What's your favorite Christian heresy?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Sedevacantism does have legitimate grievances with Rome.

I don't mean this question as an attack or even a criticism really, but why exactly would a staunch Reformed Protestant like yourself understand internal Catholic Church issues well enough to hold this position, especially since a huge sede issue is perceived "Protestantization" of things like the liturgy and Biblical theology? There's way more to the rationale behind sedevacantism and the Traditionalist Catholic movement/subculture in general than just "Left-Leaning Pope Bad", even if "Left-Leaning Pope Bad" currently eats up a lot of many trads' intellectual and emotional energy.

[1978 New Wave skinny trousers]

The Teckelites, even though they were more a disparagingly named political movement than religious heresy. I'm a big fan of the Christian (or as their critics would allege, Islamic) republican tradition in 17th century radical English Protestantism.

[Mopsus]

The whole thrust of early Gnosticism was that only a select few highly educated people (and thus certainly of the establishment, just not the church establishment, not that it makes much sense to speak of a church establishment when speaking of the early church) were going to be able to escape this corrupt material world created by the demiurge.

On that point, were they not in agreement with the karmic and Taoist paths of south and east Asia?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The whole thrust of early Gnosticism was that only a select few highly educated people (and thus certainly of the establishment, just not the church establishment, not that it makes much sense to speak of a church establishment when speaking of the early church) were going to be able to escape this corrupt material world created by the demiurge.

On that point, were they not in agreement with the karmic and Taoist paths of south and east Asia?

Yes and no.

While some of the karmic religions, especially Buddhism and Jainism, are of the opinion that this world is essentially corrupt and that it is both desirable and possible to detach from it, the core Daoist teachings are focused not upon escaping a cycle of rebirth and redeath but upon how to best act within this life, regardless of whether you think it is a one shot, or part of a cycle. I'll grant that Buddhism has had a significant impact upon East Asian thought, but it isn't integral to an understanding of the Dao. I am decidedly not a Buddhist, nor would I want to be, but I find the philosophy of the Dao quite compatible, in both its Taoist and Confucianist modes, with a wide variety of cosmological beliefs, not just  resurrection.

[Mopsus]

While some of the karmic religions, especially Buddhism and Jainism, are of the opinion that this world is essentially corrupt and that it is both desirable and possible to detach from it, the core Daoist teachings are focused not upon escaping a cycle of rebirth and redeath but upon how to best act within this life, regardless of whether you think it is a one shot, or part of a cycle. I'll grant that Buddhism has had a significant impact upon East Asian thought, but it isn't integral to an understanding of the Dao. I am decidedly not a Buddhist, nor would I want to be, but I find the philosophy of the Dao quite compatible, in both its Taoist and Confucianist modes, with a wide variety of cosmological beliefs, not just  resurrection.

My issue is with the connotations of words like “corrupt” - while we might see them as nihilistic, Buddhists themselves would maintain that nothing is more conductive to mental and physical wellbeing than the life of moderation which their metaphysics promotes. It’s hard to say if the same was true with Christian Gnostics.

[John Henry Eden]

Gnostics, on account of how insane their theology is regarding the material world.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

What's your favorite Christian heresy?

Islam


Seriously though probably the Ebionites or the Marcionites, both throw interesting light on Christianity's first century. The former still followed the Law, championed James and reviled Paul; the latter were Paul stans who went the opposite way and rejected the Old Testament, were the first group to collect the letters of Paul and carried around a Gospel some think was the basis for gLuke.

[Kingpoleon]

Seriously though probably the Ebionites or the Marcionites, both throw interesting light on Christianity's first century. The former still followed the Law, championed James and reviled Paul; the latter were Paul stans who went the opposite way and rejected the Old Testament, were the first group to collect the letters of Paul and carried around a Gospel some think was the basis for gLuke.

It seems very unlikely that the Gospel of Marcion was the original version of the Gospel of Luke. This is because there is an overwhelming consensus that Luke-Acts is a joint work, made by the same author, and Marcion did not at any point include Acts. Of course, I’m hardly the first to point that out - Irenaeus best me to it by almost two millennia.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Seriously though probably the Ebionites or the Marcionites, both throw interesting light on Christianity's first century. The former still followed the Law, championed James and reviled Paul; the latter were Paul stans who went the opposite way and rejected the Old Testament, were the first group to collect the letters of Paul and carried around a Gospel some think was the basis for gLuke.

It seems very unlikely that the Gospel of Marcion was the original version of the Gospel of Luke. This is because there is an overwhelming consensus that Luke-Acts is a joint work, made by the same author, and Marcion did not at any point include Acts. Of course, I’m hardly the first to point that out - Irenaeus best me to it by almost two millennia.

