CO CO Constantine

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Comments

  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Tortuf wrote: »
    Sometimes trying over and over to prove you are right has unhappy consequences. I have experienced this about myself more than once. I used to believe that - if I just explained well enough - my opponent would understand and then agree with me.

    This was almost always delusional thinking on my part. It never worked except in very limited circumstances. Most of the time it just made me unhappy and pissed off people who read all the same arguments over and over.

    I learned two important things from my unhappy experiences :
    Post what I think. Say it well and leave it be.
    I don't have to be right. In fact, I cannot, nor must I, understand everything.

    This post is not aimed at any one shippy.
    This is my experience, too, and why I don't tend to participate in long discussions in Purg or DH. If I've stated my position one or two times and it isn't forwarding the discussion anymore, I just stop. If some other point I want to address comes up in the thread, I'll re-engage.

  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    Yeah, my intent is rarely to convince someone of something, other than "your way of looking at it is not the only possible one".
  • There's an Agatha Christie novel called Curtain. It's the last Hercule Poirot one she wrote.
    Poirot dies about 2/3 of the way through the book

    In the story, the "murderer" is actually someone who employs psychological pressure to make others commit murders for his own amusement. He is the one making them happen, but he never actually commits them himself.

    Why do I post this? Because I think Gamaliel does a similar thing. He latches onto someone else who has a known (and usually annoying) hobby horse and baits them into riding it far enough that the H&A become annoyed enough to ban them.

    So when Steve posts a relatively innocuous and reasonably on-topic reference to state religion - with no mention of Constantine, I note - then who should pop up a day later but Gamaliel, dragging the issue right back to the limelight not just on the original thread but in The Styx, and - after a couple more prods on the Purg thread - finally here in Hell.

    Who exactly is it that's keeping the subject at the forefront of these discussions again? And to what end, I wonder?
  • Bloody hell, Martin ... you've rumbled me. I'd have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those pesky kids ...

    'Scooby be doo be doo ...'

    Your genius for intrigue is impressive but wide of the mark ...

    I have no ulterior motive. I'm not the only one who thinks that Steve Langton has a one track mind. Ok, he didn't mention Constantine on the 'relatively innocuous' and arguably 'reasonably on topic reference' you mention but roger me sideways with a Cluedo spanner the perils of church-state links come into every single fucking post he makes ...

    If you asked him what he had for breakfast he'd bring Anabaptism and evil state-run religion into it somehow.
  • Quaker oats?
  • Ha ha ... better than Konstantine Krispies I suppose ...

    'Snap, crackle and ... pop that Anabaptist under the water and hold him down, will you?'

    Kellogg's Con' Flakes

    'I'd rather have a bowl of Co-Co Constantine Pops ...'

    'Readibrek ... Constantinian Heating for Kids'

    Gosh, showing my age now ...





  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    Steve, Steve, Steve. :naughty: Naughty Steve.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Ha ha ... better than Konstantine Krispies I suppose ...

    'Snap, crackle and ... pop that Anabaptist under the water and hold him down, will you?'

    Kellogg's Con' Flakes

    'I'd rather have a bowl of Co-Co Constantine Pops ...'

    'Readibrek ... Constantinian Heating for Kids'

    Gosh, showing my age now ...





    No, l think you are revealing your own obssession pretty clearly.
  • Because I think Gamaliel does a similar thing. ...
    So when Steve posts a relatively innocuous and reasonably on-topic reference to state religion - with no mention of Constantine, I note - then who should pop up a day later but Gamaliel, dragging the issue right back to the limelight not just on the original thread but in The Styx, and - after a couple more prods on the Purg thread - finally here in Hell.
    To be fair to Gamaliel (what? being fair in Hell?) it was Arethosemyfeet who latched onto the on-topic post and dragged the minor Constantinian component out of it.
  • Actually, all I said was "not this shit again". You'd have to have noticed the Langton obsession appearing yourself in order to make the connection.
  • I made the connection.
  • Bollocks, Eutychus.
  • Besides, the 'Disorganised Religion' thread seems to have drifted into the doldrums. Was that my fault?
  • Actually, all I said was "not this shit again". You'd have to have noticed the Langton obsession appearing yourself in order to make the connection.
    You quoted Steve Langton, and then called it shit. Which, of course, isn't really the level of Purgatorial discussion we aspire to. But, more than that everyone knew what you were addressing. Without that "contribution" the thread would have probably simply rolled on. The post hadn't gained a response for 24h before you decided to make a point of it.

