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Source: (consider it) Thread: Separatism, smugness and shit-storms
Steve Langton
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From an earlier post by myself;
quote:
I would be quite happy to discuss whether the establishment side is objectively disobeying Scripture;
I think that covers the point; bring on the discussion....

by Gamaliel;
quote:
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.
I see his point too; and I must get round to the more detailed answer thereof. Briefly I don't think there is NT teaching for that alternative situation because it doesn't in fact make that kind of difference. The theology of new birth and personal faith means that you can't guarantee such a society forever and that you shouldn't try to institutionalise it because human beings and their legal institutions simply don't have the necessary power. Rather, it is when Christianity is relatively widespread that it is most important to avoid that legal 'fixing' of the faith and the considerable temptations/confusions that result.

The international nature of the Church also raises serious questions about 'establishing' or similar in any one country or empire.

going way back, Gamaliel commented;
quote:
The thing is, Steve Langton, as you well know, the CofE doesn't believe that it has two kings.
My point there, which I still think essentially valid, is that the CofE does have the kind of entanglement with the state that gives said worldly state improper authority in the Church's affairs. And kings here and elsewhere have frequently exceeded their authority when thus set over a church.

In addition...
There has definitely been a strand in Anglicanism, and in the RCC since at least Charlemagne, which has tried to portray earthly kings, Holy Roman Emperors, etc., as occupying a kind of 'second David' role. Last year I explored this in my blog, posting on Apr 20 2013 an item in my 'But Seriously' thread entitled "Divine right - or wrong- of kings", making the case that the 'second David' position is inapplicable to ANY earthly king. I've not quite mastered establishing 'links' from the Ship, but 'stevesfreechurchblog' will get you there.

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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
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.

Sorry to further harangue you after you've graciously stepped back from your initial comment, but I'd take issue even with what you've said above. According to Tertullian, apparently writing somewhere around 200-215 AD, the Christians, without any state blessing, had spread through every part of Roman society such that they had 'left nothing to you but the temples of your gods'.

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Gamaliel
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Sure, I'm not disputing that, South Coast Kevin. All I'm saying is that given the situation that Tertullian describes there, Christianity having permeated the Roman Empire pretty extensively, then it had achieved the kind of critical mass necessary for various Emperors to 'recognise' it or 'establish' it as the official religion of the Empire.

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.

Of course, there were unpleasant side-effects to that - as we all agree.

I'm not disputing that.

Sure, Christianity spread despite persecutions and without State aid. But equally, one could argue that once it was the 'official' religion of the Empire alongside the nefarious effects - and there were certainly plenty of those - there were also opportunities - such as wider societal influence, the establishment of schools, hospitals, monasteries and so on.

There were good and bad aspects to Christendom. It wasn't a black-and-white all was evil nor all was sweetness and light thing.

With freedom from persecution came responsibility - that responsibility wasn't always exercised wisely.

There are some reasonably balanced accounts of all of this - Shippies may correct me if I'm wrong but Runciman's books on the subject are fairly balanced, I believe, if rather old-fashioned now.

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Gamaliel
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(Sighs)

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.

Sure, you'll get a particular type of Anglican making a big deal about 'King Charles, King and Martyr' and so on ... but I don't see the CofE as a whole rallying around that particular issue any time soon.

You keep banging on about how things were rather than how they ARE.

We've all changed. Anglicans have changed, RCs have changed, Anabaptists have changed. All of us.

On the issue of 'new birth' and personal faith and so on - yes, absolutely, I'm all for that. I don't think anything I've posted here has suggested otherwise. I don't think that those who do make a big deal about having a State Church or an Established Church are suggesting as much to the detriment of an individual and personal response to faith - 'God has no grandchildren' as it were.

In case you hadn't noticed, even if someone is RC or Orthodox there's still an emphasis on people owning and appropriating faith for themselves - even if this isn't articulated in the kind of language that is in evangelical or 'born again' circles.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am all for there being intentional and gathered churches - in many ways, as Christendom crumbles, that's effectively what we are ending up with, even with the historic Churches. That process is well advanced. There's no reversing the decline of Christendom now.

I said at the outset that we are all headed into voluntarist and intentional territory. All of us.

Heck, even Ad Orientem acknowledged that. He felt that is was 'faithful remnant' time.

I have said time and time again that simply by 'establishing' a church or designating Christianity the 'official' religion doesn't in and of itself make a society completely Christianised. At best, what it can do is embed a certain level of Christian values in a society and create a platform for the faith in the public arena.

At worst, as we would all of us agree I think, it can lead to the kind of Erastianism and chauvinism, persecution and so on that you are rightly railing about.

But as things are now, Elizabeth II isn't Charles I isn't Elizabeth I, isn't Charlemagne.

Sure, so there was all that malarkey about 'second Davids' and what have you back in the 8th and 9th centuries and so on. But that was then and this is now.

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.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You can't bang on and on about the 'two kings' thing in relation to Anglicanism - when Anglicans no longer go in for that - if indeed they ever did - and yet apply completely different criteria to your own tradition.

It comes across as petty, judgemental and pernickety - if not outright Pharisaical.

I know you don't intend it that way but it's as if there's one rule for the tradition you favour and another one for everyone else.

It's strawman after strawman, false dichotomy after false dichotomy. Read.my.lips. Anglicans don't believe in the Divine Right of Kings anymore. Roman Catholics don't eat babies for breakfast.

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Steve Langton
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
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.
If only Anglicans were clear on anything now; phrases about 'trying to nail jelly to walls' are coming to mind for some reason....

Please read the blog post anyway, it covers some interesting ground.

There's a lot of stuff Anglicans (most of them) don't do any more but there is still this kind of emotive charge hanging around - one thing I'm trying to do is clear air and clarify things. There are a lot of things which aren't done any more, but for vague and fuzzy and merely expedient reasons rather than from a more positive approach that says "The Scripture never taught that - but it does teach THIS". And I'm trying to get that idea through as well.

