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Radical reform in Western Christianity has had a variety of origins:
- The 'conversion' of Constantine (312) was as political as it was religious. The Eastern Empire was predominantly Christian, as was the army, so the 'conversion' secured his geographical and military base. The reign of Julian (361-3) was to demonstrate that a pagan regime was no longer viable. The upshot was a greatly enriched and established Church which had massive theological and ecclesiological ramifications. Thereafter, in spite of some theological turbulence, - eg the Arian and Ikonoclast crises - the Eastern, later Orthodox, Church was disinclined to reform.
- Cluniac reform at the end of the 11th Century was the first to be driven by an appeal to an idealised primitive church. Intended as an internal Benedictine reform, it had major ecclesiological impact including: central Papal administration and a College of Cardinals; formalised clergy training; music notation &c.
- The accommodation with reason by St. Thomas Aquinas' alignment of Western Christianity with re-discovered Aristotle was an almost entirely academic enterprise. It fundamentally altered the Church's theological outlook, heavily tilting the understanding of Scripture and doctrine on reason.
- The Lutheran Reformation sprang from differences of discipline not doctrine but events drove it into doctrinal, ecclesiological and political territory. Luthere's appeal to faith over reason, to Augustine over Aquinas, was soon sharpened from a difference of emphasis to a dichotomy which remains today, in spite of massive scholarship to the contrary, as a living doctrinal caricature.
- The accommodation of the scientific paradigm was a defensive reaction to the external intellectual environment. From Galileo to Darwin, the appeal was to the Bible as a rationalist text rather than a theological library.
The Church has always understood its mission in terms of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience but these strands have been highlighted at different periods:
- Scripture - Contrary to Protestant prejudice, the Western Church has always been deeply Scriptural, although popular devotion diverged from this in the 15th Century and the Ultramontanist Roman Catholic Church veered away from this in the 19th and first half of the 20th Century
- Tradition - Conservatives and reformers alike have appealed to tradition, eg the Reformation and the 'Counter Reformation' both saw themselves as authentic appeals to tradition. Ecclesiological traditionalism is most closely associated with stagnation and decline, eg 15th Century Christendom, 18th Century Anglicanism, 19th Century Catholicism and Protestantism.
- Reason - Reactions to re-discovered Aristotle and scientific discovery ultimately drew a 'reasoned' theological reaction but it also generated scholarly Biblical study.
- Experience - This 'fourth pillar' has been by far the most powerful but least acknowledged; from Acts 15 to Bonhoeffer, theology has been formed out of experiential crisis.
KC X/06
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The English Reformation (1529-53)
Added: 27th March 2007
Added: 27th March 2007