William Bishop as Roman Catholic Theologian and Polemicist

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-224
Author(s):  
W. Brown Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Theological Controversy ◽  
The Way

In a vigorous theological controversy, William Bishop, English Roman Catholic theologian educated at Oxford, Rheims, Rome, and Paris, took on William Perkins, the best-selling English Protestant writer of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The two writers were formidable champions of their respective religious traditions. As I will argue, this was a significant exchange, though the dispute has been little noticed by historians of the period. The issues the two writers discussed and the way they discussed them throw considerable light on the state of English religion in the early seventeenth century. Bishop emerges as a more powerful and effective spokesman for the Roman Catholicism of his day than has been heretofore recognised.

scholarly journals Bishop Nicholas French and the second Ormond peace, 1648-9

1948 ◽  
Vol 6 (22) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Corish
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Europe in the seventeenth century was a land of mar and confusion because the great political problems raised by the religious disruption of the preceding century had not yet been solved. Chief among these was the problem of the relations between the Roman catholic church and a protestant state. The teaching of the pope's indirect power in temporal matters in any problem involving a breach of the moral order (ratione peccati) had been strongly re-stated by Bellarmine, and was the official attitude of the church. A protestant prince had committed a grave sin, that of heresy, and so it was the pope's right and duty to depose him and absolve his Catholic subjects from their allegiance. But this political theory was becoming impractical as the seventeenth century progressively demonstrated that Europe was permanently divided. As might be expected, juridical forms lagged behind the development of events; but by the middle of the century the Roman curia, while not prepared to give antecedent approval to a peace with protestants, might be said to be ready to acquiesce once it had been concluded, if the position and rights of the Catholic church could be assured. Yet this assurance was, in the circumstances, almost impossible. The Catholic church could not rest satisfied with toleration as a sect, but demanded recognition as an organised society with a source of jurisdiction illdependent of the state.

Coercion, Cooperation, Conflicts and Contempt: Orthodox-Lutheran Relations in Swedish-Occupied Kexholm County, Karelia, in the Seventeenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teuvo Laitila
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
County Level ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
Coercive Treatment ◽  
Religious Issues ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
Grassroots Level ◽  
The Way

The article is about the Swedish religious policy towards the Orthodox (a majority at first, a minority after the mid-1650s) and Orthodox-Lutheran relations at the grassroots level. It shows that in official Swedish policy, the highest authorities urged local functionaries to cautious and non-coercive treatment of the Orthodox, while the latter at times proposed, and partly tried to implement, a forced conversion of the Karelians. Grassroots relations between Orthodox and Lutherans varied greatly, depending on which of them made up a majority in each place, who owned the land, and whether the Lutherans were newcomers. When the Orthodox were a majority the Lutherans conformed with their faith, even converting to Orthodoxy, although this was officially forbidden. When the majority consisted of Lutherans, the Orthodox started to convert or to assimilate to the Lutheran way of life. At the county level, religion as such was not a major factor in transforming the region into a Lutheran one. More important was the way in which religious issues were linked to local social encounters and practices and how the state overtly or covertly attempted to change Orthodoxy and encouraged Orthodox emigration from and Lutheran immigration to the county.

From the Truly Real to Spiritual Wisdom

2001 ◽  
pp. 17-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart W. Herman
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Business Practice ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Faith Based

This essay sketches a method for identifying the insights that diverse religious traditions offer to the field of business ethics. Each article in this volume asserts or assumes faith-based claims about what is "truly real" as the ground of moral aspiration and obligation. Four distinct kinds of claims yield four kinds of wisdom, that is, moral guidance for business practice. 1) In Judaism and Islam, scriptural commands, as interpreted authoritatively down through these traditions, yield precise methods for rendering specific moral judgments; in Roman Catholicism, similar guidance is provided through natural law. 2) In Buddhism, Judaism, and most of the surveyed Christian traditions, the values of compassion, love, and justice provide spiritual resources to counter pressures towards immoral behavior in business. 3) The African-American and Mennonite churches interpret their particular histories of oppression to offer distinctive models of fortitude and hope. 4) In Evangelical Calvinism, Mormonism, and Roman Catholic social teaching, convictions about God's redemptive and sanctifying activity offer a robust moral vision for successful striving.

CHURCH OR PROTESTANT SECT? THE CHURCH OF IRELAND, HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP, AND THE OXFORD MOVEMENT, 1822–1869

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER NOCKLES
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Teaching ◽  
Church Tradition ◽  
The Way

The Church of Ireland has been regarded as almost devoid of a high church element and as unreservedly hostile to Tractarian claims. This article questions these assumptions. It considers the evidence for an influential, if minority, high church tradition within the Church of Ireland and shows how far its adherents during the 1830s and early 1840s looked to English Tractarians for support. The very raison d'être of the Irish church was questioned under the reforming and erastian pressures unleashed by a whig ministry in the early 1830s. Tractarian rhetoric stressing apostolical descent and continuity was echoed by Irish high churchmen in their concern to demonstrate that they belonged to a church that was not a creature of the state and was no mere Protestant sect; Irish high churchmen held many theological and spiritual ideals in common with the early Tractarians, but guarded their independence. Irish high churchmen and English Tractarians nevertheless became estranged: the Protestant credentials of Irish high churchmen were suspect as a result of the low church and Evangelical backlash against ‘Puseyism’; Irish high church attempts to put church principles into practice, notably over the foundation of St Columba's as an establishment to educate Roman Catholic converts in high church teaching, were cold-shouldered by English Tractarians. The Irish high church tradition survived but was weakened by Roman Catholic undermining of its assumption of apostolical continuity as well as by ultra-Protestant critiques. Disestablishment in 1869 paved the way not for a high church ‘restoration’ on the Caroline model, as Irish high churchmen wished and as early Tractarian rhetoric assumed, but for the completion of an Evangelical ascendancy rooted in the Irish Articles of 1615 and the church of James Ussher.