Again by G;
quote:
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.

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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Gamaliel
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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 ...

[Big Grin]

So that's another area where scripture and tradition/Tradition aren't necessarily at variance ...

[Biased]

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.

[Votive]

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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Gamaliel
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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 ...

[Biased]

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Let us with a gladsome mind
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http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Steve Langton
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
I'd suggest that interpretation is a more collective thing.
Brief because it's getting late and I may not be 'back aboard' for a couple of days, but that sounds a very Anabaptist thought to me....
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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
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.

Oh yes, and I've got little doubt that I would have welcomed it too. But looking back, we obviously have the benefit of hindsight, and as far as I can tell, the bad far outweighs the good.

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. I've just looked up Steven Runciman's books on Amazon and they just seem to list books about the Crusades and that time period, nothing about the 4th century period when Christianity 'conquered' the Roman empire.

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Garasu
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quote:
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.

Not read it (yet), but this looks intriguing...

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South Coast Kevin
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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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Gamaliel
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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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Gamaliel
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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.

[Biased]

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http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Garasu
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
What about 'Pagans and Christian' by Robin Lane Fox?

I'm pretty sure I had a go at reading that back in the early 90s and failed miserably to get into it... I've possibly got a bit more background historical reading under my belt since then so might make a better fist of it now...

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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
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.

Indeed, indeed... And I sure don't do it as much as I should!

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
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.

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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Gamaliel
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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 ...

[Biased]

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Garasu
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quote:
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.

Not exactly what I'd be recognising... If I have a criticism of Anabaptism in the UK as I've experienced it, it's that it has a theological emphasis on the role of the community while failing to develop actual communities (Wood Green Mennonites (which is the only actual Anabaptist church in the UK of which I'm aware) excepted...

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Pomona
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
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.

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.

People admire the Amish because they don't know anything about them beyond the beards and horse-drawn carts. I certainly don't admire them, given their restrictions on reading the Bible amongst Amish laity, the very high rates of genetic disorders and birth defects due to inbreeding, and the horrific and cruel puppy mills that give many Amish an income.

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SvitlanaV2
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Gamaliel

I've come across an interesting Anabaptist website which seems focused on spreading awareness of their approach, but I've never seen or heard of any actual Anabaptist congregations. I'm sure there are a handful, but it must be extremely hard for such a tiny group to aim to have an influence on a national level. I once met a Mennonite lady from the Ship (probably the same person you referred to), and it sounds as if the Mennonites have the same problem: they want to have an influence, but these days it's hard for such a small religious group to acquire visibility, and they don't seem to evangelise.

The Methodists and the URC have closed far more churches since the mid-20th c. than other denominations, and you can't keep doing that without adding to the reduction in membership. They'll both disappear as independent denominations; one sociologist gives the Methodist Church until 2031.

For some Methodists a merger with the CofE has been a long-term goal anyway, but I've been told that the CofE has never been all that keen. If the CofE's turning congregational, though, then I can't see why there should be a problem.

[ 31. May 2014, 20:28: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Gamaliel
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Again, SvitlanaV2, you are taking me too literally. The CofE is said to be increasingly 'congregational' to all intents and purposes - in the way that things happen on the ground - but it is still an Episcopal system and therein lies the rub when it comes to reunion with the Methodists.

I'm sure this could be resolved in time, though.

The last time the issue of a reunion came up it was kibboshed on the Anglican side by an unholy alliance - if you like - between the Anglo-Catholics on the one hand - who were sniffy about the validity of Methodist orders, and by the evangelicals on the other who felt that the Methodists were way too liberal ...

That said, there are some local ecumenical partnerships between Anglicans and Methodists that are working quite well.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some kind of Methodist/Anglican merger or URC/Methodist/Anglican merger at some point mid-century - if not before.

The Church of South India has always been held up as an ecumenical model - but for whatever reason it has never been replicated elsewhere as far as I know.

As for the Mennonites, I suspect the problem they'd have in terms of getting congregations off the ground in the UK is that they're entering a declining - but already over-crowded market.

What are they offering, for instance, that the Baptists aren't or that independent evangelical groups like the FIEC or that charismatic evangelical groups like New Frontiers and the Vineyard aren't?

Other than a particular emphasis on pacifism and simplicity of life - all of which are attractive qualities of course ...

The Quakers offer all of that and it's not as if they are doing brilliantly numerically. The last I heard - and someone will correct me if I'm wrong - there were only about 20,000 Quakers in the UK with perhaps another 8,000 people on the periphery or who attend as fellow-travellers if not fully signed-up Friends.

One would assume that with the current zeitgeist the Quakers would be doing rather better than that ...

All that said, I can see the Anabaptists acting as some kind of ginger-group or conscience-pricking gadfly for the rest of us. I don't have a problem with their principles at all. The thing that worries me is the thing that Jade Constable has identified - that the separatist tendency could lead to a withdrawal from wider society with all the concommitant damage that this causes - as Jade has identified in the case of the Amish in the US.

Of course, not all Mennonites and Anabaptists go around in buggies and wear black and funny hats (and we all thought it was only Orthodox priest who did that!) - and I'd certainly be interested in Anabaptist publications, conferences and discussion groups etc. I think they've got a lot to say and a lot to contribute.

It's just that their particular model of 'separation' - as it has been articulated and worked out so far - just doesn't appeal to me in the least.

I'm all for 'intentional' communities. But theirs ain't one I'm going to be in a hurry to join.

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Gamaliel
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Anyway, Steve Langton is going to be away for a few days and he can contribute on the issues facing Anabaptism in the UK. I'd be interested to hear him on that and to read his blog.

But I really must stay away myself for a few days by way of penance for some of the daft things I've said and done here recently.

I would appreciate it if no-one post any further questions for me for a few days lest I lurk and get tempted to respond.