  • Besides, the 'Disorganised Religion' thread seems to have drifted into the doldrums. Was that my fault?
    Threads do that. People say what they want, and then find there's nothing more that they want to say. That's fine. There's no need for someone to decide that pursuing a tangent is necessary just because the thread is going quiet,
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    (How very peculiar a feeling it is to start off in the Styx and emerge in Hell.)

  • TortufTortuf Shipmate
    I'd have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for those pesky kids ...

    My youngest son was a big fan of that show. One Christmas I got him a bumper sticker that said:

    What Would Scooby Do?

  • If I recall the offending post featured SL averring that the atheists' reference to "organized religion" was specifically referring to established churches. That is hardly oblique. It is dead center in the middle of Steve's hobby horse. The lack of Constantine's name doesn't signify, and anyone who thinks its lack means the post was not a Langton Flog clearly hasn't been paying attention.
  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    Yeah, 'organised religion' can have many meanings. I'm not familiar with Mr. Pullman, but established churches weren't the first thing that came to my mind.
  • Mr SmiffMr Smiff Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    If I recall the offending post featured SL averring that the atheists' reference to "organized religion" was specifically referring to established churches. That is hardly oblique. It is dead center in the middle of Steve's hobby horse. The lack of Constantine's name doesn't signify, and anyone who thinks its lack means the post was not a Langton Flog clearly hasn't been paying attention.

    I was thinking the same thing: the state church thing, whether it mentions C-Man or not, is Steve’s obsession here and it seemed largely irrelevant to the discussion on that thread. Which made it all the more annoying when people pointed that out and Steve just kept trying to make them talk about it.
  • Yes, what Mousethief and Mr Smiff said.
  • roybartroybart Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    It is the Hosts and Admins. that I feel sorry for. They have to read it all, which in derailed, hijacked topics can amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Another reason to be grateful for their service.
  • Amen that, roybart.
  • roybart wrote: »
    It is the Hosts and Admins. that I feel sorry for. They have to read it all, which in derailed, hijacked topics can amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Another reason to be grateful for their service.
    Given that they arise from the ranks of experienced posters, it seems more masochist than martyr.
    Not saying that this should affect one's appreciation, just noting.
  • Hit me baby one more time...
  • You are all so predictable....

    Minor point, Aspergers. It happens that when, years before my involvement in the Ship, I found out about AS, it became one of my 'coping strategies' to talk about it. Out in the real world away from the strange state of the Ship, this is generally a good thing. It helps to smooth over the more-or-less inevitable misunderstandings and so on.

    It also enables me to help others, both mature and younger Aspies and their families.

    And it's quite important to me personally because for me one of the major effects of AS has been 'selective mutism' (see film "The King's Speech"). Talking about AS is a major way I have healed that in myself.

    That this tactic has not worked on the Ship - well, I've thought a good bit about it before saying what I'm about to say, and bluntly I think that failure reflects badly not on me but on the Ship and the sheer petty-mindedness of many Shipmates. It goes along with many other questionable tactics I've seen used or been on the receiving end of.

    On the related 'small talk' thing - Yeah, I'd expect a modern child diagnosed young and without fifty years of shyness etc to overcome would have at any rate less problem with 'small talk'. Actually I'm not all that bad at it myself in the outside world talking face to face. BUT I only have so much time to spare for the Ship, and rather a lot of that has been wasted by my efforts being derailed and harassed by Gamaliel et al. So I'm not exactly prepared to waste time on small talk on the Ship.

