Take the heretic test

22 Responses to “Take the heretic test”

1. Peter Ould says:
   

   You know that you believe the catholic faith in that your answers to (i) and (iii) are creedal. I think your answer to (ii) shows the limitation of the Arminian perspective on soteriology. Those of us who are electionists have no problem with the questions you raise (but have one or two thorny issues of our own).

   I think you also know that without referencing back and filling in a bit of detail on the person and the post I was originally challenging you kinda show the post out of context. It would be nice for your readers if you gave a bit more background detail to the reason for asking those questions. And for the record Susan R still hasn’t put the comment up on her blog. Nice of her.

   Almost finally, I’d love a trackback if you were able to manage it!!!!

   And finally finally, let me just say it’s a pleasure to have you reading me!! It’s very likely that I’ve been reading you for far longer than vice-versa and that’s a compliment to the work you do here.

   December 17th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
2. joe says:
   

   I don’t need anyone to count the ticks and decide whether I am orthodox or heterodox. I consider it to be a particularly rude and insulting thing to do.

   December 17th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
3. Dave says:
   

   Peter,

   Does that mean I pass? I understand your first paragraph but I’m still not sure whether I make the ’soundness’ grade or not. I suspect you’d probably say not if I was given the chance to ramble further on question 2.

   As for filling in background detail – I tend not to go for long posts which lots of background to the things I talk about as I’d never have the time to make posts in the first place. I quite often bore myself as it is. Anyone reading can check the links from your post if they want to know more.

   I’m not quite sure what you mean by the trackback point. My blog did a ‘pingback’ to yours that is showing up as a comment on your post – is that sufficient? I find that ‘trackbacks’ as such don’t usually work in Wordpress anyhow.

   Finally – thanks for the comment about my work. Yes, I do read your blog. I find it interesting but I’m not going to pretend I like everything you do. Didn’t like the recent KJS video I’m afraid – I felt it crossed a line of some sort.

   December 17th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
4. Dave says:
   

   Seems to me with definitions that stringent, half the evangelicals are even ruled out!

   December 17th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
5. Peter Ould says:
   

   Pingback came through nice and easy. Thanks.

   Dave, if you’re not going to give the context of the “heresy test” then you’re giving your readers a false understanding of what it was about. Quoting without context is just a pretext.

   December 17th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
6. Dave says:
   

   Peter – I don’t know what more I can do except encourage people to go and read your post which gives them as much context as I had. I have added an extra link to encourage people to do such a thing.

   I don’t tend to quote an entire post from someone elses blog, the thinking being that it is better to encourage visitors to click through for the full version.

   December 17th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
7. Andrew says:
   

   Interesting test. Thanks for posting and pointing to it. I prefer the Baptismal Covenant in the 1979 BCP (USA), which is based on the Apostles Creed. Here are two reasons why:

   First, as confidently and happily as I am to be able to tick off “yes” to all three questions, and therefore I can now rest easy because I am presumed to be orthodox, so what? Because where Mr. Ould and I part company is in that we draw different implications from the same belief. And it is those implications of the Gospel that is at the heart of the conflict within Anglicanism right now.

   Which leads to the second problem. These questions seem to me to be a trap into which unsuspecting “heretics” may fall. You want to see if the witch will float: if not, she is not a witch and God will save her; if she does we will burn her for her own good.

   If she were to post her comments and answer “yes” then Peter would castigate her for being an apostate. If she answers “no” to even one, then Peter would announce that she’s a heretic. As it is she gets to be castigated for ignoring the question, which seems to be a timesaver.

   The Nicene and Apostolic Creeds tell us what all Christian believe not so much as a base line, but as the boundaries within which we are all gathered in Christ. That’s why we call ourselves ‘catholic.’ The precision of this test does not account for differences in practice, culture or polity, let alone theology that makes up the whole Church. At best, this little quiz *may* indicate whether or not a person can live comfortably in this one corner of the Church.

   But not whether or not one should.

   December 18th, 2006 at 2:23 am
8. Paul Roberts says:
   

   Dave – I followed the link. Ugh, what a ghastly blog! Like most self-appointed bastions of orthodoxy, Peter betrays his own heresies in the process.

