On Protestants and division
At Emergent Village, Jonathan Brink reflects on the recent Great Emergence conference and some of the points made there by Phyllis Tickle, author of the book by the same name:
“The natural outcome of these theological conversations [that followed the Protestant Reformation] was inevitable: camps. Put two people in a room with a Bible and conflict is inevitable. Put ten people in a room with a Bible and you might just have a riot. Until the Great Reformation there were essentially four major “denominations”: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism. But after the reformation, we saw the birth of more than 26,000 denominations. Why? Because the unintended side effect of the Protestant movement was the birth of divorce within the church.”
Read the entire post: “Children of Divorce.”
tags: controversy, emergent church, events, Protestants, Reformation
“Until the Great Reformation there were essentially four major “denominations”: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism.”
… really, Anglicanism came before the Reformation? Maybe I’m missing something here, but that does not seem to fit how I thought Anglicanism started.
Mind explaining?
Friends,
Rick correctly pointed out that I got my facts wrong about Anglicansim. I thanked him for correcting that matter.
I incorrectly lumped Anglicanism in to the mix. This was my bad, not Tickle’s.
Jonathan
No problem — though to be even more accurate (and to justify partially your description, Jonathan), it’s worth noting that already prior to the Reformation, England’s church was pulling away from Rome somewhat, in terms of liturgy and ecclesiology, and becoming distinct. While the term Anglican didn’t really come into common usage until a few generations after the Reformation, it dates back to the 1200s, if not further (Latin ecclesia anglicana).
The point Tickle makes is worth reflection. Though I haven’t found myself sympathetic to all concepts flowing from the emergent movement (so-called), I have wondered about and been disappointed by this aspect of Protestantism before (while remaining a convinced Protestant
).
Thanks again for your post, Jonathan.
[...] That’s the old canard that the Emergent Village folks appear to be trotting out (HT: Daily Scroll). Honestly, I wonder where this lot went to school. I noted the strange historical story that EV [...]