    I don't 'just' do the 'Constantinian' thing (and BTW, I have made clear that
    {a} 'Constantinian' is just a convenient 'tag/shorthand' for the issue even in its Christian form, and

    {b} I'm also concerned very much about the same basic issue as it turns up in other religions, particularly at the moment Islam. Which I submit is a very serious issue if only because of its body count.... And I think it's simply reasonable that I should call the attention of Christians and other Shipmates to the arguments that Christianity has a much better answer in that area.

    I have not always turned up in threads where the issue could easily have been relevant. For example I have kept out of the thread on Billy Graham even though a great deal of what's being said there is clearly in the area of what my transatlantic Mennonite friends would call 'Neo-Constantinianism'. And ditto others.

    And I seem to recall I recently contributed at length to discussions of 'Dispensationalism' without needing to mention 'state-and-church'
    issues. And I know there have been other threads where I've not mentioned it. I'm not exclusively a 'one topic' person.

    On the 'Disorganised Religion' thread - if everybody was so keen to discuss 'disorganised religion' why has the thread died?

    Could it be that I'm right in suggesting (and even Gamaliel seemed to say something similar), that while it's certainly possible to speak or write the phrase 'disorganised religion', the reality is that there is basically no such thing, nothing solid enough to discuss. Well, apart from the massively disorganised religion known as the Church of England (joke! ... well, just about a joke.....)

    Could it be that my approach was actually a great deal more constructive in suggesting that when you look at what Pullman and Co actually say, the vast majority of their objections do indeed relate to the doings of those manifestations of religion which are or would-be established/privileged/etc.? And could it be that rather than a sterile discussion of abstract-to-the-point-of-unreality 'disorganised religion', it would be more fruitful and a clarification for Pullman and Co as well to distinguish between the unjustifiable established or quasi-established religions and the few which, though still 'organised' in some sense, are also voluntary and don't expect the special privileges? Of course we may never find out because of the way some Shipmates chose to just abuse me rather than discuss the issues....

    On the big picture straightforward comment - a change as big as Constantine initiated (and others took much further) did in fact have pretty much global effect on the Christian faith; it is an extremely pervasive issue. It does, I submit, need discussing. End of....!!

















  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    On the related 'small talk' thing - Yeah, I'd expect a modern child diagnosed young and without fifty years of shyness etc to overcome would have at any rate less problem with 'small talk'. Actually I'm not all that bad at it myself in the outside world talking face to face. BUT I only have so much time to spare for the Ship, and rather a lot of that has been wasted by my efforts being derailed and harassed by Gamaliel et al. So I'm not exactly prepared to waste time on small talk on the Ship.
    It isn't that people do not think Asperger's does not affect one's interaction, but that you use it as an excuse. Other people with Asperger's here have criticised your using it as an excuse.
    I don't 'just' do the 'Constantinian' thing
    No, you also so the "Gay people get shit on their dicks!" IIRC. So there is that.
    You do the Constantinian thing on unrelated topics and you do not let go. You do the "Anabaptists are incorruptible" thing too.
    We all have our foibles, brother do I have mine.
    But yours are repetitious to the point of distraction.
  • The ship doesn't exist to be the healing ground for any illnesses or conditions. "I tried to use you guys for my own personal medical needs and you got mad at me about it" doesn't speak too highly. I'm not your fucking therapist.
  • It's fine to explain your way of thinking with reference to aspergers. What's not fine is carrying on behaving in the same manner and using aspergers as a shield to avoid having to change that behaviour.

    As for the claim that you don't only post on one topic, I'm reminded of the old joke:
    "So what kind of music do you folk like?"
    "Both kinds! Country and western."
    or the axe murderer complaining about his portrayal in the media:
    "I killed 6 people, and only 2 of those I used a hammer. I ate sausages way more than 6 times, but do they call me "the sausage eater"? Noooo it's always "the axe murderer" isn't it? It's so unfair."
  • Arethosemyfeet was fair to me even in Hell, so at the risk of being Purgatorial, I'll be fair to Steve Langton ...

