02 Saturday Sep 2017
Posted in Faith
As Protestants prepare to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, two new surveys show the theological differences that split Western Christianity in the 1500s have diminished.
Source: After 500 Years, Reformation-Era Divisions Have Lost Much of Their Potency
Justice for Bishop George Bell of Chichester - Seeking Truth, Unity and Peace
Rediscovering the Middle Ground
a scrap book of words and pictures
reflections, links and stories.
reflecting my eclectic (and sometimes erratic) life
wondering, learning, exploring
Reflecting on sexuality and gender identity in the Church of England
Work and Prayer
Reflections, comment, explorations on faith, life, church, minstry & meaning.
Mental health & loss in the Church
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34
ancient, medieval, byzantine, anglican
Stories From Norfolk and Beyond - Be They Past, Present, Fact, Fiction, Mythological, Legend or Folklore.
Miscellanies on Religion and Public life
Gender, Family and Religious History in the Modern Era
Faith, life and kick-ass moves
More beautiful than the honey locust tree are the words of the Lord - Mary Oliver
A blog pertaining to the future of the Church
Blue Labour meets Disraelite Tory meets High Church Socialist
Poems from life and the church year
Contmplations for beginners
The Catholic Faith Defended
To bring identity and power back to the voice of women
“Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart.” ( Colossians 3: 23 ) - The blog of Father Richard Peers SMMS, Director of Education for the Diocese of Liverpool
Journalism from London.
Mining the collective unconscious
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” — Maya Angelou
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you ... John 13:34
“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.”
Blessed be God forever.
A Monk on the Mission
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few" Luke 10:2
Blog for poet and singer-songwriter Malcolm Guite
The Site of James Bishop (CBC, TESOL, Psych., BTh, Hon., MA., PhD candidate)
Reflections from the Dean of Southwark
Happy. Southern. Catholic.
"...a fellowship, within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church..."
A daily blog to deepen our participation in Mass
legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi
"Not all those who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien
Pictures by Catherine Young
All Along the Watchtower 
It’s telling, by what does it tell?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Well, interpretation is notoriously difficult with these studies. It speaks to secularisation, but I would also say it speaks to catechisation in both the Protestant and Catholic spheres.
LikeLike
Philip, it tells nothing about the truth of either religion. It only tells what people feel.
LikeLike
If we all serve Christ – why should there be any divisions. You know Christ warned that a house divided could not stand or a reason.
LikeLike
Strikes me that part of what it’s telling is that both Protestants and Catholics are poorly catechised. Sola Fide is misleading, Luther at least, never said that salvation comes through Faith (which to my mind is close to works, anyway) but through Grace, which comes from God, not man and allows us to have Faith. If I understand, this is what Catholics have also always taught. Works happen because of faith, nobody, anywhere, that I know of ever thought, let alone said, that one could earn salvation through works (or anything else). It is something given us by God, in his mercy, because…well that’s up to Him, isn’t it? But He says if we believe in Him. Christianity is designed to help us do that. The rest is important but secondary.
Most of what the poll talks about is what we’ve been discussing here since this blog was founded, how much we share (and always in truth have shared). Essentials and incidentals we have sometimes called it. But the essentials were summed up for all time at Nicea.
Interesting poll, though.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think it indicates a departure from traditional liturgies/structures as well and/or from traditional sermons. During my time at an evangelical charismatic Anglican church, there were traditional features, but it also felt in places more “generic”, which stems from the koinonia of the evangelical spectrum.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Neo, I listen to Issues etc.–Lutheran MS radio–from time to time. And it’s interesting last week on the feast of St. Augustine, they had a professor from Concordia Seminary on the show who is a Lutheran expert on Augustine. The host asked him what denomination best subscribed to Augustine’s theology of Grace. The professor’ reply had the host stumbling over his words, “The modern Catholic Church.”
I think we at times like to assume the worse. But perhaps, for the sake of unity, we’re all being led by the spirit?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Also, regardless of the Catholic Church taught Neo, the professor assets that the Medieval Catholic Church had abuses from their clergy that smelled like Pelagianism, I’m inclined to agree. When he spoke of the modern Catholic Church, it’s a Church that had to clean house as a result of an event.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dr. David Maxwell is his name.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Answering more or less all three, Philip, I agree. I think we are being so led, and I think it important to see. The modern Catholic Church gets very much, very right. It’s only real problem is that like our synods, and like the Anglicans as well, it has the dichotomy between the modernizers and the traditionalists. Well, as usual, I suspect the truth (Truth?) is somewhere between the factions, and that the unseemly yelling past each other doesn’t really help all that much. Better than killing each other though.
