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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why the CofE isn't Protestant
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fausto
Shipmate
# 13737
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up msomething of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way." Gospel of Philip, Logion 72
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Do you think that's because the Anglican setup is very much glancing towards Rome (of course to a greater or lesser extent supported by individual Anglicans) and does see things like Apostolic succession and being part of the Catholic church as important..
..whereas the "true" Protestants disposed of all that nonsense and went off on their own with nay a backward glance at Rome.
The Scandinavian Lutheran churches practice the doctrine of apostolic succession of bishops. And I assume all Christian churches that use the Nicene Creed consider themselves catholic.
I don't think it was until the 19th century that 'Rome does things this way' became important to any Anglicans. Even then, an imagined medieval Rome was always more important than what the Roman Catholic parish down the road was doing.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Didn't Elizabeth I drive a 'via media' coach and horses through the whole thing, to please nobody, and then impose it on the people? Only later were other denominations allowed to practice, afaik.
NB that the Via Media was intended to be between Wittenberg and Geneva, not Catholicism & Protestantism. In other words, the Via Media as envisioned by Elizabeth was incontrovertibly Protestant, the Church of England seen as an institution capable of comprehending a broad spectrum of Reformed identity while excluding Roman Catholicism and Anabaptism.
Via media means the middle way, which make you Buddhist. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Seriously though, it is a 'best of both worlds' kind of approach.
Elizabeth was incontrovertibly not RCC. That is the only real incontrovertible.
Again, it is that English Christian identity is so tied to being free from Rome that this is such a strong perception.
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
[ 15. September 2016, 18:48: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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Hallellou, hallellou
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
According to the 39 Articles it was because of their tendency to share property and belief in rebaptising those who had already received the Anglican sacrament of baptism.
But I think that it is also true that various texts around at the time in England were lumping various groups under the umbrella of "anabaptists".
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arse
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms
Far from it. It's the only truly available state this side of the coming of the Kingdom of God.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
According to the 39 Articles it was because of their tendency to share property and belief in rebaptising those who had already received the Anglican sacrament of baptism. But I think that it is also true that various texts around at the time in England were lumping various groups under the umbrella of "anabaptists".
Courtesy of the actually non-typical Anabaptists of Munster, there was a perception that Anabaptists not merely wished to share property among themselves but would wish to coercively redistribute everybody's property. But the Munsterites were so untypical that they actually believed in effectively a state church, and warfare on its behalf and so on.
'Anti-state' is a bit of an overstatement. Anabaptists are anti State Church. This of course did not suit Elizabeth and other Reformers who were still following the state church pattern set by the Roman imperial church and its RCC/Orthodox successor bodies.
The issue of rebaptism is largely about the state-church thing. Over and above any other arguments about 'infant baptism' or 'paedo-baptism' it has the benefit for the state that everybody gets declared in their infant baptism to be a Christian and so the state itself is coherently if nominally 'Christian'.
Believer's baptism threatens that by saying that people get a choice in religion and may choose against what the state wants. In effect, Anabaptists are saying that to be a Christian is to be 'born again' spiritually rather than just born simultaneously into state and church from infancy.
And yes it is true that in Tudor times lots of slightly different groups would be lumped together as Anabaptists - apart from anything else their illegal status made it difficult to get together and become a fully coherent movement. The common factor would be that 'rebaptism' - though of course in the Anabaptists' own eyes, they were actually not rebaptising but doing a proper baptism for the first time.
Also note that up till quite recently 'Anabaptist' included what we'd now call 'Baptists' - for example John Bunyan would be referred to as an 'Anabaptist'. Also 'Anabaptist' like 'Methodist' was a name originating with the opponents of Anabaptists.
In modern terms 'Anabaptism' has been adopted by the tradition stemming from continental European groups like the Mennonites and Amish, and also by modern people inspired by them.
The difference is essentially that the continentals grew up 'in the shadow of' Munster, and had very much realised that the religious state was a bad idea. And in turn were generally pacifist as well.
The UK 'Baptists' and their American and later worldwide missionary derivatives were involved in the UK 'Puritan' movement and the English Civil War which the Puritans temporarily won under Cromwell. Consequently UK Baptists (while varying!) can be somewhat more ambivalent about the state and church business - or at least the broader idea of a 'Christian country' - and are often not pacifists - especially US Southern Baptists who can be very 'hawkish'.
Anabaptist has proved a useful term to distinguish the UK tradition from the continental tradition.
In most things Anabaptists (and UK 'Baptists) are basically 'Protestant' - for instance, the UK's 'Particular Baptist' Confession is an only slightly altered version of the Presbyterians' "Westminster Confession". The differences are largely about the "Believer's Baptism" (more neatly 'credo-baptism' in contrast to 'paedo-baptism'), about church government (more democratic) and about the link to the state. On a Purg thread a bit ago I found I was able to assent to a surprisingly large number of those '39 Articles'.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
More importantly, I don't see why the motives of Henry and Elizabeth matter more than Cranmer's actual liturgies.
