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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Aaargghhh!!!
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Shipmate: Whilst there's a case to answer for the connection between Established State churches and religions and religious violence, the situation isn't as clear cut as some people make it out to be ...
Steve Langton: Oh yes it is. Ian Paisley advocated religious violence and this derives from the notion of a Christian nation. Therefore any state-sanctioned church or religious system is culpable.
Shipmate: I can see what you're getting at but things aren't quite so simple ... for instance, I know of a Catholics for Peace Group and an Anglicans for Peace and Social Justice initiative and ...
Steve Langton: That's not good enough. Remember the Crusades.
Shipmate: But the Crusades happened in medieval times. No-one's advocating them any more. In fact, various Popes have since apologised for them ...
Steve Langton: That's not good enough. They are all compromised and Constantinian. What about the Anglican persecution of non-conformists in 17th century England ...
Shipmate: Yes, but that was 300 years ago. The CofE currently stands for religious pluralism and diversity ...
Steve Langton: No they don't. That's not good enough. They are all Constantinian. Only the Anabaptists are uncompromised.
Shipmate: What about Munster?
Steve Langton: What about Munster? That doesn't count. It was an abberation. Anabaptists are squeaky clean. The sun shines out of our arses. We don't even need to wipe them after we've had a shit.
Shipmate: Ok, so it was an abberation. No-one is suggesting that Munster was the norm. We all accept that the Anabaptists have a good track record when it comes to promoting peace. But I know of a Catholic group which promotes ...
Steve Langton: Not good enough. What about the Crusades ...
Shipmate: But Pope So and So and Pope Such and Such and Cardinal Thingummyjig have all spoken about the need for peace and reconcilation, for the just use of the world's resources, for ...
Steve Langton: What about the Inquisition?
Shipmate: No-one here is condoning the Inquisition ...
Steve Langton: Not good enough. You're compromised. You are Constantinian. Only the Anabaptists aren't Constantinian. Only the Anabaptists aren't compromised. An Anglican vicar once stepped on someone's toe outside Woolworths in 1952. Since that time his parish church has been irreperably compromised.
Shipmate: Do you know what, Steve?
Steve Langton: What?
Shipmate: I never used to believe in religious violence. I thought it was incompatible with the NT, I thought that Erastian, Constantinian Christianity was all wrong - but now you've convinced me otherwise. Now I believe that religious violence is not only admissible but absolutely necessary. So necessary in fact that I'm about to hand you over to the Spanish Inquisition who will bind and torture you for 3 days to elicit a confession, then hand you over to the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Kyrill, who will bury you up to your neck in sand and recite an Akathist calling for the total destruction of the Tartar hordes at you for hours at a stretch ...
Once he's finished I will then deliver you over to the ultimate form of extreme religious violence known to humanity ...
I will make you sit on the local Anglican PCC or else force you to attend Blogg Road Baptist's Church Meeting until you recant ...
Steve Langton: No, no, please ... have mercy ... anything ... anything but that!
Shipmate: Mwa ha ha ha ha ... you know how to get out of that don't you, Steve? Repeat after me ... Constantine ... Constantine ... Constantine ...
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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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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
What about the cake option?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Dons Hostly furry hat
Gameliel has been, er, called away on urgent business for a couple of weeks, so that leaves this thread a little light on combatants.
If anyone else is willing to step up to the plate to defend Erastianism-lite, as practiced by God's own church (the CofE, naturally), then your moment in the limelight has arrived.
Otherwise, it'll remain a monument to hubris. Look upon his works, oh shipmates, and despair.
Stows hostly furry hat
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Oh my. Is someone wrong on the internet?
No, someone is being a rank asshole on the internet. Responding to rank assholes is what Hell is for. But you knew that.
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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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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
It's a shame Gamy had to keep ranting in Purg and cop suspension, because I think he has a point which should have been thrashed out here.
Well, two actually. No matter how many times Steve is told in that thread that the separation of church and state is actually a modern idea, he persists with the anachronism that it is present in the NT itself. The extent to which the separation is the logical conclusion of a Biblical ideal - which I find quite dubious, but is certainly worth discussing - doesn't seem to be nuanced enough in Steve's thinking.
