalised under the relevant legislation before the Act of Toleration!). It is the established status and the inherent problems of that which 'sully' the modern Anglican Church and confuse all manner of issues. The CofE has moved on - but nowhere near enough.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Why I started discussing these things with those who differ from me quite radically, I'll never know. I'm a sucker, I guess. I long ago came to the conclusion that it's quite useless. At best it rarely produces any fruit and at worse causes nothing but ill feeling. I therefore bow out of this discusion. I have nothing to say to such.

[ 08. May 2014, 11:00: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
BTW, as of right now I'm still mostly mulling over the last day-and-a-half's posts and struggling to find time for proper responses to so much. While I'm thinking can I suggest the following thought;

Have you all considered how many other CURRENT threads on the Ship are either directly about church/state issues, or are cases where people will give a different answer depending on how they view the state/church question? It's rather a lot and clearly a more important issue even today than some on this thread seem to believe....
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
There hasn't been anything like the Inquisition in the Anglican church and to claim otherwise is deeply insulting to both Inquisition victims and Anglicans.

The Inquisition was first and foremost a state institution, and many bishops and clergy of the time when it was started (it carried on officially until the 1800s!) opposed it. It was much more concerned with the race of Jews and Muslims, plus French Protestants escaping persecution into Spain (yes they really did try to escape persecution by fleeing to Spain, and no I don't understand why either!). It was much closer to ethnic cleansing than religious legislation like the Act of Uniformity. It should also be pointed out that England had no wars of religion, unlike almost all of Western Europe. Anglicanism more or less managed to prevent this. Yes, groups like Anabaptists were persecuted (but in fairness they were particularly persecuted by all countries regardless of religious affilation) which was wrong, but overall Anglicanism was a moderating influence. Steve Langton, you should be much more upset by the persecution of Catholics in England after the Reformation (and then the persecution of Anglo-Catholics by the then Anglican establishment), which was much harsher and longer-lasting than any persecution of Nonconformists. Strange how you don't consider Catholic lives to be important
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Bunyan was treated comparatively leniently as it happens, Steve Langton. It was a fairly strong form of house-arrest but it certainly wasn't anything stronger than that.

For the record, I don't think he should have been placed under any form of arrest - but he was and that was unfortunate.

I'd be the first to acknowledge that there was heavy-handed treatment of non-conformists after the Restoration of the Monarchy. No-one is denying that.

What I am questioning is the view that because that happened THEN it somehow debars people from being Anglican NOW.

Heck, one might as well suggest that people shouldn't be Presbyterian because some Covenanter hot-heads went and assassinated Bishop Sharp in 1679.

Some particularly virulent 'Covenanter' types still appear to consider the assassination justified:

http://www.covenanter.org/CivilGovt/wasthebishopsdeath.htm

I'm not defending Anglican clamp-downs on non-conformists in the 1660s/70s - far from it. But one could argue that there was a case to answer if people could go round murdering clergy in cold-blood and claiming divine sanction for the same.

Bunyan was a moderate compared to some of these Scottish guys.

I would differ with Jade Constable on the religious elements/dimension to the 17th century Civil Wars in Britain more generally and England specifically ... some of the belligerents clearly saw the conflict in highly religious terms.

Of course, religion wasn't the only factor or element - but it was an important one and it could not have been otherwise in the 17th century.

But on the Inquisition thing - yes - the Anglicans never had anything like an Inquisition nor an equivalent. Steve Langton should read history more widely than the kind of Banner of Truth and Reformed accounts if he's going to develop a more balanced and nuanced view.

That's not to say that the Anglican establishment couldn't be harsh - it certainly could be.

But that was then and this is now. The Anabaptists cleaned up their act after Munster. One could argue that State Churches these days have cleaned up their acts too.

Sure, there are issues with State Churches and Establishment - I could give you a list - but what they did 500, 400 or 150 years ago is different to what they do now. Heck, one could accuse the Scandinavian state churches (for instance) of all manner of things ... milk and water Christianity, political-correctness, all manner of stuff ... but nobody could surely accuse them of being potential instruments of injustice and oppression ...
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Ahh sorry Gamaliel, I should clarify - 'wars of religion' in the Early Modern period are a specific type of religious war, which England didn't have but France/Spain/the Netherlands etc did have. The Civil War and the Glorious Revolution certainly had strong religious influence to them, but they are not officially Early Modern wars of religion.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok - fair enough, as in The French Wars of Religion, say, which were predominantly about Catholics vs Protestants rather than the Civil Wars in this country which were about a wider range of issues of which religion was a part ...

Yes, I see that distinction and agree with you.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Jade Constable;

quote:

---

The Inquisition was first and foremost a state institution,

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quote:

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Strange how you don't consider Catholic lives to be important [Disappointed]

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It was a fairly strong form of house-arrest but it certainly wasn't anything stronger than that.

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Bunyan was a moderate compared to some of these Scottish guys.

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Steve Langton should read history more widely than the kind of Banner of Truth and Reformed accounts if he's going to develop a more balanced and nuanced view.

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One could argue that State Churches these days have cleaned up their acts too.

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Indeed they have; except that they're still hanging on to the rags of establishment or equivalent. The appropriate analogy here might be certain weedkiller ads - the ones that point out the need to get rid of the roots, or the weed will come back. The Christian country idea is a root which needs to be removed, not only as a fact about the political status of the CofE but also as an underlying principle even for many non-conformists like Ian Paisley and that David Silvester.

The nasty side of establishment is (mostly) quiescent now; but while the root remains it can come back. And don't be too quick in assuming that couldn't now happen. In my youth it didn't look likely that we'd ever again be facing Islam after the style of Al Qaeda and Boko Haram. Or some of what is now seen in the resurgent Orthodox Church in Russia, Serbia, the Ukraine etc.

We have now a real opportunity to get rid of that root by an actual practical disestablishment and a wide publicity of the reasons why such church/state relations are wrong in Christian as well as secular terms. Might not totally remove the problem (as witness the 'Neo-Constantinianism' of the US), but would surely make a comeback much more difficult.

But forcible rather than willing disestablishment wouldn't help; this needs to be disestablishment sought by the vast majority of the CofE. That in turn means they have to face the reality that establishment is not a true Christian option; that it is indeed a weed, not a delightful flower.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok - yes, on the Bunyan thing, he did spend some time in Bedford jail. For most of his imprisonment though, it was a form of house-arrest ...

But as we are both agreed, I think, the comparative leniency with which he was treated by no means justifies the bad treatment he did receive.

I think we're closer than might at first appear on the detrimental aspects of Constantinianism. It's certainly alive and well - and disappointingly so - within certain Orthodox jurisdictions.

For all that, though, I would still be very wary about drawing close parallels between Orthodox Erastianism and the activities of terrorist groups like Al Quaeda and Boko Haram.

For all the anti-Semitism, xenophobia and anti-Western paranoia that can develop in Orthodox settings - and none of that is pretty - it's not quite in the same league as Boko Haram kidnapping hundreds of Nigerian girls and threatening to sell them ...

I'd certainly see the Serbian Orthodox having a case to answer over war-crimes in Bosnia/Kosovo - but equally they too were subject to extreme violence and terror - the desecration of churches and so on. That by no means justifies 'ethnic cleansing' of course and I would agree with you that overly close Church/State ties in the Balkans and Eastern Europe in general isn't a particularly happy or welcome development.

I can see what you are getting at but don't particularly see the remaining 'roots' of Constantinianism within Anglicanism as particularly or potentially harmful ... if anything it's the variety of it that springs up in Northern Ireland and among virulently right-wing US fundies that's more problematic.

Of course, one could argue that you wouldn't have that if it hadn't been for the kind of Constantinianism of which the CofE was once a paradigm example.

I'm not sidestepping the issue, but would suggest that the CofE has moved on whereas some of these strident Presbyterian types in Ulster and the US haven't.

I don't know if you ever came across any of the whacky Rushdoony 'Reconstructionism' at all? That had a bit of an upsurge in the US and was essentially a Reformed flavoured 'Dominionist' movement - calls for a theocracy and so on.

Take one look at that and the dear old CofE doesn't look too bad at all!



I can see what you're getting at but suspect that the thornier roots have already worked themselves out of the system ... at least as far as the CofE is concerned. The roots may still be there but I'd suggest that the weedkiller has effectively withered them ...

But our respective mileages may vary on that one. You might prefer that we rooted them out completely.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Steve - would you mind please clarifying what exactly you meant by being sorry that I only have the Anglican church really open to me? Sorry that I'm an Anglican/have the beliefs that I have, or sorry that I have no other option? Sorry for going on about it, I would just like some clarification.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Also, sorry, it is spectacularly dodgy to compare Ferdinand and Isabella wanting to expel entire ethnic groups under the cover of religion, to Elizabeth wanting everyone to attend the same church. While I disagree with the Act of Uniformity, it is not ethnic cleansing and it is really harmful to say that the expulsion of entire ethnic groups is only a minor variation of making everyone go to the same church, and somehow at the same level. It's not at the same level at all, just like Orthodox nastiness is not at the same level as Boko Haram.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
Jade Constable; I guess my position seems a bit strong. But the distinction between state church and 'principled non-conformist' church is a pretty absolute distinction. ('Principled non-conformist' here means a church which is non-conformist on principle, as opposed to those which are currently-nonconformist-but-would-like-to-be-state-churches, such as the Scottish 'Covenanters' Gamaliel recently quoted, or those like Ian Paisley and typical US neo-Constantinians who don't quite want to be 'established-or-similar' but do want the state to be decidedly 'Christian').

Constantinianism (which remember is shorthand for an overall approach, not just about Constantine) manifests in all kinds of ways depending on circumstances; Elizabethan England didn't have the same history or ethnic/religious mix as post-Reconquista Spain, so the detail of how things worked out was different - but the underlying reason for what happened, and the principle it expressed, were basically similar.

Not the same level - but variants of the same thing, and both very, very different to the Anabaptist way.

When I said I was sad about Anglicanism seeming to be your only option - that is a right mix; in terms of the options you suggest, all of the above and more. I particularly had in mind some things related to the 'Tradition' issue being discussed at the time, but it would take a lot of explaining. Hopefully some of my thinking there will become apparent as the thread progresses. Your unusual combination of beliefs does seem to limit your options....

Enjoy the Anabaptist Conference; is it the one at Bloomsbury Baptist in June? I can assure you they're not all as argumentative as me!
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
There'll be plenty of reasons why the Anglicans here who have posted in favour - or loosely in favour in a vague Anglican way - of Establishment will have done so.

Some, like me, will think it's no big deal, whilst readily accepting that there are issues and problems with it.

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Sure, I can understand why non-conformists might be pissed off about it - and not through jealousy at priviliged status and so on - but one could argue that at least Establishment keeps religion in the public eye and the public domain to some extent.

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I don't see how non-conformist Christian bodies are somehow 'losing out' in practical terms.

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I want to know where these practising Christians are who 'take for granted their status as the physical representatives of a 'Christian nation':'

For goodness sake, whilst Justin Welby is saying that the UK is still a 'Christian nation' to some extent (and you have to read his words carefully) his predecessor is saying, 'Oh no it isn't ...'

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For all that, though, I would still be very wary about drawing close parallels between Orthodox Erastianism and the activities of terrorist groups like Al Quaeda and Boko Haram.

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... (I) don't particularly see the remaining 'roots' of Constantinianism within Anglicanism as particularly or potentially harmful ... if anything it's the variety of it that springs up in Northern Ireland and among virulently right-wing US fundies that's more problematic.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Consider what Constantinianism is, and what it implies to take a Constantinian position about church and state ...

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Perceiving long ago that religious liberty ought not to be denied, but that it ought to be granted to the judgment and desire of each individual to perform his religious duties according to his own choice, we had given orders that every man, Christians as well as others, should preserve the faith of his own sect and religion.

3. But since in that rescript, in which such liberty was granted them, many and various conditions seemed clearly added, some of them, it may be, after a little retired from such observance.

4. When I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, came under favorable auspices to Milan and took under consideration everything which pertained to the common good and prosperity, we resolved among other things, or rather first of all, to make such decrees as seemed in many respects for the benefit of every one; namely, such as should preserve reverence and piety toward the deity. We resolved, that is, to grant both to the Christians and to all men freedom to follow the religion which they choose, that whatever heavenly divinity exists may be propitious to us and to all that live under our government.

5. We have, therefore, determined, with sound and upright purpose, that liberty is to be denied to no one, to choose and to follow the religious observances of the Christians, but that to each one freedom is to be given to devote his mind to that religion which he may think adapted to himself, in order that the Deity may exhibit to us in all things his accustomed care and favor.

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And I wish do you wouldn't keep arguing against points I haven't made: I didn't say that Nonconformists or new churches are somehow more better than the CofE. I didn't say the disestablishment would save Christianity in England. I didn't say that ordinary people would suddenly become away of the Anabaptists or any other church as a result of disestablishment.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Reading some of Steve Langton's posts one would get the impression that the Anabaptist position is the clear-cut, biblically sanctioned one among all the alternatives and that it's somehow remiss of everyone else not to apprehend that.

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Reading some of Steve Langton's posts one would get the impression that the Anabaptist position is the clear-cut, biblically sanctioned one among all the alternatives and that it's somehow remiss of everyone else not to apprehend that.

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At least part of the answer is that the nature of Christianity as a 'born again' religion of personal faith means that a truly Christian majority can't really be guaranteed stable, nor rulers hereditary or elected be sure that their successors will be seriously Christian. Failure to recognise that runs the risk of creating a very nominal Christianity which ipso facto may end up very distorted and compromised.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
There is a point in getting involved in the state where there is basically disobedience to Scripture; I don't see any wiggle-room at that point....

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

What Ad Orientem is trying to say, though, is that the particular conditions that the Apostle Paul mentions in relation to the pagan Roman Empire don't necessarily apply to later conditions where, for instance, the ruler and many of their subjects /citizens might be Christian.

That's the point I think that has annoyed him, because you are applying principles that applied to pagan Rome as though they apply to societies which are Christianised to some extent.

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What Ad Orientem is trying to say, though, is that the particular conditions that the Apostle Paul mentions in relation to the pagan Roman Empire don't necessarily apply to later conditions where, for instance, the ruler and many of their subjects /citizens might be Christian.

That's the point I think that has annoyed him, because you are applying principles that applied to pagan Rome as though they apply to societies which are Christianised to some extent.

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Theodosius is an interesting example. There is the famous incident when, Theodosius' troops having committed a massacre at Thessalonica, St. Ambrose made the emperor repent before he would allow back into communion. Theodosius, as St. Ambrose saw it, was as a Christian held accountable for his actions not only as a private individual but but as ruler of a Christian empire. Here the marriage between Church and State clearly worked.

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Conversely you don't have to be a radical Anabaptist or neo-Anabaptist to believe that there is scriptural support for keeping the governance of the state and church separate.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
The principles laid down in relation to pagan Rome still apply - Jesus' kingdom is still a kingdom 'not of this world' and identifying it with a kingdom of this world is wrong and we've had some 1600 years of bad consequences to make the point.

