Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
Back in the 1990's I used to pick up some Malachi Martin works on occasion. He provides insider information about the Jesuits and the Vatican and while I've never agreed with him, I've always found him to be interesting.
I stumbled on his 1984 work 'Rich Church, Poor Church' in a pile of discount books and since it was only $1.50, I decided to pick it up. It was a work I had never encountered before.
The original nation under the Articles of Confederation wouldn't hold together and so for many the revolution was betrayed by the creation of the Constitution and federalism. Some are aware of this to be sure but the masses of flag wavers are not.
The Great Commission of Matthew 28 is repeatedly invoked but with a Dominionist overlay that re-casts the passage in terms of a Christianisation that does not exist, that has no premise in the New Testament, is refuted by the New Testament, and in no way reflects Christ's imperative in the passage. He was exhorting His followers to make disciples of the nations – in other words the gospel message is not restricted to the Jewish nation but now goes out into the world and is open and available to all people – a point reiterated and reinforced by Pentecost and the Book of Acts. That offer did not include the Mosaic Law as Acts 15 makes clear.
In a Journal of Early Christian Studies article from the 1990's David Hunter argues contrary to Jerome and later interpreters (such as Edward Gibbon) that the late fourth century protests of Vigilantius of Calagurris were not the result of innovation on his part, nor the lone voice of an outlier, but rather represented an extant and thus older tradition in protest to a newly developing piety.
Many of the doctrinal points Melia wishes to make (which he does by means of collating numerous quotations and references) are troublesome to the type of Protestant history one encounters with someone like JA Wylie. Melia wants to show how Catholic the Waldenses were and thus drive a wedge betwixt the group as they appeared in history and the romanticised narratives of later historians.
And yet for someone like myself who argues the First
Reformation was essentially different on many key points than the Magisterial
Reformation, these claims made by Melia are not troubling in the least.
The Origin, Persecutions, and Doctrines of The Waldenses by Pius Melia. The original was published in 1870. The copy I read was a 1978 AMS re-print of James Toovey's 1870 edition published in London.
It's a short book but packed with useful information. The
Jesuit theologian pulls no punches. It is his intention to dismantle and
deconstruct many of the popular narratives surrounding The Waldenses. The book
despite its significant flaws is not without value.
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2015/03/constantine-defended-and-revisited.html
Recently, I decide to re-read this book and the article I
wrote about it in 2015. The book I'm referring to is "Constantine
Revisited: Leithart, Yoder, and the Constantinian Debate" edited by
John Roth (Wipf and Stock 2013). This book was written in response to Peter
Leithart's "Defending Constantine"
(IVP Academic 2010).
As I wrote in 2015, the book made many good points against
the Leithart thesis, but most of the contributors missed the mark and some
don't even belong within its pages.
It's been quite a few years since I read The Shepherd of Hermas. Reading it anew I was reminded of how alien it is to Evangelical sensibilities. For my part, I found the second century work refreshing if a bit of a slog. But some of that perception is merely cultural. We are certainly impatient in our day and so many of the older works can seem tedious.
Once again my thoughts drifted back to Catholic claims
regarding the Fathers – ones echoed by nineteenth century figures like Cardinal
JH Newman and John Nevin. While I will once again grant that the Magisterial
Reformation and its Evangelical progeny may find the waters of Hermas strange,
I still contend they are something other than Roman Catholic.
https://caldronpool.com/the-gospel-has-many-political-implications-for-a-nation/
New Calvinist pastor Matthew Littlefield asserts that those
who believe the Church should not engage in politics are guilty of trumpeting
ignorance. He then proceeds to elaborate what he believes are the political
implications of the gospel.
Many Evangelicals will undoubtedly celebrate the recent legislative moves in Texas and Florida and both governors (one Catholic and one Evangelical) are certainly viewed as allies or even champions in the Christian Right's culture wars.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XIII)
Not all among the Czech Brethren and Waldensians greeted the
Magisterial Reformation with joy. Some were alarmed and not a little put off by
some of the ideas which they believed were being forced upon them by the
Reformers. There was (at least in the case of the Cottian valleys) a degree of resentment
with regard to the patronising attitude which they encountered from Guillaume Farel
and what would become the Calvinist wing of the Reformation.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XII)
The First Reformation it would seem embraced theological primitivism
– unelaborated and limited doctrinal concepts. Like the Early Church they
weren't terribly worried about seeming contradictions or doctrines that seemed
to defy sense-experience or logical categories tied to it.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (IX)
Another way of reviewing and emphasizing the characteristics
of the First Reformation and the various proto-Protestant movements is to
juxtapose and contrast them with the Magisterial Reformation and the type of
Protestantism that it produced. This is seen in two areas – doctrine and
ethics. Questions of Biblical authority and general understandings of how
doctrine functions were answered differently. And, there were profound
differences in how the First and Second Reformations interacted with society,
power, wealth and the state. In other words the two movements had radically
different concepts of ethics in light of the Scriptures – at which point we
will begin.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (II)
In his Early
Christianity series, Nevin goes on to attack figures like Aerius, Jovinian
and Vigilantius – all 4th century dissenters treated by his
colleague Philip Schaff in vol. 3 of his History of the Christian Church.
Nevin argues these figures and groups were aberrations and
represented no serious opposition to the post-Constantinian changes – but we
cannot accept this verdict.