But the bigger and more hell worthy problem is the constant refrain that Anabaptism is actually proper Christianity as JC intended, and the other forms are inferior. That is getting pretty old really fast.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I particularly appreciate the underlying assumption that the anabaptists have no apparent link whatsoever with Christianity in all its other forms and that it is totally disconnected and unassociated with Christian history that happens to be a little bit inconvenient. Maybe I have it all wrong though, maybe they really did spontaneously appear in some isolated cabbage patch in unicorn land.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
As with EE it is obvious with Steve he's 'different'. His disposition, his wiring, his innocent genetic determinism cannot ever express itself any other way. He can't be reasoned out of what he wasn't reasoned in to. None of us can be. Reason is applied, at best, post-hoc to what we have to believe.
We're all the same, but some of us are just less able or one or another to play the rhetorical game at defending the indefensible, the un-transferable.
Gamaliel is helpless in the way his saintly patience is tried and found wanting.
Bet-a-buck types ALWAYS win the game of patience ... if you play with them. Play your own game. And bless them.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But the bigger and more hell worthy problem is the constant refrain that Anabaptism is actually proper Christianity as JC intended, and the other forms are inferior. That is getting pretty old really fast.
Plenty of others say the same about their particular denomination.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Plenty of others say the same about their particular denomination.
Whilst others can see what is wrong with their own denomination from the inside, and yet despite her faults is still a conduit through which God's grace flows.
It all depends if you go walking around in a blindfold or not.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Dark Knight ;
quote:
No matter how many times Steve is told in that thread that the separation of church and state is actually a modern idea, he persists with the anachronism that it is present in the NT itself.
OK, if we're being pedantic, calling it 'separation of church and state' and writing it into state constitutions is modern. But the idea that Jesus founded a kingdom 'not of this world' of believers in Jesus as "God's holy nation" - citizens of the kingdom of heaven living on earth as peaceable resident aliens - that idea does indeed go right back to the NT. This intent to create such an international or transnational people of God is subverted by the attempt to run "Christian" states of any kind.
by Fletcher Christian;
quote:
I particularly appreciate the underlying assumption that the anabaptists have no apparent link whatsoever with Christianity in all its other forms and that it is totally disconnected and unassociated with Christian history that happens to be a little bit inconvenient. Maybe I have it all wrong though, maybe they really did spontaneously appear in some isolated cabbage patch in unicorn land.
Try that the other way round, perhaps; Anabaptists are linked by Scripture to the roots of the faith, other groups have dissociated themselves from those roots in various degrees by going against Scripture.
Or try "Wouldn't you yourself want to be dissociated from people whose (extremely un-NT) attitude is 'You disagree with us so we're going to get our state to persecute you!'?"
And in turn a lot of Anabaptist 'dissociation' has to do with having been forced to live a marginal and persecuted life; and it's hard to see how that's their fault when most (though not all) of the successors of the persecutors have basically ended up admitting the persecution of anybody to have been wrong.
As for 'inconvenient history', isn't it rather the point that Anabaptists saw the inconvenience and disclaimed it way ahead of anyone else; in effect, it's your 'inconvenient history', not ours.
Of course Anabaptists are not totally disconnected from other Christians - indeed modern Anabaptists are in my experience far less insular than most in other denominations.
by Martin 60;
quote:
He (Steve Langton) can't be reasoned out of what he wasn't reasoned in to.
If I were a 'cradle Anabaptist' there might be some justification in that suggestion. But if it were literally true that I can't be reasoned out of things I'd still be an Anglican. And I reasoned myself out of Anglicanism by seeing the problems caused by the whole 'Christian country' idea, AND the wider 'religious state' idea, and going back to the Bible for a better answer.
I still don't fully understand Gamaliel's position. He says that he too objects to the state-church business - so why is he so determined to go head-to-head with me on everything? I can only think it's because with his current involvement in Anglicanism he has in real terms put himself in a monumentally inconsistent, even incoherent, position and trying to defend that has got to be well stressful...?
by Dark Knight;
quote:
But the bigger and more hell worthy problem is the constant refrain that Anabaptism is actually proper Christianity as JC intended, and the other forms are inferior. That is getting pretty old really fast.
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that. We don't regard all other forms of Christianity as inferior; we simply regard those who want to the 'Christian country' thing as plain wrong - and given the consequences of that thing in the past, surely we have a point?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I still don't fully understand Gamaliel's position. He says that he too objects to the state-church business - so why is he so determined to go head-to-head with me on everything? I can only think it's because with his current involvement in Anglicanism he has in real terms put himself in a monumentally inconsistent, even incoherent, position and trying to defend that has got to be well stressful...?