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that still doesn't answer the question as to how the Church and the State should relate when the ruler and its subjects are Christians.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
There are three options as far as I can see. The first is the Christians have nothing to do with the state; the second, that the ruler be complicit in acts which are contrary to the faith; the third, that the acts of the ruler are informed by the faith.

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
the third, that the acts of the ruler are informed by the faith.

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posted by South Coast Kevin:

I think Steve is also saying that in his opinion any wielding of force is contrary to the Christian faith, and therefore there's simply no way in which a Christian secular ruler

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It also depends on what weights you put on the various words in the phrase 'Christian' 'secular' 'ruler'.

[ 10. May 2014, 09:45: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I must admit, my first reaction when reading the account here of St Ambrose persuading the Emperor Theodosius to repent after committing a massacre and before receiving communion was, 'Well, why the heck did he commit the massacre in the first place? Is it alright for him to do so provided he repents afterwards?'



It strikes me though, that any ruler, Christian or otherwise, is going to find themselves facing uncomfortable decisions and compromises. Was Britain right to resist Hitler in 1939/40? Should we not have brokered a peace? Should we have allowed the Nazis to cross the Channel and enslave us all without lifting a finger to stop them?

These are highly complex areas. I've even heard of one or two Quakers who took up arms in 1940 because they felt the circumstances demanded it.

I'm not convinced that Ad Orientem's example does show Church and State working well together in that instance. One could argue that the proof that it was doing so would have been if Theodosius wasn't committing massacres in the first place.

That's the ideal, anyway.

But, we live in the real world and in the real world shit happens. Hitler happens.

Annoying as it may be, that's why I'm arguing for a moderate position on this one.

At one extreme you get an example like Ivan the Terrible. The guy was clearly deranged. In modern terms he'd be diagnosed as a psychopath. As a child he used to drop live puppies out of towers for kicks. As Tsar he ruled with extreme cruelty, putting entire cities to death if they rebelled against him.

There are even accounts of him and his nobles attending Divine Liturgy and immediately afterwards going out into the street and cutting people down. The guy was nuts.

And yet, in some quarters among the Russian Orthodox there are calls for him to be made a Saint because he defended Holy Russia against the Tartars ...

The last time I looked the Church authorities weren't up for canonising him - on the grounds that, like King David, he was not allowed to build the Temple, as it were, because of the blood on his hands ...

But when you get people lobbying for the canonisation of a complete psycho like Ivan or a complete charlatan like Rasputin - and yes, he has his supporters for canonisation too - it does make you wonder what the heck is going on ...



I've heard some of the more peaceful Austro-Hungarian emperors cited as exemplars of what a Christian ruler should look like - by RCs, of course. But then, some of these guys didn't have a brilliant track record either.

I don't believe that Christians should absent themselves from the political process nor the affairs of state. Which is why I'm suggesting that there is a balance somewhere between the extremes of Ivan the Terrible - or even the attempts at theocracy by the Puritans in New England - and an other-worldly disengagement and withdrawal from the world as exemplified by certain sects.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I don't believe that Christians should absent themselves from the political process nor the affairs of state. Which is why I'm suggesting that there is a balance somewhere between the extremes of Ivan the Terrible - or even the attempts at theocracy by the Puritans in New England - and an other-worldly disengagement and withdrawal from the world as exemplified by certain sects.

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Most people would again agree with you. The problem I would have with some of the approaches suggested in this thread would be to what extent they end up baptising some action as the 'Christian' thing to do.

A better example than WWII of the murkiness that develops may actually be WWI, which Philip Jenkins has recently written about:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2014/01/from-angels-to-armageddon/

Whilst there is a certain amount to disagree with in his thesis, the rhetoric used by government leaders is instructive of the sorts of issues one runs into with this approach.

[ 10. May 2014, 11:47: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Oh yes, indeed Chris Stiles. Absolutely.

No question about that. It's all murky territory.

All I'm suggesting is that whilst involvement in politics and state machinations is decidedly murky, the alternatives can also be decidedly murky too.

Not so much in the lethal sense - although as Munster and Jonestown demonstrate there can be lethal consequences with a separatist model too.

On the Orthodox thing, I can see where Ad Orientem and other Orthodox I've discussed these things with are coming from ... Byzantium is often touted as an example of a thoroughly Christianised society with the Emperor and the Patriarch representing civil and spiritual authority and the Christian ethos permeating society to the extent that people were discussing the finer points of Trinitarian doctrine in barbershops and bath-houses ...

But one does wonder how deeply the Christian ethos ran when one reads about incidents like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins

The same is true, of course, for medieval Western Europe or the Puritans in New England using texts from the Book of Joshua to justify the massacre of Native Americans during the Pequod Wars of the 1630s ...



So, yes, I'm not completely opposed to Steve Langton's views.

All I was suggesting in the OP is that whilst there are cases to answer in instances of Established churches and close Church/State relations, it doesn't necessarily follow that to adopt a separatist model alleviates the problems. It may solve some, but it also creates others.

Anabaptist types and pietistic or revivalist types in their different ways often rail against nominalism and superficiality in so-called 'Christian countries' - and I can see why they do so. I would have done myself at one time - I still do at times.

However, one could argue very cogently, I believe, that if it hadn't been for the general social-awareness of Christianity in the UK at the time of the Billy Graham Crusades of the 1950s then those Crusades would have largely fallen on deaf ears.

One of the reasons they were so apparently successful was because there was a residual memory of Christian teachings, a familiarity with the hymns and so on.

I'm not saying that a State Church is necessary or essential to achieve that - but the fact is there has been one here for centuries and, for better or worse, it has formed part of the backdrop to the country we inhabit.

I do think we are all headed for a more 'sectarian' and 'faithful remnant' model but at the same time I would argue that, for all its faults, Christendom has kept and maintained an awareness of Christianity alive and embedded in society.

Indeed, groups like the Anabaptists could never have got off the ground in the first place if it hadn't been for the wider context of Christendom in the first place. The people who became Anabaptists in the 16th and 17th centuries had been other types of Christian beforehand - whether Protestant or Catholic.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

All I'm suggesting is that whilst involvement in politics and state machinations is decidedly murky, the alternatives can also be decidedly murky too.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Also, I wouldn't necessarily see an acknowledgement of the CofE's historical role in creating conditions where the kind of diffusiveness you've alluded to as a 'defence' - simply an acknowledgement of what happened.

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You couldn't have had the Anabaptists without the Christendom they were reacting against. You couldn't have had the Baptists, Independents, Presbyterians, Methodists, Brethren and so on without the Anglican Church as some kind of incubator for them.

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Sure, pre-Constantine there were churches all over the Roman Empire and had the Constantinian thing never happened then they would have undoubtedly have continued. Whether they could have maintained the kind of apparent 'purity' that Steve Langton advocates is a moot point.

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I'm not particularly arguing in favour of Establishment, simply saying that if we hadn't had it in the past we wouldn't have whatever we have now.

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You're arguing that we should be grateful for Establishment because of what it's given us today. And some Christians will indeed look positively on what they have today. Others will be less enthusiastic.

Maybe it's a case of being thankful for certain aspects from the past, but sensing that those days are over. The wait could be a bit painful, though: do we have to hang on until the CofE has given up the ghost as a religious (as opposed to a heritage) institution, long after the number of self-professed Christians (let alone churchgoing Anglicans) has shrunk to embarrassing proportions? I'd have thought that the CofE would like to make a graceful exit before that point, but it seems not.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Gamaliel

That ignores completely the CofS. Let us be clear it at least has responsibility for most groups called Presbyterian (I will leave Welsh Presbyterians to their own devices). They do not trace their lineage through Canterbury not even in Augustine's day.

Actually a major thorn in any either/or dilemma is the Church of Scotland's relationship with the state. It is somewhere between CofE and church such as Methodist Church in Britain. Intriguigly its very association with Scottish identity has allowed it at times to fill the prophetic rather than the priestly role.

Jengie

[ 10. May 2014, 16:47: Message edited by: Jengie Jon ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair points, Jengie Jon. I had left the Church of Scotland out of the equation.

@SvitlanaV2 - you either haven't read what I wrote or have misunderstood it. I am prepared to accept the latter ...

I didn't say that the CofE had deliberately 'incubated' the various groups that have split off from it over the years - simply that these groups did split off and that they wouldn't have even existed in the first place if there hadn't been a Church of England for them to split off from.

That's not to 'defend' anything. I'm simply stating a fact.

I also acknowledged that whether we considered this a good thing or a bad thing depended on where we stand. RCs and Orthodox, for instance, might regard it as simply more examples of nefarious Protestant schismaticism and fissaporousness.

Others would see these as positive developments.

You seem to be taking a rather haughty tone towards the CofE - it 'ought to do this, it ought to do that' - whilst almost relishing the prospect of its decline.

I'm not saying these things are right or wrong. I'm simply saying that this is where we are.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I didn't say that the CofE had deliberately 'incubated' the various groups that have split off from it over the years - simply that these groups did split off and that they wouldn't have even existed in the first place if there hadn't been a Church of England for them to split off from.

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You seem to be taking a rather haughty tone towards the CofE - it 'ought to do this, it ought to do that' - whilst almost relishing the prospect of its decline.

I'm not saying these things are right or wrong. I'm simply saying that this is where we are.

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As you say, the early ones where putting themselves at considerable risk in taking the stance they did.

I don't think anyone here is questioning or challenging that.

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All I'm saying is that there are swings and roundabouts. There are strengths and weaknesses involved in being the Established Church and there are equal and opposite strengths and weaknesses involved in not being the Established Church.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Given that nobody seems able to come up with the evidence that 'establishment' IS biblical,...

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Originally posted by Gee D:
I have always thought that Kings, Chronicles and Judges were part of the Bible and thus biblical. They set out a society which you have upthread and elsewhere called Constantinian.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

You can argue it both ways round it seems to me. One can argue for the 'diffusion' principle - Christian ethos and values remaining in the public domain as a result of Christian representation at state-level.

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I think it comes down to what you actually mean by Christian representation, and whilst the 'middle way' is actually quite attractive I do actually think that all forms of Erastianism so-called are heretical. So the 'middle' doesn't actually represent a middle at all - apart from the two extremes being errors.

Contra you earlier view I think that the success of Graham's crusades were larger on the back of spiritual hunger that had been triggered during the war and it's aftermath. Left to it's own devices the Established church has actually been remarkably poor at maintaining knowledge of the faith amongst the majority of the people in the country (the working class and the poor).
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'll meet you half way on that ...

I'd agree that some - but by no means all - of the Free Churches were 'better' at reaching the poor and the working class than the Established Church ever was - but on the English side of my family, my Grandad's mother and many, if not most, of his sisters (he was one of 12) adhered to what I'd call a form of 'folk Anglicanism' - almost to the point of impressive sanctity in some cases ...

Equally, I knew some very working class rural types from the Forest of Dean who were the same.

All I was suggesting was that the existence of an Established Church of some kind has, in many countries, diffused a more general awareness of Christianity than may otherwise have been the case.

That doesn't mean that everyone within those societies was necessarily engaged with the Christian faith in any deep or meaningful way.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

But it's a matter of note and observation that 'Catholic countries' and 'Lutheran countries' and 'Orthodox countries' and so on do have a generally widespread level of awareness of Christianity - even if it is at a fairly nominal level in terms of engagement with most people.

So, whilst I agree that the success of the Graham crusades was partly down to the spiritual hunger of which you speak, the fact remains that it wouldn't have happened in a vacuum. Graham was tapping in to a residual level of engagement with the Gospel.

The same applies to post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Of course, there's been an upsurge of interest there in New Age beliefs and wierd and wonderful philosophies - but for the most part people have been returning to one or other of the historic forms of Christianity - be it Orthodox, Uniate, RC or the various Protestant churches.

Whether this will continue as the tide of materialism and secularism rises remains to be seen. Romanian Orthodox people tell me that they foresee a falling-away as people become more prosperous or more 'westernised' and secularised.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

All I was suggesting was that the existence of an Established Church of some kind has, in many countries, diffused a more general awareness of Christianity than may otherwise have been the case.

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But it's a matter of note and observation that 'Catholic countries' and 'Lutheran countries' and 'Orthodox countries' and so on do

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The same applies to post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Of course, there's been an upsurge of interest there in New Age beliefs and wierd and wonderful philosophies - but for the most part people have been returning to one or other of the historic forms of Christianity - be it Orthodox, Uniate, RC or the various Protestant churches.

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Actually, from what I can tell this actually took place in the opposite way around, in that to start with there was an incredibly interest in the various churches established and non-established in those areas - and whilst these still remain, the majority of people have moved on to more unorthodox forms of 'spiritual experience'.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
My point though, Chris, is that revivalism wouldn't have kicked off in the first place unless there was a general diffusion of awareness of the Christian faith in the first place.

In missiological terms there have been some 'People Movements' among previously unreached or unchurched groups - the Lisu people of Burma/Myanmar are the paradigm example.

But by and large revivalist movements have occurred as pietistic movements that draw on older or more 'established' traditions.

Hence the reason that there are so many Pentecostals in Latin America is because the region was at first intensely 'Catholicised' - sure, there was nominalism and low levels of engagement with the faith - but that's where revivalism kicks-in - that's what it feeds on.

In Protestant circles this has tended to lead to a proliferation of new churches and sects.

And revivalism is largely a Protestant phenomenon, of course, although one could argue that popular renewal movements in 13th century Italy, for instance, or in 18th century Greece through Fr Zosima ('the Greek John Wesley') were more Catholic or Orthodox parallels.

Why are there so many Jehovah's Witnesses in Poland? Because there were so many Catholics there in the first place so when someone comes along and says, 'We can actually teach you what the Bible really says ...' there is an audience and appetite for that.

In 18th century England, Methodism tended to flourish where the Anglican Church was stretched or weak - Cornwall, Yorkshire, the North East ...

But it didn't happen in a vacuum. There were plenty of 'religious societies' in London when Wesley set up his on Fetter Lane - at least 40 according to some historians.

Church attendance was more sporadic in remote and rural areas - such as Pennine Yorkshire but even there people were gathering in 'societies' to pray, read the Bible etc before the 'Evangelical Awakening' occurred.

None of these things happen in a vacuum.

I am not for a moment suggesting that everyone in the 18th century had a high level of awareness of Christian teachings - but these things were part of the atmosphere and the back-drop to their lives, however nominal they may have been.

Why do you think the Billy Graham Crusades of the 1950s and 1960s were deemed to be more successful than the Crusade of 1984?

Partly a result of post-war spiritual hunger, I would agree ... but also because the country was less secularised in the 1950s and 1960s even though that process was well underway.

These things are all symbiotic and interlinked.

So, as far as Eastern Europe goes, there has certainly been an upsurge of interest in Orthodoxy and a parallel interest in New Age-y stuff ...

It's a both/and not either/or thing once more I'm afraid ...


 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It strikes me that the 'blame game' can kick in here from all sides, when in fact the issues are less clear cut.

For instance, I've seen Orthodox websites which 'blame' Calvinism for the decline of religious observance in the West. Medieval Scholasticism led to Calvinism which in turn led to the Enlightenment, Deism, Infidelity and so on ... or - depending on which version of this 'take' one sees - it led to a massive reaction with people voting with their feet rather than face Calvinism's cold and monstrous Deity ...