I will be back but I need to get my head together so's I don't make similar mistakes to those I've made on other threads recently.

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Steve Langton
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
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.

by SvitlanaV2;
quote:
I've come across an interesting Anabaptist website which seems focused on spreading awareness of their approach, but I've never seen or heard of any actual Anabaptist congregations. I'm sure there are a handful, but it must be extremely hard for such a tiny group to aim to have an influence on a national level.
I have mentioned this before - including upthread here - but here goes again...

Here in the UK the Mennonites have taken a conscious decision not to add yet another denomination to an already rather confusing UK. They've also recognised that quite a bit of traditional Mennonite practice is just that - traditions which don't necessarily mean much in a modern situation.

Instead, they established a Mennonite Centre - originally in London, and associated with Wood Green, one of the few Mennonite Churches in the UK. Recently the Centre has moved to Birmingham and I'm sure Google will help you find it. The Centre's aim is to bring the really key Anabaptist thought and ideas to - well, anyone interested.

This aim has been carried out in various ways. Workshops have been held for many years, particularly while Alan and Ellie Kreider were running the Centre, and there is also a loose confederation of interested groups, which also has something of a life of its own as the 'Anabaptist Network' - again, use Google....

There are I think three actual Mennonite congregations, and possibly another will be formed around the new Centre. There are no Amish groups, but certainly one Hutterite 'colony', possibly two; the one I'm certain of originated in refugees from Hitler's Germany.

But there are many congregations significantly influenced by Anabaptist ideas, and as Gamaliel knows, Paternoster (originally associated with the UK's homegrown Anabaptists, the Open Brethren, have published a series of books entitled 'After Christendom' largely based on Anabaptist ideas, but again not to establish a fresh denomination, more to help UK Christians in general cope with the 'after Christendom' situation.

There are a scattering of other books from an Anabaptist perspective published in the UK (if you get it, Ellie Kreider's book on Communion is pretty good); but the main source of such literature is the American Mennonite publishers such as Herald Press. Shopping in Kindle store will find you plenty.

As I've previously mentioned, I'm personally involved in one of the Network's local groups, in Greater Manchester, meeting monthly except in August usually at the Friends' Meeting House, Station Road, Cheadle Hulme, Stockport (regular trains from Crewe, Gamaliel). Most English Shipmates will find a group fairly close.

We are very outgoing, and not as inward-turned and separatist as Gamaliel for some reason seems to believe....

For info on the 'traditional' US and Canadian groups, 'The Mennonite Magazine' and its Canadian equivalent can be found online. Oh, and even the Amish have a website...

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

There are some local ecumenical partnerships between Anglicans and Methodists that are working quite well.

Indeed. Local Ecumenical Partnerships are all the rage. But it doesn't make sense to promote the CofE as just the same as everyone else, if its structures are still making things difficult. Still, as you imply, the time will come when the effort to defend those structures will slacken.

quote:
I'd certainly be interested in Anabaptist publications, conferences and discussion groups etc. I think they've got a lot to say and a lot to contribute.

It's just that their particular model of 'separation' - as it has been articulated and worked out so far - just doesn't appeal to me in the least.

I wonder if there will still be enough of them to hold conferences and produce important publications in the future, though? There's a limit to what you can do if you just don't have the people.

quote:
The thing that worries me is the thing that Jade Constable has identified - that the separatist tendency could lead to a withdrawal from wider society with all the concommitant damage that this causes - as Jade has identified in the case of the Amish in the US.

The problem these days is that since evangelism is such a thankless and unappealing affair, and mainstream churches are largely resigned to losing their young people, almost the only way for a church movement to grow and to ensure a continued identity and solid presence is by withdrawing from society to a certain extent. The Amish have taken it to an extreme, but as I said, it's worked for them. Others try to create a similar effect but without segregating themselves quite so wholeheartedly - which would be difficult in the UK anyway. (Of course, certain ethnic minorities communities have been accused of doing so! But the demographic issues are quite different.)

If the Amish had remained alongside everyone else but just pursuing a slightly more ascetic lifestyle, writing serious books and doing serious theology for the benefit of the most high-minded Anglicans, RCs and Methodists they'd probably be a shrinking and largely ignored (but no doubt respected) movement by now. It's a sad thing to say, but it seems to be true.

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Steve Langton
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by Jade Constable;
quote:
People admire the Amish because they don't know anything about them beyond the beards and horse-drawn carts. I certainly don't admire them, given their restrictions on reading the Bible amongst Amish laity, the very high rates of genetic disorders and birth defects due to inbreeding, and the horrific and cruel puppy mills that give many Amish an income.
Oddly, I mostly agree with that (and by the way, many books featuring Amish - and films like 'Witness' - are rather stereotypical and don't represent the realities of Amish life).

I wasn't aware of the 'puppy mills', so no comment on that.

But the fact remains that many of these faults arise from the isolation of having been persecuted communities; and I think at least they deserve credit for standing out against that persecution, which was mostly by state churches, Catholic, Protestant and occasionally Orthodox.

It should also be said that there isn't really one single 'Amish' group - there is variety even among them, and increasing openness to the world among many.

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SvitlanaV2
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Steve Langton

Thanks for that information. I'd be interested to learn more about the group that meets in Brum, so I'll have a Google. I did hear a bit about the Mennonites in London from the lady I mentioned above.

Gamaliel

I didn't read your previous post in time! Don't feel you have to respond. Sometimes one is mainly just thinking aloud. I know your position on most of these matters already, so we're mostly chewing the cud here.

