Welcome to Modern British Heresy

This blog is focused on modern heresy in Christian churches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales from the Act of Toleration (1689) to the present.

My starting question was: "what's the point of heresy in a tolerant era?" I have yet to find a single and sufficient answer. (Why I began to study heresy)

To date, I have identified around 150 individuals who meet my dual criteria that:

1. they have been formally accused of heresy and 

2. some form of official action followed. 

I am confident that other cases will continue to come to light.

Some of these accusations and trials are well known to historians. Others have been forgotten because they were - and are - wholly marginal: there has been no need or desire to remember them. 

Sometimes there have been clusters of cases as church leaders determined to expel a group or, perhaps more accurately, the ideas the group has expounded, from the boundaries of that church. But the majority of accusations have been against errant individuals.

Indices: 

By date:  1689-1799, 1800-1899, 1900-present

Understanding modern heresy   

            

A working definition of heresy (expanded here)

I have come to the view that heresy has no stable or enduring content. Therefore, for the purposes of this blog: 

'heresy' is what a properly constituted authority has determined is heresy.

That said, the general idea of heresy in remains stable. Heresy is the obverse of orthodoxy and a general designation of notions which 

• purport to be legitimate within a particular Christian tradition and which 
• on examination, are judged to be antithetical to orthodoxy. 

But there is no stable set of ideas which constitute heresy. Instead heresy is a shadow concept. It has no solidity except as it is substantiated within the juridical processes of each church.

 

In part churches differentiate themselves from one another by their distinctive theologies (just as they - formally or informally - align themselves with other, like-minded, churches. And heresy, because it is parasitic on the official and normative teaching of each separate church, varies with between the different churches, and also across the history of each church . 

Similarly, because each church is a separate and self-sufficient jurisdiction, a finding of heresy in one church has no legal or theological weight  within any other. 

Posting and commenting

I hope to post fairly regularly but there will be delays: it takes me a while to go from start to a finished text for any individual.  

And I welcome comments. At least those that respect the tenor of the blog, whether or not you agree with me. 

Corrections and additional observations are particularly welcome.