I'd suggest that this is an overly simplistic view.

Just as I'd suggest that a full-on separatist model can veer towards over-simplification too.
 

---

Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by The Silent Acolyte;

quote:

---

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Given that nobody seems able to come up with the evidence that 'establishment' IS biblical,...
New Testament, NT evidence.

One can hardly turn around in the Old Testament without bumping abruptly into the notion of the identity of church and state.

---

quote:

---

For most Christians, the idea that all evidence must be 'biblical' is a perversion of the Church and her Tradition. But, perhaps it is idle to repeat this fact.

---

quote:

---

Perhaps SL should have narrowed his comment then had that been his meaning.

---

quote:

---

you can understand how, sooner or later, when Christianity had achieved some kind of critical mass in one part of the world or other then it would or could become linked with the governance of that region in some way.

---

Yes, I can understand that. But I also understand that after 1600 years of evidence how things can go wrong, even with the mildest form of 'Christian state', and how links with the state compromise the very nature of the Church, I think it fair to say that it is precisely at that point that it becomes really important for the Church to insist on remaining separate and to be extremely careful how it uses even the influence of being a majority.
 

---

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
I agree with Steve - and surely it must be possible for the church and the state - as institutions - to remain thoroughly separate even when most people (either most people in the country as a whole, or most politicians / civil servants) are Christians. I realise that the two institutions do get intertwined but this doesn't strike me as inevitable; if most Christians thought the two should remain formally separate then surely that could be possible.

Mind you, this doesn't address the issue (e.g. in the USA) when there is formal separation of church and state but a very strong informal mixing of certain aspects of the church and certain aspects of the state.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
This may sound counter-intuitive but I actually have more of an issue with the US model than I do with Establishment as far as the CofE goes ...

I haven't had any direct experience of Orthodoxy other than as a minority Church over here, but I think I would find the Erastianism it displays in Greece, Russia and the Balkans to be rather problematic.

I'm not denying that there are issues and big problems. Take the established churches in Scandinavia, for instance, they seem to operate as some form of spiritual NHS even more than the CofE does. I know an Anglican priest who lived in Sweden for some time and, I think, was actually ordained over there - the state-church in Sweden has some kind of sister-church arrangement with the Anglicans.

He says that because the whole thing is subsidised and effectively 'nationalised' as part of the State - at least that's how it explained it to me - then, refreshingly in his view, there is no onus on them to evangelise and proselytise ...

He's very liberal and tends to view evangelistic initiatives with some horror - he thinks it leads to manipulation and pressure.

Interestingly, his concern about independent or separatist Christian churches is that because they have to generate their own funds to pay their clergy and so on (yes, the CofE does too but in a different kind of way) then he feels there's a pressure there to compromise.

Take Joel Osteen, for example, the mega-church pastor in the USA. Osteen has apparently refused to come down off the fence on various issues as he knows that this might alienate some of his vast congregation - who, if they were disgruntled enough - would then decamp elsewhere taking away a major source of his funding.

So, this vicar argues that independence and separatism can easily lead to moral compromise. The leaders will keep schtum on various issues so as not to rock the boat and lose the paying punters who might otherwise piss off and go somewhere else.

That, put bluntly, is the inevitable consequence of having a 'market' - and what we have now is essentially a religious market-place where we pays our money and we makes our choice.

Next time I see him I'll question him on this idea as it sounds like he's arguing for some kind of state monopoly - because he feels that's actually the fairer option.



I'm not saying I agree with him, but it's an interesting point.

Plenty of people here are pointing the finger at established Churches and accusing them of compromise and much else.

But put yourself in the position, for a moment, of a minister/leader of an independent or separatist church. Just suppose you come to the conviction that same-sex marriage is permissible (say) and yet you know that if you actually preach that or perform a same-sex marriage then you'll either get booted out or your congregation will vote with their feet and clear off down the road to somewhere which takes a different line ...

What do you do then?

I'm not introducing a tangent nor venturing into Dead Horse territory, I'm simply using this example to make a point.

And that point is that moral dilemmas, compromise and clashes between convictions and pragmatism are going to rear their heads wherever one is - whether in an Established Church or an independent or separatist one.
 

---

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But put yourself in the position, for a moment, of a minister/leader of an independent or separatist church. Just suppose you come to the conviction that same-sex marriage is permissible (say) and yet you know that if you actually preach that or perform a same-sex marriage then you'll either get booted out or your congregation will vote with their feet and clear off down the road to somewhere which takes a different line ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
My point though, Chris, is that revivalism wouldn't have kicked off in the first place unless there was a general diffusion of awareness of the Christian faith in the first place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But when someone's livelihood is wrapped up in a situation where a crisis of conscience could potentially have enormous implications ... it begins to get very scary.

Sure, Anglican clergy potentially face that just as other ministers/leaders do, but there is a safety net to some extent that Establishment provides. Whether that's a good or a 'fair' thing, of course, is another issue ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:


All of us, whether we are involved in Free Churches or with the historic Churches, are facing similar issues in terms of decline, church closures and general indifference across the public at large.

To me, that's a bigger issue and one to which there are no simple solutions. One could argue that Establishment helps to maintain some form of diffusion from which we all benefit - whether or not we are part of the Established Church.

---

quote:

---

I'm not seeking to elide those problems nor am I seeking to defend Establishment. I'm simply saying that this is where things are and we have to work with the cards we've been dealt. If the CofE is ever Disestablished then there'll have been a reshuffling of the cards.

I really don't see what the issue is with the position I've articulated.

---

This is indeed where things are. But I happen to think it's legitimate to reflect on why and how they might change in future. No, I'm not demanding Disestablishment by 12pm next Thursday!! As I said previously, it could be a few decades before our nation decides that this is what it wants. I've also agreed that I don't expect the process to lead to a revival. But for me, this latter point isn't really a argument for holding on to anachronistic structures, and I simply want to think ahead. Like you, 'I really don't see what the issue is with the position I've articulated.'

Fortunately, we can agree to disagree. Neither of us will be making the decisions, but free speech is still available to all.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Where have I ever implied that free speech isn't open to us all?



FFS ... No-one is saying that you shouldn't have an issue with Establishment, no-one is saying that you can't belong to whatever religious body you wish or none - least of all the Church of England.

No-one is saying that Steve Langton can't be an Anabaptist nor that thee or me could set up the Church of Spotted Jellybaby Giraffe tomorrow should we so be inclined ...

Of course, 300 or 400 years ago that would have been more of a problem. But it isn't now.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I also happen to believe that an evangelical aristocracy like the Mumfords is a bad idea, particularly when they've been shown to have told porkies from various revivalist meeting platforms over the years.
 

---

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Gamaliel

Sorry. I thought I was rounding off my post rather nicely by saying that even though we disagree, free speech is available to all.

I'll take that back if it offends you.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Steve Langton - I certainly believe that Tradition can and does (depending on the particular denomination) contradict Scripture. Not believing that either is infallible, it doesn't bother me.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


No, it doesn't 'offend' me, but I understood you to be saying that I was trying to restrict freedom of speech or defend positions that might lead to that.

Which certainly isn't a position I'm arguing for

If I got the wrong end of the stick, I apologise.
 

---

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I was simply saying it was okay to agree to disagree, since we enjoy free speech. I was trying (and failing) to be conciliatory.


 

---

Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Jade Constable;

quote:

---

Steve Langton - I certainly believe that Tradition can and does (depending on the particular denomination) contradict Scripture. Not believing that either is infallible, it doesn't bother me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I was simply saying it was okay to agree to disagree, since we enjoy free speech. I was trying (and failing) to be conciliatory.

---

I understood you, for what it's worth!
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Ok, sorry to have bitten your head off, SvitlanaV2. I accept the olive-branch. I will not tear off the leaves.

Apologies for being snappy.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Ok, sorry to have bitten your head off, SvitlanaV2. I accept the olive-branch. I will not tear off the leaves.

Apologies for being snappy.
 

---

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Thanks. It's okay.
 

---

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Jade Constable;

quote:

---

Steve Langton - I certainly believe that Tradition can and does (depending on the particular denomination) contradict Scripture. Not believing that either is infallible, it doesn't bother me.

---

Fair enough; but I don't think The Silent Acolyte was putting that kind of position! Perhaps she could clarify?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
...some UBB hash...

---

I was merely saying, in opposition to your statement, that it couldn't be the case that there was no biblical evidence, since the OT is littered with it. I wasn't speaking to how OT evidence might bear on your argument.
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
What Silent Acolyte said ...

Meanwhile, apologies to South Coast Kevin too for the pop I took at the Mumfords. I was feeling a bit snappy last night.



I do believe that the Mumfords and people like them have been guilty of what be called 'mission-inflation' and of passing on tall-tales from convention platforms and the like without first checking them out ... but that's not a feature that is restricted to independent, separatist or avowedly charismatic churches - it can and does happen elsewhere ...

I s'pose it simply illustrates the point, though, that I've been trying to make from the OP onwards, that there are inherent weaknesses (and strength) in all traditions and structures.

Having an established or 'Constantinian' church can and does lead to corruption, nominalism, the inappropriate application of force or coercion at times ...

All of which are great evils.

Conversely, independence and separatism bring with them a different set of dangers and problems.

That's all I've been suggesting.

So, revivalism will bring vigour and vitality, but it's concommitant shadow will be extremism, sensationalism and a tendency towards exaggeration.

I would suggest that all these weaknesses are present and unavoidable in all places and at all times.

That's not a council of despair. It's simply an acknowledgement of the fallen nature of things.
 

---

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
I think that Jade may have been blurring the line between Tradition in the Hooker sense of the 3rd leg (I know that the correctness of this attribution is disputed and tradition in the sense of this is how the Danish Ultra-Calvinists have always interpreted that passage.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Just a few further random thoughts ...

This might sound pernickety but SvitlanaV2's reference to evangelists and committees and so on made me wonder how effective 'evangelists' ie. those labelled as such, actually are ...

In my experience, and I have been involved with churches which have seen numbers of new converts, most evangelism isn't done by people wearing that title or badge but by gregarious individuals within congregations or through family and friends.

Sure, you get a few people who are converted and 'stay the course' as it were following more organised and explicit evangelistic initiatives - but not that many in my experience.

Anyhow, whatever the case, and whatever the rights, wrongs and goods, bads and indifferent-ses of 'established' churches I still think that whatever church or tradition we are involved with we still have to make uncomfortable accommodations.

If we're involved with established churches then there are downsides connected with that. If we are involved with independent groups then the downsides and difficulties are different. Swings and roundabouts.

You get shite preached from the pulpits and platforms of established churches and shite preached and promoted from the pulpits, platforms and front-rooms of independent ones.

I s'pose one could say of independent groups such as the Vineyard, just to pick one at random, that whilst there's all manner of crud and dubious 'theology' promoted from their platforms at least they don't have to put up with the problems associated with being an 'established' church ...


 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
'We have people spreading all kinds of unsubstantiated rumours and downright lies from our platforms, but at least we're not one of those nasty Constantinian churches ...'


 

---

Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by The Silent Acolyte;

quote:

---

I was only asserting that most Christians (at least Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox) can be persuaded by an argument from Tradition. And, that calling an argument unpersuasive merely because it fails to have a biblical component neglects to give due respect to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The best arguments, of course, appeal to both.

---

quote:

---

Having an established or 'Constantinian' church can and does lead to corruption, nominalism, the inappropriate application of force or coercion at times ...

All of which are great evils.

Conversely, independence and separatism bring with them a different set of dangers and problems.

That's all I've been suggesting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by The Silent Acolyte;

quote:

---

I was only asserting that most Christians (at least Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox) can be persuaded by an argument from Tradition. And, that calling an argument unpersuasive merely because it fails to have a biblical component neglects to give due respect to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The best arguments, of course, appeal to both.

---

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like the standard teaching in which 'Tradition' can supplement Scripture....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Fair enough, Steve Langton. But things have moved on for all of us. Anglican establishment isn't what it was in the 18th century, for instance. It may very well cease to be the CofE position in the future. What Christendom has done - at least - is to create some kind of diffusion of awareness and various levels of engagement with the faith - from nominalism through to an intense engagement and all shades in between.

---

quote:

---

Like TSA, I do not accept that inspiration by the Holy Spirit ceased around 100AD. The work of the Spirit continues amongst us today.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In my more idealistic moments, South Coast Kevin, I would agree.

However, I have no more faith in the ability of self-identified, 'gathered' communities of committed believers to have a widespread impact than I have of the ability of a diffuse Christendom to do so.

---

quote:

---

The thing is, Steve Langton, that your view presupposes one single and consensual agreement on what the pre-100 traditions and the scriptures actually teach.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

What struck me this last time when I looked at them was that they apparently had some kind of metal or precious jewels cladding them at some point - the historians tell us that rivet marks indicate that they had some kind of metal embellishment at one time.

---

quote:

---

Ok, following the dispersion that happened with persecution and the Pauline and Petrine missionary journeys and so on, Christianity spread beyond Judaism - initially to the Samaritans and then the Gentiles.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
All I'm saying is that whether it comes in an Established 'legal' form or whether it happens in a more organic, grass-roots kind of way, it is surely axiomatic that some form of 'cultural Christianity' is a necessary condition for 'revivals' and so on ... in the same way that the existence and prevalence of Judaism within 1st century Palestine was a necessary pre-requisite for the emergence of Christianity in the first place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It is surely axiomatic that some form of 'cultural Christianity' is a necessary condition for 'revivals'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The key word I've used, Kevin is 'generally'.

I would posit that nine times out of 10 what we refer to as 'revival' happens within the context of a ground-base of diffuse cultural Christianity.

---

quote:

---

All I'm saying is that that growth wouldn't have happened in the first place if there hadn't been any 'soil' for it to grow in. And that soil was laid down during the pre-Communist era in which - like it or not - there WAS a diffuse level of cultural Christianity in China.

---

.. which happened to be created from scratch, unless you want to posit a turtles all the way down scenario

[ 14. May 2014, 13:09: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Of course it was started from scratch somewhere along the line ...



Of course there was a time when there were no Christians in China ... just as there was a time when there were no Christians anywhere ...

But even the early Church didn't spring from nowhere. It emerged from within Judaism as the prevailing paradigm in 1st century Palestine.

Doh!

@SvitlanaV2 - yes, I'm afraid I do believe that 'revival' is increasingly unlikely in the UK given current conditions. I would certainly expect there to be revival-like occurrences across particular groups and sectors in society - as happens from time to time - among marginalised or migrant communities and so on.

There have been some significant examples of these in recent times - the 'Gypsy Revival' across the Roma communities in France, Spain and other parts of Europe for instance.

But if we are looking for a 1904/05 style Welsh Revival, say, or a 1950s style Hebridean Revival ... then no, I don't think we'll see anything like that unless there was a radical reversal of current trends.
 

---

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

But even the early Church didn't spring from nowhere. It emerged from within Judaism as the prevailing paradigm in 1st century Palestine.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But if we are looking for a 1904/05 style Welsh Revival, say, or a 1950s style Hebridean Revival ... then no, I don't think we'll see anything like that unless there was a radical reversal of current trends.