[ 31. May 2014, 21:37: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Steve Langton
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SvitlanaV2 - check out what I posted just before your own last....
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Steve Langton
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Pausing in posts while we all catch up with the last few....
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Pomona
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Most of my encounters with Anabaptists have either been on this board or at SCM events due to some being involved with Fellowship of Reconciliation, our sister organisation. SCM also does a lot of protesting of nuclear arms bases, which Anabaptists support although I don't think very many come along to the protests. If it wasn't for my rather nerdy faith and being interested in left-wing Christian groups and places for disagreement like SoF, I would never have come into contact with any. Certainly I don't see much contact between Anabaptists and other Protestants in the UK who would share many of their views.

I realise Anglicanism can seem incredibly worldly, but I am concerned by going the other way, and using holiness as a velvet rope to keep believers away from the very people who need contact with God's people the most.

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Gamaliel
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Sorry, I will respond quickly ...

Yes, I would certainly be interested in attending Anabaptist Network discussions and events - and thanks for the heads-up on Cheadle Hulme, Steve.

And yes, I am aware of the Paternoster books on Post-Christendom but, I'm afraid, as I've mentioned before, I have been singularly unimpressed. I went to them at a time when I was more 'Anabaptist' in my approach than I am now, hoping to find direction, help and sustenance.

I found no such thing. All I found was some questionable history, some broad-brush condemnations of 'Constantinianism' and some anally-retentive pernicketiness about 'militaristic' aspects such as cubs and scouts and the way that flags and sometimes monuments to military heroes are displayed in some parish churches and cathedrals.

It came across to me as po-faced Puritanism of the worst kind, sour, mean-spirited and, frankly, in danger of disappearing up its own backside.

I hope it wasn't representative of the movement/s as a whole ... I'm sure the Mennonite/Hutterite axis has a lot to teach us. I remember reading something by Nigel Wright, former President of the Baptist Union to the effect that encounters with a Hutterite community somewhere here in the UK had effectively re-converted him to his own Baptist heritage ... he had been tempted to head off in a more 'restorationist' direction.

I found that an interesting observation and reflection.

I'm sure Anabaptism is changing and adapting just as everyone else are - but so far, in terms of practical help for the post-Christendom setting into which we are all heading, I haven't found any of the material I've seen of very much value.

I've come across Noel Moules and his concept of 'shalom' and his - sadly now defunct, I think - Workshop course was strongly influenced by Anabaptist principles. Some of that material was very good indeed.

But, for whatever reason, I've not been that impressed with the rest of what I've seen/heard.

I used to joke that I'd love to be some kind of 'High Church Anabaptist'. Which probably means I ought to go off and become a monk ...

[Biased]

I'm not sure my wife and kids would be too keen on that idea.

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The problem these days is that since evangelism is such a thankless and unappealing affair, and mainstream churches are largely resigned to losing their young people

I was under the impression that your encounters with evangelicals were largely third hand .. that said, I'm not sure the Mennonites/Amish have managed to ..

quote:
ensure a continued identity and solid presence is by withdrawing from society to a certain extent. The Amish have taken it to an extreme, but as I said, it's worked for them.
It's not worked to any particular extent (apart from creating a niche as a kind of charismatic megafauna equivalent in protestantism), they are subject to the same kinds of pressures (losing young people, aging movement etc) in a more extreme form.
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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I was under the impression that your encounters with evangelicals were largely third hand.

FWIW, I'm the secretary for my local Churches Together network, which includes some evangelical churches, and I do attend evangelical churches occasionally. I also have committed Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists in my extended family, some of whom are or have been preachers (although they don't live in England, which is the country I'm talking about here).

I'm not an insider regarding the evangelical suburban heartlands with which you might be familiar (although I have visited some churches of that type), and I don't deny that some individual churches, evangelical or otherwise, are likely to be seriously focused on evangelism. But most English churches aren't like that, nor are most Christians.

A general loss of confidence regarding evangelism is something that many qualified commentators (such as this one) have noted, so it's not something that I in my ignorance have just made up. If your church is very different, you should be very grateful for that and not assume that it represents the norm!

quote:
[The Amish] are subject to the same kinds of pressures (losing young people, aging movement etc) in a more extreme form.
I'm sure they experience the same pressures to some degree, and falling away must be a much more dramatic affair for them than it would be for many other Christians. Yet they've apparently grown from about 5000 individuals in 1900 to 250,000 in 2010 according to this video at about 14.35 mins. The video notes that they've grown due to retention and high birth rates.

Of course, I don't really expect English Anabaptists to take themselves off to establish a self-sufficient closed community in the Scottish Highlands, or an abandoned Italian village, or wherever.

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Steve Langton
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I have had to take a few days unexpected break from ‘online’ while I wait to meet with my computer mentor to sort out an online security issue. I’ve prepared a few thoughts to shove straight out as soon as I get back, after which I’ll catch up with what’s been happening in my absence…

First I noticed a post by Jade Constable referring to a ‘silken rope’ supposedly used to ‘keep people away’; I’m not sure what that’s about, I’ll have an early look at it when back online, but don’t be surprised if I end up asking for clarification….

Next, a bit of a fresh thought for this thread. Jesus prayed, in what has become a classic text of the ecumenical movement, that his followers might all be ‘one’. So here’s a thought; how does one meaningfully ‘unite’ say, English state church Anglicans with say, Swedish state church Lutherans, without actually uniting the states themselves – a situation of which there seems little prospect! And how, if the varying interests of those states put them at enmity, does one avoid the situation of Jesus’ people not only being far from ‘one’, but possibly even ending up at war with each other, for entirely worldly reasons (WWI anybody – Anglican England v a Lutheran Kaiser?)? (And as far as I can see, Anglicans and Lutherans have comparatively little religious disagreement – more varied state Christianities could make the matter even worse….)

(My computer’s dictionary for once came up with a spelling/grammar objection I rather agree with – it doesn’t like ‘Christianities’ plural – nor should we… but again, with state churches how can we avoid that situation?)

And then there’s another question, which I’ve already asked in a way on various threads Shipboard – how do you do “being a ‘Christian state’” without putting your fellow-Christians at risk in an ‘enemy’ non-Christian state?