No, it's because you act like an asshole.
quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
Oh puhleeze. I certainly don't approve of dissociating ourselves from the Christian past (for one thing I applaud the ecumenical councils and fully admit that the concept of the Trinity arises from them -- credit where credit is due -- and they were all called by emperors, the first one being the evil, malignant Constantine). And I don't approve of jettisoning 2000 years of Christian worship for an ahistorical, made-up "reconstruction" of some "New Testament" ideal. Nor do I believe that the New Testament was written to teach us how to do church.
No, I am not an Anabaptist, thank God. I believe God works through history, not in spite of it.
quote:
We don't regard all other forms of Christianity as inferior; we simply regard those who want to the 'Christian country' thing as plain wrong
If that's all you are about, why are you so rude to people like me and Gamaliel who are from churches that are now or were at one time associated with states, as if it were our decision for them to be so associated, and why do you poo-pooh our claims to not be really keen on Christian violence?
And then why do you insist that Christian states are somehow the source, or major source, of Christian violence, when it has been pointed out multiple times that non-established Christians are just as capable of producing violence, and you have neither refuted nor really acknowledge this point?
Why do you act like such a jerk about all these things? And don't blame your autism or my autistic son will come and kick your ass. He and all right-thinking autistics hate it when autistics blame their assholity on their condition. No, if you act like a jerk, it's because you're acting like a jerk, not because you're autistic. Especially in an environment like the ship, where you have an infinite amount of time to refine what you say before you press "Add reply".
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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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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm an Anabaptist?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Steve Langton: quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
That sounds a lot like something Pope John Paul II wrote in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that all Christians exist under the auspices of Roman Catholicism whether they understand it or not. But obviously you wouldn't admit to that. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
Steve Langton: It seems to me that your idea of church history is naďve, oversimplified, and compares the best of one way with the worst of another (you know, not fair.) It's like saying, "The 1990's were bad." For whom, where, and in what circumstances? quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
... the idea that Jesus founded a kingdom 'not of this world' of believers in Jesus as "God's holy nation" - citizens of the kingdom of heaven living on earth as peaceable resident aliens - that idea does indeed go right back to the NT. This intent to create such an international or transnational people of God is subverted by the attempt to run "Christian" states of any kind.
I see your assertion about the New Testament, and raise you The Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Is this not Scriptural warrant? Early Christians, even "Constantinian" Christians, were doing exactly what they thought the Lord wanted. Note that Jesus did not specify governmental or non-governmental means of accomplishing this.
You may think non-governmental methods are the way to go; I happen to agree with you. But I cannot fault Christians of the past for doing what they thought was best, even if I totally disagree with their methods and results. At least give them credit for doing what they thought was right.
quote:
... Anabaptists are linked by Scripture to the roots of the faith, other groups have dissociated themselves from those roots in various degrees by going against Scripture.
No. Please see above.
quote:
Of course Anabaptists are not totally disconnected from other Christians - indeed modern Anabaptists are in my experience far less insular than most in other denominations.
hahahaha NO. "Less insular?" You must be joking. I live in the middle of several Hutterite and Mennonite colonies. I used to live near the Amish-type Mennonite colonies of Waterloo. I am not aware of any other Christian denomination in this part of the world, other than loony cults, who organize themselves into separated communities. I am well aware of the history behind this.
quote:
If I were a 'cradle Anabaptist' there might be some justification in that suggestion. But if it were literally true that I can't be reasoned out of things I'd still be an Anglican. And I reasoned myself out of Anglicanism by seeing the problems caused by the whole 'Christian country' idea, AND the wider 'religious state' idea, and going back to the Bible for a better answer.
None so zealous as a convert.
quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
What does this mean? I'm not an Anabaptist. Why would you think I am?
quote:
We don't regard all other forms of Christianity as inferior; we simply regard those who want to the 'Christian country' thing as plain wrong - and given the consequences of that thing in the past, surely we have a point?
Some consequences were good. Some were bad. You think they were only bad. You are wrong.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Whatever works for you Steve. It isn't transferable. I'm Anglican and do not recognize any requirement of a Christian country or religious state. Neither do I see any answer in The Books.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Steve Langton: quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
That sounds a lot like something Pope John Paul II wrote in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that all Christians exist under the auspices of Roman Catholicism whether they understand it or not. But obviously you wouldn't admit to that.