---

Sorry for the drive-by post but isn't the very definition of religious revival that it's a radical reversal of current trends?!
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, but it needs a certain amount of 'vival' to 're'.

I've read around the subject and attended a two-day conference on the subject and whilst that doesn't make me an expert, I've read enough to convince me that 'revivals' in the way they are popularly understood and preached about are by no means as apparently spontaneous as they appear.

Sure, that's not to deny the divine afflatus nor to suggest that they are deliberately choreographed in some way. Far from it.

But it is to acknowledge that they happen in particular places and at particular times and are grounded in particular circumstances.

The early Methodist accounts, for instance, tended to exaggerate the parlous state of religion in 18th century England in order to magnify their own achievements.

None of these things happen in a vacuum. There were 40 'religious societies' of one form or other when John Wesley started his on Fetter Lane.

Most of the people initially caught up in the Welsh Revival of 1904/05 were already church-goers - if nominal or sporadic ones.

It's also often overlooked that the Church of England (this was before Disestablishment of the Church in Wales) was one of the biggest - if not the biggest - single recipient in terms of the number of converts of the Welsh Revival.

My advice to anyone interested in the subject of revival is:

- Take them in context.
- Read the contemporary accounts (for and against).
- Read more widely than the popular hagiographies and charismatic evangelical paperbacks.

Having done that, go and be as revivalist as you like ...

If you still can ...


 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Chris Stiles, my point is neither that Establishment was a 'mistake' nor that it was ever something to be welcomed. But it did happen.

Whether we like it or not.

As I keep saying, on a personal level I have loads of problems with the idea of Establishment. For better or worse, that's what we have here at the moment as far as the CofE goes.

The CofE isn't Established in Wales. But, it seems to me, that it makes not a happ'orth of difference there whether it is or not.

If the CofE is ever Disestablished, then so be it.

I'm neither arguing for it or against it. I'm simply saying that there are pros and cons all ways round.
 

---

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:


If the CofE is ever Disestablished, then so be it.

I'm neither arguing for it or against it. I'm simply saying that there are pros and cons all ways round.

---

quote:

---

Steve Langton - that really assumes that all Christians want revival in the way you do. I'm not sure I do, given that doubtless my faith is 'weak' or 'compromised' to you. I am certainly happy living in a secular society.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Establishment may well disappear. I suspect that's inevitable. But while it still exists then the CofE has to work with that for good or ill.

---

quote:

---

I must admit I resent the thing about persecution of heretics being 'unacceptable even to Gamaliel' - because there is no way I would ever condone such a thing and nor would the CofE in its current form.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton
The original purpose of 'establishment' was national conformity for the benefit of royal authority under Henry VIII originally, then Lizzie I and the Stuarts; which is why persecutory measures like the 1662 Act of Uniformity and the 'Conventicles Act' and so on were passed.

---

quote:

---

that as long as people toe'd the line politically (ie, didn't call for, or conspire to effect, the overthrow of HMQ's political power), she wasn't really that interested.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Jolly Jape;

quote:

---

that as long as people toe'd the line politically (ie, didn't call for, or conspire to effect, the overthrow of HMQ's political power), she wasn't really that interested.

---

The trouble is that 'toeing the line' involved an enforced religious conformity alien to original Christian teaching; Christianity should never have been a state religion and the NT teaches a completely different way for Christians to relate to the surrounding society.

---

quote:

---

But as Jolly Jape says, the idea of a pluralist society hadn't fully emerged at that point so it wasn't a feasible option at that time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
believing Christians just do it whatever the state says.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Ad Orientem; I haven't forgotten the challenge posed by you and elsewhere in very similar terms by Arethosemyfeet. I can't do that job properly right now but hope to have time in a few weeks. I do, I fear, have a life outside the Ship!

---

quote:

---

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
believing Christians just do it whatever the state says.
Really?

---

quote:

---

So in that respect your challenge will fall on deaf ears as that's not the way these things work - from a more 'catholic' perspective.

---

quote:

---

Tradition does not contradict scripture because tradition is the work of the Holy Spirit too. The key to finding the tradition of apostles is to find the golden thread that leads back to them. That thread is visible, of course, otherwise we wouldn't be able to find it, so that leaves out all those sects which have reared their head in between. Continuity is also one of the signs of the Holy Spirit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Of course, the Reformation from an Eastern perspective was a uniquely Western problem.

---

One might say, on a tangent, that the lack of a Reformation (or Counter-Reformation), from a Western perspective, was a uniquely Eastern problem.

[ 19. May 2014, 20:42: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Indeed. Although as Ad Orientem has, intriguingly, been a Lutheran, an RC and Orthodox then he's had experience of all three main subdivisions within Christianity ...

I wonder how many others here can claim as much?

Mind you, to change from one tradition to another implies misfortune, to move three times implies carelessness - to paraphrase Lady Bracknell.


 

---

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
On a more serious note, there's probably been loads of threads on this already, but d'you think there should be a new one for the benefit of Steve Langton on scripture and tradition?

Or is that Dead Horse territory?

It seems to me that both those who have a high view of Tradition can disagree - as per the Orthodox and the RCs over various issues - and those who espouse a supposedly Sola Scriptura position can do so too.

Steve Langton says that there is remarkable consistency between those who espouse Sola Scriptura. The same can be said for those who take Tradition as their guide. The issues the Orthodox and the RCs disagree on, for instance, are substantial but there is a lot they hold in common ... in the same way that Sola Scriptura types hold a lot in common despite differences over various issues.

I wouldn't want to assess whether there is more difference between an Anglican and a Lutheran, say or an Orthodox and a RC ... or more difference between a Baptist and a Methodist than between an Orthodox and an RC ...

Perhaps matter for another thread.
 

---

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Of course, the Reformation from an Eastern perspective was a uniquely Western problem.

---

One might say, on a tangent, that the lack of a Reformation (or Counter-Reformation), from a Western perspective, was a uniquely Eastern problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Indeed. Although as Ad Orientem has, intriguingly, been a Lutheran, an RC and Orthodox then he's had experience of all three main subdivisions within Christianity ...

I wonder how many others here can claim as much?

Mind you, to change from one tradition to another implies misfortune, to move three times implies carelessness - to paraphrase Lady Bracknell.

---

quote:

---

Of course there is no explicit NT guidance nor proscription for Church/State links ... such a thing could not even be envisaged at the time the NT was written, as Ad Orientem has pointed out.

This isn't something to 'proof text' over, but something that requires considered debate by those for and against.

---

quote:

---

d'you think there should be a new one for the benefit of Steve Langton on scripture and tradition?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
By Gamaliel (with others agreeing, I gather!);

quote:

---

Of course there is no explicit NT guidance nor proscription for Church/State links ... such a thing could not even be envisaged at the time the NT was written, as Ad Orientem has pointed out.

This isn't something to 'proof text' over, but something that requires considered debate by those for and against.

---

Actually I would suggest that there very much was a 'Church/State link' scheme on offer for Christians to consider, a scheme which Jesus and the apostles did specifically reject, and in key passages like Romans 13 at that.

This scheme would be the kind of Messianism put forward by the Zealots and similar groups who very much aimed at a worldly kingdom for the Messiah, the kind of kingdom you fight for and have a conventional earthly king over. Many passages either reject such a kingdom or put forward a positive alternative idea of how Christians would relate to the world around them....

---

quote:

---

Of course there is no explicit NT guidance nor proscription for Church/State links ... such a thing could not even be envisaged at the time the NT was written, as Ad Orientem has pointed out.

---

and I'm pointing out in opposition to that assertion that there was indeed a religion-and-state-link scheme in that milieu, namely the Messianic/Zealot scheme native to Judaea. Such a link could be envisaged in the NT era, indeed was envisaged - the point of Jesus' trial before Pilate was precisely the thought that Jesus was trying to set up such a 'kingdom of this world' for himself as Messiah. And the NT did cover that possibility both by rejecting that option in various ways, and by offering a different positive model for the church in the state. And the arguments against the Zealot/worldly-Messiah scheme are also valid against the Imperial church but were ignored by that Imperial church and its advocates.

No straw man, a real political option of the day -and an option Jesus and the apostles rejected....
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
It is a strawman. You say that in the gospel Christ explicity rejects the idea that he is a political Messiah. I agree. All those "Contantinian" Churches as you call them would agree too. These are two different things. It's like saying that Christ in the gospel rejects apples, therefore the gospel also "proves" oranges are out of the question too.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
To be fair, Ad Orientem, I can see the point Steve Langton is making and I think there are fair parallels that can be drawn between the rejection of the Zealots' more radical and violent attempts to establish an 'earthly' kingdom and also Christ before Pilate and the kind of State/Church 'Constantinianism' that arose later.

But I would say that they were parallels and analogies. The State Churches certainly rejected political messianism in the ideological sense but Steve's point would be that this wasn't always apparent in the way they acted.

I'm intrigued by his 'world'/church dualism though, if an Emperor or monarch was indeed Christian then presumably they would also be part of the Church ... so this world/church separation arguably begins to become fuzzier or begins to break down ...

These are tricky issues. One could certainly argue that Byzantium was thoroughly Christianised as a society - people debating the Trinity in bath-houses and barbershops and so on - but at the same time we get instances like the Massacre of the Latins in 1182 which certainly calls into question how thoroughly Christianised it was in terms of morality and behaviour.

Again, I'd suggest that there is some middle-way between the assumption that because a society has been Christianised - evangelisation rather than evangelism, there is a distinction - then everyone within it is somehow some kind of devout and practising believer and the equal and opposite attempt to squirrel ourselves away into exclusivist or clearly demarcated sects.

Interestingly, I mentioned the Anabaptist thing to an Orthodox priest friend the other day. He's quite lefty in his political views and admires the radicalism and other-worldliness of the Anabaptist tradition. He considers it genuinely prophetic - with the proviso that 'Anabaptists are really monastics without realising it ...'


 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Ad Orientem;

quote:

---

It is a strawman. You say that in the gospel Christ explicity rejects the idea that he is a political Messiah. I agree. All those "Contantinian" Churches as you call them would agree too. These are two different things. It's like saying that Christ in the gospel rejects apples, therefore the gospel also "proves" oranges are out of the question too.

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quote:

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Of course there is no explicit NT guidance nor proscription for Church/State links ... such a thing could not even be envisaged at the time the NT was written, as Ad Orientem has pointed out.

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quote:

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I'm intrigued by his 'world'/church dualism though, if an Emperor or monarch was indeed Christian then presumably they would also be part of the Church ... so this world/church separation arguably begins to become fuzzier or begins to break down ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
They are very different things.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
[T]he 'bottom line' of the typical Messianic movement was the very ordinary political goal of freeing the Jewish people of a foreign yoke and installing a very ordinary worldly king of the line of David - a king over a Jewish religious state, a Henry-VIII-like ruler of a 'state church'.

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[ 20. May 2014, 11:33: Message edited by: South Coast Kevin ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
The thing is, Steve Langton, the conditionals you bring in here - 'If' - apply to all of us. You seem to be suggesting that there is a bigger 'if' in the case of rulers than for the rest of us mere mortals.

I can see what you're driving at but there could be a big IF applied to any one of us.

How do you KNOW that you are born-again, for instance? How do I know?

We could all be deluding ourselves ...

I certainly take your point about the drive towards a political Messianism in the 1st century and the way that Christ and his disciples deliberately set themselves against that.

Completely agree.

As the whole Qumran community Dead Sea Scrolls/Essenes thing shows, though, there was a generally apocalyptic view current at that time - which was indeed, as you say, seen as having a physical outworking - if you like - with final battles between good and evil and so on.

One could indeed argue that the early Christians were 'spiritualising' what was 'physicalised' if you like in the thinking of many Jews at that time ... hence the whole idea of Christ and his Body (or community) as the true Temple and so on ...

As for doing my thinking for me - since when?



I'm simply challenging and provoking you to a certain extent. I'm perfectly capable of doing my own thinking thank you very much.
 

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Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
They are very different things.

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In what way? Merely asserting that they are very different doesn't make it so...

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quote:

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(and anyway why should I do all your thinking?);

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quote:

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As for doing my thinking for me - since when?

[Confused]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
The Emperors never claimed to be head of the Church.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Cooperation between the Church and State was never a form political Messianism designed to free us from the yoke of something or other. It was a practical solution to the question of how the State should relate to the Church when it's ruler and subjects are Christians.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
It's simply disingenuous to say that the Scriptures have anything to say on the matter either way.

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You don't allow for the possibility of honestly-held views that differ from your own?
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Ad Orientem;

quote:

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It's simply disingenuous to say that the Scriptures have anything to say on the matter either way.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I do disagree with the establishment of the CoE. However, it's just not a priority to me, both because the CoE itself has more pressing issues going on at the moment (eg Dead Horses stuff) and because I think there are bigger priorities according to Scripture.

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Maybe your Church needs a division of labour? Every thinking Anglican surely doesn't haven't to be absorbed by the issue of SSM or women bishops, and anyone with a decent income can contribute to the alleviation of poverty; they don't need to become a political activist on the issue as well.

But this discussion suggests that when the time comes Disestablishment is likely to be imposed on the CofE from outside, rather than being something that that the Church as a whole wants to participate in. I suppose the CofE might earn brownie points in some quarters by positioning itself as being far too busy to get involved in a secondary issue like that.

(BTW sorry for the editing errors in recent posts. My laptop is playing up.)
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Oh no, no, no, you don't get it at all, do you SvitlanaV2?



It's clear that you don't actually understand the CofE.

What'd happen in the instance you cite - a decision about Disestablishment being imposed from outside - would be that there'd be a lot of humming and hah-ing and lots of hot air and then, after it had become a 'done deal' the Bishops and others would say, 'There you go, it must have been God's will all along ...'

The same thing happens everywhere else, only over different issues.

As for the business of alleviating poverty and 'thinking Anglicans', division of labour etc etc ... you still seem to writing as if the CofE is in a position to make particular demands and requirements of those who happen to roll up on a Sunday ...

It ain't really the Anglican way to enquire to what extent people are alleviating poverty out of their own pockets - although it would certainly encourage people to do so.

Besides, if the figures are correct then the Anglicans, like every other older denomination, is going to have all on trying to keep its show on the road. They might let go of Establishment as part of that process - a tricky position to defend when it's all hands to the pumps.

I'm not sure a lack of pro-activity over Establishment is a brownie-points thing at all, to be quite honest - and I can be incredibly cynical about these things.

It's more an issue of pragmatism. And that's something that applies everywhere too and isn't necessarily a purely Anglican trait.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I do disagree with the establishment of the CoE. However, it's just not a priority to me, both because the CoE itself has more pressing issues going on at the moment (eg Dead Horses stuff) and because I think there are bigger priorities according to Scripture.

---

Maybe your Church needs a division of labour? Every thinking Anglican surely doesn't haven't to be absorbed by the issue of SSM or women bishops, and anyone with a decent income can contribute to the alleviation of poverty; they don't need to become a political activist on the issue as well.

But this discussion suggests that when the time comes Disestablishment is likely to be imposed on the CofE from outside, rather than being something that that the Church as a whole wants to participate in. I suppose the CofE might earn brownie points in some quarters by positioning itself as being far too busy to get involved in a secondary issue like that.