    To be fair to you, Steve Langton, and as I have already indicated, I am more than happy to engage with you on any topic - including the state-church issue and Constantinianism.

    What I'm not prepared to do is to sit back when you try to derail threads where it is a tangential issue at best. Perhaps I ought to learn patience from other Shipmates and ignore your attempts to do so.

    I've generally not intervened in your discussions about Dispensationalism with Jamat - on the old boards - because I'm essentially in agreement with you on that one.

    FWIW I have nothing against Anabaptists or the 'historic peace-churches' as they are sometimes called - the Mennonites etc.

    As it happens, I'm currently writing a book that will be published in the USA by a publisher with strong Mennonite roots.

    I have no issue whatsoever with the core values that Mennonites and others in the 'radical reformation' tradition espouse - although I would, these days, take a more sacramental approach myself.

    All Christian traditions seem to have a propensity to think that the world would be a better place if only all other Christians saw things the same way as them.

    I've come across that with the Orthodox, the RCs, certain Anglicans - with Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals, Quakers even - and I come across it on your posts too. If only everyone else could see the error of their Constantinian or quasi-Constantinian ways ...

    Yes, the Church of England is 'disorganised'. It's a mess. Everyone knows that. But nobody pretends otherwise.

    There's a joke among converts to Orthodoxy that they became Orthodox to avoid 'organised religion.' Many a true word. The Orthodox couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, hence the debacle with their Great Council in Crete this last year.

    The world is a messy place. If you believe that Anabaptism could make it a great deal less messy then good on you. Good luck with that.

    But be prepared for people to come back at you on it if you try to introduce it into threads again and again and again when we already know your views because we've heard them a million times before.

    Is that fair?
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    On the related 'small talk' thing - Yeah, I'd expect a modern child diagnosed young and without fifty years of shyness etc to overcome would have at any rate less problem with 'small talk'. Actually I'm not all that bad at it myself in the outside world talking face to face. BUT I only have so much time to spare for the Ship, and rather a lot of that has been wasted by my efforts being derailed and harassed by Gamaliel et al. So I'm not exactly prepared to waste time on small talk on the Ship.
    It isn't that people do not think Asperger's does not affect one's interaction, but that you use it as an excuse. Other people with Asperger's here have criticised your using it as an excuse.

    No, it is just that I talk about my AS as a way of coping; and that includes explaining when it seems to have produced misunderstanding.
    I don't 'just' do the 'Constantinian' thing
    No, you also so the "Gay people get shit on their dicks!" IIRC. So there is that.
    [/QUOTE]

    What I actually do in that area is "There is no Christian problem with men loving men or women loving women, including a great deal of physical expression (as we are after all physical beings); but sex as such is reserved for the male with female relationship for which God designed sex". What I also do is not blame Constantine for homosexuality as Eutychus somewhat tongue in cheek suggested - gay sex is a product of human sinfulness and rebellion against God. The actual relevance of Constantine etc in that area is that sadly that kind of Christianity wrongly persecuted so-called 'gays' alongside its persecution of non-Christians and Christians they saw as heretical. I very much stand against that persecution - but I would insist that 'gays' need to allow others within a plural society to disagree with them and say their conduct is wrong. They don't get to be put on a pedestal where nobody is allowed to criticise them.... (the much used parallel of 'being gay' with being 'black' or otherwise racially different is a false characterisation). Further discussion on that one to Dead Horses I suggest; I've only said what I just did because you and Eutychus raised the issue here.
    You do the Constantinian thing on unrelated topics and you do not let
    go. You do the "Anabaptists are incorruptible" thing too.
    We all have our foibles, brother do I have mine.
    But yours are repetitious to the point of distraction.