Looks like Steve must be some sort of crypto-Catholic then.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by me and since quoted by quite a few;
quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
If you live in a modern plural society even the supposedly 'established' church must in practice operate as a voluntary body which people choose to join. Some unfortunately still try to be more and this still causes problems.
I'll come back to some of the other points later when I've had chance to digest them properly.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Hmm, apparently I'm an Anabaptist. And I'm Dutch. I feel this sudden urge to go to Münster and burn something.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Which? How How?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by me and since quoted by quite a few;
quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
If you live in a modern plural society even the supposedly 'established' church must in practice operate as a voluntary body which people choose to join.
And, that's all that's required to be Anabaptist? Just considering church something you voluntarily choose to join rather than being a member of by default simply by being born in a country with a national church?
Hmmm, I could have sworn that there were some other doctrinal issues as well. Something to do with not considering the baptism most of us received as being a true baptism, IIRC. There's something about the name "anabaptist" that certainly suggests that a distinctive view of baptism is part of being anabaptist.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
There are other kinds of Christians that one can become by choice rather than accident of birth and/or nationality. There are also aspects of the Anabaptist groups that are common with other non-Anabaptist groups. Anabaptists groups differ amongst themselves.
What is all the fuss about?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
None of us knows. Except Steve. And he's not telling.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But the bigger and more hell worthy problem is the constant refrain that Anabaptism is actually proper Christianity as JC intended, and the other forms are inferior. That is getting pretty old really fast.
Plenty of others say the same about their particular denomination.
What balaam said.
Did you even read the thread in question, Boogie? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Dark Knight ;
quote:
No matter how many times Steve is told in that thread that the separation of church and state is actually a modern idea, he persists with the anachronism that it is present in the NT itself.
OK, if we're being pedantic, calling it 'separation of church and state' and writing it into state constitutions is modern. But the idea that Jesus founded a kingdom 'not of this world' of believers in Jesus as "God's holy nation" - citizens of the kingdom of heaven living on earth as peaceable resident aliens - that idea does indeed go right back to the NT. This intent to create such an international or transnational people of God is subverted by the attempt to run "Christian" states of any kind.
To paraphrase Bernard Woolley, I am not being pedantic, and I'm sure I should succeed if I tried.
The ancients did not think of nations the way we do - the nation state is a relatively recent concept. Nor did they think of religion the same way. The gospel writers reports of Jesus self understanding as the ruler of a kingdom "not of this world" is not unconnected to the modern separation of church and state (I admitted as much in my post). However, the statement is directed at those expecting a political messiah, and attempting to subvert those who were willing to make him king by force, which would have led to (and in fact, eventually did lead to) a violent reaction from Rome. The NT is written from a very different political perspective and philosophical worldview than is available to us today, and the concepts do not carry across as easily as you seem to think.
quote:
by Dark Knight;
quote:
But the bigger and more hell worthy problem is the constant refrain that Anabaptism is actually proper Christianity as JC intended, and the other forms are inferior. That is getting pretty old really fast.
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that. We don't regard all other forms of Christianity as inferior; we simply regard those who want to the 'Christian country' thing as plain wrong - and given the consequences of that thing in the past, surely we have a point?
We do find ourselves, arguably, at the end of Christendom, and perhaps in a similar position to the Christians of the early church (sans persecution in most of the West, at least), in that Christianity for the first time is not the dominant religious paradigm. That being said, we have a western world that is emerging from nearly two millienia of that paradigm, and has been shaped by its dominance in ways that cannot be quantified. The west is more diverse now religiously than it has been for awhile. Your historical flattening out of the landscape, together with your insistence that "we're all the same, really" is unhelpful, and inaccurate.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I'll come back to some of the other points later when I've had chance to digest them properly.
When you do, would rebut this allegation? quote:
Anabaptists are squeaky clean. The sun shines out of our arses.
It certainly seems to have significant traction.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
No one does. Now bring out your dead (horses).
[ 17. November 2014, 08:39: Message edited by: Wesley J ]
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Dark Knight;
quote:
the concepts do not carry across as easily as you seem to think.
I don't think I said it was easy; but the basic idea does carry across - the faith Jesus started is meant to be voluntary and international and humble in worldly terms, not imposed or specially favoured in local geographic states or ethnic groups.
also by DK;
quote:
Your historical flattening out of the landscape, together with your insistence that "we're all the same, really" is unhelpful, and inaccurate.