I submit that these are not trivial questions; nor can they be any kind of easy for advocates of state churches – or easy for those who aren’t in a rush to break a state church link and/or don’t think such a link important….

Actually I recently covered this too in my infamous stevesfreechurchblog, in a post dated 20 Feb 2014 and entitled ‘Rethinking ecumenism’ which concluded not only that state churches are a major barrier to ecumenism, but also that state churches and ‘Christian country’ thinking have been responsible in the first place for many unnecessary differences between the churches. To save overloading the Ship, go check it out….

Moving on – I have mentioned that I chose the Anabaptist way as a result of considering the Troubles in Ulster. Can I clarify a point about that…. Before the Troubles kicked off I believed in freedom of religion and already had at least serious questions about the idea of an established church. However, those ideas were incoherent and confused, and they were not an integral part of my Christian faith – on the contrary, they came from secular liberalism. There was a degree of tension between my position as a Christian and my belief in freedom of religion.

Adopting Anabaptist principles meant that instead of my views on church and state coming from an institutional church or from an essentially unChristian source, I had a view integrally based on biblical teaching about the nature of church and state and the relationship between them. The Anabaptist view is not a claim for human rights against the state – rather it is a position that I will believe and do right whatever the state says, and risk martyrdom if the state objects to my beliefs. But emphatically the Anabaptist position is that it is wrong for me to impose my beliefs on others in the state, and a faith that Christianity does not need any privileged position in the state because we serve Jesus the Messiah who has all power and authority in heaven and on earth.

A couple of bits and pieces both from Jade C comments;
‘controlling’ – short of sending in the tanks, I don’t know of much in our culture that is anywhere near as controlling as ‘political correctness’….

Jade C also didn’t see the problem with a Christian being a casino manager; does she not understand the massive disconnect between the philosophy of chance on which the casino is based and the philosophy of theism and providence on which Christianity (even Anglicanism) is based? [Mind you, the CofE has been dubiously ready to accept lottery money….]

Yes, Gamaliel, the ‘After Christendom’ series is uneven, to say the least. I was particularly disappointed by the ‘Youth Work…’ volume, which spent too much time on general issues of youth work and not enough on distinctive Anabaptist possibilities. For me the Anabaptist model offers young people a distinctive option which is not ‘The Establishment’ in the broader sense, but a kind of rebellion/ nonconformity very much ‘with a cause’. Having said that I wasn’t much aware of the ‘po-faced Puritanism’ you allege, and as a 1960s student I’m not that much of a Puritan myself (I was certainly NOT Mary Whitehouse’s greatest fan!). I think for you and me the volumes are treading what to us is familiar ground and will not seem so revolutionary – I know quite a few people to whom the whole theme is new and who have found several of the series quite challenging.

Yes, Chris Stiles, the Amish have currently got problems as you suggest.

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Pomona
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Erm yeah, thanks for talking about me as if I'm not here or am stupid. The 'velvet rope' I mentioned was the velvet rope of holiness, used to keep the nastiness of the world at bay when it is in fact the world that needs us.

I see zero issue with a Christian being a casino manager - gambling is just fun. I have often thought that if I married, I would elope to Vegas and would have absolutely no hesitation in having a flutter in the casinos - the free margaritas would only make it better! The idea that gambling is wrong because it's based on chance and not Providence is a nasty po-faced bit of sub-Calvinist bollocks. Since when was gambling incompatible with Christianity? There's no 'thou shalt not gamble' in the Ten Commandments and nothing about it in the historic creeds of the Church.

'Political correctness' is just reactionary nonsense cooked up by the right-leaning press - in reality, it's just treating people as decent human beings and being sensitive to their needs. Why on Earth that is apparently un-Christian, I do not know.

Re Anglicans and Lutherans, you are aware of the Porvoo Communion? Anglicans and Lutherans have been united for a long time, and state churches have not stopped this.

[ 03. June 2014, 21:33: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]

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Steve Langton
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by Jade Constable;
quote:
The 'velvet rope' I mentioned was the velvet rope of holiness, used to keep the nastiness of the world at bay when it is in fact the world that needs us.
Yes, got that now. Wasn't able to sort it out when I first read it because I had to go offline rather urgently because of those security issues. Thoughts on the subject being worked on....

by Jade Constable;
quote:
it's (political correctness) just treating people as decent human beings and being sensitive to their needs.
No problem with that; but the PC thing does often go way beyond that.

by Jade Constable;
quote:
Re Anglicans and Lutherans, you are aware of the Porvoo Communion? Anglicans and Lutherans have been united for a long time, and state churches have not stopped this.

No I wasn't aware of the Porvoo Communion; will check it out further. On what I've seen so far, it's not unity as I would envisage it, and doesn't invalidate my point, but that would be quite a big discussion....

On the gambling thing that was a tangent and probably needs another thread to discuss it, rather than letting the issue clutter this thread; but I'm still worried you don't see it as a problem....

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Pomona
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Luckily for me, my view on Christianity and gambling is my business alone, not yours.

How exactly does 'PC' go too far?

It might be an idea to be aware of things like Porvoo before commenting on how Anglicans and Lutherans have no unity...

[ 04. June 2014, 13:53: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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Gamaliel
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I think, Steve, with the greatest respect, that on the issue of Anglican/Swedish Lutheran relations you are - as it were - over-egging the pudding as far as the 'State Church' aspect goes.

As far as I understand it, the agreement between the Anglicans and the Swedish Lutherans, for example, is along the lines of them being 'sister churches' and recognising one another's orders. I know an Anglican priest who is married to a Swede and was, I think, actually ordained when he lived there ... if I've got the right end of the stick.

It's not an exact analogy, but a Greek Orthodox priest could officiate in a Russian Orthodox Church - and vice-versa - provided whatever protocols exist there are observed. So, although there are jurisdictional spats and issues between the various autocephalous Orthodox Churches, in practice they can all fellowship in one another's churches and ministry is, in theory at least, interchangeable.