(BTW sorry for the editing errors in recent posts. My laptop is playing up.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

There may well be Anglicans who are pushing for Disestablishment, but as people have tried to explain here numerous times, it's ultimately a Parliamentary issue - and unless there's a political will for it to happen there then it ain't going to happen.

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quote:

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I think for me the issue is that there seems to be no room for Steve Langton to have Scriptural issues on a sliding scale of importance. They are all as important as each other. For me (perhaps partly just down to a very practical personality) that's just not doable in reality, and there needs to be some choosing of battles. I do disagree with the establishment of the CoE. However, it's just not a priority to me, both because the CoE itself has more pressing issues going on at the moment (eg Dead Horses stuff) and because I think there are bigger priorities according to Scripture.

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I both agree and disagree here; on the one hand, almost every other issue in Scripture is more important than the issues of 'establishment' etc. On the other hand, establishment and the other dodgy forms of church and state relationship are hugely important simply because they are something we have - but shouldn't have. It's an illness or a state of unhealth for the church, and curing that illness as far as possible is necessary to dealing properly with these other issues. Or to put it another way, why try to deal with these other issues with the equivalent of your hands tied or a ball and chain on your ankle?

The 'Dead Horses' issues in particular are somewhat different in a 'Christian state' situation to what they are in a 'free church' situation. Please don't get this thread transferred to DH, but do think about those implications...!!
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
But that's frankly nonsense - you can deal with the other issues while having an established church, and to call it 'illness' or 'a ball and chain' is laughable. It has hardly any impact at all. You are exaggerating the position of the CoE into something unrecognisable. But then to you, non-established Anglican churches are still apparently 'too established'

The DH issues are slightly different for the state church, but the vast majority of DH-related debates within the CoE do not concern those differences. Also I'm quite capable of keeping this discussion within Purg guidelines...

[ 21. May 2014, 22:49: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Irrespective of whether a church is 'Established' or not - it strikes me that some kind of diffusiveness is necessary if there's ever going to be anything to 'work with' - unless of course we're going to start with virgin territory and all over again from scratch.

I remember hearing an Orthodox priest tell of a visit he'd made to Albania. Under Communism the faith had been eradicated to such an extent in some areas that the only vestigial remains of Christianity was the practice of giving Easter eggs ... yet this gave the churches an opportunity to preach and draw people's attention to the original reasons for the practice.

It is, of course, entirely possible to start with virgin territory. But that's not where we're at just yet - although we are certainly heading that way.

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quote:

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you can deal with the other issues while having an established church, and to call it 'illness' or 'a ball and chain' is laughable.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Jade Constable;

quote:

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you can deal with the other issues while having an established church, and to call it 'illness' or 'a ball and chain' is laughable.

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So why is the CofE making such heavy weather of the issues and creating such a bad impression at present??

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quote:

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by far the biggest obstacle to disestablishment is Parliament, not the CoE.

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quote:

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Because it's what the CoE leadership do with everything? It may come as a shock to you, but not all the problems the church as a whole face in England (or even most of them) are down to the CoE being the state church.

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quote:

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And I don't think Establishment is particularly responsible for current CoE leadership issues. It's a complicated issue that stems from the CoE being a complicated church, and that's always been the case and is nothing new.

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quote:

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Calling him a 'Constantinian' simply because he chose to operate as an army chaplain displays the kind of judgemental attitude I'm railing about here.

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quote:

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Baxter chose to engage with that rather than hiving off into some kind of holier-than-thou sect.

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quote:

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If we go for the kind of 'pure as the driven snow' separatist approach that you advocate it solves some of those problems but creates others.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
..But as a general principle it's always better that we do things God's way first

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quote:

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The point is, though, Steve Langton, is that you seem to be expecting some kind of unanimity as to what constitutes obedience to Christ.

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quote:

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Let's take a less extreme example than the 17th century Civil Wars.

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quote:

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G: Supposing someone came to you and said, 'Steve, I believe that God is calling me to the Anglican ministry.'

What would you say?

That this is somehow contrary to obedience to Christ because involvement with a corrupt and Constantinian body is clearly against the tenor of scripture and the nature of the Church as you understand it?

Or what if someone were to come to you and say, 'Steve, I've been struggling with this sense of vocation for many, many years and now I have come to a firm conclusion ... that God is calling me to become a Roman Catholic monk and to live in a monastic community ...'?

What if, having sat down with those people and explained things as best you can from your perspective you find that this sense of calling and conviction still persists?

What then?

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Look, I recognise we live in a complicated world in which ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’ – and I’m well aware that includes me! Sorry if I sometimes take that for granted and don’t keep parading my sins all over the Ship….

Go back to my example of Joseph and his brothers; their decision to sell him into slavery didn’t happen in isolation – he’d grown up as an obnoxious little prig who showed off prophetic dreams about them eventually bowing to him. They were sorely tempted….

But then that wasn’t entirely Joseph’s fault; what about the father who made him a favourite, gave him a coat that implied superiority, and so on?

And what about the way the father, Jacob/Israel, had favoured the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, so that all the older brothers by his other wife and concubines were treated as inferior…?

And that, in a way, Jacob could blame on Laban who had set him in this complex situation by not straightforwardly giving him Rachel as his wife after his seven years work for her….

But then Jacob was in exile with Laban because he had cheated his brother Esau….

And God is having to sort out all of that, and a future which leads to Jesus through this history, and do it all not by brute force but by providing ways for people – like Joseph and his brothers - to learn and understand and repent and be reconciled with God and each other, people who as sinners occasionally just have to learn the hard way – but in the process give us examples good and bad to learn from….

I really don’t think it is simple. But at the same time we have, as I see it, an obligation not to just follow in the traps of situations, a duty (and of course a need for our own benefit), to try to sort out what God’s will is and both do it and get it across to others. We won’t always get it right – especially not with many things we’ve been brought up with and rather taken for granted.

So in the situations you outline, it’s my job to give those people the best and most caring advice I can (and in that kind of personal situation I try not to be quite as confrontational as in a discussion/argument on a forum where I’m trying to keep the abstract issues clear). Then I have to leave it with God and where He is leading them and what they need by way of trial and learning which I don’t know the full story of.

I hope that my contribution will ultimately contribute to that outworking of providence. It is conceivable that an Anglican clergyman who has dealt with me will eventually help to lead Anglicans out of establishment, will be better equipped to deal with a crisis of church and state – I don’t know, but I’m not going to short-change him by vague and fuzzy arguments or just wailing that everything leads to problems so it doesn’t matter…. It’s not up to me to make history work out – indeed in a way that is THE temptation of the ‘Constantinian’ view – but it is up to me to do my best to sort out the truth and act on it.

Am I making sense…?

Albertus, I see what you're getting at; I hope the above shows I'm not being as simplistic or smug as might first appear....
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
No, you are simply appearing even more smug and simplistic ...



More seriously, of course I understand where you are coming from and do - believe me - have a lot of sympathy with the views you are putting forward.

But your view on the Anglican chap going into the ministry strikes me as very utilitarian and even Machiavellian ... 'Ah, if he goes into the Anglican ministry he'll lead people out into the truth of Disestablishment ...'

It'd be like someone saying, for instance, 'Hmmm ... that particular Anglican has RC or Orthodox leanings. If he goes into the Anglican ministry he will influence others to go down a more RC or Orthodox route ...'

Or, 'That chap considering the Anglican ministry has charismatic leanings. Hallelujah! If he goes into the ministry he will lead others into the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and lead them out of dry formalism into Pentecostal exuberance and reality ...'

Sure, we all think like this to a greater or lesser extent.

All I'm trying to do is to provoke, question and challenge. That's the role of the Ship, as I see it. And at the same time, I'm open for people to provoke, question, prod and challenge me.

So, no, I don't take a kind of binary view that suggests that Establishment - as it is currently practised - leads to coercion and war.

Nor do I take the view that if it wasn't for Establishment then this country would be heading more rapidly into some kind of post-Christian Dark Age ...

I simply believe that we have to work with the context that we have. At the moment, it includes Establishment - among other things. One day it probably won't.

Whether it does or not we still have to follow Christ we still have to get up and go to work, we still have to wash our socks ...
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Gamaliel;

quote:

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But your view on the Anglican chap going into the ministry strikes me as very utilitarian and even Machiavellian ... 'Ah, if he goes into the Anglican ministry he'll lead people out into the truth of Disestablishment ...'

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quote:

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So, no, I don't take a kind of binary view that suggests that Establishment - as it is currently practised - leads to coercion and war.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Albertus, I see what you're getting at; I hope the above shows I'm not being as simplistic or smug as might first appear....

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Yes, fair point, thanks. The comment was intended as no more than a friendly nudge.

[ 24. May 2014, 15:50: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Steve Langton - I wholly embrace fuzziness in this area. Sorry.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
In case there's any doubt, my comments were also intended as a friendly nudge too, Steve Langton.



I hope I'm coming at this from an 'iron sharpens iron' way rather than a 'let's grind each other down' direction ...


 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Gamaliel;

quote:

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Those recent wars have got nothing at all to do with the Establishment of the CofE. We would still have had those wars if the CofE had been Disestablished 10, 20, 50 or 100 years ago.

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quote:

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There's a fair bit of wriggle-room between fuzziness and fundamentalism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:


While I don't want to come across as a crazy fundamentalist, it does seem to be the case that persecution generates religious fervour and religious growth.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Other persecutions, such as that in Japan in the early seventeenth century, or Albania during the Hoxha era, have caused the virtual disappearance (publicly, at least) of Christianity.

Those who casually talk about the need for the Western church to experience persecution to purify it should remember the warning "be careful what you wish for...."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Depends what you mean by 'nothing at all to do with'.... if you mean caused on the UK side by establishment, only slightly. If you mean that Muslim understandings of our country's religious position have both contributed to the wars and exaggerated their effects - well from that perspective there certainly isn't 'nothing at all', but rather a lot.

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Well - I've also seen actions by the Spanish state painted as similar to the Reconquista. So I suspect most of the heat on these issues have less to do with the idea that we have an established church but that we are seen to be a Christian country and have a fairly aggressive foreign policy at times. (in many parts of the world the idea of atheism and/or an established church make little or no sense anyway).

I don't think Gamaliel disagrees with you fundamentally btw. You just vary on the urgency with which you view the possible future disestablishment of the church.

I think in part it's due to labels. Erastianism lends an urgency to disestablishment. Whereas if we label a lot of the independent churches Donatist or Docetic then that lends urgency to something else entirely.

[ 25. May 2014, 12:04: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Absolutely, what Chris Stiles said.

All I've been trying to say - all along and at length I'm afraid - is that there are equal and opposite problems with either of these positions - a separatist one and an overly Erastian one.

This morning, for instance, I visited a particular non-conformist church here in the small town where I live. They were receiving someone into membership and as part of that they read out their statement of faith which explicitly includes separation of church and state.

I had no problem with that, I didn't march out of the building in a huff ...

But at the same time - and perhaps I'm being pedantic - I did worry that elements of their communion liturgy could be taken to imply a very low Christology ...

When I advocate a both/and rather than either/or position, it doesn't mean that I'm fence-sitting necessarily (although my backside is pretty calloused for the most part ... ) but because there are pros and cons with almost any position.

You take the Russian example, that SCK has cited. When persecution came it caused massive disruptions - to leadership, plant and buildings, leadership etc etc.

One can readily see how the kind of 'light' and organic model of church life that SCK advocates could weather the storm of persecution more readily. If you're already meeting in a front room or hired hall then you are going to adapt more easily than if you are meeting in a whopping big cathedral with onion-domes on top of it.

I know a chap who was the pastor of an underground charismatic evangelical church in Hungary during the Communist era. He has fascinating stories and accounts of what it was like to be involved with underground churches at that time.

At the same time, Orthodoxy did survive in Russia - as indeed both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism did survive in China too - it wasn't simply the more charismatic evangelical 'house churches' that weathered the storm.

I would suggest - in the case of Orthodoxy - that the very trappings and cultural embodiments and embedding that can be one of its weaknesses can also, at times, act as one of its strengths.

I've already mentioned the Orthodox priest I once met who told how some of the cultural aspects associated with Orthodoxy - Easter eggs and so on - had contributed to its revival after the end of the Hoxha era in Albania. There were cultural and other references that the clergy and missionaries were able to point to.

'You give one another Easter eggs ... here's why ...'

It's certainly the case that catechesis can be sporadic and ineffective in all of the historic Churches - Big C. But at the same time they can encourage a kind of diffusiveness that can sustain people - on one level we see this with the singing of hymns at sporting fixtures or at times of national mourning etc.

At the same time, the kind of intentional, separatist, gathered churches clearly have strengths in terms of building a sense of corporate commitment on the one hand and a personal faith on the other. No question about that.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we should defame independent or 'non-conformist' churches as sectarian conventicles and so on ...

All I am suggesting is that just as a kind of vague woolliness can be an issue with the historic Churches, so a kind of unhealthy level of disengagement can be - I said 'can be' - a feature of some of the more tightly-drawn independent groups.

If persecution broke out in the UK tomorrow - heaven forfend - then I would anticipate that the strengths and weaknesses in each of these systems would come to the fore. To a certain extent the kind of cultural Christianity diffusiveness would provide a framework that would be helpful - and at the same time the agility and informality of the more 'gathered' or 'connexional' churches would give them a head-start over the older Churches when it came to adjusting and adapting.

There are strengths and weaknesses with each model. That's all I'm saying.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
There's an old quote: 'If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to prosecute you?' I sometimes wonder how I'd respond in such a situation, but it's also interesting to consider how 'diffusive Christianity' would complicate matters more generally. Would being a 'secular Christian' (as Richard Dawkins has recently called himself) count? Of course, there won't actually be any 'persecution', so this type of thinking is rather academic.

I'm also wondering which parts of the country are the most Anglican in terms of identity and/or attendance. (It would be especially interesting to know about the strength of the CofE in London.) Maybe the CofE, rather like the political parties, needs to be more aware of its heartlands, and more open about where its 'safe seats' are. Arguments about the theology of the CofE as a generator of 'diffusive Christianity' are likely to be less convincing if you live in an area or a city that is or is becoming majority Muslim, for example.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure, I'd agree with all of that, SvitlanaV2. I'm not suggesting that culturally Christian diffusiveness is where it's at ... it can help and it can hinder.

I'm simply suggesting that in some circumstances it can provide a 'handle' or a framework to work with. In and of itself it mightn't effect things - but when you plug into it then it may provide a source of power. A bit like electricity in your house. It lies latent until you actually flick a switch or plug something in.

I completely agree with you with the kind of cultural diversity in inner city areas - and there I would say that obviously Christianity should take its place alongside all the other belief systems and ideologies - we live in a pluralist society. Fine.

As far as the CofE goes, I once read - perhaps 10 or 12 years ago now - that Herefordshire was one of the most 'Anglican' parts of England (I'm talking England now, not the UK as a whole). This was measured in terms of church attendance primarily I think.

The same didn't apply to rural areas in other parts of England.

As far as London and other major cities are concerned then I would suggest that - such as it is - the prevailing Christian paradigms aren't generally Anglican but various forms of 'migrant' Christianity including - but not exclusively - black-led Pentecostalism in its African and Afro-Caribbean forms.

