Being apathetic to history (Cont'd)

Albion · Jun 16, 2021

This was the message I was to comment on --

But year's a flaw right there. Protestantism requires people to be 'well informed' to a degree that is outside the capacities of the average masses... leaving them open to any kind of cultish thing.

My view was twofold:

1) Protestantism is a very broad and general term and not one that everybody agrees on. It certainly does not refer to a particular set of doctrines or worship practices or etc. Yet people often talk as though all Protestants are peas in a pod. So when it comes to a comment like the one above, the first thing that would be necessary would be to know which denominations the writer has in mind.

2) The idea that members of a Protestant church are somehow required to be better informed than the average person (or however that was meant), escapes me.

If the idea is that every Protestant is on his own when it comes to the doctrines he believes, that's wrong, except for people who refuse to join any church or those who belong to the very, very few denominations that are so liberal as to actually say that members should define the faith for themselves. Almost always, a Protestant church will have and insist upon its own creedal statement, whatever that might be.

I assume that there are some. Certain non-denominational congregations perhaps, but even the Unitarian Universalist Assn., which is often considered to be about as liberal as one can get, doesn't do that. And, therefore, the idea that Protestants are "open to any kind of cultish thing" doesn't seem valid. Maybe with a little more explanation????

ArmyMatt · Jun 16, 2021

as a former Episcopalian, being pro-choice about whatever you believed was applauded in my experience. guys who were as conservative Anglo-Catholic as they come thought it was great that they were in the same group as liberal low-church members.

it was a mess.

Albion · Jun 16, 2021

Low churchmen ordinarily are not liberals, though. That's just for information. I wouldn't contest your opinion of The Episcopal Church overall.

ArmyMatt · Jun 16, 2021

it was in my experience. and I should say, that I have heard similar stuff from ELCA Lutherans.

Albion · Jun 16, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
it was in my experience. and I should say, that I have heard similar stuff from ELCA Lutherans.

I get that ELCA Lutherans and Episcopalians in general are sympatico. They're in full fellowship now and might as well be.

But I'm not quite getting how the members of either body who are less ceremonial in their worship preferences and more Bible-oriented are supposedly more liberal. That hasn't been my experience anyway. Many Anglo-Catholics are, though (contrary to popular wisdom).

ArmyMatt · Jun 16, 2021

Albion said:
I get that ELCA Lutherans and Episcopalians in general are sympatico. They're in full fellowship now and might as well be.

But I'm not quite getting how the members of either body who are less ceremonial in their worship preferences and more Bible-oriented are supposedly more liberal. That hasn't been my experience anyway. Many Anglo-Catholics are, though (contrary to popular wisdom).

it was in my experience. it was one of the reasons I left the Episcopalians.

if they were more Biblical, they'd be more ceremonial as that is the worship of the Bible.

Chesterton · Jun 16, 2021

Albion said:
If the idea is that every Protestant is on his own when it comes to the doctrines he believes, that's wrong, except for people who refuse to join any church or those who belong to the very, very few denominations that are so liberal as to actually say that members should define the faith for themselves. Almost always, a Protestant church will have and insist upon its own creedal statement, whatever that might be.

I think you may have contradicted yourself. A creedal statement is written by individual Protestants. If they write it "on their own", then they are "on their own". And the same applies further than creedal statements, into theology, praxis, etc.

Albion · Jun 16, 2021

Chesterton said:
I think you may have contradicted yourself. A creedal statement is written by individual Protestants. If they write it "on their own", then they are "on their own". And the same applies further than creedal statements, into theology, praxis, etc.

The Nicene Creed was also written by mortals. It's what is in the document and whether that is true that matters. Of course what I was referring to was not some lone wolf Christian who decided to write up his own version of a Catechism. We do see people talking that way on these forums, as you know, but that isn't what I was referring to, so please do not insist upon representing it as such.

Chesterton · Jun 16, 2021

Albion said:
The Nicene Creed was also written by mortals. It's what is in the document and whether that is true that matters.

That was the first creed, written by the universal Church when it was universal.

Of course what I was referring to was not some lone wolf Christian who decided to write up his own version of a Catechism. We do see people talking that way on these forums, as you know, but that isn't what I was referring to, so please do not insist upon representing it as such.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Smyth, John Wesley, et al., were all lone wolves, were they not? Henry VIII was kind of the ultimate lone wolf, no?

Albion · Jun 16, 2021

Chesterton said:
That was the first creed, written by the universal Church when it was universal.

Correct, but that wasn't the point I was making.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Smyth, John Wesley, et al., were all lone wolves, were they not?

No, but that also is not what I was explaining about Protestant creedal statements being similar to the creedal statements of other churches and, don't forget, most of the larger and historic Protestant churches adhere to the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed just as the Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches do.

Henry VIII was kind of the ultimate lone wolf, no?

What would he have to do with this? He didn't start any new church and died a Catholic as he had lived.

ArmyMatt · Jun 17, 2021

Albion said:
What would he have to do with this? He didn't start any new church and died a Catholic as he had lived.

pretty sure he died excommunicated from Rome.

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
pretty sure he died excommunicated from Rome.

That is true. Millions of Catholics, including some that you and I know personally, have been excommunicated but yet remain Catholics, although under sanction, often because of a divorce.