The statement that "We're all Anabaptists now" is a 'teaser' - albeit one with quite a serious underlying point....
by Silent Acolyte;
quote:
would you rebut this allegation?
quote:
Anabaptists are squeaky clean. The sun shines out of our arses.
Not my quote, of course. Was it one of Gamaliel's bits of standard blethering repeated ad nauseam no matter how often I do rebut it?
You only have to know real Anabaptists for this to rebut itself; Anabaptists are still human and have faults. It is nevertheless possible, of course, that they are right in the particular belief in question and should be listened to. Sneers like the above are no good part of rational argument and given the death and mayhem that flows from the various versions of the 'religious state' notion, is such trivial baiting really appropriate?
by Sioni Sais;
quote:
There are other kinds of Christians that one can become by choice rather than accident of birth and/or nationality. There are also aspects of the Anabaptist groups that are common with other non-Anabaptist groups. Anabaptists groups differ amongst themselves.
I'm not arguing with that; though it might be worth pointing out that many of the other voluntary groups are remarkably like the traditional Anabaptists in general outline. And of course nowadays one can very much become Anglican voluntarily - the rags of their former totalitarian establishment are still a problem.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Sioni Sais;
quote:
There are other kinds of Christians that one can become by choice rather than accident of birth and/or nationality. There are also aspects of the Anabaptist groups that are common with other non-Anabaptist groups. Anabaptists groups differ amongst themselves.
I'm not arguing with that; though it might be worth pointing out that many of the other voluntary groups are remarkably like the traditional Anabaptists in general outline. And of course nowadays one can very much become Anglican voluntarily - the rags of their former totalitarian establishment are still a problem.
What rags? What problems?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Anabaptists are squeaky clean. The sun shines out of our arses.
It certainly seems to have significant traction.
Squeaky clean arses rarely have much traction IME.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
I'm for now responding to Leaf as I think that looks likely to give best chance to get the reasonable and less-heated answer across. My bits are headed up “SL Response:” or “SL quoted by Leaf”; I've also indicated Leaf's bits.
By Leaf;
Steve Langton: It seems to me that your idea of church history is naďve, oversimplified, and compares the best of one way with the worst of another (you know, not fair.) It's like saying, "The 1990's were bad." For whom, where, and in what circumstances?
SL Response;
Actually after some 50 years looking into it I think my idea of church history is pretty comprehensive. I know that sounds a bit immodest but I am a very bookish hyperlexic Aspergic, and I've been reading fluently since age three-and-a-bit and as I say, looking at church history since my early teens. I perhaps made a mistake initially in presenting a simpl-ish view to keep my posts short – even my blog (stevesfreechurchblog) doesn't do things book-length but generally longer than I'd consider appropriate Ship-board.
I have tried from time to time to say and show that my ideas are wider, but some people just don't seem to want to know that.
I don't see the consequences of the 'establishment' as all bad; I do after all believe in divine providence which takes up and overrules human mis-steps. Somehow I've never quite got round to stating the following on Shipboard, but I regard the situation as something like that of Joseph – his brothers selling him into slavery was wrong, yet look how God worked through it nevertheless. Or on a larger chronological scale, consider the time when the Israelites asked for a king like other nations had; this was wrong, because it implicitly rejected God's own kingship over them, and its results were decidedly mixed. Yet again God worked through it in a variety of ways of which the most important was David's descendant Jesus who became king of a new covenant kingdom, and as God incarnate reconciled the Davidic and divine kingships.
I see God working providentially through the 'Constantinian' error (and I'm fed up of pointing out to some people that using that word is just 'shorthand' for what I really really know was a far more complex change). At the same time it is still an error and a challenge to us to decide whether to go with the error or repent of it and go back to the original. The longer the error goes on the more obvious it has become and the more important the repentance. The way things are in the world today (including the 'religious state' aspect of Islam), I feel there may be something of a crisis ahead and that God is losing patience with the continuance of this particular error in all its trouble-making forms.
“Comparing the best of one with the worst of the other”. Hmmm... Bearing in mind that I consider the Munsterites to have been on the Constantinian side (because they tried to set up a Christian state) despite their baptism polity, I think even the worst of Anabaptism is a good deal better than the worst of the 'Christian-country' thing. But in some ways that's not so important as the simple issue that the 'Christian-country' business is disobedient to the NT, whether or not the alternative view has a current embodiment to compare it with in that way.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
... the idea that Jesus founded a kingdom 'not of this world' of believers in Jesus as "God's holy nation" - citizens of the kingdom of heaven living on earth as peaceable resident aliens - that idea does indeed go right back to the NT. This intent to create such an international or transnational people of God is subverted by the attempt to run "Christian" states of any kind.