Because they created and maintained a separation. Cranmer was more instrument than inspiration. That he changed less than we would have seemed to want is more telling than that he changed some things.
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
You keep omitting Edward's reign, which is when most of the changes happened.
quote:
quote:
It is the liturgy and practice and theology, and yes the self-definition, that decide what a religion is.
And by all this,* the CofE is Catholic. It is not without reason that one of the easiest sectarian shifts for a priest is between Anglican/Episcopal and RCC.
We're not arguing about whether the C of E is catholic, but whether it's protestant. (Most indisputably protestant churches think the two are compatible.)
Are you thinking of the modern liturgy (Common Worship / ASB) here? Or are you thinking of the Book of Common Prayer?
It's only within my lifetime that the Book of Common Prayer ceased to be the standard form of the Eucharist in the Church of England. The Book of Common Prayer is far less ecumenical in its liturgy than the modern orders of service.
Most of what we now consider middle of the road Chuch of England ritual practice (eucharistic vestments, communion at an altar at the head of the congregation with an altar rail, the use of wafers, candles on the altar, etc) were 19th century innovations and intensely controversial. (Priests were prosecuted.) See wikipedia.
Likewise, for most of the history of the Church of England, the official theology was the distinctly Calvinistic 39 articles. (See especially 6, 10-14 and 17 arguably Calvinistic, 19 and 23 (more in what is pointedly not said), not to mention 21, 22, 25, and so on.)
Until the 19th century the C of E did not have celibate religious orders. It did not have relics. It did not have official invocations of the saints (not even Mary). It did not have auricular confession.
Lutherans would have been at home. Roman Catholics decidedly not.
quote:
quote:
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
I'll not claim to be an expert on Christian sectarianism. I've a passing familiarity with the CofE, the RCC and the Kirk.
Speaking of which, the Scottish Reformation began with a Reformer, not a male-heir obsessive. It reformed. The CofE initially did an ownership swap, it did not change shape initially. Not greatly thereafter.
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
quote:
Though it party self-defines as Protestant. Self-definition is only relevant as far as it matches reality. I could maintain that I am a successful Robert Wadlow impersonator, but a quick glance would challenge that.
Some things depend on whether other people accept you as such. You can't be Emperor of the United States of America unless other people recognise your claim. Some things depend on physical attributes. You can't be the tallest man in the world unless you have the physical height to back it up. Other things do largely depend on self-definition (for instance, if someone self-defines as bisexual then assuming they are using the word in a standard manner they are bisexual). Being Protestant is one of those latter cases.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
And because of their rejection of episcopacy (and indeed, ordination). And because of their disbelief in the Real Presence. And because of their heterodox views on baptism. Etc.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
++ Geoffrey Fisher in conversation (in Latin) with some Spanish RC seminarians who had clearly never heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, c1960:
Seminarians: Are you a Catholic?
++F: Not what you mean by Catholic.
Seminarians: Are you then a Protestant?
++F: Not what you mean by Protestant.
That'll do for me. As a good Anglican, I don't push too much for precise definitions if I don't have to.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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L'organist
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# 17338
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Posted
I was taught that the CofE isn't protestant because, as referred to above, the Church IN England (and other territories then ruled by England c 1538) didn't break-away from Rome: rather the monarch was excommunicated (effectively thrown out by Rome) and, because he was monarch, his subjects were also denied the sacraments, etc.
In other words the CofE (and CinW, for that matter) are catholic churches.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
The Elizabethan divines would certainly have claimed catholicity for the Church of England. But they would also have affirmed a Protestant identity.
The two terms aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. The Lutherans and Calvinists alike considered their churches to be Catholicism sans the medieval dross.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Dafyd;
quote:
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
You are here into a slight problem with definitions; they can even change over time. It happened with whales - until quite late on they were considered 'fish' simply by being water-animals. As of course were shellfish. Then scientists/taxonomists decided a changed definition - though whalers continued for a long time to call their targets 'fish' anyway.
A similar thing recently happened with planets. Over the years, 'planet' originally meant 'wandering objects' in the sky as opposed to the 'fixed stars' which with the instruments of the day appeared fixed. By that definition, the Sun and Moon were both planets and the supposedly fixed Earth (this is the Ptolemaic pre-Copernican scheme, remember) was not a planet.
Post-Copernicus, this changed; The sun was no longer a planet - though of course it still appeared to 'wander' from our perspective. The Moon also was no longer a planet but a satellite, and Jupiter and other planets eventually were known to also have satellites. And of course, the Earth was redefined as a planet....
Then 'asteroids' were discovered, mostly small lumps of rock but a few big enough to be forced spherical by their own gravity...