No Orthodox Christian would believe that, say, Romania and Bulgaria have to share the same secular government in order for Romanian Orthodox and Bulgarian Orthodox to participate in one another's churches.

So why should it be required for the UK and Sweden to have some kind of political union in order for Anglican and Swedish Lutherans to co-celebrate etc?

I don't get your objection. I know American priests who are parish priests here in England and who would be TEC priests back in the UK. That doesn't mean that Britain and the USA should share the same political system.

[Confused]

You are taking the Church and State connection further than any Anglican I know does.

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Pomona
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think, Steve, with the greatest respect, that on the issue of Anglican/Swedish Lutheran relations you are - as it were - over-egging the pudding as far as the 'State Church' aspect goes.

As far as I understand it, the agreement between the Anglicans and the Swedish Lutherans, for example, is along the lines of them being 'sister churches' and recognising one another's orders. I know an Anglican priest who is married to a Swede and was, I think, actually ordained when he lived there ... if I've got the right end of the stick.

It's not an exact analogy, but a Greek Orthodox priest could officiate in a Russian Orthodox Church - and vice-versa - provided whatever protocols exist there are observed. So, although there are jurisdictional spats and issues between the various autocephalous Orthodox Churches, in practice they can all fellowship in one another's churches and ministry is, in theory at least, interchangeable.

No Orthodox Christian would believe that, say, Romania and Bulgaria have to share the same secular government in order for Romanian Orthodox and Bulgarian Orthodox to participate in one another's churches.

So why should it be required for the UK and Sweden to have some kind of political union in order for Anglican and Swedish Lutherans to co-celebrate etc?

I don't get your objection. I know American priests who are parish priests here in England and who would be TEC priests back in the UK. That doesn't mean that Britain and the USA should share the same political system.

[Confused]

You are taking the Church and State connection further than any Anglican I know does.

Indeed, ordinands at some CoE training colleges can do an overseas placement in Lutheran churches/cathedrals. The state church issue doesn't affect Lutheran/Anglican unity at all.

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Gee D
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quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:


Re Anglicans and Lutherans, you are aware of the Porvoo Communion? Anglicans and Lutherans have been united for a long time, and state churches have not stopped this.

Not united, but in full communion - and also in relations between some Lutherans in the US and Canada and churches in the Anglican Communion.. Sadly not here; I can't speak of South Aust or Queensland, where the proportion of Lutherans is higher, but in NSW and Vict the contact is limited to both being members of the Council of Churches.

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Gamaliel
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I'm wondering what part - if any - the Establishment issue played in Anglican/Methodist dialogue over reunion?

This has been considered twice now, to my knowledge and been kibboshed by both Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals on the Anglican side - not for Establishment reasons. There was recent flurry that discussions might resume but this seems to have died a death.

I think there are plenty of factors limiting ecumenical dialogue and co-operation - and full unification come to that - but I'm not sure the Establishment issue is a major factor in that.

Of course, to some on this thread the Establishment/Constantinian issue is THE one overwhelming issue and to blame for almost everything that goes wrong ...

If I kick my toe today I expect Constantine will have had something to do with it ...

Either him or Henry VIII.

[Big Grin] [Biased]

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Steve Langton
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
If I kick my toe today I expect Constantine will have had something to do with it ...

Either him or Henry VIII.

To avoid disappointment a seance has been organised and Constantine and Henry will be busy laying traps for your toe all around your town....

More seriously;
Yes, the Anglicans and Methodists have repeatedly tried to in effect re-unite, given that Wesley himself would have preferred not to split to begin with; though many Methodists I know are actually happier with the non-conformist status these days and would consider that a bar to union.

As I understand it, on the Evangelical side one major difficulty was the current liberal theology of large parts of Methodism - which in turn has made Methodism the most endangered of the mainstream denominations, that is the one most steeply declining and statistically with the closest date at which it will disappear altogether. That date keeps getting closer 'from both ends', that is the decline is accelerating...

Anglo-Catholics I understand have found their main problem to be the validity of Methodist 'orders'; that is, no apostolic succession via bishops. A-Cs would not accept Methodist ministers as equal without such ordination.

In turn Methodists objected to any settlement that did not recognise existing ordinations. An attempt to get round this by some form of mutual ordination process was rejected as a 'sneaky' attempt to get Methodist ministers episcopally ordained by a back door, as it were. Evangelical Anglicans weren't happy with such shenanigans either....

From my perspective the issue of orders is indirectly a Constantinian issue. I won't give the full argument here but although there had been some trend towards 'monarchical' episcopate and a form of 'apostolic succession' in the earlier church, the idea of bishops/archbishops/metropolitans as authoritative regional CEOs certainly suited a state church as a more flexible NT eldership didn't, and thus was hardened in by the Constantinian church. A biblical church doesn't need that kind of authority/leadership which isn't taught in Scripture anyway....

As GeeD pointed out, the Porvoo agreement isn't exactly union, more a mutual recognition and working together by what remain distinct national churches. One must hope that the potential problems do not actualise.

The sources I checked out (NOT critical or disapproving) did seem to suggest that part of the reason for the Porvoo agreement was Lutheran dissatisfaction with other nonconformist Protestants and Anglicanism being most like the Lutheran state churches. It appears that a particular attraction between the bodies involved was that all had 'the historic episcopate'. In other words this is a unity significantly on a non-biblical basis and involving a degree of conscious separation from other churches on the basis of that unbiblical notion.

However, I'm still working on that one....

I really don't see Constantinianism as the root of all evils - though it is very pervasive, and at times seems to have 'elephant in the room' status; that it is a major problem but nobody wants to acknowledge it as such....

Orthodox and Catholic represent a slightly different situation, being not separately founded national churches such a came out of the Reformation, but overarching state churches which later found themselves as the common churches of secularly fragmented empires (that's the short simple version, I know it's more complex than that!)

