The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Brief history of universlaism in the C of E

Theology Ecclesiology
#41

Dear [tag]Cindy Skillman[/tag]–

My dear friend – oh no you are not remotely dumb; you are a very smart cookie indeed (and I mean that with all my heart) The posts above which mention you are actually not remotely ironic. They are a genuine tribute to you. Inasmuch as I’ve put things together reasonably well here you also played a big part by being a good mate who kept me down to earth (especially when people started to give me the very dignified title ‘Prof’ which in no way belongs to me :smiley:) and a delightful interlocutor at you (Into thread you joined shortly before I did I remember and all the chaps were dying to have a word with you :smiley:).

I have to say that the biggest joke is that I didn’t; even do a history degree – not at all. I did a degree in English Literature with practical drama and a minor option in History of Ideas (and an even tinier option in History of Art). But when I was a young boy I loved History to bits. I was so horrible that I could recite all of the Kings of England from Egbert the Bretwalda (High King) up to her present, dread and gracious majesty :smiley: Can you just imagine me being wheeled out occasionally at family parties with my first party trick ‘ Egbert, Ethelwulf, Ethelbert, Hel Bald, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan…’!!! what a ghastly little monster :smiley: And then one day I met a child who could go back even further than Egbert the High King and knew all of the kings of Wessex (where Egbert ruled as an ordinary King) back to a Saxon chieftain called Scaef’, and all of the Presidents of the USA in order – the bustard :smiley: And that was an early trauma for me :smiley: I’d quite forgotten that I loved history but had to teach it when at a university as part of an introductory course – and it was only by teaching this course that i learnt the proper skills of a historian in using sources, applying theory etc… And I’d almost forgotten about all of this again until I dropped in here at EU.

Och well – I can’t give you a brain transfusion with the historical knowledge that I have :smiley: although if I could I would. But I will try to think of you and people like you when i write this stuff up properly. Historians have to try and get the right balance between narrative (sort telling) description and analysis in their work. There will have to be plenty of analysis in my little screed, but I’ll try not to neglect story.

As an amateur historian I have had you in mind and my other more conservative Christian universalist friends in mind very much this year at one point – not because I wanted you to read what I was writing (it reads like thick treacle anyway :smiley:) but because I was writing it with your well being in mind. When Dr Mike did his lecture that was posted on YouTube by Prince town - fired up by whoever and whatever and having honestly , I now believe. reached false conclusions through too narrow research, the bit that worried me about his lecture most was that he was suggesting that all Christian Universalists draw their inspiration from a tradition based in -

Gnostic occultism and ritual magic
Duplicitous and violent social anarchism
Narcissism and self obsession

And the lecture was most defamatory when dealing with the early modern period up until the twentieth century. And the lecture was out there like a virus on the internet and the people I believed were most vulnerable of being disfellowshipped via a persecution myth were my dear conservative American Universalist friends. I wasn’t at all vulnerable on this score but others here might have been. So call me a ‘brick’ for wading through all of those tomes on Occultism, Hegel, and Florentine Magic etc. Man they were so boring – this stuff is so nerdish:-D
Love

In Christ our Hen

Dick

#42

Well, dear Dick, you ARE a brick for that! :wink: (and it is very nice to have you back.)

#43

Nice of you to have me back old fruit!!! :laughing: But I will stick to my original remit now - the history threads and that’s it; that’s where I can help here and I only every want to help here - I was staying to Jason that it is so important to me to be loyal to the people that I’m drawn close to in any way in life. :slight_smile:

#44

Hi [tag]Caleb Fogg[/tag]–

How remiss of me – I didn’t answer your questions on films about Elizabeth

On this side of the pond the Tudors are very sexy :smiley: indeed at the moment.

Yes I saw the two films about Elizabeth with Kate Blanchet – I don’t remember much nudity in either beyond what was required to make a modest point. I saw it some time back but perhaps you see a little bit of Kate Blanchet’s nude body when she’s in bed with Robert Dudley – I think. But there’s nothing super raunchy about it at all – and it certainly was not pornographic to my eyes; just an incidental part of the drama rather than titillation as such. I mean there are more graphic displays of cruelty in the film but even these are not excessive as far as I remember. I cannot remember hanging drawing and quartering being displayed graphically in the film for example – as became popular in to her historical drams for a bit and unnecessary and very revolting too. But it show you that some things have got better in that watching such cruelty was seen as a valid family outing for Christina folk at these times (although Elizabeth was revolted by it apparently)

