Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

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eing. Marcionism, in being a highly organised movement, and in appealing to many by its asceticism, even to rejecting marriage, lasted until the middle of the 5 th century in the West. The Ebionites Another challenge to Christian orthodoxy came early on, towards the end of the 1 st Century, when some Jewish Christians claimed to be the true followers of Jesus. They were the Ebionites (from the Hebrew for „poor men‟). They rejected the deity of Christ. From limited sources we learn that the Ebionites were ascetics, binding themselves to keeping the Torah rigorously. We know from Acts Ch 15 that Jewish Christians in Jerusalem wanted Gentile Christians to be made to submit to Mosaic laws, though there is no evidence in the scriptures that these men were Ebionites. A Council meeting in Jerusalem about 49 AD resisted this call to bring Gentile Christians into obedience to the law. Paul, particularly, was adamant that the Gospel would be compromised by insisting on law-keeping as a way of salvation (see Appendix 2). Montanism Many of the sects which challenged the mainstream church in these first four centuries advocated a tough, rigorist, ascetic Christian faith. There is evidence that as Christianity increased in numbers throughout the Roman Empire, reactions to the disciplined life of the very earliest Christians set in, especially after Christianity became a major religion of the Empire from Emperor Theodosius‟s time (c.346-395 AD). One such sect was that of the Montanists. About the same time as Marcion was gathering followers, a man named Montanus in Phrygia was teaching that the Church was too lax in its discipline of those who had lapsed from the faith in times of persecution, and that it lacked earnestness and spiritual power. Montanus demanded an ascetic life-style from his followers, but, unlike Marcion, Montanus‟s emphasis was on the charismatic gifts which were given to the first apostles. Montanus himself claimed, as did two of his female followers, to have been endowed with the power of the Spirit of God in order to prophesy. Their most forceful prophecy was that the end of the age was imminent and that the New Jerusalem (see Revelation Ch 21) was about to come down upon them in Pepuza. Like so many subsequent Adventist sects in Christendom, the Montanists were undermined by the non-fulfilment of their prophecy. As the Marcionists took away some of the authority of Scripture from the Church‟s heritage, so Montanism added to it by advocating a supra-scriptural authority. These two tendencies, to be one’s own authority as to what is and what is not Scripture on the one hand, and to assert that Scripture is secondary to the immediate dictates of the Holy Spirit on the other, have from time to time in the history of the Church fractured Christian unity. Page 17
Novatianism When the persecutions of the Church began, Christians had to come to terms with how to reinstate fellow Christians who had apostatised or lapsed during the time of trial. About 250 AD a schism formed around Novatian, a learned priest in Rome who wrote a completely orthodox treatise on the Trinity. His followers, similarly, were orthodox in doctrine; the issue causing the schism was the lenient treatment of Christians who had, so it was held, denied their faith in the Decian Persecution of 249-250 AD. Novatian and his followers became a rival church to the catholic church and their congregations lasted some centuries, though not in large numbers. Here we have a dispute about church order and discipline and not of heresy. You could argue, however, that the doctrine of the church is at issue here. Is the church a company of strong, pure believers only, or a mixture of the strong and the confident, the frail and the vacillating? The whole question of authority was raised by the Novatian schism. Who has the authority to bar from fellowship or accept into fellowship? More broadly, can there be a sole authority which speaks for the whole church? At the time of the 16th Century Protestant Reformation the question of authority was the most important divisive issue. Was it the Papacy with tradition or „sola scriptura„ (Scripture alone) that was to decide doctrine and church order? There was some agreement on doctrine at the Regensberg Colloquy of 1541 between Protestants and the Catholic Church, but it was mainly on the question of authority that the Colloquy floundered. The reason for both Catholic and Protestant persecution of the Anabaptists was largely a question of their not submitting to authority and so undermining the foundations of society. And so with the Novatian and Donatist schisms (Donatism: see below). By the time these schisms appeared a universal („catholic‟) church was emerging in the West, and a schism was a break away from her authority. The Eastern schism to come later in 1054 was also, at root, a dispute over authority. For us today, in the 21 st Century, there is no one body which can realistically speak for all Christians. We do not live, anywhere in the world, in a ‘Christendom’, and while this may seem a great loss to many Catholic and Orthodox Christians, the break-up of Christendom has occurred and there is no going back to a condition in which there is one organised, visible Christian Church. What that means for Christian Unity is that each Christian denomination or group today has to work out its own ways of commanding authority and discipline, guided by its tradition and the Word of God. But it also means that each denomination or group should seek dialogue with Christians of other traditions to learn, with them, ways of dealing with issues of discipline and authority. Donatism At the later Diocletian Persecution, in 310 AD, in North Africa, a schismatic body, the Donatists, came into being over the same issue as in the Novatian schism. Page 18
Page 1 and 2: Digging Out the Embedded Church Dis
Page 3 and 4: The Maranatha Community comprises t
Page 5 and 6: Introduction CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chr
Page 7 and 8: ead, nicely browned on top. He plac
Page 9 and 10: HOW DO WE DIG OUT THE EMBEDDED CHUR
Page 11 and 12: That the Church should express this
Page 13 and 14: For Alfeyev, „Faith is a gift, th
Page 15 and 16: „heresies„ of the Early Church
Page 17 and 18: Traditionally, the Church has made
Page 19 and 20: CHAPTER 1 CHRISTIAN UNITY IN THE EA
Page 21: A certain Docetic teacher, often id
Page 25 and 26: The fortunes of the Arian party in
