Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

The Church of England has to be singled out as a very special kind ofProtestant Church, claiming to be both Catholic and Protestant. Politicalevents brought it into being as an established State Church in 1534 underHenry VIII. It still retains its legal connection to the State to this day, despitecalls over very many years for its disestablishment. On the Continent thereare countries such as Sweden which have established churches, but dissent isnow tolerated, officially at least, everywhere in European countries.In the Reformation period differences between the mainstream Protestantchurches were not about the classical Christological and Trinitarian Confessionsof the Church universal, but about baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Churchorder. These were all issues in which they also differed from the Catholic andOrthodox Churches.Episcopacy was retained by the Church of England and Lutherans, while theCalvinists followed a Presbyterian 51 form of government. By the late 16 thCentury, Congregationalist ideas of church governance were appearing insouthern England (the ‘Brownists’) and were to become a permanent featureof Christianity in Britain. All these churches practiced infant baptism, thoughdenying a Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration. By the 17 th Century,Anabaptist ideas from the continent lead to the formation of Baptistcongregations, which were Congregationalist in church order and practisingcredo- (believers’) baptism.The sad experience of the Colloquy held in Poissy (1561), just north of Paris,must be mentioned here. Huguenots (French Protestants) and the CatholicChurch met to promote unity at a conference convened by the Queen Regent,Catherine de Medici. It lasted about a month.Theodore Beza and Peter Vermigli, a Calvinist and a Zwinglian, led theargument from the Protestant side. Beza began by urging the delegates not todeny their differences nor fail to assert their close agreement on many pointsof doctrine. However, his assertion that while the Eucharist was not just acommemoration of Jesus’ death, neither was it a literal partaking of his body,which was in heaven and not on altars, caused the greatest disturbance amongthe Catholics, and led to cries of ‘blasphemy’ and hissing.51 Presbyterian. The Presbyterian form of Church order was by the rule of elders(‘presbuteroi’ in the Greek of the New Testament) over a congregation. As Presbyterianismdeveloped, congregations became linked together under the guidance of regional councils,presbyteries and synods. In Scotland, Prebyterianism is the established, national Church. InHolland it became the officially approved Church body, if not formally established.Page 73