It is difficult to do a film about the Middle Ages or the early modern period and be honest - and at the same time abide by Puritan expectations; because people in those days had very little privacy. Houses didn’t have inside doors – and people saw each other going to the toilet, washing, having sex, dying etc – without any concept of full privacy very often. For this reason you’ll find good Christian authors of the times having a far earthy and more accepting attitude towards the boy and bodily functions than we have today. Erasmus can be earthy and is always witty – but fastidious too. But Luther can be just plain filthy and violently, alarmingly obscene (one of the differences between the two). And I seem to remember that perhaps even the lovemaking scene in the first Elizabeth film is one in which servants are walking about and Elizabeth is most anxious about this.

Of course Elizabeth claimed she was a Virgin – this had symbolic clout; she was married to her people – the Virgin Queen and cautious about making a marriage of alliance that went sour (as her sister Mary had cone fatally). Whether or not she was a virgin is something we will probably never know – the film simply makes a conjecture there as if it is true. Certainly there is evidence that she may have been seduced by Catherine Parr’s second husband when she was a teenager – this was a charge put before her when Mary’s ministers tried to trap her and have her beheaded like her mother had been (but again it’s hard to say if this was true and even if it was true it sounds like she was very much manipulated). She was a young woman in her early twenties at this time when she was imprisoned in the Tower of London briefly – and she faced down her accusers magnificently.

As for her relationships with her adoring courtiers like Robert Dudley– well that was part of the conventions of time and was not necessarily anything sexual – so the modest sex scene in the film is all conjecture – although Elizabeth certainly knew how to use her sex appeal to get her own way in a man’s world (a bit like Margaret Thatcher did as first female Prime Minister of the UK– in some ways she was a notorious flirt with the boys in her government and even with Ronald Reagan only to put them in their place and make them feel like little boys when she felt like it – which they loved apparently; well some of them got tired of it – the ones that got rid of her)

A lot of the first film is very oversimplified and sometimes anachronistic – but hey it’s entertainment and it tells a good story (and gives you the gist of the real story ) :and it is full of the young Elizabeth’s courage and steel. And it is easy to fall in love with young Elizabeth with her red hair flowing free. She later became the mannequin doll Gloriana her face caked in white lead and rouge with a wig no her head (and black teeth too) . This person is less instantly attractive but still fills me with infinite sympathy.

The second film is about Elizabeth with Kate Blanchett now as Gloriana ( but without the period detail of black teeth) is less enjoyable – I think I fell asleep a couple of times. Sure it contains the high drama of the defeat of the Spanish Armada and her rousing speech to the troops at Tilbury Docks – I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart of a King – yes and a king of England! ).

It also majors on another so called love interest of hers in her late middle age - the young Earl of Essex. She’d nursed him and coddled him as a baby as part of the Royal household and doted over him like a mother and spoilt him rotten. And when he grew to young manhood he was her so called suitor doing all the courtly love stuff on public occasions as if she were a young and fair Queen – but she didn’t; take this masque seriously. He thought that he had Elizabeth’s; special favour and lead some crazy hot headed rebellion with a group of dashing young firebrands which he thought was on her behalf because she was begin ill advised; but it was actually an act of treachery. Elizabeth could not prevent him being condemned to death and beheaded – she was not an absolute monarch – she had to govern with consent of her ministers and her Parliament. If broke her heart and tormented her last years and in the end death came to her as a relief to her I think. John Whitgift – her little black husband was at her side in her last hours and was kind to her. The Kate Blanchet epic film was not good at capturing these very intimate and personal dramas I think. Her early life deserved epic treatment as did the Armada victory - but not her last years

If you’d like to read a popular history book about young Elizabeth (when she’s most relevant to our story) – David Starkey’s book Elizabeth’ – that was a number one bestseller - is excellent. And the picture he presents of Elizabeth resonates with the one I am uncovering (although he doesn’t look at universalism as such). I was delighted to have read his book properly only after Id done my research here.

#45

Brick? Old fruit? Who are you people? :laughing:

_ fusty ol’ bugger-lugs, that’s me…

#46

You be ‘bugger lugs’ - I’ll be a brick and I’ll call Cindy an ‘old fruit’. I’m English - it’s what we do :laughing:

#47

This is hilarious!!! :laughing:

#48

Thanks so much for your thoughts on the films. Very helpful. And thanks for the book recommendation as well.