Please don't get me wrong on the Anglican thing. I'm not carrying a candle for Anglicanism nor for the CofE specifically - I'm simply observing that historically speaking this has been the major Christian paradigm here - either as a 'cultural norm' or in reaction to that 'norm' - that doesn't mean that it will always continue to be the case.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Measuring Anglicanism by church attendance is surely a bit off. I've been in con-evo churches with very high attendance, that I wouldn't call very Anglican. Similarly there are poorly-attended churches that radiate Anglicanism.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
Gamaliel

While the biblical and historical references have their place, I have a more pragmatic interest in how things have panned out in the present, and how they're likely to develop in the future. This is partly because of my Nonconformist identity, but also because I don't live in an environment where diffusive Christianity can be taken for granted, let alone be perceived as culturally dominant. To me, Disestablishment is the natural and most equitable long term outcome of all of this, rather than just being a nice but fairly unimportant idea. And as I've said before, I don't think Disestablishment = revival; from where I'm standing, there's not much left to 'revive'!

(Arguments about the CofE being too taken up with far more urgent matters don't convince me because I don't really see much urgency around me. Again, it's probably a regional thing. This is why it would be interesting to know about CofE strength and presence and identity in other places.)

As for London, I'm well aware of the importance of the huge variety of Christian denominations there. However, I do wonder if the CofE benefits from London as the hub of church activity in general, especially for young people. Being at the heart of things perhaps makes London churches more absorbed by the so-called 'urgent' CofE matters than many churches elsewhere would be.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure, SvitlanaV2, I think we are talking past each other to a certain extent.

I'm well aware that we can't take a kind of cultural Christian diffuseness for granted in many parts of the country. One could argue that where such a thing still exists it's largely - but not exclusively - down to the existence, historically, of an 'Established' Church - although in some parts of the country, notably Cornwall and Yorkshire, the various non-conformist Free Churches outnumbered the Anglicans for much of the last 250 years.

But those non-conformist churches wouldn't have existed in the first place if there hadn't been an Established Church for them to separate from.

I don't doubt your analysis - that vast tracts of this country are no so post-Christian or else - in terms of Islamic migrants and so on - have never been culturally Christian ... in which case it makes little sense to continue with the idea of an Established Church representing the nation.

And yes, I fully appreciate that Disestablishment in your view doesn't equal Revival.

It might well be that Disestablishment is the natural and most equitable outcome of all this, but I fail to see who or what will benefit from that in any substantial way. It's not as if non-conformists are disenfranchised in our society in the way they were back in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Sure, it'll make Steve Langton feel a lot happier because he thinks it'll offset the Islamist view of the UK as a 'Christian country' and therefore as some kind of target ... and, as he imagines, it'll also take the wind out of the sails of the Ulster Protestants ...

I'm not using the argument that the CofE is taken up with far more urgent matters - although issues of its own survival in many areas is surely pretty urgent ...

I'm simply suggesting that whilst Disestablishment may please a lot of non-conformists - and I can understand why - in and of itself its disappearance doesn't solve anything.

I can't imagine many Baptist, URC or Methodist ministers crying themselves to sleep at night thinking, 'If it wasn't for Establishment then there'd be a more level playing field for my church ...'

No, they're more likely to be worrying about the DH issues that affect all of us or the next 'church meeting' or circuit-meeting/synod meeting or whatever else it happens to be ... or how to manage decline in some congregations etc etc etc

As far as Anglicanism in London goes, well, some churches are doing well, others less well. Obviously London is the home of HTB and its church-planting initiatives and it's also the home of some pretty spikey Anglo-Catholic churches.

Most London parishes reflect the cultural diversity of the capital to a greater or lesser extent - many London Anglican churches are made up of BME people and migrants.

I don't see how that has much bearing on the Establishment issue. That's to do with Parliament and the Constitution and so on rather than the demographic mix represented in parish churches Sunday by Sunday.
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I'm simply suggesting that whilst Disestablishment may please a lot of non-conformists - and I can understand why - in and of itself its disappearance doesn't solve anything.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:
Disestablishment would make little or no difference to how non-conformist churches operate, and little or no difference to how the UK is seen abroad...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:


It might well be that Disestablishment is the natural and most equitable outcome of all this, but I fail to see who or what will benefit from that in any substantial way. It's not as if non-conformists are disenfranchised in our society in the way they were back in the 18th and 19th centuries.

---

quote:

---

I'm simply suggesting that whilst Disestablishment may please a lot of non-conformists - and I can understand why - in and of itself its disappearance doesn't solve anything.

I can't imagine many Baptist, URC or Methodist ministers crying themselves to sleep at night thinking, 'If it wasn't for Establishment then there'd be a more level playing field for my church ...'

No, they're more likely to be worrying about the DH issues that affect all of us or the next 'church meeting' or circuit-meeting/synod meeting or whatever else it happens to be ... or how to manage decline in some congregations etc etc etc

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The cause of equality will benefit. There really is no need for Establishment if we're all equal, is there? As I've said before, I also think the public process and debate around the would issue would be worthwhile.

---

There would be little or no public process and little or no debate. The vast majority of people wouldn't care, so it would become the province of a few constitutional obsessives at best.

I suppose at least then no one, but no one could continue to pin the blame for stuff on Disestablishment. Including someone in a church somewhere who might do so.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
I've already agreed that ordinary people aren't currently interested in Establishment. But the insistence that a largely secular post-Christian population with an increasing constituency of folk of other religions will never be interested in the issue at any point in the next 20+ years strikes me as rather strange.

One almost gets the impression here that the CofE is quite willing to be forgotten and ignored by a politically and religiously indifferent population if that means it can keep things more or less as they are. It's a somewhat distasteful calculation that fails to inspire admiration for the CofE. There's so much to admire, but not this.


 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I certainly think that a lot of people would be interested - whether Christians in other churches and denominations, secularists or adherents of other religions.

What Chris Stiles said was the 'vast majority of people'. I agree with him. It's an issue, certainly, but it's not an issue to the vast majority of people. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be tackled, of course. There's a debate to be had. At the moment, though, the political will isn't there for it. If there was, then we'd be having the debate.

I know you don't equate Disestablishment with revival, but you certainly seem to be equating the issue with whether the CofE is forgotten or ignored.

One could argue, as I'm sure many Anglicans do, that Establishment ensures that the CofE isn't forgotten or ignored but at least it means there's some religious representation in the public arena - Bishops in the House of Lords and so on.

I wouldn't particularly argue that way.

But what I don't understand is your insistence that the Anglican failure to address the Establishment issue is somehow contributing to their own marginalisation and decline.

As you've put it here (and forgive me, I've not done the quotes thing):

'One almost gets the impression here that the CofE is quite willing to be forgotten and ignored by a politically and religiously indifferent population if that means it can keep things more or less as they are.'

How does that work? Where's the logic in this assertion? How would Disestablishment in any way reverse the trend towards the CofE being forgotten and ignored?

Give me three good reasons how Disestablishment would in any way reduce the indifference towards the Anglican church?

If I thought that Disestablishment would in any way affect the perception of the Anglican church across the vast bulk of the population I'd be agitating for it tomorrow.

The fact is, I don't think it would or does. And I've got the Welsh experience to draw on. Because nobody in Wales gives a monkey's.

Disestablishment's not made a blind bit of difference in Wales as to how the Church in Wales is perceived.

Reading your posts, SvitlanaV2 I get the impression that you simply want to see Disestablishment so you can say, 'Good, we've got a level playing field, now we can all decline together in peace ...'

What would happen, in your view, if the CofE was Disestablished tomorrow? Other than a nice, warm fuzzy feeling that justice had somehow been done and someone's lost their special privileges - in a 'schaudenfraude' way perhaps? - then what difference would it make?

You'd admire the CofE more than you do now, but what else?
 

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Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I've already agreed that ordinary people aren't currently interested in Establishment. But the insistence that a largely secular post-Christian population with an increasing constituency of folk of other religions will never be interested in the issue at any point in the next 20+ years strikes me as rather strange.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

If I thought that Disestablishment would in any way affect the perception of the Anglican church across the vast bulk of the population I'd be agitating for it tomorrow.

The fact is, I don't think it would or does. And I've got the Welsh experience to draw on. Because nobody in Wales gives a monkey's.

Disestablishment's not made a blind bit of difference in Wales as to how the Church in Wales is perceived.

Reading your posts, SvitlanaV2 I get the impression that you simply want to see Disestablishment so you can say, 'Good, we've got a level playing field, now we can all decline together in peace ...'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by chris stiles:

I'm not sure what your logic is either - you appear to be somewhat fixated on the issue of Establishment (or otherwise) but don't appear to have explained why in this thread.

---

Oh, I've given a number of reasons as to why I think Disestablishment would be a good and right thing to work towards. The problem is that none of them are considered to be especially worthwhile to the Anglicans on this thread! Fair enough. I should just accept that I'm flogging a dead horse here.

But maybe you're really asking why I should be emotionally or psychologically invested in the subject. Who knows? My church history and religious anxieties must have something to do with it. What's fascinating to me is why Anglicans should be 'fixated' on maintaining the status quo, when the status quo no longer seems successful. I can't see what you've got to lose. I suppose it's very much a case of 'Better the devil you know....'
 

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Posted by Stephen (# 40) on :
 
Well.....in the case of Wales it seems sometimes that all has changed and yet nothing has changed. You still have town and city centre churches with a civic role for instance which doesn't seem to make sense in a disestablished church. On the other hand we are independent of England where eg choosing our own bishops, clergy, liturgy and so on.

Establishment certainly wasn't welcomed by Anglicans with open arms at the time despite what bishops say now, and no - OTOH - I don't think many in Wales would want to go back

I suspect if the CofE was disestablished something very similar would happen - it would tie up Parliament with the constitutional ramifications for some years though I think. The real question is not so much the opposition the CofE would put up as whether Parliament would want to be bothered in the first place...

Mind you I do get a bit tired of Welsh non-Anglicans refer to us as Church of England....
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
SvitlanaV2, if you were riding your one-trick pony more effectively and doing hand-stands on the saddle or other impressive tricks and manouevres then I'd certainly sit up and take notice.



As it is, you keep maintaining that this is an issue that the Anglicans here should get more exercised over ... as if we can actually do anything about it. As has been said over and over, it's a Parliamentary issue. Sure, people could agitate to get things changed but the advantages of doing so would have to be weighed up against the disadvantages.

Would would we gain? What would we lose?

Please explain what we would all gain from the Disestablishment of the CofE rather than a nice warm, fuzzy feeling that we'd put two-fingers up to the Establishment at last?

As to your question about how Welsh people regard Disestablishment ... well, Stephen has answered that pretty well but I'd also add that I suspect the majority of Welsh people aren't even aware that the Church in Wales is either Established or Disestablished.

They don't give a monkey's. It's not an issue to them. They don't give a flying fart whether the Church in Wales is Established or not. It is not an issue.

As I've said before, it'd be more of an issue in England for all the Constitutional reasons that have been outlined and the situation we have now where the Monarch is the titular 'Supreme Governor' of the Church.

Sure, that's an anomaly and an historical throwback ... but to all practical intents and purposes it makes no real difference to how things are done ... but it does make for some nice ceremonial at times.

As for the decline - yes, we do mind. A lot of people are concerned about the decline of church attendance, Christian observance and so on in here in the UK.

As to what we do about it, that's another issue. I can't halt the decline in church attendance nor the decline of the influence of Christianity any more than you can - at least, not as an individual.

You seem to think that there is someone out there with a magic wand or that some kind of think-tank could meet and immediately resolve what are complex and intractable issues.

Church attendance in the UK has been declining since the mid-19th century at least. Have you got any smart ideas on how to reverse that trend?

As for the point of maintaining Establishment given this background and context - I'm neither arguing for it nor against it.

I'm simply trying to put the thing in context. It's something we've inherited and is liable to be around for a while yet - unless there is some kind of concerted effort or will to hasten its end.

So far, you've not presented me with any convincing arguments for doing so other than railing against how unfair it is. Ok, perhaps that's a good enough reason in itself but give me a practical for instance as to how people where you live are losing out because of it then I might sit up and take more notice.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

So far, you've not presented me with any convincing arguments for doing so other than railing against how unfair it is. Ok, perhaps that's a good enough reason in itself but give me a practical for instance as to how people where you live are losing out because of it then I might sit up and take more notice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, SvitlanaV2, I think we are talking past each other to a certain extent.

I'm well aware that we can't take a kind of cultural Christian diffuseness for granted in many parts of the country. One could argue that where such a thing still exists it's largely - but not exclusively - down to the existence, historically, of an 'Established' Church - although in some parts of the country, notably Cornwall and Yorkshire, the various non-conformist Free Churches outnumbered the Anglicans for much of the last 250 years....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Oh, I've given a number of reasons as to why I think Disestablishment would be a good and right thing to work towards. The problem is that none of them are considered to be especially worthwhile to the Anglicans on this thread!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:

If you could give me practical examples of how Disestablishment would actually help someone living in an inner city area, say, or a Methodist living in The Potteries or a Roman Catholic living in Gateshead, a Pentecostal living in Dudley or a Plymouth Brethren housewife in Totnes then I'd be all ears.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

I fully accept that none of the above represents revival, but the parishes can still work on that if they want to. As for oddballs with obsessions, do such folks wield so much power in the CofE? That's something that should probably be kept a secret!

---

No. They don't at all, and they wouldn't necessarily all come from the CofE (except in the vaguest possible way). It's just what would happen if you tried to change anything else that had a vague political import to it that no one else was interested in - probably slightly less so than the move to kick the City Remberancer out of Parliament.
 

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Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
We all agree that it's not a 'bread-and-butter' issue, as British Religion in Numbers puts it. But a British Election Study showed that most people who were asked had an an opinion on the subject, rather than having 'no interest', as you imply.

In fact, most people seemed to be in favour of the status quo overall, although there were differences depending on the social groups asked.

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/attitudes-towards-the-disestablishment-of-the-church-of-england/
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Actually, SvitlanaV2, I appreciate the time and trouble you've taken over that last post as, from my perspective at least, you have actually begun to clearly articulate some practical implications - SSM, the way that some Muslims may feel marginalised or discriminated against in terms of public debate etc

My 'revival' comment was more hyperbolic than an actual objection, but sure, you've articulated some reasons/implications here.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
In the ‘establishment v separatism’ issue there is one argument I don’t think I’ve employed, or not at full weight. It is particularly relevant to Anglicanism and other Protestant state churches, particularly I think Lutherans. It needs a bit more argument to apply it to Roman Catholicism, Presbyterianism and some other Protestants. I’m not sure quite how it applies to Orthodoxy – indeed I suspect it would apply differently to different Orthodox groups.

The proposition is a kind of inversion of the position from which Henry VIII founded Anglicanism (albeit not quite in the Protestant form adopted by Edward VI and Elizabeth I). Henry’s thinking was “How can I be properly king of my people if they can go outside or beyond my kingdom – specifically to Rome – for their religious authority?”