Leaf;
I see your assertion about the New Testament, and raise you The Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Is this not Scriptural warrant? Early Christians, even "Constantinian" Christians, were doing exactly what they thought the Lord wanted. Note that Jesus did not specify governmental or non-governmental means of accomplishing this.
You may think non-governmental methods are the way to go; I happen to agree with you. But I cannot fault Christians of the past for doing what they thought was best, even if I totally disagree with their methods and results. At least give them credit for doing what they thought was right.
SL Response;
When you can tell me how it is realistically possible to 'baptise a nation'.... (Though I guess from your next bit that you've also worked that out – I presume neither of us is happy with Charlemagne's driving a Germanic tribe into a river at swordpoint). And again, 'teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you' would, as I see it, include obeying all the bits that imply your 'non-governmental methods'.
I'd argue that, added to Jesus' rather unusual way of being the Messiah, the 'kingdom not of this world' comment in its original context does specify non-governmental means. I refer all to the relevant bit on my blog (“But Seriously (2) – in which Pilate's exercised”) for the long version. The NT way of doing things lasted nearly three centuries.
'ta ethnE', it should perhaps be pointed out, is usually translated 'Gentiles' (people in general as distinct from Jews), rather than as 'nations' in the same sense as the Roman Empire or the UK. If you're being fussy an 'ethnos' is a tribe rather than a 'state'. And 'make disciples of' is in the Greek a verbal form 'disciple ye'. The verb in question has a root meaning to do with 'learning', and conveys more of an idea of 'gather pupils from' the nations than forcing them to follow the religion.
But yes, there was confusion on this point in the 4th Century and since, not I suggest from the Bible itself but from the way of thinking of Constantine and Theodosius inter alia, that saw bodies like the Roman Empire as 'bound together' (verb 'religare') by religion and didn't think hard enough about the distinctive Christian paradigm. I assume God's judgement will allow for the sincerity of the error and I don't have a problem with that, but I also know that I shouldn't repeat the error or encourage it in others.
SL quoted by Leaf;
quote:
... Anabaptists are linked by Scripture to the roots of the faith, other groups have dissociated themselves from those roots in various degrees by going against Scripture.
Leaf;
No. Please see above.
SL Response;
I've mostly (though still only partially) answered that above as well. But there is a bigger issue here that keeps coming up on the Ship, to do with interpretation of Scripture and the place of concepts like 'Apostolic Succession' and 'capital-T Tradition' – I'm going on a bit already, let's leave that aside for a bit.
SL quoted by Leaf
quote:
Of course Anabaptists are not totally disconnected from other Christians - indeed modern Anabaptists are in my experience far less insular than most in other denominations.
Leaf;
hahahaha NO. "Less insular?" You must be joking. I live in the middle of several Hutterite and Mennonite colonies. I used to live near the Amish-type Mennonite colonies of Waterloo. I am not aware of any other Christian denomination in this part of the world, other than loony cults, who organize themselves into separated communities. I am well aware of the history behind this.
SL Response;
I'm also aware of the history and of what amounts to yet another of the bad results of Constantinianism in causing Anabaptists to retreat into that kind of restricted community.
And I'd point out that I have made clear in the past my thorough awareness of the problems of traditional Anabaptism; again some people seem to find it amusing to keep going on and on as if I hadn't and as if I were totally starry-eyed and rose-tinted spectacles about Anabaptists even when they know I'm not. This has not been conducive to sensible discussion....
But I was talking of “modern Anabaptists … in my experience”, which is a very lively movement indeed, both in the UK and the (mostly Canadian) Mennonites I know or know of. As far as I can see, the rather shut off and indeed insular Amish etc. are no longer the majority of Anabaptists, let alone of groups which are effectively Anabaptist but separately derived. In the UK even the Hutterites are not all that insular.
'Separated communities' – do you regard monasteries as 'loony cults'? And it might be pointed out that the 'Constantinian' paradigm involves turning whole nations into 'separated communities' – it is one of my criticisms of Ulster's Constantinian Protestants that despite criticising RC monasticism they effectively tried to turn Ulster into a six-county-wide Protestant monastery....