Did you mean, “NOT”?

#49

Yes I meant ‘not’ :smiley: - I have only the vaguest memory of the erotic scenes - so I was not offended (and I do get upset by gratuitous in your face sex scenes). I remember when I was young if there was any nudity on the telly in my friend John’s house his Mum used to get up and stand in front of the TV until it was over. So there’s always that option open :laughing:

#50

I’ll give you some examples of the earthiness of those times. Sir Thomas Moore 9now St Thomas Moore the Catholic martyr and close friend of Erasmus) had several daughters. He had them all educated as Christian Humanists – as Elizabeth was to be - and when the sociopathic King Henry came to visit they debate d with the King in Latin – and he was much impressed. Thomas Moore had the unusual idea – that he sets forth in this fantasy novella Utopia that if any man was going to marry a girl they should first see the girl in the nude. So when a suitor called about when of his daughters who was in bed in a room with her other sleeping sisters,. Sir Thomas took the young man upstairs, uncovered his highly educated and much cherished daughter (and they didn’t wear clothes in bed) and then patted her on the bottom so she turned over and the suitor could see her front. And the suitor was satisfied and the betrothal went ahead.

Luther’s scatology mentioned above? Well I’ve posted it in its full force elsewhere – but still feel loath to post the stuff here. It is very alarming indeed and had destructive consequences too.

Back to Henry VIII for my last example; the science of a balanced diet was not good in his days and influenced still by medieval bestiaries – see above. A lion – the bestiaries claimed – lived only on meat. A King should be as a Lion so Henry only ate meat – and this was very bad for him. So in later life he had huge problems with digestion and uncontrolled bowel movements etc – obviously so. He always had a sociopathic streak but in later life he also became paranoid and being a courtier was very dangerous. And there was one task that we might think should be given to a menial but was much coveted by courtiers and lords and knights of the realm. Namely wiping the king’s bottom – the role was called ‘The Groom of the King’s Stool. And it was coveted because in the privy while ministering to the King’s stern needs the fortunate official could also have the King’s ear – like a privy counsellor :smiley: -and ask favours for friends and family and spread rumours about enemies in the hope that the King would destroy them. Quaint old fashioned ways :smiley:

#51

Johns mum would not have had to stand in front of the telly much Dick. As I recall nudity on the Beeb at least was just about as rare as hens teeth in the days of yore! You mention that things seem to have got better since good queen Beth was on the throne. Not withstanding terrible wars etc which still plague us. I was wondering about starting a thread to discus the issue of “total depravity” in the context of theological matters. It’s the “total” part which I find hard to understand. I need to look on the board and see if it’s already been done to death - I expect it has maybe?

Cultural note: Beeb = British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

I wonder how far we can go about discussing the finer points of Cate Blanchet’s wonderful charms before Jason or some other authority commands us to get back to the point?

#52

I’m not sure that things have got better all round Chris - and who knows we could have public executions back again; there is no reason why the things our more loving kind forefathers fought so hard for - like tolerance and minimization of cruelty in public life - should not get reversed if we are not vigilant; so we must always be vigilant. And the Terrible Thirty Years Wars of religion that England avoided but convulsed and devastated Europe form 1608 onwards - terrible, soul numbing slaughter and massacre upon massacre of Catholics by Protestants, Protestants by Catholics, and different Protestant sects and parties against each other- are so very similar to what is happening in Arab countries today (and both were ceased by a seeming new dwam - the first the Reformation, the second the so called Arab Spring). Our times are as bad as other times have been - but they also contain their own unique seeds of hope as other times have. We must look for those seeds of hope and cherish them

I’m a not a progressive liberal - I don’t think progress is inevitable or that human nature is essentially good. I’m a hopeful but realistic human frailty liberal in my politics and more general outlook. Total depravity is bunk in my view - human beings are image of God bearers - but we are also prone to error, weakness and even deliberate fault through the rivalry in our desiring. Our task is to nurture the image of God in ourselves with God’s grace to help us so that it overcomes the darkness and the fragmentation. Our task is not to hate ourselves - this we cannot bear in the end and have to hate others in order to cope; no that is not helpful nor is it good theology or psychology IMHO. :slight_smile: Erasmus used slightly different words - but his theology ( or more properly his ‘anthropology’) was very much in line with what I have just written. Hope that helps Chris:-?