I’m inclined to agree with him on the Medieval Catholic Church as well, and I think that’s what Luther (especially early on) saw as well. It wasn’t so much the Church itself, as some of the accretions, especially by the secular clergy. English history tells us that the secular clergy was rather distrusted while the regular clergy was admired. Something that just occurred to me, could this be the root of the iconoclasm of the English Reformation? I have no evidence at all, it literally just occured to me while rereading this comment.
Luther’s original aim was reform, till it went pear shaped. (sort of a ‘deep state’, in contemporary parlance). And if that was his goal, well, in a messy sort of way, he achieved it, the Church did reform.
I’ve heard of Dr. Maxwell although I don’t think I’ve read any of his work.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Neo you stated; “Sola Fide is misleading, Luther at least, never said that salvation comes through Faith (which to my mind is close to works, anyway) but through Grace, which comes from God, not man and allows us to have Faith.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the other hand, regarded Moses (and his law) and the Prophets differently: Matthew 5:17: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. (cf. Matt 5:18-9, Mk 7:8-11, Lk 24:27,44, Jn 5:45-47). In fact, Jesus expressly states that God spoke to Moses in the burning bush (Mk 12:26), thus refuting Luther. Yet, despite this and numerous other contradictions and errors, Luther insists on his own (in effect) absolute infallibility. In defending his addition of the word “alone” to Romans 3:28 (“faith alone”), Luther railed:
Thus I will have it, thus I order it, my will is reason enough . . . Dr. Luther will have it so, and . . . he is a Doctor above all Doctors in the whole of Popery.
(O’Connor, 25; Letter to Wenceslaus Link in 1530)
Luther did add the word “alone” to Romans 3:28 changing the phrase to “faith alone,” and then seems to have had a fit about it.
LikeLike
This may also help: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2008/07/debate-did-martin-luther-mistranslate.html
And I will quote Tim MD’s closing: Tim MD- Conclusion (200 words)
It has been said that the Reformation “stands or falls” on the doctrine of salvation by Faith Alone. It does but not only that. In this debate we have seen ample evidence of the absolute necessity of defending anything Luther did or wrote, especially on the issue of salvation, lest we see that the Emperor (Luther) had no clothes.
Throughout history, the “sons” of heretics will go to extraordinary lengths to protect the “good names” of their “fathers”. But then, the word “heresy” is almost completely avoided by Protestants because they understand that it could EASILY be used against THEM by one of the other 33,999 “sects”. This is because, thanks to Luther, there is NO ONE within Protestantism who can pronounce anything as being heretical or anything as being “Scriptural” with any degree of authority other than what they have given themselves. So, all we are left with is a countless number of competing and conflicting voices about what is right and what is wrong and what is Scriptural, what the Fathers said, what is history, etc.
Theology, rather than being something to be studied and learned, has become subjective, a reflection of the individual rather than of God.
LikeLike
Oh yes..i mean Oh no…..be it far from the pure and white catholic church to resort to protecting its good name.
LikeLike
Christianity, in all forms; Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, are more similar than less similar and they have always been that way. Now if the study found that most people view Islam and Christianity as more similar to each other than not, that would be a cause for concern.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even though the protestant world doesn’t have anywhere near the all invasive idolatry of the catholic world , and neither does it have the armies of dead men to pray to, the protestant world has, what the saved call , pictures of mom in their wallets.The prot world has Xmas, St Valentines day, Halloween, Eshtar. Personally, I believe them to be less harmful than many of my fellow saints do. To be sure they are pagan to the utmost , but being raised prot didn’t stamp out the notion of having Jesus be a personal savior, such as the catholic church does. When I heard the news I believed it. catholics are taught that salvation is in a cracker in the hands of someone in a costume. And if they deviate from CC teaching they are assured the fires of hell.
What both worlds have in common is that neither of them have any power to save. Jesus stands at your door, not inside of some religion.
LikeLike