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Gamaliel
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Yes, I know the reasons for the failure of Anglican/Methodist re-unification discussions and wasn't trying to rehearse those here ...

It appears though, that episcopal forms of church government are also to be blamed on him ...

[Biased]

No, actually, I can see what you're getting at. Episcopal forms of church government predate Constantine by a wide margin ... they seem to have evolved during the 2nd century. I'll accept that they took on a more 'monarchical' character after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Mind you, if you read the sub-apostolic fathers it's pretty clear that they had a pretty 'high' view of the episcopate as it then stood and also of apostolic succession.

I remember reading them in my more baptistic days and being shocked at how 'Catholic' they sounded.

Perhaps you should try reading them without your Anabaptist spectacles and see how they sound to you ...

[Biased]

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Albertus
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:


Re Anglicans and Lutherans, you are aware of the Porvoo Communion? Anglicans and Lutherans have been united for a long time, and state churches have not stopped this.

Not united, but in full communion - and also in relations between some Lutherans in the US and Canada and churches in the Anglican Communion.. Sadly not here; I can't speak of South Aust or Queensland, where the proportion of Lutherans is higher, but in NSW and Vict the contact is limited to both being members of the Council of Churches.
Yes, but I think the Lutheran Church of Australia is more like the Missouri Synod than ELCA, isn't it? They're only associate memebsr of the Lutheran World Federation, which is the grouping that ELCA and the Nordic and German churches belong to. My stepmother comes from a big South Australian German Lutheran family and told me that one of her uncles, who was heavily involved in the Lutheran Church in Australia in I think the 60s, was rather dismayed by the way that the conservatives had come to dominate it. Don't know the details, though.

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Steve Langton
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I think I've outlined previously what I think happened in the early centuries - that in absence of widely available Scripture, the notion of a practical apostolic succession was used; the guy trained by the guy trained by the guy who was trained by an apostle probably genuinely did have a better chance of getting it right than an ordinary church member. Not by a quasi-magical passing-on of authority, but through having done something like an apprenticeship.

This gradually got to be seen more 'like magic' and ended up as in the RCC where merely succeeding in the bishopric was somehow thought to pass on the necessary authority. And as I suggest, that kind of authority with a parallel to the imperial government system suited the state church better so got frozen in place where actually a tolerated church with better access to scripture should ideally have phased it out.

Baptism also went from Peter's description of it as NOT by the washing but by the answer of a good conscience, to a more 'magical' view of actually washing sins away. This led to infant baptism - early indications being that it was at first applied to infants unlikely to survive - but also to the curious phenomenon, of which I believe Constantine was an example, of 'deferred baptism'; that is waiting till near the end of life to be baptised so as to have the minimum chance of spoiling things through the pollution of post-baptismal sins.

One of the problems of early texts is we have to be a bit careful about words like 'bishop' not to 'read back' the whole modern implications into a text where 'episkopos' may still be being used in the secular meaning of an 'overseer/manager'. It occurs to me that in Latin, with a lack of 'articles' there would be a special risk of reading 'the bishop' where only 'an overseer' was intended.

I know the early church went at times in odd directions. Alwyn pointed out to me on another thread how diverse the early church had got in only a few centuries. This why I stick to Scripture as 'the' authority. As I see it various traditions developed in various places; I can't see that any particular group or person has a realistic claim to have 'capital-T Tradition' - so to work out the 'right' answer, test by the NT which everyone basically agrees came from the original witnesses.

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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
One of the problems of early texts is we have to be a bit careful about words like 'bishop' not to 'read back' the whole modern implications into a text where 'episkopos' may still be being used in the secular meaning of an 'overseer/manager'. It occurs to me that in Latin, with a lack of 'articles' there would be a special risk of reading 'the bishop' where only 'an overseer' was intended.

I think this is an utterly vital point, so thanks for mentioning it, Steve. I've said this before (on this thread? Maybe on others that trod similar ground) but I find it really striking that the New Testament writers almost exclusively used words from everyday language to describe their 'religious' activities and relationships.

They called people messengers, shepherds, servants, overseers etc.; rather than using terms with explicitly religious connotations. I think we'd be better off if we used the everyday meanings of the terms - so 'overseer' and not 'bishop'; 'servant' not 'deacon'; 'shepherd' not 'pastor'; 'messenger' or 'announcer' and not 'apostle'.

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Gamaliel
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Fair points, but whatever we call these offices and functions don't you find it interesting that all the descendants of the churches/Church of the early centuries share significant features in common?

- The RCs, the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox all practice the three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons.

- All have a high view of the sacraments and yes, all practice infant baptism too (although they do also baptise older people who have come to faith too, of course).

- All have a highly developed view of what they see as apostolic succession - and this has been explained to me not as some kind of 'magic' thing as it is often caricatured but simply a means of determining whether someone is in the 'kosher' line of things - it doesn't guarantee that the office holder themselves aren't going to be wallies or dipsticks.

Sure, we do have to be careful to 'read back' into the NT and into the immediate post-apostolic writings various emphases and conditions that we are aware of today - but this works both ways.

One might accuse the RCs, Orthodox and Anglo-Catholics etc of reading the NT and the sub-apostolic fathers through the lenses of their own traditions - but Protestants do the same, Anabaptists do the same.

It strikes me that some Protestants elide or simply cough and gloss over certain passages in the immediate sub-apostolic writings - and perhaps even in the scriptures themselves - that don't quite 'fit' with their neat and cut-and-dried schemas.

Steve mentioned 'biblical' church government ... now what form of church government would that be?

Would it be episcopal, would it be congregational, would it be presbyterian? Would it be some kind of hybrid combination of all three?

Which is it?

The point is, you can find elements of all these in the scriptures. It's one thing to claim that one form of church government is more 'biblical' than the others - but you first have to prove it.

