Crossing the Authority Line

I recently had a nice long chat with an Anglo-Catholic priest and we discussed the issue of authority and how their understanding differs from Rome and its Magisterium, from the models that seek to place Scripture, Reason, and Tradition on par, and Protestant understandings of Sola Scriptura.

Rejecting the Aquinas Jubilee

https://theaquilareport.com/what-the-jubilee-of-aquinas-says-about-rome-and-roman-protestant-relations-in-some-quarters/

I appreciated some of the issues raised in this piece by Hervey. Thomas and Thomism have certainly been in the air as his memory and a set of larger questions concerning Roman Catholicism are being debated. In these unsettled times as Protestants and Evangelicals thirst for so-called Christian Civilisation, there's a desire to find some kind of historical and cultural continuity. Protestantism falls short in this regard, and as such many are looking farther back to a time that at least seems to be more cohesive. Whether it was something to celebrate or not is debatable. After all, error can (in theory) be coherent, and paganism can create cohesive societies.

Inbox: Questions Concerning the Apocrypha (III)

While the aforementioned councils of Late Antiquity were not 'ecumenical' councils – a point some make to argue their canon proclamations weren't considered universally authoritative – such an argument or appeal proves too much.

Inbox: Questions Concerning the Apocrypha (I)

http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2022/12/gems-from-shepherd-of-hermas.html

In light of recent statements regarding the Early Church Fathers I was asked to elaborate and perhaps defend some issues regarding the Old Testament Apocrypha. This issue has gnawed at me for years and as I have worked through the narratives and claims of the Magisterial Reformation I finally came to a conclusion that its positions and arguments concerning these books are highly problematic. As I have repeatedly stated, this does not grant anything to Rome. That's not really the issue here.

Metanarratives of Church History: Mercersburg, Confessionalism, and Landmarkism

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (III)

Nevin imposes a theological paradigm and metanarrative on his reading of Church History but ignores the fact that the New Testament repeatedly and forcefully warns of apostasy and appeals to the Old Testament as a pattern which is replete with examples of corruption, defection and compromise. In other words the Scriptures all but told us to expect this course in terms of the history of the Church and yet Nevin's progression paradigm has no room for it.

Trinitarian Nomenclature, Progressive Orthodoxy and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Part 2)

There was resistance to the progressivist trajectory among the Medieval proponents of Sola Scriptura. While many of the groups were essentially orthodox (by Protestant standards) they nevertheless did not share the later Protestant views and narratives with regard to the (progressively orthodox) development of Roman Catholicism and its theology.

On what basis did they reject it? For them a commitment to Sola Scriptura was buttressed in many cases by a distinct ideological narrative that utterly rejected the Papacy and its claims and believed it not to be representative of the Bride of Christ in a somewhat defective but contextually understandable form, but the Antichrist, the Babylonian Harlot of Revelation. The fact that these groups had some of the developmental details wrong (regarding the Donation of Constantine for example) in no way detracts from the realities of Papal history, its claims, its deceptions and certainly the principles at stake.