Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Todd Pruitt, Witchfinder General - Reformation21 Blog

Todd Pruitt, Witchfinder General - Reformation21 Blog




Todd Pruitt, Witchfinder General

Posted by
As you can see, advance publicity is already being leaked for the new epic Alliance-sponsored biopic,Witchfinder General: The ToddWitchfinder general.jpg Pruitt Story.  Directed by the Puppetmaster, it looks fantastic, with its scenes of violent book burnings ('Please, I'd rather you didn't use church money to buy Jesus Calling'), extreme Reformed fanaticism ('Bring that baby to the font now, wretched wench!'), and his consistent failure to reimagine the future and realize that many of his methodologies, paradigms and strategies need to change to get to the next level of ministry success ('Today I am going to be preaching on a passage in - no, not my own book but.... the Bible!').  

In fact, the movie is a tale of two paradigms.  One is where the church is not an act of man but a creation of God.  Thus, its tools are defined by God and consist of the ordinary means of grace -- the Word read and especially preached, the sacraments, and prayer.  These are the ways God has provided for growth and maturity. The other is one where the church is a corporation, where management theory, entrepreneurial gibberish, and an emphasis upon technique, built around a Pelagian anthropology, set the priorities.

A subplot, for the real film critic, is the cultural problem of niceness.  As Todd pointed out yesterday, to criticise a book and to refuse to use church money (ahem -- God's money) to buy it and distribute it is not the same as banning it. If you want to read heterodoxy or heresy, use your own money, not the church's.   Yet we live in a world where all criticism is increasingly seen as personal, as a judgment on somebody's worth and identity, not simply on an argument or an idea.  As I commented earlier in the week, this is an obvious problem with the culture surrounding women's writing; but forms of it pervade all aspects of the evangelical world in general and pay no respect to gender.

For the rest, see the URL.

No comments: