Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384). Wycliffe was an Oxford scholar, and Master ofBalliol College around 1360. He was an acute critic of the worldliness of theChurch of his day, which he saw as a lack of grace. He held the thesis that ruleand authority were only valid when exercised by godly people. The Church wasin the midst of its Great Schism at this time, with three rival Popes all claimingauthority to rule the Church.Wycliffe attacked folk religion, with its superstitious pilgrimages and reverenceof relics, as well as the non-residence of clergy in their parishes. He questionedthe doctrine of transubstantiation, though he held to a real, though notphysical, presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He taught predestination of theelect to salvation and inspired the translation of the Bible into English from theLatin. Many copies of this translation are still extant.As later with Tyndale, Wycliffe’s aim was to put the Bible in the vernacular intothe hands of the people. His followers as travelling preachers, the ‘Lollards‘,spread his views across the land. Although he was not excommunicated,Wycliffe’s body was disinterred and burned by the Church in 1428 as the bodyof a heretic.The importance of Wycliffe’s part in inspiring the translation of the whole Bibleinto English cannot be overestimated. Copies of the Wycliffite Bible reach alllevels of society and played a significant part in making Biblical truth accessibleto lay people.Criticisms of the Papacy threatened the unity of the Church, though not allcritics wished to leave the Church. In De Monarchia, c.1311, Alighieri Dante(1265-1321) spiritualised the secular order: the State is of God as truly as theChurch is; profane history is under God’s control; and the power of theEmperor is derived directly from God, not from the Church or the Pope.Bishops must exercise their powers as constitutional and not absolute rulers ofdioceses.In Oxford, William of Occam, writing between 1330 and 1350, saw the Churchand State as two glories, independent of each other (as the sun and the moon).Each in its own sphere is supreme: neither must interfere with the otherexcept in extreme circumstances, for example if the Pope was a heretic or theEmperor a tyrant.Page 61
Far more serious criticisms of the status quo were made by Marsiglio of Padua(c.1275-1342). In his Defensor Pacis (1324) he exalted the power of the Stateabove that of the Church. Ultimate authority resided in the people, not in anyindividual or group. The Church had no rights which were not given by theState, even to the owning of property or spiritual jurisdiction. The Pope wassubject to the Emperor; the clergy had no rights over the sovereign and novoice in his selection; the people as a whole might depose him, but not thePope. The Prince alone was empowered to condemn heretics, but only if thewelfare of the State was threatened. Needless to say Marsiglio wasexcommunicated.Disaffection with the totalitarian nature of the church continued to grow, andit was the overbearing authority of the Papacy which lay behind much ofWycliffe’s opposition and that of Jan Hus (c.1372-1415), the Bohemian martyrscholarwho spread Wycliffe’s teaching in Central Europe. The Papacy itselfcontributed to this rise of discontent by the crises of the Avignon Papacy andthe Great Schism (1378-1417), in which Christendom was divided as Popes andanti-Popes all vied for power.John Hus was the first Protestant martyr, before there was, strictly, such athing as Protestantism. Wycliffe’s views were brought to Prague by scholars in1401, and at his Bethlehem Chapel in Prague (beautifully rebuilt in Communistdays and a tourist attraction today) Hus preached many of Wycliffe’s ideas. Inhis De Ecclesia (‘On the Church’) he drew heavily on Wycliffe and criticized thepower structures of his day. His condemnation of the worldliness of the clergyaroused considerable hostility. As Rector of Charles University he gained apopular following, but the Church forbade him to preach and excommunicatedhim in 1411. He was summoned to appear at the Council of Constance inNovember 1414, condemned, and burned as a heretic on 6 July 1415.Hus’s followers kept his teaching alive and a moderate section of them laterbecame known as the Unitas Fratrum (‘Unity of Brethren’), who had animpressive record of suffering for unity’s sake in subsequent centuries, thespiritual ancestors of the Moravians who come into church history in the 18 thCentury.The Unity of the Brethren were the spiritual descendents of the Hussites whohad carried Jan Hus’s and John Wycliffe’s teaching from Prague acrossBohemia at the beginning of the 15 th Century. Lollard (Wycliffite) viewsPage 62
Page 11 and 12:
Can Christian Unity be expressed ac
Page 13 and 14:
‘In the Trinity the three are one
Page 15 and 16: Protestants, equally, have to be ab
Page 17 and 18: When John Wesley said that Christia
Page 19 and 20: (Geneva) Agreed Statement was issue
Page 21 and 22: While organised Christian endeavour
Page 23 and 24: Christian Unity consist?’ We shal
Page 25 and 26: CHAPTER 1CHRISTIAN UNITY IN THE EAR
Page 27 and 28: Almost all the heresies in the Earl
Page 29 and 30: interpreted as being against the la
Page 31 and 32: was raised by the Novatian schism.
Page 33 and 34: ArianismArianism was the most impor
Page 35 and 36: the Person of Christ. This was the
Page 37 and 38: Nicaea (325 AD), which asserted, ag
Page 39 and 40: He wrote:‘The ancient doctrines o
Page 41 and 42: agreement into the terms and ethics
Page 43 and 44: authority of the local bishop; Cypr
Page 45 and 46: Protestants. He was born in Tagaste
Page 47 and 48: guide the affairs of men: the Papac
Page 49 and 50: The distinction between laity and c
Page 51 and 52: ule. Christians were allowed to be
Page 53 and 54: fallen corruption and mortality but
Page 55 and 56: During the 1917 Communist Revolutio
Page 57 and 58: his repentance and restoration. The
Page 59 and 60: just before death, they might recei
Page 61 and 62: In both the East and the West heres
Page 63 and 64: The Waldensians were so named after
Page 65: CHAPTER 4THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: WE
Page 69 and 70: and the sacraments. He was tried by
Page 71 and 72: and his discovering that the Script
Page 73 and 74: denominational allegiances: confess
Page 75 and 76: aptism and substituting for it bapt
Page 77 and 78: Vincent de Lérins’ threefold bas
Page 79 and 80: Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorra
Page 81 and 82: CHAPTER 5QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME OF
Page 83 and 84: Dr Charles Malik - 20 th Century:
Page 85 and 86: Nicholas Zernov - 20 th Century:‘
Page 87 and 88: The restoration of the universal Ch
Page 89 and 90: Timothy Ware - 20 th Century:‘It
Page 91 and 92: Basilea Schlink - 20 th Century:‘
Page 93 and 94: Cardinal Basil Hume - 20 th Century
Page 95 and 96: Keith A Fournier - 20 th Century:
Page 97 and 98: concept of a contract between a rul
Page 99 and 100: harmoniously ordered society of pea
Page 101 and 102: interesting to note that the disput
Page 103 and 104: • In the Eucharist, Komensky main
Page 105 and 106: The Conference opened with much pom
Page 107 and 108: a growing unity among Christians at
Page 109 and 110: We cannot leave the 17 th Century w
Page 111 and 112: CHAPTER 7CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE EV
Page 113 and 114: In Dr Woodward’s account of the r
Page 115 and 116: for Whitefield’s work in America,
Page 117 and 118:
the West, the North and the South.
Page 119 and 120:
‘John Wesley, displeased at not b
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formally, though it may have helped
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In view of all this, Charles Wesley
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Some of the refugees were persuaded
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Isaac Watts (1647-1748), the pionee
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CHAPTER 8VISIONS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
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hymns and Eastern orthodox spiritua
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eplied with a series of Eirenicons
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positively wrote on grace and love
Page 137 and 138:
hand that pours out sorrow’ and t
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He died in England in 1853 an ‘ec
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assembly, without much hesitation r
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‘Loving all whom Christ loves bec
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says, the Broad Church was ‘a moo
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far greater part for the laity in t
Page 149 and 150:
ehind some of the criticism of the
Page 151 and 152:
came together with the clear purpos
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In subsequent missionary conference
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university formed by a federation o
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credo-baptists to accept the provis
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Horton Davies 137 points out in his
Page 161 and 162:
However, since New Delhi, the WCC s
Page 163 and 164:
(b) The Church of Christ in China (
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the Scriptures as the supreme autho
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In 1970 a similar scheme to that of
Page 169 and 170:
indulgences, were all confirmed str
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however, at a lower level, manifest
Page 173 and 174:
In her study of the Evolution of th
Page 175 and 176:
Even within the Reformed Protestant
Page 177 and 178:
the publisher’s foreword to Gee
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and so I have some golden opportuni
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CHAPTER 10 THESE BRIDGES CAN’T BE
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‘Only he - only Christ - was able
Page 185 and 186:
c) Justification by Faith and Works
Page 187 and 188:
However, in the Credo of the People
Page 189 and 190:
f) Purgatory‘Purgatory’ is a na
Page 191 and 192:
The Catechism of the Catholic Churc
Page 193 and 194:
who love and trust the Lord Jesus C
Page 195 and 196:
However, there is a growing awarene
Page 197 and 198:
encouraged to receive a blessing al
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c) Traduction Œcumenique de la Bib
Page 201 and 202:
witness. There is one such Sisterho
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Practically all para-church groups
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s) Missions and CampaignsMissions a
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My Protestant friends say to me tha
Page 209 and 210:
Most Christians, in all three tradi
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of God may be complete, equipped fo
Page 213 and 214:
CHAPTER 12NOW WHAT?This book began
Page 215 and 216:
c) For some Protestants ecumenism m
Page 217 and 218:
The church at Corinth was full of C
Page 219 and 220:
) It has become clear that, realist
Page 221 and 222:
Christians who believe a Catholic d
Page 223 and 224:
There are three confessions that ha
Page 225 and 226:
‘The solution to the ecumenical i
Page 227 and 228:
k) Christ has left us an example -
Page 229 and 230:
day’, the Niceno-Constantinopolit
Page 231 and 232:
APPENDIX 2FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON TH
Page 233 and 234:
of the common good, and when one’
Page 235 and 236:
eaten, as idols did not exist anywa
Page 237 and 238:
14. That to continue in any known s
Page 239 and 240:
What all three traditions have in c
Page 241 and 242:
Calvin held that the Gospel of Jesu
Page 243 and 244:
Relations between Protestantism, Ca
Page 245 and 246:
Brandreth, Henry, R T, The Oecumeni
Page 247 and 248:
Hopko, Thomas, All the Fullness of
Page 249 and 250:
Rupp, E G and Drewery, Benjamin, Ma
Page 251 and 252:
INDEXAAct of Uniformity, 114aggiorn
Page 253 and 254:
Frame, John M, 91, 187Francis of As
Page 255 and 256:
Richardson, Paul, 239Roman Catholic
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Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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