Actually modern Anabaptists are increasingly pointing out in self-criticism that albeit unintentionally their communities had become mirrors of the 'Christendom' they had rejected.
SL quoted by Leaf;
quote:
If I were a 'cradle Anabaptist' there might be some justification in that suggestion. But if it were literally true that I can't be reasoned out of things I'd still be an Anglican. And I reasoned myself out of Anglicanism by seeing the problems caused by the whole 'Christian country' idea, AND the wider 'religious state' idea, and going back to the Bible for a better answer.
Leaf;
None so zealous as a convert.
SL Response;
I knew someone would say that! On the one hand there's some truth in it; but also my analysis of the issues grew out of the UK crisis of the 'Troubles' in Ulster and back pre-9/11 the deaths there seemed so extreme as to need a pretty zealous response.
My point in this comment was simply that Martin was phrasing things as if I had been a lifelong Anabaptist who couldn't be reasoned out of it, whereas the reality was that I had been something else and did in fact change – and could change again, but only in response to better arguments, not stuff like Gamaliel's rant at the beginning of this thread and similar elsewhere.
SL quoted by Leaf;
quote:
In modern western plural states every Christian is an Anabaptist; some are unwilling to accept that.
Leaf;
What does this mean? I'm not an Anabaptist. Why would you think I am?
SL Response;
As I've since pointed out in the thread, this is a bit of an argumentative 'teaser' – albeit with quite a serious point to make....
SL quoted by Leaf;
quote:
We don't regard all other forms of Christianity as inferior; we simply regard those who want to the 'Christian country' thing as plain wrong - and given the consequences of that thing in the past, surely we have a point?
Some consequences were good. Some were bad. You think they were only bad. You are wrong.
SL Response;
No, as outlined above (and repeatedly pointed out but ignored in previous threads), I don't think the consequences were only bad. But I still think the bad inherent in this wrong choice – 'bad' which goes quite a way beyond the obvious death and mayhem - outweighs a good mostly owed to divine overruling. And it isn't just an internal issue for Christianity, though again that's too big a question for right now. And again, the disobedience to the NT is quite important to the assessment of how bad it is.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Pearl B4 Swine
Ship's Oyster-Shucker
# 11451
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Posted
that's too big a question for right now.
It's bigger than both of us.
I believe I can give up my nightly sleeping pill if I read through this thread after I'm in beddy-bye.
P.S.: It boggles the mind to think that this verbiage will be permanently filed in The Cloud, taking up needed space for things like Grandma's Sweet Pickle Recipe.
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Oinkster
"I do a good job and I know how to do this stuff" D. Trump (speaking of the POTUS job)
Posts: 3622 | From: The Keystone State | Registered: May 2006
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AnabaptistBlowhard:
My bits are headed up “SL Response:” or “SL quoted by Leaf”; I've also indicated Leaf's bits.
Here ya go. Have at it.
And before you write me a fifteen-page screed on how formatting is a tool of oppression by those in power to be used against those who have neither the time nor inclination to figure it out so you're going to exercise your nonconformist Christian freedom to stick it to the man, I remind you that quite a few others, including those who enjoy a good round of S'ing it to the M, have somehow figured it out.
quote:
Originally posted by AbBh:
...even my blog (stevesfreechurchblog) doesn't do things book-length but generally longer than I'd consider appropriate Ship-board...
Good God. It gets worse.
From the natterings of the long-winded that make our eyes bleed, good Lord deliver us
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pearl B4 Swine:
that's too big a question for right now.
It's bigger than both of us.
I believe I can give up my nightly sleeping pill if I read through this thread after I'm in beddy-bye.
P.S.: It boggles the mind to think that this verbiage will be permanently filed in The Cloud, taking up needed space for things like Grandma's Sweet Pickle Recipe.
Granny's pickles will be saved for posterity, have no fear.
Steve. Threatening us with your blog, and pretending that we've got off lightly because you've only posted 2000 words in a single post, is frankly not on. The only reason my scroll wheel didn't spontaneously combust is because it's my hostly duty to read every single word you write. For everyone else, I believe the expression is tl;dr.
In other words, you can't refute your accusers' arguments by boring them to death. You don't have to respond to everything they say. Pick the most appropriate and pressing aggrevation - your assertion that Anabaptists are God's own people, and anything that Anabaptists do wrong is the fault of those filthy Erastians - and stick with it.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
My complaint is that he promised to talk about Leaf's bits and then failed to do so.
