Mike's musings

Marcion, Montanus and MikeCamel

While I remember, I should have invited you to find me on SecondLife: I'm MikeCamel Albert. Albert? Well, you have to choose a second name, and there weren't that many options, and I thought "Einstein? Might as well."

Had an interesting tutorial this afternoon with Alan. It was a session on "Authority in the Church and the Church's nature". It was looking at the early church (post-Gnosticism) and how it dealt with Marcion (rejection of the Old Testament and the Creator God, accpetance only of later Luke and the non-Pastoral Pauline epistles) and Montanus (a very charismatic movement, focusing on the imminent Parousia (second coming) and prophecy, including female prophets). Generally, there were three instruments: creeds (e.g. One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church), Canon (the questions raised by Marcion pushed the settlement of the Canon) and Church Order (e.g. rise in power of the bishops).

Every move to control risks alienation, and loss of true revelation, and, in particular, the rejection of some of the more Enthusiastic (that is Pneumatological: inspired by the Holy Spirit) properties of the Marcionites has led to a continued suspicion of charismatic movements such as some of Pentecostalism by so-called "mainstream" Christian orthodoxy.