Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
https://churcheswithoutchests.net/2025/03/13/the-imitation-of-christ/
I am pleased to note de Bruyn also offers some praise for the Theologia Germanica, another worthy pre-Reformation work.
But as I've often argued there's a problem with this approach to orthodoxy - it's progressive. Men like de Bruyn are willing to say that à Kempis and the anonymous author (the Friend of God from the Oberland) of the Theologia were Christians.
I recently finished Frederick Heymann's George of Bohemia: King of Heretics (1965, Princeton University Press). It's a weighty and laborious read but necessary for anyone seeking to understand the history of Hussitism.
Too often Protestants have fallen prey to 'successionist' thinking or rather tying the idea of succession to some kind of institutional or genealogical pedigree. The apostolic succession (if we want to call it that) is located not in a group, tribe, geographic location, or institutional/ecclesiastical continuity but in the doctrine of the apostles. Those who recognize and obey the Christ-granted oracular authority of the apostles or New Testament writers are the heirs of the apostles.
For obvious reasons this article on Waldensian Historiography captured my attention and I was thinking of Philip Schaff long before his name emerged in the article.
Romanticism took on many hues during the 19th century and while American Protestants poured most of their energy into crafting the narrative about the Mayflower Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers, they were not alone. Hostility to Roman Catholicism generated other historical debates over Church History and Protestants from the US and the UK, to France and beyond wanted a piece of the Waldensians.
https://building.christkirk.com/
For those familiar with Wilson's 1998 'Angels in the Architecture', this appeal for a new building is nothing new. It is but a continuation of his celebration of the Middle Ages, along with the usual refrain to 'live it up' and do everything on a grand scale - big buildings, big feasts, and all the rest. His ethos is one of triumphalism, an outworking of his over-realized eschatology, itself a result of his misreading of Scripture on a massive and dare I say mortal scale.
https://www.christianpost.com/voices/reformed-cessationists-should-not-quote-church-history.html
I have no wish to provide comfort or aid to a false teacher such as Michael Brown, but on this issue he has a point. The Church History argument (taken by itself) is not really on the Cessationist side. This however does not mean that so-called Continuationism wins the day – it simply requires a different reading.
https://churchandfamilylife.com/podcasts/6540dea48035f112bf38cdf8
Modern Thanksgiving was born out of the US Civil War – In
1863, Lincoln wanted the country to be thankful for the turning of the tide
post-Gettysburg and following his lead the government issued proclamations in
the 1870's.
In 1939 FDR moved the date up a week wishing to extend the
Christmas shopping season – and this remains the practice today.
In other words it's a familiar theme to us even today – it's
about the troops and the consumerist economy.
Due to the necessity of expansion and sheer avarice, Capitalism will inevitably turn to the international sphere and with that comes intrigue and war – and that in turn leads to secrecy and propaganda. As the public begins to grasp this, there is an erosion of trust. And if the forces of finance capital have also purchased the news media – the end result is at first mass conformity, but later this will turn to mass cynicism. For those who only see one small piece of the puzzle their already skewed viewpoint will be subject to easy manipulation. There are those who profit from fear and anger and if allowed to fester these emotional responses can take on a life of their own. And it's not just the Right that plays this game.
Having recently finished Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, by John Julius Norwich (first published in 2011), I must say I was in the overall – disappointed. My hopes were already diminished as I have interacted with some of his other works and found him to be wanting. This book was no exception. There were numerous errors and I found his analysis frustrating at many points. I wanted to give him another try as the nature of the volume intrigued me. He writes about topics that greatly interest me but there's something a bit off about his approach and degree of acumen.
I was asked to elaborate a bit on the question of proto-Protestantism's relationship to Magisterial Protestantism and the question of conservative vs. progressive movements.
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.
https://issuesetc.org/2022/07/29/2101-christian-crusaders-raymond-ibrahim-7-29-22/
This was but another ridiculous interview I found on Issues
Etc., yet another case at the attempted rehabilitation of The Crusades. Ibrahim
inadvertently all but confesses that his work is not just revisionism but
hagiography focusing on the 'heroes' of The Crusades.
After many years I finally found the time to read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages first published in 1957. For all the attention this book has received I was quite disappointed.
Cohn's thesis rests on a cobbled together narrative that
confuses popular impulse and superstition with religious conviction. He tries
to argue that various utopian and chiliastic movements of the medieval period were
the cultural and ideological precursors of twentieth century Nazism and
Communism.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XXII/Final)
We ought to understand that technology and art are not easily
separated and both are to some extent inseparable from questions of
epistemology and morality. Additionally, if we grasp that socially conservative
attitudes toward the arts and culture (while inconsistent) cannot be divorced from
their larger cultural narratives surrounding epistemology and previous
generational progress and values, it behooves us (lest we be swept away by
these powerful cultural forces and heavily promoted arguments) to apply the otherworldly
and non-conformist ethos of the First Reformation to the present day. Our
culture is in crisis and thus to many, the arguments made by conservatives seem
very persuasive and grounding but from a New Testament perspective they are flawed
at almost every level.
An otherworldly and non-conformist ethos leads us to a
cultural posture and interaction that embraces neither the Classic nor the
Enlightened. In fact in many ways we are better able to resonate with the postmodern
critique and even the cynical. We benefit from critiques that expose the world
system's inherent flaws and contradictions, that reveal it to be an idolatrous
fraud and resting on transient and degenerating foundations – as Paul teaches
in 1 Corinthians 7.29-31 and Romans 8.19-23. This should not upset us but
rather drives us all the more toward the inescapable choice between dependence
upon revelation and the hope it grants or a collapse into nihilism.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XXI)
This topic may seem off-base or represent a strange sidetrack
and it must be admitted not all will be interested in this discussion or even
be able to follow it. Nevertheless these are issues of practical importance,
all the more given the way in which such questions (presented within the
framework of a holistic system) permeate Evangelical discussions and dominate
airwaves, pulpits, and an endless stream of books and cultural commentaries.
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 (VI)
Some would date the First Reformation to the era of The Great
Schism (1378-1417) when the papacy was split between the Avignon and Rome
factions. Lollardy proper (it is argued) arose in England during this period
and Czech Hussitism arose immediately after it. The already established
Waldensians also flourished during this era and some believe the period
represents a first wave of doctrinal protest movements – a case of all of these
groups (to varying degrees) appealing to the Scriptures to argue against the
developments within Catholicism.
Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (V)
The growing
apostasy at work in the post-Constantinian period was challenged and it seems
clear there was a lasting testimony of extra-Roman and anti-Roman resistance
well into the Dark Ages. A dissenting geographic belt (deemed heretical by
Rome) would appear cutting across the Pyrenees through Southern France and
across the Alps into Northern Italy. With Switzerland serving as a knot,
another branch roughly followed the course of the Rhine through Germany and the
Low Countries.