#53

btw Chris - I grew up in the seventies. I guess my friends’ Mum had a little more cause to stand in front of the telly than in previous decades :laughing: - with the occasional Wednesday Play and even one very brief scene with Keith Michelle in the Six Wives of Henry VIII with Judy Dench’s husband. But it didn’t; happened a lot - so she wasn’t up and down like a Mexican jumping bean as she would be today I guess (but I don’t watch a lot of telly - apart from the odd detective series - hate to say but I am a great fan of Poirot, Miss Marple (the seventies version) and I eve like the new series of New Tricks with Tamsin Outhwaite playing the woman in the boys world (I’m enjoying it better than the old series actually). Well I used to watch all the other stuff - the historical channel and Dr Who etc (no connection by the way); but when I moved back to look after my Mum she still had sight in one eye and could sit up and we only had one Telly. So when I first returned I put on Doctor Who the first Saturday and it was like - well being in your Mum’s territory again in your own very early middle age (just my luck) :smiley: ‘Oh I don’t like all of this modern nonsense. And there’s something I want to see on another channel - Poirot!!!’ So she liked detective series and I gradually grew to enjoy them - so that’s what we’d watch together. And although she is now blind - I’m a creature of habit :laughing: And my Mum’s far more severe form of censorship that my friend John’s mum indulged in has got me reading a lot more and writing a lot more; and at first it even got me playing the piano a lot more (but I grew tired of that because no one was listening when my Mum became rather deaf). So it’s all good - we all lose our faculties in the end - but I’ve gained some lost/neglected faculties through sharing my Mum’s loss I guess:-)

#54

This is Elizabeth’s Speech at Tilbury Docks to her Troops rallied Philip of Spain (with his massive Armada) and the Duke of Parma (Philip’s lieutenant who had amassed a large army n the Netherlands – then controlled by Spanish tyranny – for the purposes of invasion). Both seemingly had massed overwhelming odds against her and her tolerant Protestant polity – and thus her own life was in great danger once again and those of her subjects – Philip and Parma would certainly have introduced the Spanish Inquisition to England

My loving people
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.

I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you on a word of a prince, they shall be duly paid. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

Nearly all historians accept the text as authentic Elizabeth - at two steps removed but still authentic)

Today I have read Erasmus’s short but wonderful tact The Complaint of Peace (which means the quarrel for or argument for Peace). It is well worth reading. Erasmus hated religious strife and saw war as antithetical to the Gospel – but he was not a pacifist. Likewise Elizabeth loved peace and always went the extra mile for peace. She also loved religious tolerance and the persecutions in her reign were very reluctant persecutions and need to be seen in the context of historical circumstances – which were dire – and her lack of enthusiasm for cruelty is unquestioned. She was a remarkable woman.
If anyone wants to see my nuanced thoughts about Luther’s sustained gale of violent scatology in contrast to these two Christian Humanists – I can post them here. But I would need permission :slight_smile:

#55

I do love graceful rhetoric. Not flowery per se, but measured, sober, and well said.

#56

Dick,

Got chills reading Elizabeth’s words.

I for one would like your measured words on Luther’s scatology, even though I don’t know what scatology is. :laughing:

Caleb

#57

Well it concerns talking explicitly about the products of the human bottom :smiley: Are you still keen? Oh I know people have posted worse stuff here - and it’s Luther’s words and not my own and they are relevant as a contrast to Eramsus, and he did use scatological rhetoric to violent ends. If you OK me and if Dave OK’s I will post it here on the condition that I will delete the post if it upset people - but the truth should not hurt us I say.

#58

Did you really write : A-butt the human bottom? :laughing:

Hey, I can take the scat but I’ll leave it up to the scat moderation team. :laughing:

#59

Ok were going there - Luther and Scatology (with warm thanks to my interlocutors elsewhere and thanks to the bottom inspectors here too :laughing: ).

Part 1

One man, whose writings and legacy have often troubled me – with good reason – had a lifelong battle against the satan (I always write the word with a lower case ‘s’ so as not to big up the adversary, whatever that means to you :smiley:); namely, Martin Luther. He once reputedly threw an inkpot at Satan and used a great deal of strong scatological language to make Satan flee when he was assailed – ‘here is one of my turds Stan – take a bite on it!’. And although he wrote very affirmably about the joys of sexual congress he must go down in history as having given the most un-gentlemanly reasons for having married – he said that he ‘wedded a nun to spite Satan’.

