Modern British Heresy

Index to theory pages <previous: Church as an imagined community I wish to tread gingerly here. It may be that Rene Girard's notion of sacrifice can shed some light on some cases of heresy. (Wiki: Rene Girard ) I don't pretend to understand Girard very deeply, though I have read some of his work, but I was taken by (a limited grasp of) his reconstruction of primitive sacrifice as a continuing - occasional - element in social relationships, not least in religion. My sparse summary is that, in circumstances of discontent, people look for someone to blame: a scapegoat ( Wiki ).  At times, in primitive societies, generalised discontent - whatsoever its cause - would become fixed on a particular individual: someone must be to blame for the mess we're in . This someone could be at the top or the periphery of the community, but either way the sense might grow that we'd all be better off without them. In this context, the key elements of sacrifice (as opposed to murder) were

Index to theory pages <Previous:  Criteria for inclusion on this site Each Church, and thence Christianity as a whole, is an imagined community   Imagined community Churches are imagined communities in the sense used in Benedict Anderson’s 1983 book on nationhood , Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.  [ Wiki ] Just as a nation is imagined as an entity by both its citizens and outsiders so too is a church. Members will never know or even hear of almost all other members and yet consider themselves and those strangers as constitutive parts of the same body. M embers hip implies an expectation of shared  belief, culture, language and understandings . E ach member holds and enacts a mental image of mutual affinity which – however attenuated in practice - is nonetheless greater than the divisions between them. C ommonality is strengthened by internal difference and disputes. Contention and disagreement are only important if all are strugglin

Ramsden Street Chapel, Huddersfield, was independent and associated with the Congregational Union. It  had been in existence from at least 1825 and was governed according to a trust deed (created in 1849) which gave responsibility for buildings and church life to 21 trustees. The deed specified that the chapel was for the purpose of worship according to the teaching of Pædo-Baptists (those who baptised infants).   Appended to the trust deed was a 10-point statement of beliefs which “were all in harmony with Calvinism, and some of them were distinctly Calvinistic.” But chapel leaders had not seen this as a means to exclude anyone and had been open and welcoming, accepting of a wide range of views. When a number of Weslyans seceded from the Huddersfield circuit many joined the Ramsden Street Chapel. They were welcomed because they were Christian with no further test. Their theology was Arminian ( wiki ), not Calvinist ( wiki ) but it did not seem to have been a source of friction. The

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  sufficient and straightforwa

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 Christianity and therefore

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