But importantly, Henry was never declared a heretic by the Roman Church. That aside, he also forbade the promulgation in England of the most controversial propositions then being made by the Protestant churches on the continent, for example, denial of Transubstantiation and private confessions.

ArmyMatt · Jun 17, 2021

Albion said:
That is true. Millions of Catholics, including some that you and I know personally, have been excommunicated but yet remain Catholics, although under sanction, often because of a divorce.

But importantly, Henry was never declared a heretic by the Roman Church. That aside, he also forbade the promulgation in England of the most controversial propositions then being made by the Protestant churches on the continent, for example, denial of Transubstantiation and private confessions.

except he was formally excommunicated, which means he wasn't Catholic anymore.

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
except he was formally excommunicated, which means he wasn't Catholic anymore.

Do you mean something theological by that statement, such as saying that he wasn't in accord with Catholic principles, etc.?

Because the Roman Church considers that its people who get excommunicated are still under the jurisdiction of that church and are still members but just are barred from receiving the sacraments. In any case, he wasn't the founder of a new church like Luther, Calvin, and the others who get mentioned on these forums were.

ArmyMatt · Jun 17, 2021

Albion said:
Do you mean something theological by that statement, such as saying that he wasn't in accord with Catholic principles, etc.?

Because the Roman Church considers that its people who get excommunicated are still under the jurisdiction of that church and are still members but just are barred from receiving the sacraments. In any case, he wasn't the founder of a new church like Luther, Calvin, and the others who get mentioned on these forums were.

yes, I do. ecclesiology is theological. if Henry set up a new understanding of ecclesiology, he set up a new church.

and he did.

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
yes, I do. ecclesiology is theological. if Henry set up a new understanding of ecclesiology, he set up a new church.

and he did.

That's a conceptual or supernatural way to look at it, even if Henry had actually set up a new understanding of ecclesiology.

But he didn't. The English church was almost 1500 years old by his time and had been independent of Rome for most of those years. So if he didn't impose any novel beliefs, etc. upon the existing church, and Rome didn't declare him a heretic, he remained a Catholic in the usual sense, albeit an excommunicated Catholic.

That's how it stayed until the (39) Articles of Religion were created, following Henry's death, until Edward and then Elizabeth came to the throne, and the Papacy finally broke from the Church of England in 1571.

I was addressing the matter of a new denomination or institutional church being founded. That didn't happen under Henry, so that was different from the Lutheran and Calvinist experience on the Continent.

Lukaris · Jun 17, 2021

What was the status of the English Church under Queen Mary (“bloody Mary”)?

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

Mary returned the English church to a kind of de facto Papal oversight, but the people were very much divided. Unfortunately for Mary, her rule lasted only five years and her successor was Elizabeth I, who steered the church into something of a middle course, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. As a result, Anglicans still describe their church as both Catholic and Protestant (or neither).

Lukaris · Jun 17, 2021

Albion said:
Mary returned the English church to a kind of de facto Papal oversight, but the people were very much divided. Unfortunately for Mary, her rule lasted only five years and her successor was Elizabeth I, who steered the church into something of a middle course, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. As a result, Anglicans still describe their church as both Catholic and Protestant (or neither).

Thanks for the earlier reply.
Did Thomas Cromwell actually give Sir Thomas More a reasonable opportunity to remain true to his faith & loyal to King Henry VIII?

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

That's a hard one to answer IMO. The maneuvering was complicated, but More was apparently in a good position until a man gave false witness against him in return for a political appointment.

In the final analysis, I don't think we know if Sir Thomas had been able to walk that fine line since this betrayal washed all of that out and he was convicted. History sees him as a man who would not compromise with his conscience and no one that I know thinks well of the king so far as this episode is concerned.

ArmyMatt · Jun 17, 2021

Albion said:
That's a conceptual or supernatural way to look at it, even if Henry had actually set up a new understanding of ecclesiology.

But he didn't. The English church was almost 1500 years old by his time and had been independent of Rome for most of those years. So if he didn't impose any novel beliefs, etc. upon the existing church, and Rome didn't declare him a heretic, he remained a Catholic in the usual sense, albeit an excommunicated Catholic.

That's how it stayed until the (39) Articles of Religion were created, following Henry's death, until Edward and then Elizabeth came to the throne, and the Papacy finally broke from the Church of England in 1571.

I was addressing the matter of a new denomination or institutional church being founded. That didn't happen under Henry, so that was different from the Lutheran and Calvinist experience on the Continent.

but I am pretty sure that wasn't the Anglo or Roman understanding at the time of Henry, so he was setting up something new.

and the English church was closer to 1000 years old, not 1500.

Albion · Jun 17, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
and the English church was closer to 1000 years old, not 1500.

If you're thinking of Augustine, he was met by local Christians when he arrived in Britain on his mission.

There's plenty of evidence that the church there was functioning from perhaps as early as the 30s AD but at least from first or second century. Three British bishops were in attendance at the Council of Arles in the early 300s.

Elfinspell: 314 A.D., British signers at the Christian church council at Arles from Haddan and Stubbs, English translation by Cheyney, Edward P., Readings in English, History of the Classical Period, Roman Britain, fourth century A.D., primary source, Geography, Exploration, Antiquity,

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