More recently a further re-definition has taken place, with planets now limited to the larger ones out to Neptune, but no longer including the latest discovery Pluto. I think it's right that a big enough body discovered in the far outer Solar System could still be regarded as a planet, but the smaller ones, Pluto, some of the larger bodies in the 'Asteroid Belt' between Mars and Jupiter, and some more recent finds out around or beyond Neptune in the 'Kuiper Belt' are designated 'dwarf planets'; they're basically the spherical ones. Lumpier ones still count as asteroids, sometimes the outer ones are called Kuiper Belt objects.
Terminology can shift. The things the terminology is about don't shift in themselves, but can be regarded differently as knowledge advances.
'Protestant' is a kind of 'timebound' thing with a fairly definite meaning. Initially just about the original 'Protest' but then more widely the Reformation movement in general. As far as I can see, the original CofE does fit that definition and was intended to fit it. The later CofE has changed in various ways, and not consistently but by varying in different parts of the body. Some parts of the CofE are now more-or-less 'Catholic' in the sense of moving towards RCC-like practices and ideas; other parts are 'Liberal' moving towards being less and less biblical. And there are other factions, and factions which are, say 'Liberal-Catholic' or whatever.
In the history between the Reformation and more recent times there have been various shifts and changes. I think all you can confidently say is that the CofE was founded as Protestant of the national state church variety, and has varied from time to time since in various ways. What it is now is nothing very consistent at all and the unifying 'establishment' is possibly now a handicap....
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'll not claim to be an expert on Christian sectarianism. I've a passing familiarity with the CofE, the RCC and the Kirk.
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
Sorry - that comes over with more asperity than I meant. Nevertheless, I do think you are focussing on things - the motives of the founders - that are not essential to the term 'Protestant', and not really dealing with the reasons the terms are used or considered important.
Having said that, I should say why I consider it important. 'The Church of England isn't really Protestant' is usually said by members of my tradition (Anglo-Catholicism) as a way of sneering at those denominations who are undoubtedly Protestants. It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
From 1558 until at least 1660, and really 1689, the aspiration was that the Church of England would encompass everyone. Until 1642 it did except for recalcitrant Papists, who were also regarded as traitors. The Puritan aspiration was not to split, but to force the rest into their mould, as they tried from 1649-1660.
It was only that in the aftermath of the Restoration when a hard core of religious ex-Parliamentarians would not fit in, that dissent in a Protestant rather than Catholic direction starts to appear.
In an era when religion, the state and the zeitgeist were all mixed up, anabaptists were regarded by everyone else as much the same as many people regard anarchists today.
Fr Weber's comment "that the Via Media was intended to be between Wittenberg and Geneva, not Catholicism & Protestantism", is I think bang on. So is Dafyd's statement that much of modern CofE practice that, Lilbuddha, you seem to think makes the CofE 'not-Protestant' was unknown until the mid/late C19 and very controversial when ritualists started to try to introduce it.
There are ways in which the historical precedent for some features of Common Worship is the Directory for Public Worship that was imposed during the Interregnum.
I am slightly curious Lilbuddha as to with which province of the Anglican Communion you are really most familiar or why you want to argue that the CofE is not Protestant. Whether one likes it or not, it is and it is an affectation to claim otherwise.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
It would be quite funny if it was The Holy Catholic Church of Japan.
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Staretz Silouan
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
quote:
Other things do largely depend on self-definition (for instance, if someone self-defines as bisexual then assuming they are using the word in a standard manner they are bisexual). Being Protestant is one of those latter cases.
It is an issue for Dead Horses to tell you how this is wrong, but it is.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Having said that, I should say why I consider it important. 'The Church of England isn't really Protestant' is usually said by members of my tradition (Anglo-Catholicism) as a way of sneering at those denominations who are undoubtedly Protestants. It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
That snobbery certainly dose not include me. I am not a massive fan of such behaviour.
I might be accurately described as arrogant, but not as a snob.
Well, maybe a food snob...
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I am slightly curious Lilbuddha as to with which province of the Anglican Communion you are really most familiar
Irrelevant, there is quite a bit of internal variation. Same among admitted Catholic sects. Not interested in the extremes, it is the general ideology and practice that my observation is based on.
quote:
or why you want to argue that the CofE is not Protestant.
Because of the human tendency to label things as we want them to be instead of how they are. We do our beliefs no good by denying the less savoury elements. And because it has been an enjoyable discussion.
quote:
Whether one likes it or not, it is and it is an affectation to claim otherwise.
I do hope you realise that this statement is as valid in reverse as it is the way you state it.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms
So you're saying your DM doesn't allow Chaotic Good?
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I guess Steve Langton plays a different game.