   I notice his comment: “Schism in the church is NOT about denying the gospel of truth and reconciliation. It is about affirming the Gospel of truth and reconciliation in the face of those who choose to reject truth and deny the need for sinners to repent and be reconciled to the Lord of the Universe, Jesus Christ.” Which seems to suggest the very same faulty ecclesiology which was thrown out by Augustine in his work against the Donatists.

   I can’t help thinking that there are far more important issues to be spending our time on than contra-blogging between people who are all trying to follow the same Lord.

   December 18th, 2006 at 7:44 am
9. Wulf says:
   

   There is also the issue that what people say they believe or even think they believe is often belied by the choices they make in living their lives.

   Ticking boxes is easy; being a disciple is an ongoing discipline.

   December 18th, 2006 at 8:22 am
10. Peter Ould says:
    

    Paul,

    I’m afraid your comment simply demonstrates that you don’t understand what Donatism is. Donatism is the heresy that repentant apostates shouldn’t be admitted back into the communion of the church. The problem with the leadership of TEC is that they refuse to even recognise that they are apostate and condoning apostasy. They are not repentant so the issue of re-admittance into the life of the wider church doesn’t yet arise (as it were).

    December 18th, 2006 at 8:32 am
11. joe says:
    

    Peter, I’m afraid the only heretics I recognise are those who do not live the beatitudes as they should – ie all of us.

    What do you want me to do? Walk around with a ’sinner’ sticker stuck to my forehead? Bow down and worship at the temple of your higher-and-better theology?

    Here is a newsflash for you: the test of good theology is not whether I meet your criteria but before the throne of God. And quite honestly, he seems to be rather more concerned about whether I feed the poor, visit the sick, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger than whether-or-not I believe that the resurrection body of Christ was exact same body that was crucified days earlier, which is pure conjecture this side of judgement day.

    December 18th, 2006 at 9:20 am
12. Rhys says:
    

    I’ve tried the ‘Translate into English’ button on some of the comments but they still look the same to me.

    Could someone draw some amusing cartoons to help me understand? Thanks.

    December 18th, 2006 at 9:59 am
13. Chris Clark says:
    

    Joe

    I find I slip up a the first ones, being poor of spirit, mourning and being meek…

    It is important what we do as we will be judged by that. However the only way to get in to God’s family in the first place is by meekly mourning over our poor sinful spirit and relying on the garce of God.

    December 18th, 2006 at 10:06 am
14. Dave says:
    

    Peter – I suspect Paul knows more about donatism than we all do put together. He does lectures about it and everything.

    Rhys. A cartoon? I… er… it… well… you see… I’ll… hmmm.

    December 18th, 2006 at 10:49 am
15. Karin says:
    

    Having read the aforementioned peter’s post and the post by Rev Susan that he is responding to, I can’t actually see how it is a response.

    She mourns the split in the church caused by those who insist their understanding is right and everyone else is wrong.

    Peter’s post just makes it clear he is one of those who thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong. Life, and least of all Christianity, just isn’t that black and white, Peter. I try to follow Jesus, the rest is optional as far as I and many others are concerned.

    Insisting we agree with his exact way of understanding who Jesus is/was and what exactly happened at the resurrection is just Peter Ould trying to control what we think, which wasn’t Jesus’ way at all.

    December 18th, 2006 at 11:18 am
16. Peter Ould says:
    

    Dave,

    In response to 14, yes I’ve read Andrew’s lecture notes this morning (the handout on Donatism is really rather good), but crucially the issue at hand here is not one of Donatism. If we were arguing about whether when Susan Russell baptises people that was a valid baptism, and if I argued that it wasn’t, then you could scream “Donatist” at my as loudly as humanly possible and you’d be right. But the issue at hand is to do with doctrine and creedal authority. The traditores came back into the fold of creedal orthodoxy and that was the crucial issue that Augustine fought the Donatists on.

