A skeleton of protestant heresy
My working definition of heresy
Heresy is a judgement, arrived at after due process, that certain specified teaching which purports to accord with the teaching and standards of a particular church is adjudged incompatible and unacceptable.
The two-part test for inclusion in this study
That 1) there should have been a public (or publicised) accusation of heresy, however phrased, and that the accusation was followed 2) by some form of formal action.
Each Church, and thence Christianity as a whole, is an imagined community
Insofar as a church is constituted by its beliefs it is vulnerable to those beliefs being misinterpreted or misrepresented
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Heresy is contextual
The primary context is the denomination: heresy in a presbyterian church is not the same in substance or process as heresy in an episcopal church. It is not the same in a large denomination as in a small one.
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Heresy is justiciable
Perhaps the largest difference between presbyterian and episcopal churches is the process by which an accusation of heresy is adjudicated. The process of adjudication implicitly legitimates the sentence.
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Heresy and power
An allegation of heresy is a complex assertion of the power to be able to discriminate truth from error, and to act on it. The structured power which is constitutive of a church is also that which enables its boundaries to be patrolled.
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People get hurt
Heresy is seldom if ever simply an intellectual process. Belief and belonging, conviction and identity, are deeply emotional processes threatened by the accusation and the presence of heresy.
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Comments and corrections are welcome. But please note that the focus is on the historical examination of heresy cases, not the rights and wrongs of the theology..