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I'm not much knowledgeable about Richard Hooker, but I remember his argument defending the episcopate was quintessentially Via Media, in the sense that he rejected both the Roman argument that Christ established the hierarchy and such is inviolable and the Puritan argument that the episcopate was an unscriptural deviation.
Hooker if I remember correctly, argued that church structure was a matter of reason and the episcopate, at least in England, provided for good and decent order. As such it was permissible for the Church to hold onto the episcopate.
Anglicanism, at least in Hooker's fashion, IMHO provides that some issues are not to be solved by a literalist appeal to Scripture, or by a literalist appeal to Church tradition. Some issues, the church can discern carefully using its critical reason and good judgment.
It's this understanding that I think explains why the Anglican Church changes, sometimes drastically over time. From the stern and dry services of the 17th and 18th centuries to the florid Anglo-catholic liturgies and the enthusiastic services of the evangelicals, the church can simply say that some things that used to work, don't work anymore, and that things we used to believe, we don't believe anymore. If I was an Anglican triumphalist, I would say that Anglicans are one of the few who actually admit that this is how they operate. Unlike the stereotypical Roman Catholic who pretends that the Church never changes or the stereotypical Evangelical who insists that all their beliefs and practices come from the Bible.
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
What you're now saying is what I did - and your earlier post ignored the divisions that arose at Chalcedon.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
To muddy the waters for Steve Langton further, whilst in practice it is probably safe to say that many nominal or less informed/well-catechised Christians in what he would define as 'Constantinian' settings would assume that being 'born into' an ostensibly Christian country and baptised as such were pretty much coterminous - it isn't the case that paedo-baptists aren't aware of nuances or consider it all a 'done deal' by any means ...
There is the issue - whether implicit or explicit - of 'baptismal regeneration' within paedo-baptist settings and I'm not sure many credo-baptists fully take into account the strength of this belief among many traditional paedo-baptists for whom it is more than a simple outward ceremony - sprinkle ... sprinkle ... sprinkle (or dunk, dunk, dunk in terms of Orthodox paedo-baptism) and then that's it ...
I was once party to a conversation between an Anglican vicar (a former Baptist minister) and an Orthodox priest about this very issue and both were expressing disappointment and frustration at the attitudes shown by lay-people presenting their kids for baptism/christening. The Anglican guy was horrified to receive a letter from a parishioner saying, 'Thank you for making my son a Christian ...' whereas the Orthodox priest had been horrified at the christening of a Romanian child where the family had whisked the infant out of his arms and began to coo over it before he'd even finished the prayers and completed the ceremony ...
Now, one could argue that this is proof positive for adopting a credo-baptist position. Be that as it may, what it does indicate - at least on the part of the priests - that they were taking the whole thing very seriously and didn't simply expect some magic pixie-dust to be involved ...
I've heard Orthodox priests and lay-people declare 'God has no grandchildren' just as firmly as evangelicals might and also to assert that no-one is actually born Orthodox but has to 'become' such and to own and adopt the faith for themselves.
I'm sure many (most?) RCs and Anglicans would say the same. Sure, it doesn't have that clear-cut tantar-tara moment you get within evangelicalism - and yes, I've been 'done twice' if we want to put it that way - once as an infant and then as a 19 year old earnest evangelical ...
I've long since given up trying to work out which one was valid or invalid or even to speculate unduly about it all ... the key issue is that I've been baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity and affirmed that faith since - I hope - in word and deed. I've not been confirmed though ... which is something I would do if I were to go in a more 'High Church' direction - but for the moment it's not something that crops up particularly ...
Anyhow, that's a tangent and this thread is not about me but about how Catholic or otherwise the CofE is.
To an extent, I agree with those who say that those Anglicans who self-identify as 'Catholics' in the more sacramental sense - rather than in the way that Calvinists and other more Reformed Christians might - are being somewhat sniffy and snobbish. But I don't think it can be boiled down entirely to that. These people genuinely believe in the Real Presence - in a way that isn't apparent for all Anglican evangelicals despite the relatively 'high' understanding of the eucharist within Anglicanism traditionally (and I don't mean ritualistically necessarily) ... and also have a 'high' view of the sacraments - including those that weren't necessarily part of the Anglican landscape in the 17th and 18th centuries.
So this necessarily puts them in an awkward position both with RCS and Orthodox - who wouldn't see them as 'catholic' enough - and with evangelical or MoTR Anglicans who'd see them as being over-the-top ...
This is an issue which is never going to be resolved unless all parties adopted a very neat and binary solution - either by going over to Rome or Constantinople - or to heading in a more 'Genevan' direction.
But part of the 'genius' - if genius it is - or frustration - if frustration it is - of Anglicanism is that it refuses to pin its colours completely to any of those masts.
It's got a fairly unique position - as Diarmid MacCulloch identifies in his 'History of Christianity'.
Whether that position is sustainable longer term remains to be seen.