I obviously don’t agree with his thinking here…. Indeed, I ask an almost opposite question; how can the Body of Christ have two kings, or, putting it slightly differently, how can the Bride of Christ have two husbands???? And I refer you to the simple proposition that a man (or church) cannot have two masters, a principle which applies far more widely than its original context of ‘God and Mammon’. (And if the state isn’t a ‘master’ in this case, how come the CofE is established ‘by law’ and Parliament is needed to free it from that state? And how come the state recently excluded the CofE from same-sex-marriage?)

And this is the constant problem of the ‘Christian country’; it splits the Church’s allegiance, it divides the Church’s aims and goals. Gamaliel has talked about how “we still have to follow Christ”, but the problem of the establishment is precisely that it compromises the following of Christ by that division of loyalty, not to mention division of who rules the church.

This issue is far more important than the mere practicalities which have formed much of this discussion.....
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
I think Anabaptism has more in common with Catholicism than it would care to admit. Even if Anabaptists have no role in government, there is a lot of authoritarianism within their churches - and the same goes for RCs. An Anabaptist community is functionally very similar to an RC convent. I value the fact that within the CoE there is room for diversity of opinion, and there is room for nuance and fuzziness. That's important. What happens if an Anabaptist feels called to serve in the military, for instance? Why is that person's own calling not respected? I'm not picking on Anabaptists alone here, I just couldn't think of an RC example not involving Dead Horses. For all the protest at 'established' religion, I'd far rather be in the CoE and be able to challenge the status quo than be in a non-established but not very diverse church.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
By Jade Constable;

quote:

---

I think Anabaptism has more in common with Catholicism than it would care to admit. Even if Anabaptists have no role in government, there is a lot of authoritarianism within their churches - and the same goes for RCs. An Anabaptist community is functionally very similar to an RC convent.

---

quote:

---

What happens if an Anabaptist feels called to serve in the military, for instance? Why is that person's own calling not respected?

---

quote:

---

The thing is, Steve Langton, as you well know, the CofE doesn't believe that it has two kings. Read all the Anglican statements of faith and they'll tell you that Christ is the Head of the Church, not the monarch nor the Archbishop of Canterbury or anyone else.

---

quote:

---

I think to assume that someone's calling is a sinful temptation is incredibly cruel and arrogant.

---

quote:

---

The problem is, however, with any kind of blanket statement on an issue without a clear answer

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I refer you to the simple proposition that a man (or church) cannot have two masters, a principle which applies far more widely than its original context of ‘God and Mammon’. [...]

And this is the constant problem of the ‘Christian country’; it splits the Church’s allegiance, it divides the Church’s aims and goals. Gamaliel has talked about how “we still have to follow Christ”, but the problem of the establishment is precisely that it compromises the following of Christ by that division of loyalty, not to mention division of who rules the church.

This issue is far more important than the mere practicalities which have formed much of this discussion.....

---

quote:

---

Anabaptists not letting grown adult believers come to their own conclusions about the Bible and issues like pacifism is incredibly controlling and worrying. Why the need to control others' consciences? Why assume you know the mind of God and that He is not calling someone to be a soldier? I am pretty much a pacifist, but would never deny somebody else's calling to be a soldier if they felt it was from God - it's not my place to do so.

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quote:

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Please stop SHOUTING. It is most unbecoming and very un-Anabaptist ...

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quote:

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I'm sorry, but if you think that the CofE in its current form is controlling then you must be living on a different planet or in some kind of separatist bubble.

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quote:

---

Judgementalism and finger-pointing is an inherent part of your system. The whole thing is shot through with it.

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quote:

---

It'd be nice to think that you can hold the views you do without being so judgemental about those who see things differently.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am not a massive fan of the military, but if someone feels that God is calling them to be a soldier, it is not for me to see inside their soul and judge.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am not a massive fan of the military, but if someone feels that God is calling them to be a soldier, it is not for me to see inside their soul and judge.

---

But there must be a few jobs or roles that you feel simply aren't possible for God to be calling people to. Perhaps bank robbing, prostitution or supplying hard drugs - if someone said to you that they were convinced God wanted them to get involved in such things, I imagine you'd 'see inside their soul and judge' that they hadn't heard rightly from God.

So IMO it's not that Steve is doing something which other Christians don't do, when he says joining the military is not compatible with being a follower of Christ; he's just drawing the line in a different place than most Christians would.

---

quote:

---

You seem to want your cake and eat it. On the one hand you rail against the controlling nature of the CofE as it was 300 years ago and on the other you complain because it is too lax and liberal and lacks credibility ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am not a massive fan of the military, but if someone feels that God is calling them to be a soldier, it is not for me to see inside their soul and judge.

---

But there must be a few jobs or roles that you feel simply aren't possible for God to be calling people to. Perhaps bank robbing, prostitution or supplying hard drugs - if someone said to you that they were convinced God wanted them to get involved in such things, I imagine you'd 'see inside their soul and judge' that they hadn't heard rightly from God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Gamaliel;

quote:

---

You seem to want your cake and eat it. On the one hand you rail against the controlling nature of the CofE as it was 300 years ago and on the other you complain because it is too lax and liberal and lacks credibility ...

---

No, I'm having it one simple way which is to complain at the improper relationship with the state which is not only the root of most of the other Anglican problems and also doesn't help the Christian cause in general....

I'm also complaining about many other manifestations of the same bad principle which compromise Christian witness on the one hand to atheists and agnostics, and on the other hand to religions like Islam which also adopt that kind of principle to the detriment of everybody.

---

quote:

---

But all of those things are illegal - there would be other things stopping them first. Joining the military is both legal and has a long history of Christians being part of it. It's an unreasonable place to draw the line.

---

So how about something which is legal but very questionable from a Christian viewpoint - say running a casino?

The line about the military is drawn first at the point of separating church and state, and is derived from that position.

IF the idea of a Christian country is accepted, then the military is rather inevitable - most of the 'long history' of military Christians comes from that, and of course would be invalid evidence if that Christian state argument is rejected.

IF the Christian state concept is rejected, then at the very least the argument for Christians in the army becomes a great deal harder to make, and the list of things any Christian soldier would be likely to be asked to do, but would feel obliged to refuse, becomes quite a long list. Anabaptists have generally decided that the NT teaching precludes joining the army; but as I said, are these days willing to allow leeway to those already in the military.

I don't see that it is at all unreasonable to draw the line there, especially given the history of (supposedly) Christian warfare including Crusades, the ECW and other 17thC 'wars of religion', and situations like Northern Ireland.

For the record my father was in the Navy in WWII in corvettes (convoy escorts); I respect and understand that choice on his part - I nevertheless now think it ultimately a mistaken decision.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm not sure what you mean, Jade, when you say that only part of the Church of England is established.

I suspect you mean the Anglican communion rather than the Church of England.

The Anglican Church in Wales is called the Church in Wales - not the 'Church of England in Wales' as I've heard it called ...



In Scotland it is the Scottish Episcopal Church.

And, of course, confusingly, the Church of Scotland - the Kirk - is the Established Church in Scotland although it isn't Episcopalian in terms of government but Presbyterian.

So yes, it is confusing ...

Anyway - my question remains to Steve Langton as to how much difference any of this makes on the ground.

If someone wants to be evangelical around here then chances are they are going to be either CofE or Pentecostal ... although there are evangelicals here among the URC and Methodists, but the evangelical Anglican parish is one of the more avowedly evangelical churches around here.

In some rural areas the Church of England IS the Church because there's not anything else around ...

So, if one lived in a village somewhere with only the parish church to attend if one wanted to attend a place of worship on a Sunday, what would one do?

I'm not a stickler for Establishment by any means - but if I lived in a village somewhere and the only options were the parish church or a Methodist chapel, say, I wouldn't automatically go to the Methodist chapel simply because it wasn't Established. I might go there for other reasons, perhaps, or I might stick with the parish church for different reasons - but I don't think Establishment or non-Establishment would affect or influence my choice in those circumstances.

If the CofE were Disestablished tomorrow I can't see what effect that would have on radical Islamists or those Muslims who want to see some kind of Caliphate or Islamic state etc etc.

They would hold those views irrespective of whether the CofE was Established or not.

In time, I suspect, Islam will become a more privatised form of religion - as indeed Christianity has become. But I don't see radical Islamists and so on de-radicalising themselves any time soon and I don't really think that any action on the part of the CofE would affect that much anyway.

I can see Islamists drawing comparisons and conclusions from the fact that the CofE is Established but that's an unfortunate part of the historical legacy. That may change in time but at the moment I don't see how the Establishment of the CofE is somehow encouraging Islamic extremists to maintain that position ...
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Jade Constable;

quote:

---

But only the Anglican church in England is established. You can't blame the problems of other parts of the Anglican Communion on that, that's nonsense. TEC in the US isn't even the biggest Christian denomination there and they have plenty of problems. You seem to categorise the RCC in the same way, even though the RCC is categorically NOT tied to the state and this has been the source of many disagreements between the RCC and governments.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Jade Constable;

quote:

---

But all of those things are illegal - there would be other things stopping them first. Joining the military is both legal and has a long history of Christians being part of it. It's an unreasonable place to draw the line.

---

So how about something which is legal but very questionable from a Christian viewpoint - say running a casino?

The line about the military is drawn first at the point of separating church and state, and is derived from that position.

IF the idea of a Christian country is accepted, then the military is rather inevitable - most of the 'long history' of military Christians comes from that, and of course would be invalid evidence if that Christian state argument is rejected.

IF the Christian state concept is rejected, then at the very least the argument for Christians in the army becomes a great deal harder to make, and the list of things any Christian soldier would be likely to be asked to do, but would feel obliged to refuse, becomes quite a long list. Anabaptists have generally decided that the NT teaching precludes joining the army; but as I said, are these days willing to allow leeway to those already in the military.

I don't see that it is at all unreasonable to draw the line there, especially given the history of (supposedly) Christian warfare including Crusades, the ECW and other 17thC 'wars of religion', and situations like Northern Ireland.

For the record my father was in the Navy in WWII in corvettes (convoy escorts); I respect and understand that choice on his part - I nevertheless now think it ultimately a mistaken decision.

---

I don't think running a casino is questionable for a Christian
 

---

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure what you mean, Jade, when you say that only part of the Church of England is established.

I suspect you mean the Anglican communion rather than the Church of England.

The Anglican Church in Wales is called the Church in Wales - not the 'Church of England in Wales' as I've heard it called ...



In Scotland it is the Scottish Episcopal Church.

And, of course, confusingly, the Church of Scotland - the Kirk - is the Established Church in Scotland although it isn't Episcopalian in terms of government but Presbyterian.

So yes, it is confusing ...

Anyway - my question remains to Steve Langton as to how much difference any of this makes on the ground.

If someone wants to be evangelical around here then chances are they are going to be either CofE or Pentecostal ... although there are evangelicals here among the URC and Methodists, but the evangelical Anglican parish is one of the more avowedly evangelical churches around here.

In some rural areas the Church of England IS the Church because there's not anything else around ...

So, if one lived in a village somewhere with only the parish church to attend if one wanted to attend a place of worship on a Sunday, what would one do?

I'm not a stickler for Establishment by any means - but if I lived in a village somewhere and the only options were the parish church or a Methodist chapel, say, I wouldn't automatically go to the Methodist chapel simply because it wasn't Established. I might go there for other reasons, perhaps, or I might stick with the parish church for different reasons - but I don't think Establishment or non-Establishment would affect or influence my choice in those circumstances.

If the CofE were Disestablished tomorrow I can't see what effect that would have on radical Islamists or those Muslims who want to see some kind of Caliphate or Islamic state etc etc.

They would hold those views irrespective of whether the CofE was Established or not.

In time, I suspect, Islam will become a more privatised form of religion - as indeed Christianity has become. But I don't see radical Islamists and so on de-radicalising themselves any time soon and I don't really think that any action on the part of the CofE would affect that much anyway.

I can see Islamists drawing comparisons and conclusions from the fact that the CofE is Established but that's an unfortunate part of the historical legacy. That may change in time but at the moment I don't see how the Establishment of the CofE is somehow encouraging Islamic extremists to maintain that position ...

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Anyway - my question remains to Steve Langton as to how much difference any of this makes on the ground.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Jade Constable;

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But only the Anglican church in England is established. You can't blame the problems of other parts of the Anglican Communion on that, that's nonsense. TEC in the US isn't even the biggest Christian denomination there and they have plenty of problems. You seem to categorise the RCC in the same way, even though the RCC is categorically NOT tied to the state and this has been the source of many disagreements between the RCC and governments.

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Although you and Gamaliel both tend to ignore it, Jade, my concern is far wider than just the CofE and its position, though Anglican establishment is certainly a pretty extreme position in theory and I'm very glad that it has been toned down over the years. The link with the state goes back to the 4thC and the assimilation of church to empire that began with Constantine and culminated in Theodosius. It has since worked out in a variety of ways.

The original 'Catholic' church (sorry, Mousethief) split into Orthodox and Roman varieties, with the Roman version in a different relationship to the state, initially kind of 'over' several successor and 'barbarian' states in Western Europe.

The Reformation brought a variety of different relationships; Anglican and Lutheran tended to national churches under national rulers - as I've said, arguably the extreme. Presbyterians (derived from Calvin's Geneva) aimed at a different relationship where the church would not be governed by the state but privileged and protected in the state; and in England 'Independents'/Congregationalists also initially aimed at a Christian state - indeed a positively Protestant state (Cromwell was an 'Independent'). English Baptists, whose 'believer's baptism' tends against the Christian country idea, were ambivalent in the 17thC and still are to some extent, as are American Baptists derived from them.

Out of the confusion of the Reformation also came, of course, the Anabaptists who realised the significance of the state/church link and broke the link.

The problems of Anglicanism go back to the RCC and the Imperial Catholic church from which the CofE was derived - for example, the structure of bishops and priests and deacons,suited to a worldly state church but rather different to the depiction of church leaders in the NT. That kind of problem, and others that arose over the years, still remain in the now disestablished branches of Anglicanism/Episcopalianism.

I won't follow that further for now - it'll get too long for this forum.

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I'm not an idiot and well-aware of church history. It would be nice if you could stop talking down to myself and Gamaliel - we may be Papist heathens to you but we're not stupid.

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The 'problems' you see are not problems at all, just symptoms of unfortunate prejudice against the RCC. Deacons, presbyters (priests) and bishops are all in the NT, and the RCC is no longer an imperial church.

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The deacon in our local RC church isn't an administrator. He is fully involved in the liturgical and pastoral life of the church, working alongside the parish priest.

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Pray tell me what the longer term beneficial effects of Anglican Disestablishment in Wales have been?

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As it is you keep reverting to Inquisitions and Crusades and so on which nobody has advocated for hundreds of years - least of all the Anglicans.

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You seem to suggest that simply because Jade and I currently worship in Anglican settings that this somehow taints us with the errors and mistakes of the past.

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I'm simply suggesting that - in the cold light of day - whatever church and system we are involved in there are inherent strengths and weaknesses. And inclination towards Erastianism and the more negative aspects of 'Constantinianism' are clearly a weakness with any kind of 'established' system.

Granted.