Page 27 and 28: An attempt was made in 482 AD (29 y
Page 29 and 30: was development in the interpretati
Page 31 and 32: CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO The
Page 33 and 34: position would see baptism as not t
Page 35 and 36: The Eastern Church‟s relationship
Page 37 and 38: insisted from the second Lateran Co
Page 39 and 40: There is so much that Orthodoxy sha
Page 41 and 42: we do not talk to each other. Our t
Page 43 and 44: The question of heresy does not com
Page 45 and 46: They were missionary-minded and the
Page 47 and 48: Lollard ideas lingered in English r
Page 49 and 50: CHAPTER 4 THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: W
Page 51 and 52: unity‟s sake in subsequent centur
Page 53 and 54: Erasmus wrote he asserts, through o
Page 55 and 56: attle-cry, is perhaps the most famo
Page 57 and 58: Regulations for the good ordering o
Page 59 and 60: Eucharist was not just a commemorat
Page 61 and 62: CHAPTER 5 QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME O
Page 63 and 64: How rare then it is to meet a man w
Page 65 and 66: are often much bigger divisions bet
Page 67 and 68: St Germanus of Constantinople - 8 t
Page 69 and 70: manner. He declared that men could
Page 71 and 72: S L Greenslade - 20 th Century: „
Page 73 and 74:
CHAPTER 6 HOPES FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
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imminent return of Christ (Komensky
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a concern that merchant adventurers
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also anti-Socinian. Calixtus himsel
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The Eastern Churches were not rent
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everyone - from outward forms to in
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Women were not usually members of t
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work in America, shows him, though
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The aim of the conference was to br
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From 1768 Harris‟s home at Talgar
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twice more to congregations of Whit
Page 95 and 96:
denominations was not their distinc
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It was from the overseas Protestant
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THE OXFORD TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT Anot
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the Church of England‟s doctrinal
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„We pray that… all who desire t
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thereof, in prayer, in the remembra
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honours the Lord and his Word; the
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apostolic church enjoyed, and that
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episcopate were too radical for mos
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Denominations began to form their o
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In this Shanghai Conference‟s Rep
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With so much talk of unity and coop
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„The liturgical movement in weste
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• Sharing a corporate life of wit
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• Our acknowledgement of the Apos
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(h) The Evangelical Church in Germa
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It changed nothing in respect of do
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Some Evangelical Protestants want t
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• It is in continuity with the
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But things have changed. Richard Ma
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evangelism - (and) state what the r
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Repentance and faith are at the hea
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outcome of being justified. Agreeme
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Virgin‟s salutary influence on me
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h) Confession The sacrament of pena
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demanding way would be sin. The que
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If the opportunity for the Church t
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Ministers, priests and laypeople in
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West Kirby, near to my home, the Si
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n) Shared Study Courses There is a
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Even some Protestant churches today
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Vincent de Lérins spoke of a „pr
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It is not likely, in the foreseeabl
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Christ and are trying their best to
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upon the name of our Lord Jesus Chr
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Perhaps this dying process is now b
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economic factors giving rise to suc
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deeper ecumenism, one that does not
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APPENDIX 1 THE NICENO-CONSTANTINOPO
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APPENDIX 2 FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON T
Page 175 and 176:
The „apostles and elders‟ of th
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„The purpose of the Reformation C
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What all three traditions have in c
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Cromwellian period, in a treatise o
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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS
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Cullman, Oscar, The Earliest Christ
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McCarthy, Tim, The Catholic Traditi
Page 189 and 190:
Letter concerning the civil princip
Page 191 and 192:
Coptic Orthodox Church, 10 Council
Page 193 and 194:
Parousia, 24, 68, 93 Paul VI, 10, 1
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