There is one thing I really like about Luther’s idea of how Satan tempts us. Luther, recovering from the late medieval pessimism about the natural world and the human body, loved the good things of life; music, good wine and company, and the scent of flowers. Late in his life, each morning he would walk in his rose garden and forbid Satan to interfere with his enjoyment. When he was a younger, at a debate where he argued the cause for Reform - and if he’d not gained support in this he would have lost his life - he nonchalantly smelled a rose flower when listening to the counter arguments. And when he survived the debate he went outside giving the open handed sign of victory that the triumphant jouster would make at a medieval tournament – and he cried ‘I have come through’.

Luther was a very brave young man – and was a champion of freedom until he became powerful. But later he went far too far with his battle against an external satan – especially in his revolting attacks on the Jews – ‘ Do not let a foul Jew utter the name of Christ. Smear pig’s shit in their faces and burn their synagogues. And of course there is a defamatory Lutheran woodcut of a Lutheran solider dropping his breeches and farting in the Pope’s face – which did much to dehumanise Catholics. . And when he was dying Luther cried ‘I am ripe shit, the world is a great arsehole and we are soon to part company’. Charming:-D As for me – I think we should wage our wars within rather than looking for outward enemies to throw shit at. People still throw shit today at their enemies – an not all of them are religious people by any means. Throwing shit is the lowest form of humour.

Part 2

I’ve read two biographies of Luther - one by Martin Remarius the Erasmus scholar who is pro Erasmus and so is not fond of Luther; the other by Heiko Oberman who is very pro Luther. Most of the stuff above actually come from Oberman’s thoughts about Luther preaching ‘God’s Word in filthy language’ :confused: Luther was up against the whole late medieval tradition of flesh hating and world hating (part legacy of the experience of the black death/great plague)- as well as a Church grown corrupt, arid, and authoritarian - and he was very brave in taking all of that on. There is the old story that before he realised he was justified by faith - that is when he thought he had to be good and mortify his flesh to earn salvation - he thought that God in his anger could see him all of the time even when he was on the toilet - and therefore he was permanently constipated through terror. And once he felt justified by faith he had a healthy bowel movement. Not sure whether this is fact or myth but its a common story.

Luther did make one contribution towards Christian universalism - he loved the Theolgia Germanica - a book of medial German mysticism that Calvin later termed ‘pure poison. It is a lovely book IMHO and contains the words - This world is the forecourt of paradise’; but more importantly for universalist it also contains the words ‘Nothing burns in hell but self will’- and these words were to influence the Pietists and Moravians who became Lutheran universalists. Bonheoffer was also a hopeful universalist and a Lutheran - and a defender of the Jews. He believed that Luther was a very sick man when he made his terrible comment about the Jews - and Bonheoffer was probably right about this.

Part 2

Well I’ve said some positive things about Luther now - and find him easier to love than John Calvin certainly because he was passionate rather than cold and unsmiling (and I’m even still working on trying to see the good in unsmiling John ). We can’t see into Luther’s soul - but to be discerning about his behaviours is not the same as condemning his soul (and Christian’s often make this category error I find unlike their Lord who was ‘humble to God and haughty to man’). I think many evangelicals have issues with this one. Luther was a great liberator breaking chains - a bit of a punk rocker so to speak - but he fell down on the side of rage when disappointed, and violent rage at that.

Erasmus living at the same time took Luther to task for these very things just as Castellio, Erasmus’ follower later took Calvin to task over the judicial murder of Servetus - ‘you think you’ve burnt a heretic , but in reality you have simply killed a man’.

I think we can and should make judgments of discernment - it is out moral duty to do so. But these are different from judgments of ultimate condemnation (which we cannot make because we are all imperfect). In Luther’s mitigation for example I note that when he presided over the execution of Anabaptists he was moved by their bravery - Calvin just wanted the ‘vermin’ exterminated. Also Calvin’s few anti-Semitic sayings are merely cold. Luther’s many of the same spew hot with rage But according to one account he died with tears in his eyes for the Jews.

However, the voice of Luther in hot rage against the Jews reverberated through history in terrible ways that Calvin’s did not. This is what I call tragedy. And tragedy too has a moral dimension.

#60

Well done, Dick. And interesting to boot - what was the problem ML had with the anabaptists?