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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
Ariston, I generally do use the UBB facility, even when for reasons of practicality I've written the screed offline and posted it subsequently. On this occasion I basically wouldn't have had time for that till quite a bit later and it did look as if some were getting a bit impatient for my next offering, already delayed because I tried really hard to get it mostly right....
I will have a further go at UBB practice if and when all and sundry stop going on and on at me.
We're only here because Gamaliel preferred not to accept my shorter versions and preferred to respond with irrelevant rants like the OP at the start of this thread; complaints should be addressed to him, please, when he returns.
I'm actually making a quite simple point and have made it very briefly quite a few times - the long-windedness is mostly about trying to get people back to the point when they've gone every which way to avoid and waffle (long-windedly) round rather than answer my points.
Can't have it both ways, guys; if I give you the simple you rant on about me oversimplifying, and supposedly not knowing the-things-I-do-know-but-left-out-to-keep-it-brief-for-you, and flattening everything out and the like. If I do the detail you accuse me of being long-winded - and ignore what I say anyway!! Try actually discussing my points in future and we'll all be able to keep it short.
I understand the atheists on the Ship who want to attack my view by claiming that Christianity was always a persecuting violent totalitarian religion - my view clearly doesn't suit their propaganda stance.
I do not understand why so much of the flak comes from people who keep insisting that they also believe in separation of church and state and whose attacks on my views are therefore pretty incoherent (not to mention only helping the aforementioned atheists)
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by lilBuddha;
quote:
My complaint is that he promised to talk about Leaf's bits and then failed to do so.
I think that's for Leaf to decide, isn't it?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by lilBuddha;
quote:
My complaint is that he promised to talk about Leaf's bits and then failed to do so.
I think that's for Leaf to decide, isn't it?
It was a joke. Wasn't referering to bits of Leaf's posts.
[ 17. November 2014, 16:15: 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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
SL,
Even this simple reply of yours isn't simple.
Here is the simple case.
Steve Langton: Anabaptist theology is the purest, most accurate to Jesus' teaching. With it, there can be no religious violence. Anabaptism is so much true christianity, that one cannot be a Christian without being Anabaptist.
Everyone else*: Not true, here is why......**
Perhaps a little. Too tightly condenced, but you get the picture.
Arguments get lost in the dross, regardless of their initial purity.
*athesist, theists and non-theists
**various replies to the different bits.
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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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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Not just Munster, but the KKK and (less violent but still offensive) forms of racism in the American Deep South tells me that the Anabaptist descendants aren't as squeaky clean as you'd like to think...
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I will have a further go at UBB practice if and when all and sundry stop going on and on at me.
Er, no. Using UBB code correctly to quote is a basic, entry-level courtesy to both other shipmates and the Hosts, who have no alternative but to decrypt your now-dense script.
No one is forcing you to respond (or at such length). If you need the time to format your post correctly, then the Hellions will just have to wait.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
OK Doc Tor; I'm now waiting for Leaf's reply to me anyway, so we'll see what that comes up with.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
OK Doc Tor; I'm now waiting for Leaf's reply to me anyway, so we'll see what that comes up with.
While you're waiting, there are a plentitude of options for you to occupy yourself.
First, and already mentioned, is that you could practice your UBB. Because I doubt anybody will bother engaging with anything buried in that dog's vomit of a post. So, you could practice your coding for clarity, then when nobody appears to address whateverthefuck you think you said you could try again. Except, you know, less badly.
Second, and probably less obvious to you, is that you could try to develop a handy trick we like to call "not being a fuckstard". It involves some tricky negotiation in terms of NOT saying the stupidest thing possible in the most annoying way imaginable. Perhaps start off slowly by just being stupid in a non-annoying way.
Thirdly, have you considered a vow of internet silence? Potentially very spiritually fulfilling. For us.
In short, I hate you, and hope you die by porcupine stampede.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In other words, you can't refute your accusers' arguments by boring them to death. You don't have to respond to everything they say.
I know he doesn't do that because I have posted two long posts he has not responded to at all, other than to promise to respond to one of them. I believe I shall continue to respire.
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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
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If you live in a modern plural society even the supposedly 'established' church must in practice operate as a voluntary body which people choose to join.
Well what do you know. This makes you an anabaptist. Not a very useful term, is it, if it just means "of or relating to a church operating as a voluntary body which people choose to join." I could have sworn it meant more than that. Silly me.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
You must feel like Wellington after Waterloo Steve.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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