As Fr Weber says, the Anglican communion sees itself as both Catholic and Reformed - and that being Catholic and being Reformed aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
Other Reformed groups don't agree. Jengie Jon (where is she?) is always telling us which groups are properly Reformed and which aren't - and she doesn't include the CofE or the Anglicans more broadly, among those that are.
The RCs and the Orthodox don't agree either. They certainly regard the Anglicans as closer - theoretically - than the various Big R Reformed groups and the descendants of the radical reformers - although I've known more than one Orthodox cleric who has told me that they feel a lot closer in many ways to the independent evangelicals than they do to the Anglo-Catholics in some respects ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
...and let's not get onto the kind of Anglo-Catholics whose determination to do their own thing rather than their Bishop's makes them, as someone once put it on these boards, basically Congregationalists in tat.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Equally, for all the convoluted internal inconsistencies in the CofE and Anglicanism more broadly, I don't see how any of the more independent Protestant churches are in any less of a mess. They may not have the same kind of mess, but they'll have messy areas of their own.
I don't see any way around that, whatever one's baptismal polity or how close to the 'biblical pattern' one fondly imagines their own church to be.
As for whether the Anglicans can be considered properly 'Catholic' or properly 'Protestant' depends on where you're standing of course. If you're on t'other side of the Tiber or Bosporus, then it ain't going to look Catholic enough. If you're up on some Alp looking down on Geneva then it ain't going to look Reformed enough. If you're on the inside it'll look a bit of both.
If you're not in any of those camps then it becomes purely academic.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Gamaliel;
quote:
To muddy the waters for Steve Langton further, whilst in practice it is probably safe to say that many nominal or less informed/well-catechised Christians in what he would define as 'Constantinian' settings would assume that being 'born into' an ostensibly Christian country and baptised as such were pretty much coterminous - it isn't the case that paedo-baptists aren't aware of nuances or consider it all a 'done deal' by any means ...
I'm well aware of the nuances myself and while I don't think I'll ever consider ideal the baptism of someone who isn't old enough to do their own believing, the infant baptism in terms of 'covenant theology' of a child of clearly 'born again' parents who are regular church members is a good deal more acceptable than the token sprinkling of a child whose parents otherwise never see a church and have essentially 'magical' ideas of what baptism achieves.
My point was that in a 'Constantinian' setting the infant baptism achieves the kind of social unity/conformity that the state wants from the state religion. And as far as I can see that is the reason it became the regular practice in the Roman Imperial Church. Previously AIUI infant baptism seems only to have occurred (or at any rate, can only be positively identified) in cases of children unlikely to survive to 'years of discretion', and of course notoriously Constantine and others deferred baptism almost to their deathbed again through a somewhat superstitious notion of what baptism does.
The point is that if the Church is independent of the state and consists of the voluntarily born again rather than just everyone who happens to have been born in the particular state, the baptism of infants is at least clearly of those with more than nominally Christian parents and there is no confusion of that Christian basic of being personally born again.
Baptismal regeneration has always struck me as one of those things that sounds good but given that even those baptised as adults can fall away, the sheer failure of so many baptised infants to ever show any sign of practical regeneration does rather question the usefulness of it.... And surely the original basically Protestant CofE would reject it anyway...?
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Equally, for all the convoluted internal inconsistencies in the CofE and Anglicanism more broadly, I don't see how any of the more independent Protestant churches are in any less of a mess. They may not have the same kind of mess, but they'll have messy areas of their own.
I don't see any way around that, whatever one's baptismal polity or how close to the 'biblical pattern' one fondly imagines their own church to be.
As for whether the Anglicans can be considered properly 'Catholic' or properly 'Protestant' depends on where you're standing of course. If you're on t'other side of the Tiber or Bosporus, then it ain't going to look Catholic enough. If you're up on some Alp looking down on Geneva then it ain't going to look Reformed enough. If you're on the inside it'll look a bit of both.
If you're not in any of those camps then it becomes purely academic.
Considering that mainline Presbyterians have, in modern times, downplayed some of the extremes of Calvinism (double predestination), one could argue that even Reformed denominations are not Reformed enough from a purely Calvinist perspective.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Hooker if I remember correctly, argued that church structure was a matter of reason and the episcopate, at least in England, provided for good and decent order. As such it was permissible for the Church to hold onto the episcopate.
Not just permissible, but desirable; only not essential.
And Hooker's conception of authority in the Church was a definite hierarchy : "What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth." In this model, one appeals to Reason only if a clear answer cannot be found in Scripture, and to Tradition only if Scripture and Reason are unproductive.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Steve Langton, well yes ... but I wasn't aiming to start a potentially Dead Horse debate about baptismal polity - and whilst I have sympathy with your view of the 'covenantal' aspects of paedobaptism as practiced/understood by Reformed (or even Wesleyan) Protestants, I'm simply pointing out that those who hold a more sacramental view wouldn't necessarily see it in the kind of terms you appear to ascribe to them ie some kind of magic ritual that exists outwith anything else that might be said or done in terms of engagement with church and so on ...
