Grappling with the History of the Church

 

Learning for Discipleship Programme

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Introduction of Learning for Discipleship Programme
Unit 1 -Synod of Whitby
Unit 2 - Resource Murder of Thomas Becket
Units 3 and 4 Reformation
Unit 5: persecution of Anglicanism
Unit 6 John Wesley’s Mission to Al
Unit 7 Resource Tractarians
Unit 8 resource Vatican II
Module Reading list

History of the Church: What we shall try to
grapple with!

Mondays: 7 – 8.30 p.m. Minster Church, Warminster

  • September 23rd –Exploring the Synod of Whitby and the vision of Church it promoted. The wider context of an England re-evangelised from Ireland via Iona (the Celtic Tradition) and from Rome via Canterbury (The Latin Tradition). Setting the tone of the growing conversion of Anglo-Saxon England.
  • September 30th – The murder (martyrdom) of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 and the struggle to define the relationship between Church and State. The wider context of the questions about attitudes to and relationship with religion of those in power (what of France? Iran? USA? In our time)
  • October 7th and 14th – Henry’s non-Reformation? Was Reformation inevitable in England? Was the Church of England in any way a new Church? The arrival of Reformed theology, scholarship and the assertion of English nationhood. The Book of Common Prayer. Catholic pushback & Elizabeth’s moderate compromises.
  • October 21st – The Civil War and the Rooting of Anglicanism – The persecution of Anglicanism in the Commonwealth (‘Interregnum’) – the Puritan experiment. The context of the Elizabethan ‘Settlement’ and the nature of Anglican identity (Richard Hooker). A more confident Anglican identity appearing post 1660. The outcome of the Restoration and of the freedom of Puritans to ‘dissent’. A diverse and divergent church prese‘ dissent’. A diverse and divergent church presence in England.
  • October 28th – No session
  • 4th November – John Wesley – the vision of a Church for all peoples. The great impact of a non-Calvinist Evangelicalism. Gospel for all. Missions to a wider world. The Methodist legacy.
  • 11th November – John Henry (Cardinal) Newman: Tractarians and the growth of the Catholic and ritualist movement. The wider context of the struggle for the identity and authenticity of the Church of England. New models of parish ministry and social engagement. A ‘solution’ in Frome and the final controversies over ritual and identity and individual choice.
  • 18th and 25th November – John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council. Radical change and the growth of new alignments, across and within churches. The progressive/conservative tensions. Unity or disunity? The post-war arrival of American fundamentalism and Pentecostalism