Scott
Puritan Board Graduate
I read chapter 1 of a dissertation by Peter Wallace. The chapter concerns CATHOLICITY AND CONSCIENCE: THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1837. I found it quite interesting. Has anyone read this?
I appreciated his comparisons of the models of catholicity in the Old World and New World. The Old World (Europe) saw catholicty as something inhering in the visible church and was expressed by having one established church per region. To varying degrees other sects could "dissent" from the established church and the established church could "tolerate" the dissenters. Many wrote against toleration. Anyway, dissent and toleration makes sense only in the context of an established, official church.
In the New World, this concept did not last very long, as there was no federal established church and state established churches did not have much longevity. The reason is in part to the immigrant nature of the country's churches. People from the Old World would come over and found their churches here. Churches tended to have a national flavor to them, with Scots being presbyterian, Germans being Lutheran or German reformed, and the like. Of course, congregationalism was popular too.
Anyway, this forced new models of catholicity among denominations and congregations. There were strong fights in terms of catholicity between Old School and New School presbyterians. Old School understood catholicity as something that existed in visible church organizations, and expressed itself in cordial relations with other denominations. New School presbyterians (who, putting aside ecclesiology, were arguably pelagian heretics BTW) argued for catholicity as something that inhered among individual Christians, not institutions or denominations.
Anyway, the history was very interesting, and I commend it to others. I have not read the other chapters. Does anyone else who has read it have any comments?
Scott
I appreciated his comparisons of the models of catholicity in the Old World and New World. The Old World (Europe) saw catholicty as something inhering in the visible church and was expressed by having one established church per region. To varying degrees other sects could "dissent" from the established church and the established church could "tolerate" the dissenters. Many wrote against toleration. Anyway, dissent and toleration makes sense only in the context of an established, official church.
In the New World, this concept did not last very long, as there was no federal established church and state established churches did not have much longevity. The reason is in part to the immigrant nature of the country's churches. People from the Old World would come over and found their churches here. Churches tended to have a national flavor to them, with Scots being presbyterian, Germans being Lutheran or German reformed, and the like. Of course, congregationalism was popular too.
Anyway, this forced new models of catholicity among denominations and congregations. There were strong fights in terms of catholicity between Old School and New School presbyterians. Old School understood catholicity as something that existed in visible church organizations, and expressed itself in cordial relations with other denominations. New School presbyterians (who, putting aside ecclesiology, were arguably pelagian heretics BTW) argued for catholicity as something that inhered among individual Christians, not institutions or denominations.
Anyway, the history was very interesting, and I commend it to others. I have not read the other chapters. Does anyone else who has read it have any comments?
Scott