Yes, stylistic similarity is the strongest argument in favour of a joint Luke-Acts predating anything Marcion had. But that depends on an analysis of the final version of the Gospel of Luke that we have in the New Testament, which obviously cannot prove authorship of an earlier version - this is the question. Henry Cadbury, the 20th century's leading expert on the language of Luke cautioned this:

Such stylistic analyses, [Cadbury] maintains, can only reach conclusions about the final editor of a text, who is able to put his own distinctive linguistic and stylistic varnish over the entire work, “whatever the underlying sources or development” of earlier editions.

Scholars suspect that for example, the first two chapters of Luke containing the Nativity of Jesus were added later, because chapter 3 begins as does the opening of Mark, which Luke obviously knew and was copying. The genealogy of Jesus too is awkwardly inserted into Luke 3 after the baptism. Jesus' agony and sweating of blood in the garden of Gethsemane also doesn't appear in the earliest manuscripts we have of Luke, nor does the institution of the Eucharist in Luke 22:19-20. These are just examples. The problem here is that Tertullian's attack on Marcion claims that Marcion's gospel deleted passages from Luke, and didn't contain a birth narrative! So if one thinks as many do that e.g. Luke's Nativity was tacked on later, this is an argument for Marcion's gospel preserving an earlier version.

[PSOL]

What's your favorite Christian heresy?

Islam

I usually hear and agree more with that Islam is a Jewish heresy.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

What's your favorite Christian heresy?

Islam

I usually hear and agree more with that Islam is a Jewish heresy.

A lot of material in the Quran probably derives from Syriac Christian apocrypha! Most obviously the docetic interpretation of the crucifixion of Jesus.

[RI]

Not necessarily heretical, but hyper-grace.

What's hyper-grace?

https://www.gotquestions.org/hyper-grace.html

When I think of hyper-grace, I think of that cloying MercyMe song "Flawless."

[Blue3]

Any new takes?

[CelestialAlchemy]

Does Mormonism count as a Christian heresy for this context? If so, then that, and it's own heresies/schisms.

If not, then the wacky Hussite heresies as well as Adoptionism.

[RINO Tom]

I have always found Arianism really interesting.  I do not subscribe to it at all, but it retains sort of a "mystical" aura about it given that it was so prominent in ancient times only to completely die out relatively quickly.

(Yes, I know certain modern "Christian" groups like Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar view of the Trinity, but they don't claim descent from Arians.)

[Skill and Chance]

I have always found Arianism really interesting.  I do not subscribe to it at all, but it retains sort of a "mystical" aura about it given that it was so prominent in ancient times only to completely die out relatively quickly.

(Yes, I know certain modern "Christian" groups like Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar view of the Trinity, but they don't claim descent from Arians.)

Nestorianism is also fascinating in this respect given that most modern Protestants (especially American "low church" denominations) take approximately the same position on the role of Mary as the Church of the East.

[RINO Tom]

I have always found Arianism really interesting.  I do not subscribe to it at all, but it retains sort of a "mystical" aura about it given that it was so prominent in ancient times only to completely die out relatively quickly.

(Yes, I know certain modern "Christian" groups like Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar view of the Trinity, but they don't claim descent from Arians.)

Nestorianism is also fascinating in this respect given that most modern Protestants (especially American "low church" denominations) take approximately the same position on the role of Mary as the Church of the East.

Yeah, I am no theologian expert, but I do find it kind of ironic that many of the Evangelical online types who love talking about how the Mainline churches "aren't Christian anymore" often have some, err, quasi-heretical views, lol.

EDIT: I am also not endorsing talking shlt about more low church theology, either ... I believe there is plenty of room to interpret Christianity a lot of different ways on issues like this.  I just find it inherently strange for NEWER, less orthodox Christian groups to question the "Christianness" of those who predate them and from whom they descend.  I mean, I am a Lutheran and have many issues with the Catholic Church but I feel I must have a very baseline respect for them as legitimate given where we frickin' came from, lol...

[Skill and Chance]

I have always found Arianism really interesting.  I do not subscribe to it at all, but it retains sort of a "mystical" aura about it given that it was so prominent in ancient times only to completely die out relatively quickly.

(Yes, I know certain modern "Christian" groups like Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar view of the Trinity, but they don't claim descent from Arians.)

Nestorianism is also fascinating in this respect given that most modern Protestants (especially American "low church" denominations) take approximately the same position on the role of Mary as the Church of the East.

Yeah, I am no theologian expert, but I do find it kind of ironic that many of the Evangelical online types who love talking about how the Mainline churches "aren't Christian anymore" often have some, err, quasi-heretical views, lol.

EDIT: I am also not endorsing talking shlt about more low church theology, either ... I believe there is plenty of room to interpret Christianity a lot of different ways on issues like this.  I just find it inherently strange for NEWER, less orthodox Christian groups to question the "Christianness" of those who predate them and from whom they descend.  I mean, I am a Lutheran and have many issues with the Catholic Church but I feel I must have a very baseline respect for them as legitimate given where we frickin' came from, lol...

