Subject:  Heresies are not bad! |
Author:
Liberal
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Date Posted: 15:56:24 07/27/04 Tue
In reply to:
XOX
's message, "Fundies attack on Unitarianism" on 15:00:00 07/26/04 Mon
Historically speaking, we don't need to think about heresies in a negative way. This is what two book reviewers have reminded us:
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"Heresy, a cynic might say, is the opinion held by a minority of men which the majority declares unacceptable and is strong enough to punish."
What is heresy? Who were the great heretics and what did they believe? Why might those originally condemned as heretics come to be regarded as martyrs and cherished as saints?
Heretics, those who dissent from orthodox Christian belief, have existed at all times since the Christian Church was founded and the first Christians became themselves heretics within Judaism. From the earliest times too, politics, orthodoxy, and heresy have been inextricably entwined—to be a heretic was often to be a traitor and punishable by death at the stake—and heresy deserves to be placed against the background of political and social developments which shaped it.
Let us learn from history and find a way to revere salvation through Christ Jesus and not through profession of the “correct” creed.
http://www.indwelt.com/books/other/herhist.html
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My supervisor at Oxford, Professor John Macquarrie, used to remind his graduate students that the original meaning of the term 'haeresis' was 'choice', and that believers in various traditions had to choose concepts and understandings from within their tradition and which made sense in contemporary idioms. Inevitably, such a process is developing, and has about it a feel of 'trial and error'. The difficulty that underlies the current Sea of Faith study (on doctrine and diversity) is that another agenda lies behind the history of Orthodox Doctrine: the history of 'trial and banishment' through fear of the unknown, the tendency to reject utterly and cringe away from that which is not a majority opinion. The devices used have been many and frightening – from the fire and the sword, the guillotine and the Index, to, more recently, the burning of books and a visit to the Job Centre for clergy! Many of those with imaginations are afraid of the power of the majority within churches – because it includes the power of anathema and the capacity to condemn and outlaw.
The problem in the twenty-first century about maintaining any ban on 'heresy' is that today Christians, like others, have realised that 'diversity' and 'tolerance' have an attraction not recognised by our predecessors in the faith. Some heretics act as 'whistle-blowers' reminding us of a lack of continuity between present practice and pristine religious vision. In that sense are they not 'true to tradition' rather than betraying it?
The context of the Christian mission is now the modern ecumenical movement, which is inherently inclusive rather than exclusive: 'the unity of the Church has become an objective which does not assume that it can be possible or is right to try to return to uniformity'.
We can now at last be free to choose, not only in our supermarkets and in our schools, but also in our churches and in the spiritual books we read. Diversity no longer needs the measure of discipline from without...when we see a rubbishy book on the 'Mind, Body' shelves today, we flick it through and leave it there, giving it not a moment's further thought.
http://www.sofn.org.uk/Bibliography/heresy.htm
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