By the same token, I'm suggesting that a certain amount of judgementalism, other-worldliness and a degree of Pharisaisism is the corresponding vice, if you like, in churches which choose to separate.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
...so long as we remain a 'Christian' state with an established church, Muslims interpret British intervention in Islamic countries as 'crusading' even when that's far from our intent. Evidence for that proposition is readily available in all the usual news sources - how have you missed it?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
...one can argue that 'Christendom' did create the climate and conditions necessary for the wider dissemination of the Christian faith and its embedding within wider society.

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I'm not judgemental about those who criticise the CoE - I frequently agree with them, just not when they imagine that it's a totalitarian regime when it's not.

Becoming an Anabaptist is voluntary to an extent (it isn't for the children born into it for example) but leaving isn't always, not when groups like the Amish shun people for daring to disagree and leave - and people can feel like they have to stay out of guilt, or for emotional reasons. The fact is that Anabaptism is massively controlling of what its members can and cannot do, and IMO that is out of line.

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On a more practical and less spiritual note, preventing an adult from pursuing a particular career is deeply controlling and in line with abusive/cultish behaviour. Adults deserve some individual freedom of conscience.

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Say the Church of England was disestablished tomorrow. How do you envisage this feeding in to the 'crusading' point you note above, and how long do you think any changes might take regarding how Muslim-majority / officially Islamic countries see our military involvement in such countries?

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
...one can argue that 'Christendom' did create the climate and conditions necessary for the wider dissemination of the Christian faith and its embedding within wider society.

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I don't think it's a convincing argument, though. Christianity in both the pre-Constantine Roman empire and in Maoist China had managed to become thoroughly widespread despite official indifference at best and violent opposition at worst.

The evidence of history shows that 'Christendom' is not required for the 'dissemination of the Christian faith and its embedding within wider society'.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
For the record my father was in the Navy in WWII in corvettes (convoy escorts); I respect and understand that choice on his part - I nevertheless now think it ultimately a mistaken decision.

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And, at the risk of sounding like a Telegraph reader, jolly lucky for you he did make his 'mistaken' decision, because if he and others hadn't, people like you would have been among the first into the gas chambers...

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Albertus, that sounds suspiciously like the nastiest of personal attacks and has been flagged to the admins forthwith.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

Albertus, that sounds suspiciously like the nastiest of personal attacks and has been flagged to the admins forthwith.

/hosting

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The big issue here is not just "There are problems on both sides" - the issue is that one side is basically disobeying Jesus in a decidedly objective way, and its problems derive from that disobedience which is basically unnecessary.

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Originally posted by Albertus:
I intended to make the point that there is an inherent tension within a position such as Steve's, in that sometimes- as in 1939-45- the freedom to take such a position depends on other people not taking that position.

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I would be quite happy to discuss whether the establishment side is objectively disobeying Scripture;

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I'm not saying I agree with Ad Orientem but I can see the point he makes when he observes that the Pauline passages you've cited refer to pagan Rome and not to contexts where there might a Christian ruler or reasonably 'Christianised' society.

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The thing is, Steve Langton, as you well know, the CofE doesn't believe that it has two kings.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But - to a degree - and I mean to a degree and not totally - once that had happened it did make it possible for Christian run institutions - hospitals, schools, monasteries etc - to have an impact on the wider society.

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For goodness sake, Steve, Anglicanism no longer advocates the 'Divine Right of Kings'. It hasn't done so since Charles I lost his head over it.

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If I started mithering you about Anabaptists back in the 17th century making a big fuss about having hooks and eyes instead of buttons, you'd (rightly) say, 'Ah, but that was then ... it's different now.'

But by the same token you don't seem prepared to cut the same amount of slack to traditions you disagree with.

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Actually for some Anabaptists it still isn't different yet - one of the reasons I'm not very happy about the concept of 'tradition'!!! But 'now' in the 'Constantinian' traditions is also nowhere near different enough yet, and tends to have even now rather more important consequences than the difference between hooks-and-eyes and buttons, and to confuse thinking in areas where a world which includes the IRA/UVF and Al Qaeda really doesn't need the confusion.

As regards banging on about the past - an example from ... well, if you want to go into the argument itself I think there's a thread on it still running somewhere Shipboard, but I'm mentioning it here to illustrate something about how I think...

You presumably know of the 'Left Behind' books and similar with that strange idea of the 'Rapture' followed by tribulation and Antichrist. That idea is very hard to unravel just by going to Scripture texts as quoted in such books, because it's become so elaborate a concept and texts are being used plausibly but out of context. I unravelled it in the end by learning the history of the idea, seeing how it developed and where it went wrong. Understanding that helped me to put the idea in a proper context. What I was doing was what I've talked of elsewhere about reassessing tradition by Scripture - but it was a necessary part of the reassessment to look at the history of the tradition, the final development of it had got too confusing.

I'm trying to do that by my references to the past here. Not say that it's still like that, but saying "Look, this is where it came from and where it came from isn't right". Please rethink, please look again at the biblical stuff and seriously consider not only whether the tradition is good in worldly terms, but also what the Scriptural, NT-based, teaching-of-Jesus-and-the-apostles alternative is.... Get positive and focussed for the future, not vague about the past.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, I'd go along with a lot of that, Steve.

To be awkward though, I would point out that as far as Tradition goes then the kind of 'rapture'/Left Behind stuff is way beyond the pale ...



So that's another area where scripture and tradition/Tradition aren't necessarily at variance ...



On the Anglican fudge thing ... yes, absolutely. I don't dispute the 'nailing jelly to the wall' charge. It's a frustrating as well as an endearing aspect about Anglicanism.

Please don't misunderstand me in any of this. I'm not carrying a candle for Anglicanism per se. I'm well aware of its faults and the intrinsic problems with the Anglican position.

It's just that I'm not convinced that separatism - in and of itself - necessarily provides the solution. I think it provides some solutions ... but it leaves some loose ends untied.

I will have a look at your blog at some point. I'm sure it's interesting and well reasoned.

Coming back to the Left Behind thing for a moment, about 10 or 12 years ago now I attended a conference where an Orthodox and a Presbyterian speaker joined forces in an impromptu way to fend off some odd Left Behind style eschatological pronouncements that were coming 'from the floor' during a discussion session.

It was neatly and deftly done.

I suspect that had you been there on that occasion you would have felt as I did - that scripture and Tradition had come up trumps on that occasion.

Peace to you and yours.



I hope you realise that any chivvying/argumentativeness on my part on this thread isn't in any way intended maliciously but, mischievous though I can be, it's intended in a fraternal and respectful way not in a way that seeks to defame and to pull down.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
All that said, there is an issue, I think, with the whole idea of using scripture to judge/assess tradition (or Tradition) as it presupposes that there is one definitive and clearly identifiable interpretation of scripture - in shorthand terms usually 'my interpretation of scripture' in practice.

I'd suggest that interpretation is a more collective thing.

I know that Sola Scriptura is often caricatured by its critics, but the fact remains that there are a bewildering variety of views adopted by those who claim to be Sola Scriptura in their approach. Of course, there is a broad consensus too - but it's not insignificant, I don't believe, that most of this consensus can also be found in tradition/Tradition too ...


 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Gamaliel;

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I'd suggest that interpretation is a more collective thing.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
If you read Eusebius, who was writing after the great persecutions and that the time of the Constantinian settlement, you'll see how most - if not all - Christians of that time welcomed this development because they saw it as Christianity taking over the Empire which had persecuted them.

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
If you or any others have recommendations of articles or books I could read to give a balanced view then I'd be interested to check them out.

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Not read it (yet), but this looks intriguing...
 

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Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
Thanks, Garasu. I've 'Amazon Wish-listed' (that's surely a barbarous neologism!) and might try to borrow it from my local university library soon.

What about 'Pagans and Christian' by Robin Lane Fox? There are some positive reviews on Amazon.

EDIT - Oops, referenced Garasu's suggestion again by mistake...

[ 31. May 2014, 08:41: Message edited by: South Coast Kevin ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Runciman was the main man for writing about Byzantium and so on and my impression is that he took a fairly balanced view on how the Church and State operated within the Byzantine Empire, without glossing over the ugly bits.

Essentially though, what's done is done and what's past is past. There's no point in wringing our hands over what Constantine and his successors did whether good, bad or indifferent - but I agree with Steve that we need to understand and engage with the legacy of that.

The fact is, as I said at the outset, Christendom is crumbling and collapsing all around us and it behoves all of us to adopt strategies to handle that - both with the opportunities and threats that this affords.

I happen to agree that intentional forms of 'gathered' communities following the kind of voluntarist model that both Steve and your good self, South Coast Kevin, would advocate - are the way to go.

And yes, Steve, a 'collective' approach is a feature of Anabaptist practice - but it's only a feature of Anabaptist practice because it's also part of the broader and wider tradition - the Grand Tradition if you like. You can see it in the Orthodox emphasis on collegiality and conciliarity, for instance - and it's not entirely disappeared even in more Magisterial settings such as Roman Catholicism.

So, as you'll see, I'm torn to a certain extent because I do see the need for gathered, 'sectarian' style intentional communities and churches - and these are where we are all headed as Christendom dissolves - and yet at the same time I value the over-arching sense of Tradition and am concerned that might be lost or distorted at a micro, sectarian level.

Perhaps I ought to explain that I spent 18 years in a very full-on independent charismatic evangelical network followed by six years in a mildly charismatic and more moderate Baptist church with some 'emergent' leanings - and some Vineyard leanings too, come to that ...

So I have had plenty of experience of more 'sectarian' models of church as well as plenty of exposure to Anglican churches and regular contact with RCs and Orthodox - as well as to the various strands of non-conformist churches.

So I have experienced a lot of things from the inside as a participant as well as an observer.

My aim isn't to diss Anabaptism - far from it - it's simply to suggest and point out that there are difficulties and intrinsic dangers in that system just as there are with what you might call the 'Christendom' churches.

That's the nub of the point I'm making. It's an academic one to an extent because a lot of the more traditional churches are in meltdown - and around here it's the non-conformist churches that seem to be in danger of being the first to go.

I have no doubt that in 20 to 30 years time the CofE, the RCs and all the older, historic churches will be a lot leaner and fitter than they are now - and operating on a models that would appear familiar to anyone currently involved in Baptist, Anabaptist or other independent settings.

What I wouldn't want to see them lose, though, is that sense of 'catholicity' which I think can - I said CAN - be lost or distorted to a certain extent if we all hive off into separatist huddles.

How we balance and hold these things in tension is what interests me.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm not sure I have any specific recommendations on books/articles etc that give a more 'balanced' view - South Coast Kevin, but one suggestion would be - and I'm sure you do this already - to read material that doesn't necessarily come from one's own perspective.

Of course, if one reads RC or Orthodox accounts of the Constantianian period, for instance, you are going to get a very different view to that found in publications by people coming from an Anabaptist position or a revivalist one or an evangelical Protestant one per se. But that's no bad thing. It's a case of weighing each up against the other.

As I'd like to think we do here on the Ship.


 

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Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 

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Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
What about 'Pagans and Christian' by Robin Lane Fox?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure I have any specific recommendations on books/articles etc that give a more 'balanced' view - South Coast Kevin, but one suggestion would be - and I'm sure you do this already - to read material that doesn't necessarily come from one's own perspective.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:


I have no doubt that in 20 to 30 years time the CofE, the RCs and all the older, historic churches will be a lot leaner and fitter than they are now - and operating on a models that would appear familiar to anyone currently involved in Baptist, Anabaptist or other independent settings.

What I wouldn't want to see them lose, though, is that sense of 'catholicity' which I think can - I said CAN - be lost or distorted to a certain extent if we all hive off into separatist huddles.

How we balance and hold these things in tension is what interests me.

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Leaner, yes, but fitter? What do you mean? Do you imagine the CofE presenting itself largely as a collection of independent house church congregations? How would this work with the 'catholicity' thing?

The Methodists and the URC are likely to end up reabsorbed back in to the CofE, but their actual numbers will be so small as to make little difference. Independent suburban evangelical groups and urban Pentecostals will continue to do their own thing because the appeal of ecumenicalism with rapidly declining historical churches will have vanished, even if they experience some decline themselves.

As for the Anabaptists, perhaps they ought to give up on being a very isolated voice in the wilderness, and go and start a community somewhere instead. It's worked for the Amish, whose numbers have grown considerably since the early 20th c. They're admired too, although from afar.

[ 31. May 2014, 12:54: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'm supposed to be taking a break ... but to respond quickly ...

'Leaner and fitter' is simply an aphoristic statement. People take me far too literally on these Boards.

I'm not sure how I envisage the CofE operating in 20 or 30 years time but I think it will be 'leaner' - as for whether it will be 'fitter' that's another issue. I suspect Welby will rationalise things to some extent and there'll be some pain and some cuts.

As for the Amish - well, they may well have grown since the early 20th century but from what I can gather there are losing a lot of their young people to the newer, funkier 'non-denominational' charismatic/evangelical scene in the USA.

They don't really have a presence here in the UK. There are some Mennonite congregations here - and there used to be a Shipmate - I've forgotten their name - who was involved with one in the London area.

Apologies for being crude but my impression of Anabaptism in the UK - as opposed to the more 'mainstream' Baptists - is that it's had it's head up its backside for some time and so can't properly see the light of day.

It ought to remove its head from its own arse and begin to engage with the wider society. I suspect this has begun to happen and the various Anabaptist conferences and networks that Steve Langton has alluded to is part of that process.

Looking ahead, though, I'm more concerned about the viability of the Methodists and the URC than I am about the Church of England. That doesn't mean that there are grounds for complacency ...

It's often said that the CofE is actually far more congregational than it recognises itself to be, and I don't doubt that ... I think you can see that to an extent with both the trendy-wendy evangelical parishes and with the avowedly 'Catholic' ones ... at a parish level it's pretty much driven by selective choice and market forces these days.

In some rural areas it's still the default option but with ageing congregations.

Ask me in 20 or 30 years time ...


 

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Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
My impression of Anabaptism in the UK - as opposed to the more 'mainstream' Baptists - is that it's had it's head up its backside for some time and so can't properly see the light of day.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:


I have no doubt that in 20 to 30 years time the CofE, the RCs and all the older, historic churches will be a lot leaner and fitter than they are now - and operating on a models that would appear familiar to anyone currently involved in Baptist, Anabaptist or other independent settings.

What I wouldn't want to see them lose, though, is that sense of 'catholicity' which I think can - I said CAN - be lost or distorted to a certain extent if we all hive off into separatist huddles.

How we balance and hold these things in tension is what interests me.

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Leaner, yes, but fitter? What do you mean? Do you imagine the CofE presenting itself largely as a collection of independent house church congregations? How would this work with the 'catholicity' thing?

The Methodists and the URC are likely to end up reabsorbed back in to the CofE, but their actual numbers will be so small as to make little difference. Independent suburban evangelical groups and urban Pentecostals will continue to do their own thing because the appeal of ecumenicalism with rapidly declining historical churches will have vanished, even if they experience some decline themselves.

As for the Anabaptists, perhaps they ought to give up on being a very isolated voice in the wilderness, and go and start a community somewhere instead. It's worked for the Amish, whose numbers have grown considerably since the early 20th c. They're admired too, although from afar.

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