Modern British Heresy

Index to theory pages <previous: defining heresy My test for inclusion in this list of alleged heretics has two parts: (a) that heresy has formally been alleged, and    (b) that formal action has followed This formulation is designed to exclude allegations which were not taken seriously at the time, those which arose in the heat of a disagreement and quickly evaporated, and those that were simply ignored  by the church concerned. Even so,  these criteria do show the triviality and ephemeral character of many cases.  The test does encompass a number of people who were found not guilty of heresy, or whose cases remained unresolved. I include these people to give a richer picture of the phenomenon of heresy in practice than would be presented by focusing solely on those who were convicted. Similarly trivial and peripheral cases are included as part of the picture, not merely those which had historical significance. For the most part this dual test has been ...

My working definition of heresy is: Heresy is a judgement, arrived at after due process, that certain specified teaching which purports to be in accord with the teaching and standards of a particular church is in fact incompatible and unacceptable. Heresy in the Roman Catholic Church has a structure and trajectory wholly distinct from that of protestant churches.  A common narrative of heresy begins with the observation that, in the earliest church, haireseis simply meant choice. This changed f rom  Ireneaus  and Tertullian onwards, when heresy came came to be understood as the assertion of teaching which was opposed to, or which undermined, orthodoxy . On this basis heresy is defined as "(the act of having) an opinion or belief that is the opposite of or against what is the official or popular opinion, or an action that shows that you have no respect for the official opinion."  Cambridge Dictionary However this definition narrative feeds a myth of Christia...

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 revi...

(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...

Principal John Caird It took less than a month from the first intimation that an accusation of heresy could be laid against John Caird, Principal of Glasgow University, to its evaporation. The aftermath played out for a couple of months longer.  Intimation of a charge On January 7 1874, Mr William Wallace, an elder at Kirkintilloch, told an ordinary meeting of the Glasgow Synod of the Church of Scotland that he would like to see Rev Caird, Principal of Glasgow University, summoned to the following meeting. He wished to discuss Caird's sermon on “Unbelief” which he had recently preached in Govan and, slightly modified, in Dundee. These had been reported in the Glasgow News on December 22, 1873 and January 5, 1874. Wallace  had already been in communication with Professor Caird by letter. He had suggested to Caird that the tenet that a person was not responsible for his religious belief was at the root of his teaching; Caird had denied that he held such a doctrine. Despite ...

   This case meets my criteria for inclusion in this study in a way that is unique. My tests are (1) that there should have been an accusation of heresy followed (2) by some form of official response. In every other case I have come across the official response is addressed to the accused - in this case the person who instigated the accusation was the person prosecuted. Exonerated in his first trial, he was condemned in the second.   Part of the context, though beyond the stretch of my focus on heresy, was several court cases in the same year and earlier, on issues of worship and ritual as part of the continuing civil war in the church initially sparked by the Oxford Movement in the 1830s.      Background In the summer of 1874 Rev Flavel Cook, incumbent of Christ Church, Clifton in Bristol, gave a series of sermons on the nature of rationalism. Amongst his congregation and audience was Mr Jenkins, a barrister of independent means. The men and their fam...