And there'll be plenty of people arguing the case for any of the others you happen to reject.

On the baptism thing - yes, Constantine did defer his baptism until his death bed ... it wasn't an uncommon practice at that time apparently as it was believed in some quarters that sin after baptism was very hard to remit - consequently the popular idea developed that it was better to wait until the last minute and have all your sins remitted at once as it were.

I don't think this ever became part of 'official' doctrine anywhere though.

As for infant baptism, it's not clear when it actually began and some would claim that it is implicit in the NT in terms of the various 'households' which believed ...

It does appear to have been an early development, though and went alongside believer's or 'adult' baptism ... as indeed it does to this very day in all predominantly paedobaptist churches. There were some baptisms by full immersion of children and young people at our parish church just the other week and several adults have also been baptised there in recent years. All churches which baptise infants will also baptise believers as well.

But that's probably for another thread or for DH.

And the way we interpret the Petrine reference to baptism is probably material for Kerygmania.

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Gee D
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the baptism thing - yes, Constantine did defer his baptism until his death bed ... it wasn't an uncommon practice at that time apparently as it was believed in some quarters that sin after baptism was very hard to remit - consequently the popular idea developed that it was better to wait until the last minute and have all your sins remitted at once as it were..

FWIW, that was also a common opinion amongst may Gnostics, and in particular the Cathars. In the last days of Montsegur, many of those who had not previously taken the rare step of becoming perfecti did so.

[ 06. June 2014, 08:08: Message edited by: Gee D ]

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Steve Langton
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
Fair points, but whatever we call these offices and functions don't you find it interesting that all the descendants of the churches/Church of the early centuries share significant features in common?

- The RCs, the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox all practice the three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons.

Given that all the pre-Reformation churches descend through the single channel of the Imperial state church post-Theodosius, common features are no surprise. The issue is whether that tradition is correct or whether it got skewed by the state church situation.

Yes, it became the so-called 'three-fold ministry' of bishops, priests and deacons; but that is clearly a change from the biblical situation in which 'elders/presbyters' and 'overseers/episkopoi' are just different words for the same office, and 'diakonoi' have a separate function

by Gamaliel;
quote:
- All have a high view of the sacraments and yes, all practice infant baptism too (although they do also baptise older people who have come to faith too, of course).
Again, a consequence of that common channel; and again not necessarily the original idea....

by Gamaliel;
quote:
- All have a highly developed view of what they see as apostolic succession - and this has been explained to me not as some kind of 'magic' thing as it is often caricatured but simply a means of determining whether someone is in the 'kosher' line of things - it doesn't guarantee that the office holder themselves aren't going to be wallies or dipsticks.
That's pretty much what I said; but it's hard to avoid wording like 'quasi-magical' when that 'apostolic succession' is purported to lead to an 'infallible' papacy and a priesthood credited with being able to turn bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ.

by Gamaliel;
quote:
I don't think this (deferred baptism) ever became part of 'official' doctrine anywhere though.
I never said it did; but it is evidence of a shift in thinking which also seems related to the reasons behind the adoption of infant baptism.

by Gamaliel;
quote:
Steve mentioned 'biblical' church government ... now what form of church government would that be?

Would it be episcopal, would it be congregational, would it be presbyterian? Would it be some kind of hybrid combination of all three?

Which is it?

Fairly flexible, probably. Not episcopal as currently understood, with the 'bishop' as a kind of regional CEO. Practicalities will result in some structure beyond the congregations, and people who act somewhat like bishops, but they will be more like an elected Prime Minister than a monarch or aristocrat, and they won't be deemed spiritually special as against other church leaders, who in turn will not be deemed to have acquired special spiritual abilities by virtue of a ceremonial ordination. Oh, and in the modern world women as elders. (If 'presbyteroi' and 'episkopoi' are the same thing, argunents about 'women bishops' would be irrelevant)

by Gamaliel;
quote:
And there'll be plenty of people arguing the case for any of the others you happen to reject.
Of course. But I think I would reject any argument that appeared to be based on 'Tradition' and to be contradicting Scripture.

by Gamaliel;
quote:
As for infant baptism, it's not clear when it actually began and some would claim that it is implicit in the NT in terms of the various 'households' which believed ...
I think some modern people view this a bit anachronistically; a 'household' implies a wider grouping including servants and a rather larger family group living together than is common today. So the argument is not "the household so definitely the infants/toddlers" but more "those of the wider household who were eligible" - and therefore probably not infants even if there were any, which of course we don't know.
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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I think some modern people view this a bit anachronistically; a 'household' implies a wider grouping including servants and a rather larger family group living together than is common today. So the argument is not "the household so definitely the infants/toddlers" but more "those of the wider household who were eligible" - and therefore probably not infants even if there were any, which of course we don't know.

We are getting off topic here but I think it can be argued that this too is an anchronistic reading, and the actual meaning is more one where the person who comes to faith is the 'federal head' of his household, and so naturally all of his household are baptised also (including infants).
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Gamaliel
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I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the words for overseer/elder and so on were interchangeable.

Bishops do appear to have developed as regional CEO types in the 2nd century - and, arguably - as a natural development from the 1st century situation - and there is NT evidence for translocal oversight too.

There was meant to be one elder or overseer per city - and these tended to act in an oversight capacity towards smaller churches in surrounding villages and hamlets.

Even today, in Greece for instance, there are rather more bishops than we are accustomed to in the West. Even small towns have bishops in a way they don't over here.

As for the Real Presence and so on ... I think you'll find that was a pretty early belief too.

The problem with this 'everything went pear-shaped' view is identifying the precise point when it did so - because episcopalian forms of government and a belief in the Real Presence in the eucharist had all developed way, way before the time of Constantine.

If you take the radical Anabaptist thing to its logical conclusion then everything had gone wrong before the ink was dry on the original NT epistles.

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