William Perkins versus William Bishop on the Role of Mary as Mediator

2004 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 249-258
Author(s):  
W.B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Protestant Theologian

William Perkins and William Bishop, two of the leading spokesmen for their respective religious traditions in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England, clashed in print over the status of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as a number of other issues. They were formidable adversaries. Perkins, the most widely-read English Protestant theologian of the day, helped to make Cambridge University a centre of Reformed thought and practice. Bishop, an Oxford-trained theologian with extensive experience and associations on the continent, eventually became the first Roman Catholic bishop in England since the death of the last surviving bishop of Mary I’s reign. Though discussions of the Virgin Mary were not major themes in the books of either writer, their views on this subject are significant in showing how the two traditions developed, in competition with each other, during this phase of the long English Reformation.

The Church of Ireland: a critical bibliography, 1536–1992 Part II: 1603–41

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (112) ◽  
pp. 352-358
Author(s):  
Alan Ford
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

There is a marked difference between the history of the Church of Ireland in the sixteenth century and in the early seventeenth century. The historian of the early Reformation in Ireland has to deal with shifting religious divides and, in the Church of Ireland, with a complex and ambiguous religious entity, established but not necessarily Protestant, culturally unsure, politically weak, and theologically unselfconscious. By contrast, the first part of the seventeenth century is marked by the creation of a distinct Protestant church, clearly distinguished in structural, racial, theological and political terms from its Roman Catholic counterpart. The history of the Church of Ireland in the first four decades of the seventeenth century is therefore primarily about the creation of this church and the way in which its new structures and exclusive identity were shaped.

scholarly journals Believing in the Black Messiah: The Legio Maria Church in an African Christian Landscape

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kustenbauder
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Western Kenya ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Important Respect ◽  
Internal Sources

This article examines the Legio Maria Church of western Kenya, a relatively rare example of schism from the Roman Catholic Church in Africa. One of more than seven thousand African Initiated Churches in existence today, it combines conservative Catholicism, traditional religion and charismatic manifestations of the Spirit. Yet this group is different in one important respect——it worships a black messiah, claiming that its founder, Simeo Ondeto, was Jesus Christ reincarnated in African skin. This article considers factors involved in the group's genesis as a distinct modern-day messianic movement, including: (1) the need to defend and define itself vis-àà-vis Roman Catholicism; (2) the appropriation of apocalyptic ideas found in Christian scriptures and their synthesis with local religious traditions; and (3) the imitation of Jesus' example and teaching to confront political and religious persecution in a manner marked by openness, universalism and nonviolence. Eschewing Western theological categories for African ones, this article draws upon internal sources and explanations of Legio Maria's notion of messianism and Ondeto's role therein to illustrate that, far from being a heretical sect, Legio may well represent a more fully contextualized and authentically homegrown version of Catholicism among countless other African Christian realities.

John Dury, Advocate of Christian Reunion

1932 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 222-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Batten
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Storm And Stress ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Theological Differences ◽  
The Church

Richard Baxter correctly described the seventeenth century as a “contentious, dividing Age”. Divisive tendencies had been dominant in the preceding century. But the Protestant leaders in the Age of the Reformation had generally maintained that there was but one universal church. Their protests against Roman Catholic abuses and the consequent counter-charges of a revived Roman Catholicism produced the cleavage of Western Christendom and broke the formal unity of the church. Despite the inevitable differences of opinion which emerged amid the storm and stress of the time, the Protestant leaders often expressed their interest in the promotion of the visible unity of the church and they shared a common hope for the ultimate establishment of a new catholicity expressed in terms of universal free communion in place of the old Catholicism under the headship of the pope. But tendencies which the reformers failed to curb soon produced a succession of divisions. The separatists from Rome showed a marked inclination to form separate communions which, at first, followed territorial and national lines. Due to territorial, national, personal, political, and theological differences, the lines of demarcation between the groups into which Christendom was being divided gradually became defined with more pronounced clearness. In the latter part of the sixteenth century new lines of cleavage appeared. The development of rigid types of Protestant scholasticism intensified the strife over confessional differences and the Wars of Religion increased the hatreds of the age.

Russian Spiritual Christianity and the Closing of the Black-Earth Frontier: The First Heresy Trials of the Dukhobors in the 1760s

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-243
Author(s):  
J. Eugene Clay
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
New Institutions

Russia’s expansion to the south in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries encouraged the development of new, dynamic religious movements, including Spiritual Christianity. Represented today by the two important Russian religious traditions of the Dukhobors and the Molokans, Spiritual Christianity first appears in archival documents from the 1760s in the black-earth provinces of Voronezh and Tambov. Holding to a radical eschatology that predicted the imminent return of Christ, these original Spiritual Christians rejected the priests, sacraments, and icons of the Orthodox Church, and instead introduced the practice of venerating one another, for each person was created in the true image of God. The remoteness of Tambov and Voronezh initially made the provinces more hospitable to different religious ideas and practices in the seventeenth century. But as the frontier closed in the black-earth region, new institutions of social control, such as the Tambov diocesan consistory, began policing religious and cultural practices in Tambov and Voronezh. At the same time, the closing of the frontier also led to the decline of the smallholders, who lost their service rank and were increasingly integrated into the state peasantry. This unhappy social group comprised a large percentage of the Spiritual Christians, who so decisively rejected the state church. After Russia’s victory over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War, many Spiritual Christians moved to the new frontiers of New Russia.

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