Sure, we all know that there's a lot of nominalism around in what we might call the historic and more sacramental Churches, although, like you, I don't see credobaptism as being in any way proof against people 'falling away' as you put it.
I'm not sure how helpful it is to look for overwhelming evidence of the efficacy of baptism - however it is administered. Some people who are baptised as infants clearly do go on to own and practice faith for themselves. Lots of others don't. The same applies with people baptised as adult believers.
As I've stated before on these boards, on medieval depictions of the Last Judgement you find clergy, monks, nuns and even Cardinals and Popes on either side of the final divide ...
Some kind of Calvinist attempt to detect who is 'in' and who is 'out' - however worthily attempted - is doomed to failure as far as I can see. I've known plenty of 'clearly born-again people' who were 'regular church attenders' who have lost their faith for one reason or another. What are we saying? That they weren't really 'born again' in the first place? I don't think it's as neat and cut and dried as that.
As for Constantine being baptised on his death-bed, that wasn't ideal of course, any more than anything else he did, but it wasn't uncommon at that time.
I'm not suggesting that infant baptism and close church/state connections don't go hand-in-hand, but I would suggest that the connection isn't always as close nor as cause-and-effect-ish as you appear to suggest.
As with anything else, it's never quite that simple ...
Since when has it ever been a simple matter of discerning who has been 'clearly born again' as you put it? Heck, we even find references to 'false brethren' in the NT epistles and the Apostle Paul seems to have had a lot of hassle with people in one way or another.
As for that fella mentioned in 1 Corinthians who was apparently in an illicit relationship with a close relative - was he 'clearly born again.' He must have been baptised, one assumes. Like Simon the Sorcerer also ...
There is no 'clearly' about it. It's not as if those who are 'clearly born again' float six inches off the ground so that everyone can recognise them.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
What you're now saying is what I did - and your earlier post ignored the divisions that arose at Chalcedon.
My earlier part was about 1054. Chalcedon was irrelevant.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Post not part. Dammed cell phone. .
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
In this context, I think 'the separation' means sixteenth or early seventeenth century, and moving in a direction of nothing is to be believed as necessary for salvation that cannot be derived from the Bible (as interpreted by one or other of the magisterial Protestant reformers).
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
That snobbery certainly dose not include me. I am not a massive fan of such behaviour.
I might be accurately described as arrogant, but not as a snob.
I don't think you're personally a snob. I think you're doing the equivalent of someone who shares an innocuous-looking social media post without wondering what that 'Britain First' at the bottom means.
[ 16. September 2016, 18:35: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
I'm still puzzled as to which groups you refer. It can't be the Orthodox; as noted earlier Rome left them.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
I'm still puzzled as to which groups you refer. It can't be the Orthodox; as noted earlier Rome left them.
Old Catholics, the Liberal Catholic Church, the Augustana Catholic Church, the Apostolic Catholic Church (ACC), the Aglipayans (Philippine Independent Church), the Polish National Catholic Church of America,Maronite Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, and Chaldean Catholics, Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, Chinese Patriotic, Catholic Association, Fraternité Notre-Dame, Rabelados, traditionalist Catholics in Cape Verde and I am sure there are some I've missed.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Gamaliel
I'm not going to inflict on the thread a complete 'quote' of your last. Nor do I want this to derail onto baptism/Anabaptism.
My point was simply that an erratic practice of infant baptism, combined with the dubious practice of deferred baptism as with Constantine, seems to have been replaced not long after Theodosius by a pretty much universal practice of infant baptism. I think it's pretty much 'cause and effect', even if the reality was not always totally conscious and deliberate, that when Theodosius said "If you're in my Empire you're a Christian or else", a practice which 'nailed down' that conformity was so widely adopted in place of one which asserts non-conformity.
And again, I'm not suggesting some nosy 'Inquisitorial' attempt to establish who is in and who out. Just that the Church is meant to be voluntary and about those who choose/profess to belong, and furthermore it is international rather than national; and it's unhelpful all round if that is confused by the compulsion/totalitarianism and the nominal just-because-you're-born-here kind of church membership which Constantinianism brought in, and a continued established church which still too much encourages that kind of confusion in society. The 'everybody gets baptised into the state church as an infant' thing is part of that confusion.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Baptismal regeneration has always struck me as one of those things that sounds good but given that even those baptised as adults can fall away, the sheer failure of so many baptised infants to ever show any sign of practical regeneration does rather question the usefulness of it.... And surely the original basically Protestant CofE would reject it anyway...?
This doesn't follow, there are parts of protestantism that historically and currently hold to Baptismal regeneration.