    It is blatantly ridiculous to argue that it does not matter what bishops and priests believe. It matters crucially for the health of the church that it’s clergy teach what is true. The problem at the moment is that some in the US Church aren’t just socially liberal, they deny key catholic teachings. While the average punter in the pew doesn’t worry about the hypostatic union, if the person stood in front of them denies it then they (in the pews) are in serious trouble.

    Yes the church is going to split over this and yes it is to be mourned. But it cannot be right to continue to allow some clergy and bishops to teach and promote viewpoints that are entirely contrary to that which the church has always known to be true. And it’s not a case of Peter thinking “he is right and everybody else is wrong”. For example on sexuality, I stand with the majority of the Anglican Communion, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches who have ALL come out and reaffirmed the traditional understanding of chastity. If I am accused of arrogance then by implication you are also accusing the leadership of the Anglican Provinces, the Roman Church and the Eastern Church of exactly the same thing.

    December 18th, 2006 at 11:30 am
17. Peter Ould says:
    

    Should have been “Paul’s lecture notes” in 16. Obvioulsy.

    December 18th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
18. John says:
    

    What intrigues me most about that list is the blatantly unbiblical insertion of the language of individualism (”personal faith”). God’s redemptive plan isn’t to save individual human beings – it’s to redeem the whole of Creation! The salvation of individuals only makes sense within that grander framework, and insisting on that individualism is to distort the biblical narrative. Also, it’s interesting how the crucial thing isn’t the biblical statement (”I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one shall come to the Father except through me”) but instead a particular interpretation of that (”in that it is necessary…”).

    Also, the third point (about the “exact same body”) has nothing to do with traditional Christianity. Indeed, the orthodox position has always been that the resurrection body was not exactly the same as His previous one. Yes, it was the same body that rose as was killed, but it was changed into something more glorious. It was the same, but not exactly the same. An insistence on an exact correspondence is mistaken. (This is similar to the odd insertion of the language of percentages into the discussion of hypostatic union, because the mathematical language makes it nonsensical. How can one entity be 200% of anything? The normal formulations are better by far than this. “Fully God and fully Man” doesn’t mean the same thing as “100% divine and 100% human” by a long chalk.)

    pax et bonum

    December 18th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
19. Karin says:
    

    Peter Ould, I haven’t heard anyone saying that ‘it does not matter what bishops and priests believe’. On the other hand I don’t see any reason for them to have to agree with you 100%. To say someone is heretical for not agreeing with you completely is arrogant and unchristian whoever says it. By all means say they can’t join your club, which you call church – they probably wouldn’t want to anyway – but not holding your exact beliefs is not heretical. In my experience the best Christians don’t, or if they do are able to accept that others don’t. The best Christians are amongst those who are not dogmatic.

    If you and people like you insist others can’t be part of the Church unless they agree with your beliefs then you are the ones pushing the church apart.

    December 18th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
20. Merseymike says:
    

    No to all three.

    There is a divide so wide between liberal/revisionists and conservative/traditionalists that I think it cannot be united.

    It is, good, then, that there is to be a split – recognising that what we have here are two utterly different world views.

    December 18th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
21. Rev Sam says:
    

    A late arrival – my answers were yes, no, no – and I’m pretty sure I’m closer to orthodoxy than 3 yeses!

    Firstly, on ii, Jesus himself says it’s not everyone who calls him Lord who is saved, but those who pursue the Father’s will. I agree that all this ‘personal’ language is an import from Modern philosophy, and profoundly unScriptural.

    On iii, I’m pretty sure that St Paul would also say no (1 Cor 15) – the whole point is that Christ has passed through death, not that death is an illusion (”exact same body”). Dear oh dear.

    And oh yes, the easy way to think about Donatism is to describe it as the ‘pure church heresy’ – ie one where the wheat and the tares have been separated, contrary to Scripture (Mt 13.29-30).

    Seems to me that the root problem in all this is around authority, ie the widespread acceptance of the cultural idol of personal autonomy – no sense that obedience is something mandated from Scripture, and that God might just be big enough to cope with the errors that might follow from that.

    Loved Tom Wright’s response BTW.

    December 18th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
22. John Bennett says:
    

    I hope God love’s heretics, or we are all stuffed!

    December 18th, 2006 at 10:46 pm