There's also weird cases of this in the other direction.  For example, Didache, the earliest extant Christian text outside of the Bible, is a church manual that instructs 1. Locally chosen church leaders 2. baptism only of people who are old enough to understanding the teachings of Christ in detail (including descriptions of sexual sin) 3. preferentially by immersion in a river  4. a short, informal sounding communion liturgy that never directly mentions the body or blood of Christ and 5. no other sacraments.  In short, it sounds pretty darn Baptist!  Yet only the Eastern Orthodox, Catholics and some of the very highest church Protestants like Anglicans consider it authoritative. 

It's probably the strongest defense of low church Protestant theology in the entire historical record, but it's strongest defenders can't use it because it's not Scripture, while those with the widest theological differences find themselves  bound to accept it as holy tradition.  The Christian God clearly has a sense of humor!

*Didache also contains a direct statement that abortion = killing a child in violation of God's commandments, which only adds to the irony in the current political climate.

[Skill and Chance]

Sedevacantism does have legitimate grievances with Rome.

I don't mean this question as an attack or even a criticism really, but why exactly would a staunch Reformed Protestant like yourself understand internal Catholic Church issues well enough to hold this position, especially since a huge sede issue is perceived "Protestantization" of things like the liturgy and Biblical theology? There's way more to the rationale behind sedevacantism and the Traditionalist Catholic movement/subculture in general than just "Left-Leaning Pope Bad", even if "Left-Leaning Pope Bad" currently eats up a lot of many trads' intellectual and emotional energy.

IDK, I'm not Catholic, but I never quite understood this.  It's not like Pope Francis went out and officiated a gay marriage and then attended a pro-choice protest.  Does "left-leaning" just mean he takes climate change and economic injustice seriously?

[Del Tachi]

As a gay man:  Antinomianism

[jojoju1998]

Sedevacantism does have legitimate grievances with Rome.

I don't mean this question as an attack or even a criticism really, but why exactly would a staunch Reformed Protestant like yourself understand internal Catholic Church issues well enough to hold this position, especially since a huge sede issue is perceived "Protestantization" of things like the liturgy and Biblical theology? There's way more to the rationale behind sedevacantism and the Traditionalist Catholic movement/subculture in general than just "Left-Leaning Pope Bad", even if "Left-Leaning Pope Bad" currently eats up a lot of many trads' intellectual and emotional energy.

IDK, I'm not Catholic, but I never quite understood this.  It's not like Pope Francis went out and officiated a gay marriage and then attended a pro-choice protest.  Does "left-leaning" just mean he takes climate change and economic injustice seriously?

If you read what Pope Francis has actually wrote and talked about, he upholds Christian standards on same sex marriage and abortion. What's he talking about however is a " pastoral " approach, that to some might come super close, to accepting those two things.

The second part, that part of the opposition to Pope Francis comes from American Catholics, who are backed by a lot of money because American Catholicism has always been influenced by The American Evangelical movement, which is more pro capitalist.

[RINO Tom]

Sedevacantism does have legitimate grievances with Rome.

I don't mean this question as an attack or even a criticism really, but why exactly would a staunch Reformed Protestant like yourself understand internal Catholic Church issues well enough to hold this position, especially since a huge sede issue is perceived "Protestantization" of things like the liturgy and Biblical theology? There's way more to the rationale behind sedevacantism and the Traditionalist Catholic movement/subculture in general than just "Left-Leaning Pope Bad", even if "Left-Leaning Pope Bad" currently eats up a lot of many trads' intellectual and emotional energy.

IDK, I'm not Catholic, but I never quite understood this.  It's not like Pope Francis went out and officiated a gay marriage and then attended a pro-choice protest.  Does "left-leaning" just mean he takes climate change and economic injustice seriously?

If you read what Pope Francis has actually wrote and talked about, he upholds Christian standards on same sex marriage and abortion. What's he talking about however is a " pastoral " approach, that to some might come super close, to accepting those two things.

The second part, that part of the opposition to Pope Francis comes from American Catholics, who are backed by a lot of money because American Catholicism has always been influenced by The American Evangelical movement, which is more pro capitalist.

I will also add that American Mainline Protestantism - which more or less is the descendant of "Protestantism in the United States" before the mid-Twentieth Century, IMO - was also pretty clearly in favor of capitalism and always had a much more economically conservative outlook than Catholics.  From the "Protestant Work Ethic" mentality given to us by the Puritans/Congregationalists to the stereotype of the American WASP (who I feel like is usually an Episcopalian, Methodist or maybe Presbyterian) to even modern Mainliners' "liberal" attitudes on social justice almost never going beyond private charity in its economic message.  Protestantism in general, ever since Martin Luther, has taken a much more accepting view of private wealth creation through market forces than Catholicism, from what I have seen.