There was a point in history where there was a reasonable chance that the CofE could have gone Lutheran (who also hold to baptismal regeneration).
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
The 39 are a mix of Catholic, Protestant and other POV. Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think you're personally a snob. I think you're doing the equivalent of someone who shares an innocuous-looking social media post without wondering what that 'Britain First' at the bottom means.
So I am ignorant, not viscous? Well done, sir.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To be Protestant, does it require there to be no elements of 'catholicity' whatsoever?
I don't see how that follows.
One could argue that a belief in the Trinity is a 'Catholic' doctrine. So does that make the Protestantness of all Trinitarian Protestants questionable?
@Steve Langton, your position doesn't take into account those Christian churches that developed outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire - in Persia and so on - which also seemed to adopt a paedobaptist polity.
I'm not arguing against credo-baptism, simply pointing out that whilst I share your squeamishness at indiscriminate infant baptism, the position among the historic and more sacramental churches isn't as neat and simplistic as might appear from your perspective. The Orthodox and the Anglicans will baptise adults and I daresay the RCs do too - but that's another issue.
Coming back to the CofE, the 39 Articles are certainly more Protestant than anything else. A kind of moderate Elizabethan Calvinism. You don't meet many Anglican clergy today who fit that mould, but I've come across a few.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
The 39 are a mix of Catholic, Protestant and other POV. Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
Seriously? What, pray, are the other POV's represented? Orthodox? Chinese Nestorian? Quaker? First Church Of Jesus Christ, Aryan Nations?
And what, exactly, separates Elizabethan protestantism from the other protestantisms of 16th Century Europe? The historic episcopate? Sweden. Monarchical absolutism? Pretty much all of the protestant states which didn't derive from a victory in a civil war against Catholic rulers? Doctrinally, at least, what an Anglo-Papalist erstwhile Shipmate once described as the "49 Articles of the Book of Evil", are pretty much down the middle Reformed Christianity. Point me to an Article of Religion that a sixteenth century protestant would have objected to.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Seriously? What, pray, are the other POV's represented?
Anglican. I didn't wish to break down the Miscellaneous articles, 32-39, to see where they fit, so I lazily said "other"
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
The CofE began as a power grab. The structure otherwise remained relatively intact.
That some of you do not agree is understandable, that many of your own do is telling. Not definitely, but definitely indicative.
[ 16. September 2016, 21:05: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
lilBuddha, you're making the mistake of viewing Catholic and Protestant as mutually exclusive categories. They're not.
If anyone was a Protestant, surely Martin Luther was. Yet a cursory perusal of his works indicate that he agreed with the Roman Catholic Church far more than he disagreed.
Likewise, the 39 Articles indicate substantial agreement with Rome on credal issues, with substantial disagreement on--wait for it--the usual Protestant distinctives.
Whether the C of E can rightly be thought of as Protestant nowadays may be an open question. But for the first 350 years of its existence, it was not.
And as far as baptismal regeneration goes, the Church of England believed in that from the beginning. You can look at the proceedings of the Savoy Conference for a very amusing summary of Puritan objections to, among other things, the BCP's theology of baptism, and the tart retorts of the prelates to those objections.
[ 16. September 2016, 21:21: Message edited by: Fr Weber ]
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Gamaliel;
quote:
I'm not arguing against credo-baptism, simply pointing out that whilst I share your squeamishness at indiscriminate infant baptism, the position among the historic and more sacramental churches isn't as neat and simplistic as might appear from your perspective. The Orthodox and the Anglicans will baptise adults and I daresay the RCs do too - but that's another issue.
Everybody (except I think the Salvation Army) baptises adults! After all, most converts are adults. Baptists/Anabaptists are unusual only in that some of the adults we baptise have previously been 'paedo-baptised' by churches which practice that.
For clarity, I guess I object anywhere to just having children 'done' for social reasons for families with no real church connection; I'd also worry about some Baptist churches where baptism has almost become an automatic rite for adolescents reared in the church.
My slightly bigger objection is where baptism is done somewhat automatically in a 'national' church where it is associated with the idea of a 'Christian country', even if nowadays a bit attenuated. Here and now?? Back in the day there was little doubt that the infant baptism was also associated with your place in the nation as well as in the church (or more accurately, church and nation were dubiously regarded as co-terminous) Bear in mind that even now such baptisms are part of why many Muslims still think of countries like ours as not only 'Christian' nations but as 'crusaders' who they need to fight. (they might not be too happy with a recognised secular nation either, of course)
chris stiles - I don't really want to go much further with this tangent to the main point. One thing I will say - though the various 'Protestants' have enough in common to justify use of the term, it is also the case that different groups in different countries 'settled out' at slightly different stages along the Reformation/Protestant path and so there are variations. Arguably churches accepting 'baptismal regeneration' may have settled out at a different (earlier?) stage. But still broadly Protestant. I mean, Protestant is wide enough a term to include Anabaptists as well as Anglicans, even though we (depending on your viewpoint) either went further from Rome or more consistently follow biblical teaching.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Indicative of what?
