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Friday, May 09, 2008
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5/2/2008
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Lessons from History: Wicliffe’s Battle With The Mendicant Friars (Part 2): It was in 1360 that Wicliffe’s public opposition to the mendicant [begging] friars first became notable. The Dominican friars entered England in 1321. In that year Gilbert de Fresney and twelve of his brethren settled at Oxford. The same causes that favoured their growth on the Continent operated equally in England, and this little band recruited to their ranks so rapidly that they swarmed throughout the kingdom.
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5/2/2008
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Contemporary Issues: As Pope sets out for USA: R.C. reform movement bitterly criticises the Pope: In an astonishing outburst, an International Roman Catholic movement has issued a series of direct, public warnings to Pope Benedict before his journey to the United States. We summarise them largely in their own words. We are Church is a world-wide reform movement within the Roman-Catholic Church. It tells Benedict that in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on April 18 “the Pope should do better than he did in Auschwitz (about Jews, May 2006), in Regensburg (about Islam, September 2006) and in Brazil (about indigenous people, May 2007)”.
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4/27/2008
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Lessons from History: Wicliffe’s Battle With The Mendicant Friars (Part 1): In contesting with the ‘Mendicant' [i.e., Begging] friars, so prodigiously diffused throughout Christendom, Wicliffe went beyond questioning Papal abuses. He attacked the Papacy's very legitimacy. Doubts sent him back again and again to Scripture, a struggle well chronicled by Foxe the martyrologist. Scripture showed him clearly that the Gospel and the Papacy were utterly irreconcilable. To follow the one is finally to renounce the other.
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4/12/2008
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Lessons from History: Wicliffe’s Battle With Rome For England’s Independence: Tithes, annats, investitures, appeals, reservations, expectatives, bulls, and briefs were so many drains for conveying the substance of the nations of Christendom to Rome. Every new saint cost the country of his birth 100,000 crowns. A consecrated pall for an English archbishop was bought for £1,200. In the year 1250, Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, paid £10,000 (around 4.5 million pounds today) for that mystic ornament without which he could perform no official duty. It was rightly said, “If Rome gives anything, it is trifles only. She takes your gold, but, gives nothing more solid in return than words. Alas! Rome is governed only by money”. It was computed that the tax paid to the Pope for ecclesiastical dignities was five-fold that paid to the king from the whole realm. This weakened the king and impoverished the realm and eventually depopulated the land.
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3/18/2008
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Lessons from History: Wicliffe and the Pope’s encroachments in England: We rejoin Wicliffe who remained 20 years at Merton College, Oxford, as scholar and then fellow. In 1360 he became Master of Balliol College. He was by now qualified to give public lectures in the university on the Books of Scripture, though forbidden to trespass upon the Sentences of Peter of Lombardy, a dubious privilege reserved for higher grade of Bachelors and Doctors in Theology.
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3/10/2008
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Lessons from History: The Advent Of Protestantism: WITH the passing of the centuries the world slowly emerged into the Light. The fifth century saw Christianity growing too rapidly. Like a tree it was cut down to its roots to escape a ruinous luxuriance. Power and riches transformed Christianity from a heart Principle into a sensual Rite leaving the soul in darkness and the life in bondage. Principle and Rite drew apart from the fourth century onwards, rite far outstripping principle and erecting gorgeous temples serviced by a powerful hierarchy multiplying ceremonies, canons and constitutions. Nations bowed before it, and kings advanced its propagation.
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2/25/2008
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Lessons from History: Abelard, And The Rise Of Modern Scepticism: We read of the Waldenses on the south of the Alps, and the Albigenses on the north of these mountains. We are told of the Petrobrussians appearing in this year, and the Henricians rising in that. We see a company of Manicheans burned in one city, and a body of Paulicians martyred in another. We find the Peterini planting themselves in this province, and the Cathari spreading themselves over that other. We figure to ourselves as many conflicting creeds as there are rival standards; and we are on the point, perhaps, of bewailing this supposed diversity of opinion as a consequence of breaking loose from the "centre of unity" in Rome.
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2/16/2008
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Lessons from History: Protestants Before Protestantism: The story of the Albigenses has carried us beyond the date we had previously reached in our series. We return therefore to the middle of the eleventh century and take up the story again from there.
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2/12/2008
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Biblical Sword: The Universal Foundations Of Eternal Truth: St Mary's Undercroft Chapel of the House of Commons was crowded to hear Dr Ian Paisley MP MLA, preach . The meeting on Thursday 17 January was chaired by the Rev Dr Brian Green, minister of Calvary Free Grace Baptist Church, Feltham, and Chairman of the Directors of the British Church Newspaper. Dr Paisley held his audience in rapt attention as he expounded the Gospel.
