Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Whatever differences the Wesleys and their followers and Whitefield and Harris and their followers had with the Moravians, the Moravian desire for Christian unity could not be doubted. Their patron and protector Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) 91 had a passion for unity. He had become patron of the persecuted Moravian Brethren, spiritual descendants of the Unitas Fratrum, and offered them a refuge on his lands in Saxony, a settlement the Moravians called ‘Herrnhut’, „the Lord watches‟. The history of the arrival of these refugees in Herrnhut is a case study in Christian Unity. Some of the refugees were persuaded by a malcontent in their midst to become critical of Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf left his home in Dresden to settle in Berthelsdorf, a village a mile away from the refugees‟ settlement. Among them were not only Brethren of the unity, but other Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists and some members of a quasi-Anabaptist group, the Schwenckfelders. Zinzendorf drew up a Brotherly union and Compact to weld these disparate groups together. The Herrnhutters signed it on 4 July 1727. It was then that Zinzendorf came across an old copy of the Brethren‟s Discipline which Komensky had edited, and read it to the Church at Berthelsdorf. On 13 August that year the Pastor of the Berthelsdorf Lutheran Church, with Zinzendorf present, conducted a Communion service at which his own congregation and the Herrnhut refugees took part. Moravian historians record that a sort of Pentecostal experience fell upon the congregation, a tide of love and unity swept over them. From this event Moravian missions worldwide were born. It was Moravian missionaries, sailing out to settle in Georgia, the new British colony in America, that awoke the Wesleys to their need of assurance of faith. Zinzendorf, after he had himself become an ordained and accredited minister of the Moravian Church in 1737, ordained Peter Bohler, who was influential in the Wesleys‟ spiritual journey to faith. Zinzendorf‟s focus for Christian Unity was the adoration of the Lamb. He longed for all „Christed ones‟ to be visibly expressing their unity. People who had „heart‟ religion all belonged together in the One Church. The unity of these „Christed ones‟ in the entire world already exists, it has to be rediscovered and made visible. The unity of the Church is a fact to be built on, not an ideal to be achieved. Denominationalism, for Zinzendorf, was not a disaster. He wrote: „Each denomination is generally possessed of some jewel peculiar to itself.‟ 92 The division of Europe into Catholic and Lutheran areas was an act of divine Providence. The real cause of shame for the 91 Zinzendorf, Nicholas von, see Lewis, A J, Zinzendorf – the Ecumenical Pioneer; a study of the Moravian Contribution to Christian Mission and Unity, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1862, Ch 6. Zinzendorf was a German aristocrat. He can be called the founder of the Moravian Brethren, who settled on his lands at Herrnhut in Saxony when they fled from persecution in Germany. They were the spiritual descendants of the Hussites and the Unitas Fratrum of Komensky. Ordained by a Moravian bishop. Zinzendorf cannot be fitted into any of the usual subclasses of Evangelicalism, though many Evangelical leaders were influenced by his pietism. He stressed a religion of the heart in protest against much arid intellectualism of his day. 92 Lewis, A J, Zinzendorf – the Ecumenical Pioneer; a study of the Moravian Contribution to Christian Mission and Unity, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1862, Ch 6, p 80. Page 89
denominations was not their distinctiveness, but that nominal Christians were allowed to rule in them. Nominal Christians do not „adhere to Jesus as the Lamb of God.‟ As soon as two persons of different denominations come together in the Lamb „and have one heart, nothing can keep them from being agreed.‟ In the 17 th and 18 th Centuries reason became elevated to an almost divine position among many philosophers. This trend was seen in Protestantism, where logic was expected to rule theology as it ruled Mathematics and Science. While there could be agreement that the doctrine of the Trinity could not be explained mathematically (though failure to do so led to the founding of a Unitarian movement under Theophilus Lindsey and Joseph Priestly), there was no such agreement in other areas of theology, especially not in the case of the doctrine of election. The hyper-Calvinists, like John Gill, pressed the logic of the sovereignty of God to a supra-lapsarian 93 position and gave no room at all to human endeavour in one‟s justification before God. The Arminians held that was reasonable to hold to free will and man‟s cooperation with God in working out one‟s salvation. By the 18 th Century, distinctive doctrines (especially those smacking of „enthusiasm‟) were regarded with suspicion, and it might have been thought that the age was ripe for the broadness of a Latitudinarian 94 church to give rise to some movement towards unity and harmony. But hopes of visible unity came to nothing. Churchmen and Dissenters actually talked about steps to unity. Rouse and Neill point out that two of the leading churchmen of the Georgian church, Joseph Butler (1692-1752) and Thomas Secker (1693-1768) had both, though Anglicans, received their theological education in Dissenting academies. Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), a leader of the Independents, had imbibed much of the irenical spirit of Richard Baxter and initiated discussions with Churchmen. Secker wrote to Doddridge that there were many Churchmen, indeed, all the bishops, in his opinion, who wanted union with Dissenters, yet he could add, „But still I see not the least prospect of it.‟ Isaac Watts (1647-1748), the pioneer hymn-writer, welcomed Presbyterian and Baptist Dissenters to have communion in his Congregational (Independent) church. On the Continent, in 1711, Dr Ernst Jablonski, a Moravian bishop, supported the plan of the King of Prussia, Frederic I, to unite Lutherans and Reformed in his domains by introducing bishops to the churches by means of the English episcopate. The deaths soon afterwards of those involved, the King, John Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York, and Queen Anne, resulted in the failure of the project. William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury (1657-1737), fostered hopes of some sort of union with the Anglican Church and even lived in Paris for a while as English chaplain. In 93 The sub-lapsarian maintains that God devised His scheme of redemption after the „lapse‟ or fall of Adam, when He elected some to salvation and left others to run their course. The supra-lapsarian maintains that all this was ordained by God from the foundation of the world, and that therefore the eternal destiny of each person was settled before the „lapse‟ or fall of Adam. 94 Latitudinarian. Any of the 17 th Century Anglican clerics whose beliefs and practices were viewed by conservatives as unorthodox or, at best, heterodox. After first being applied to the Cambridge Platonists, the term was later used to categorize churchmen who depended upon reason rather than argument from tradition to establish the moral certainty of Christian doctrines. Limiting that doctrine to what had to be accepted, they allowed for latitude on other teachings. The Latitudinarians thus became the precursors of the similar Broad Church movement in the 19 th Century Church of England. Page 90
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 and 22:
A certain Docetic teacher, often id
Page 23 and 24:
Novatianism When the persecutions o
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
Page 75 and 76: imminent return of Christ (Komensky
Page 77 and 78: a concern that merchant adventurers
Page 79 and 80: also anti-Socinian. Calixtus himsel
Page 81 and 82: The Eastern Churches were not rent
Page 83 and 84: everyone - from outward forms to in
Page 85 and 86: Women were not usually members of t
Page 87 and 88: work in America, shows him, though
Page 89 and 90: The aim of the conference was to br
Page 91 and 92: From 1768 Harris‟s home at Talgar
Page 93: twice more to congregations of Whit
Page 97 and 98: It was from the overseas Protestant
Page 99 and 100: THE OXFORD TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT Anot
Page 101 and 102: the Church of England‟s doctrinal
Page 103 and 104: „We pray that… all who desire t
Page 105 and 106: thereof, in prayer, in the remembra
Page 107 and 108: honours the Lord and his Word; the
Page 109 and 110: apostolic church enjoyed, and that
Page 111 and 112: episcopate were too radical for mos
Page 113 and 114: Denominations began to form their o
Page 115 and 116: In this Shanghai Conference‟s Rep
Page 117 and 118: With so much talk of unity and coop
Page 119 and 120: „The liturgical movement in weste
Page 121 and 122: • Sharing a corporate life of wit
Page 123 and 124: • Our acknowledgement of the Apos
Page 125 and 126: (h) The Evangelical Church in Germa
Page 127 and 128: It changed nothing in respect of do
Page 129 and 130: Some Evangelical Protestants want t
Page 131 and 132: • It is in continuity with the
Page 133 and 134: But things have changed. Richard Ma
Page 135 and 136: evangelism - (and) state what the r
Page 137 and 138: Repentance and faith are at the hea
Page 139 and 140: outcome of being justified. Agreeme
Page 141 and 142: Virgin‟s salutary influence on me
Page 143 and 144: h) Confession The sacrament of pena
Page 145 and 146:
demanding way would be sin. The que
Page 147 and 148:
If the opportunity for the Church t
Page 149 and 150:
Ministers, priests and laypeople in
Page 151 and 152:
West Kirby, near to my home, the Si
Page 153 and 154:
n) Shared Study Courses There is a
Page 155 and 156:
Even some Protestant churches today
Page 157 and 158:
Vincent de Lérins spoke of a „pr
Page 159 and 160:
It is not likely, in the foreseeabl
Page 161 and 162:
Christ and are trying their best to
Page 163 and 164:
upon the name of our Lord Jesus Chr
Page 165 and 166:
Perhaps this dying process is now b
Page 167 and 168:
economic factors giving rise to suc
Page 169 and 170:
deeper ecumenism, one that does not
Page 171 and 172:
APPENDIX 1 THE NICENO-CONSTANTINOPO
Page 173 and 174:
APPENDIX 2 FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON T
Page 175 and 176:
The „apostles and elders‟ of th
Page 177 and 178:
„The purpose of the Reformation C
Page 179 and 180:
What all three traditions have in c
Page 181 and 182:
Cromwellian period, in a treatise o
Page 183 and 184:
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS
Page 185 and 186:
Cullman, Oscar, The Earliest Christ
Page 187 and 188:
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
show all

Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?