I don't see why this issue is so important to you. One could just as easily argue that the Lutheran protest became a 'lower grab' once the Princes got involved.
Yes, the CofE retained episcopacy and cathedrals and such but whilst the structure remained relatively intact the belief system didn't retain all aspects of mediaeval Catholicism.
Besides, the Archbishop of Canterbury isn't the Pope.
I'm not sure to what extent the role of the British monarchy echoed that of monarchs in RC or Orthodox countries.
But I don't think anyone is disputing that Henry VIII acted in self interest rather than a sense of 'Protest' but things didn't stop with him. The CofE as we have it now owes more to Elizabeth I than Henry VIII.
I s'pose my take would be that the Anglicans are reformed but not Reformed, catholic but not Catholic and protestant but not Protestant.
But as Callan says, there's not a lot in the 39 Articles that a mid-16th century mainstream Swedish, German or Swiss Protestant would have taken exception to.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Some Anabaptists didn't just go further from Rome but also departed from what you'd regard as biblical teaching, Steve Langton. Vast swathes of continental Anabaptism lurched into Unitarianism.
Rightly or wrongly, the Magisterial Reformers and Presbyterians and so on weren't only concerned about what they saw as the threat of social anarchy from Anabaptism but the danger of them developing what could be seen as Arian and other heretical tendencies. With reason, as the history of the various Baptist and Anabaptist groups show.
Some of the more extreme, radical Anabaptists would presumably argued that the more mainstream small o orthodox Baptists and Anabaptists also 'settled out' to use your term.
That's not to say that groups like the Independents or the Presbyterians nor even individual Anglican clergy or laity retained orthodox Trinitarian views but at least there were credal checks and balances.
Of course the Anglicans aren't as radically reformed as some other groups of a similar vintage but if you take radical reform to its logical conclusion you end up in a different place from where thee and me and any other small o orthodox Christians are.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
If we qualify 'separation from Rome' by 'in or after the sixteenth century', and 'less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine' by specifying that nothing outside the Bible is necessary to be believed for salvation, and an emphasis upon salvation by faith alone, then yes it does make a Protestant.
You've tried to claim that the Oxford English Dictionary definition might be wrong because it might be based on prejudice, but you haven't actually shown any reason to believe it's actually wrong.
[ 16. September 2016, 22:01: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Callan:
quote:
Point me to an Article of Religion that a sixteenth century protestant would have objected to.
Oh, where to begin! It is often overlooked that the 39 Articles are as much (if not more) anti-Presbyterian/Puritan as they are anti-Catholic. I think they helped confirm the concept of a 'via media' but I personally still find them to be a very problematic document from both a Protestant and Catholic point of view.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
And your authority for this definition is?
(Leaving aside the ample room for tactical wriggling in the words 'Protest' and 'Reformed', which you might need to get in Calvin.)
(Leaving aside also the fact that the source you quoted in your first post does describe the Church of England as 'Reformed'.)
(Leaving aside that the Protest that Protestantism is named after is not anything Luther said, but the Protest by various Princes of the Holy Roman Empire: to whit, the Emperor had no right to determine which religion would be followed in their princedoms; they did.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Gamaliel;
quote:
Some Anabaptists didn't just go further from Rome but also departed from what you'd regard as biblical teaching, Steve Langton. Vast swathes of continental Anabaptism lurched into Unitarianism.
The Reformation was a pretty messy period in which lots of things were tried and many failed. Yes, just as there were points where it can be argued the Anglicans, say, didn't go far enough, there are points where it can be argued that others went way too far. I think the Trinitarian Anabaptists got it just about right; but I'm prepared to discuss that....
I'm happy here with two propositions;
Absolutely strictly and literally, 'Protestant' means those involved in that one 'Protest' document.
By popular usage, the word was extended to the wider Reformation. I think there is general agreement that it means those who saw the Bible as the primary authority over against the claims of the Papacy, as Luther did in setting the movement off. Those taking that stance went in broadly the same direction but to different extents. There is a lot of that 'Mere Christianity' common ground.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
And your authority for this definition is?
Common sense. The reason matters. Practically speaking, the Anglican communion is between Catholic and Protestant. Why is it so important to identify as Protestant? IMO, to not be those nasty RCC.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
And that is a slippery and self-serving notion of Protestantism and a denial of the strong witness of the Church of England within Protestantism.
It is akin to saying that you were sober last night when everyone has pictures of you dancing on the tables with a bottle of whisky to your lips.
And I repeat my point that at what time did Methodism cease to be "anglican" and become protestant, because the foundation of Methodism was well after the Reformation?
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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