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1/25/2008
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Lessons from History: Erection of the tribunal of the Inquisition: The crusades against the Albigenses of Southern France were widely successful. The principalities of Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, and Raymond Roger the Viscount of Beziers, once “purged”, were given to that faithful son of the Church, Simon de Montfort. The neighbouring Count of Foix similarly lost his provinces in the common desolation. The Viscount of Narbonne avoided the crusaders at the price of becoming Grand Inquisitor of his own dominions. Sadly his rigour eventually exceeded even Rome’s demands.
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1/10/2008
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Lessons from History: The Crusades Against The Albigenses: THE torch of persecution lit up the thirteenth century with baleful fires. Not the State but Rome “Lord of the conscience” now self righteously persecutes. Fulminating edicts fostered blazing piles as she claimed the exclusive right to prescribe for every human being their worship and belief.
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1/1/2008
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12/19/2007
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Lessons from History: The Paulicians - And What Followed: Besides the Waldensians in their impregnable mountain fortress at the centre of Roman Christendom, other communities and individuals arose maintaining a continuous witness up to the sixteenth century. The Paulicians occupy a similar place in the East to that of the Waldenses in the West. They were a pure remnant of the ancient Eastern Church. Doubt has been thrown upon their religious opinions but close examination satisfies us that though errors were imputed to them, as a body they were true to Holy Writ.
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12/14/2007
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Contemporary Issues: Anglicans and RCs unite against Religious Hatred Bill: The Church of England and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales have jointly commented on the Government’s proposal to amend the Public Order Act to create a new offence of incitement to hatred on grounds of sexual orientation. They believe that the present laws are adequate for the protection of, “people vulnerable to attack on grounds of their sexuality or gender identity”.
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11/27/2007
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Caustic Comment: More women than men ordained into the Church of England: The Church ordained 478 new clergy in 2006, a drop from the 505 ordained in 2005. For the first time, more women (244) than men (234) were ordained in 2006, though the majority of these were ordained to non-stipendiary ministry. Of those ordained to full-time, stipendiary ministry, 128 were men and 95 were women.
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11/12/2007
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Contemporary Issues: Brawling as Vatican beatifies 500 Spanish ‘martyrs’ -- Bitter memories of the Civil War: It has been reported in the British Church Newspaper that…… The biggest beatification in the history of the Roman Catholic Church took place on 28 October.
Beatification is the first step to sainthood. The beatified were 498 people whom left wing forces killed during the Spanish Civil War, and whom Rome regards as martyrs.
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11/12/2007
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Lessons from History: The Waldenses — Their Valleys: But if the plains were conquered, not so the mountains. A considerable body of Protesters stood out against this deed of submission. Of these, some crossed the Alps, descended the Rhine, and raised the standard of opposition in the diocese of Cologne, where they were branded as Manicheans, and rewarded with the stake. Others retired into the valleys of the Piedmontese Alps, and there maintained their scriptural faith and their ancient independence.
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10/25/2007
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Lessons from History: Constantine To Hildebrand: How the Papacy became a politico-ecclesiastical power: It is scarcely possible to imagine humbler beginnings than those from which the Papacy arose, and certainly it is not possible to imagine a loftier height than that to which it eventually climbed. He who was seen in the first century presiding as the humble pastor over a single congregation, and claiming no rank above his brethren, is beheld in the twelfth century occupying a seat from which he looks down on all the thrones temporal and spiritual of Christendom. How, we ask with amazement, was the Papacy able to traverse the mighty space that divided the humble pastor from the mitred king?
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10/20/2007
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Lessons from History: The Declension Of The Early Christian Church: From the fifth to the fifteenth century, the Lamp of Truth burned dimly in the sanctuary of Christendom. Its flame often sank low, and appeared about to expire, yet never did it wholly go out. Now it was on the cities of Northern Italy that its light was seen to fall; and now its rays illumined the plains of Southern France. Now it shone along the course of the Danube and the Moldau, or tinted the pale shores of England, or shed its glory upon the Scottish Hebrides.
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10/15/2007
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Errors of Rome: Development Of The Papacy From Gregory VII To Boniface VIII: Now to the last great struggle. There lacked one grade of power to crown this stupendous fabric of papal dominion. Spiritual Supremacy was achieved in the seventh century, the temporal sovereignty in the eighth; it wanted only the pontifical supremacy, known as the temporal supremacy, to make the Pope supreme over kings, as he had already become over peoples and bishops, and to vest in him a jurisdiction that has not its like on earth - a unique jurisdiction arrogating all powers, absorbing all rights, and spurning all limits.
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