Modern British Heresy

John Watson D.D. was a prolific writer and a Presbyterian minister in Liverpool. His novels, written under the name ‘Ian Maclaren’, sold well on both sides of the Atlantic. ( wiki ; A Victorian ) In 1897 he published The Mind of the Master which proved popular in Britain and in America. It also garnered criticism from more conservative presbyterians in both countries. “Strong objection has been taken to the views expressed therein, especially north of the Tweed.” said the Edinburgh Evening News (Friday 19 March 1897 p2 col.1).  His views on the atonement and the absolute deity of Christ were held to be suspect and a petition was circulated by Rev. Dr Kennedy Moore which avoided the term ‘heresy’ but which called “the attention of the Synod to the fact that Dr Watson has not repudiated the charge made against him that his teaching tends towards Unitarianism.” ( The Carlisle Patriot Friday 26 March 1897, p.1 col. 5). "The Memorial and Petition of the Undersigned Ministers and El

Mr. A. Douglas Bowie was precentor (lay singing leader) in Kirkcudbright Free Church when he was accused of having also been a member of the charismatic Catholic Apostolic Church ( wiki ) for the previous thirteen years. As a consequence  h is minister, Rev Marshall, dismissed him from his role  i n June 1897 . I guess the minister was new. The substantive allegation, insofar as it was articulated, was of holding beliefs of one church which were incompatible with the beliefs, and therefore membership, of the Free Church. The driving accusation was deceit. But Marshall acted outwith the proper procedure. He  asked  the Kirk-Session (the church council and a court in its own right) that he might deal with his organist and they had assented. By  doing so they abrogated their duty as a court, and denied Bowie the chance of both a more public hearing and the  opportunity to appeal .  Bowie petitioned the Presbytery which effectively acted as a court of review notwithstanding the absence of

(This is mostly a précis of Bryne's own account in From Inquisition to Freedom , with an article in the Irish Times, 24 February 2000, and my own comments. ) Born in 1947 in Birmingham, Lavinia was a cradle Catholic. She first met the sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM) at boarding school in Shaftesbury in 1958, and joined them in 1964. She read French and Spanish at London University and then trained as a teacher in Cambridge. “ For the first fifteen years, of my religious life” she wrote, “I was perfectly happy teaching in a number of girls’ schools which were owned by the community. ” [p176]  Then came her ‘tertianship’, the third phase of her formation. This took her out of her smaller world to places and experiences she had not previously known, including “an all-night refuge, in a hostel, and with the Afro-Caribbean community in Bayswater, a very mixed-race part of London.” [ ibid. ]   The experience changed her and s he could not return to life as a