    As I've already explained, I do the 'Constantinian thing' where it is relevant; it happens to be widely relevant. I do NOT, repeat NOT, do the "Anabaptists are incorruptible" thing. If only!! Anabaptists are human too and we do work quite hard at being critical of our own positions and practices. I simply maintain that the broadly Anabaptist position is clearly that of NT Christianity, and the Constantinian/Theodosian position and the fifty shades of attempts to hang on to the rags of it are not Christian but problematic for both Church and world. It is surely not a sin to try and get it right and to try also to sort out the problems for the world created by those who have got it (sometimes lethally) wrong.





  • mousethief wrote: »
    The ship doesn't exist to be the healing ground for any illnesses or conditions. "I tried to use you guys for my own personal medical needs and you got mad at me about it" doesn't speak too highly. I'm not your fucking therapist.

    I have not " tried to use you guys for my own personal medical needs"; what I tried to do was occasionally smooth over misunderstandings by explaining how they arose. That you have preferred as a result to 'get mad at me' in terms like this very post is to say the least unhelpful to everybody.

    Arethosemyfeet - as you must be aware, AS is pretty variable at the high-functioning end. The kind of difficulty I recently had to explain - where I was, in effect, actually thinking what I wrote in one tone of voice and didn't realise it might be read in another - is, at any rate for me, a difficulty hard to avoid. When I realised what had happened I explained it.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    No, it is just that I talk about my AS as a way of coping; and that includes explaining when it seems to have produced misunderstanding.
    Your "explanations" never come accompanied by apologies.

    Which means they come across as self-justification. You are effectively asking for special dispensation not to play by the same rules as everybody else.
    I do the 'Constantinian thing' where it is relevant; it happens to be widely relevant.
    I think restorative justice is widely relevant. I mention it when I think it is relevant. What I don't do is write hundreds and hundreds of words on restorative justice in a thread that is not originally about restorative justice, even if I think it has everything to do with restorative justice. Other people have other, different contributions to make. This is a discussion forum, remember?

    I make my point about restorative justice and STFU.

    If someone else wants to talk just about restorative justice in detail, then they can start a dedicated thread.

    If I wanted to talk about restorative justice as a special interest of mine, then I'd start a blog.

    The same applies to your anti-Constantinianism.


  • I have not " tried to use you guys for my own personal medical needs"; what I tried to do was occasionally smooth over misunderstandings by explaining how they arose.

    Steve, I can agree that you have not "tried to use you guys for my own personal medical needs", but you have, on too many occasions, been an unapologetic and arrogant dick.

    Please stop digging yourself into progressive deeper holes, with steeper sides, or you will never get out of them.
  • Gamma Gamaliel;
    Yeah, just about fair. Though I might wish to point out that lilbuddha's idea that I think Anabaptists are incorruptible seems to have originated with the way you present me rather than with what I've said - it is something I've denied quite a few times....

  • What I'm not prepared to do is to sit back when you try to derail threads where it is a tangential issue at best.

    Well you should. That sort of thread management is the Hosts' job, not yours.
  • Gamma Gamaliel;
    Yeah, just about fair. Though I might wish to point out that lilbuddha's idea that I think Anabaptists are incorruptible seems to have originated with the way you present me rather than with what I've said - it is something I've denied quite a few times....

    What the - ?!!!

    How can I be responsible for lilBuddha's jibe that you consider Anabaptism to be 'incorruptible'?

    lilBuddha is more than capable of making up their own mind on your posts and your position without my help.

    I didn't have anything to do with lilBuddha's perception of your position on homosexuality so how can I possibly have influenced his/her impression of the incorruptibility or otherwise of Anabaptism?

    You really do act like a dork at times ...

    Look, I get that you believe Anabaptism to the closest thing we have to NT Christianity as you understand it. If you want to believe that, fine.

    My own view is that all Christian traditions approximate to that to some degree or other but that none of us are bang-on commensurate with it because none of us live in the 1st century.

    My point is rather like the one Eutychus made about restorative justice. He places a lot of emphasis on that but doesn't impose it on almost every thread going.

    Marvin the Martian is right to 'call' me on playing amateur Host and taking it upon myself to challenge you whenever you mount your particular hobby-horse and ride it into the ground.

    I shouldn't do that.

    But at least try to have the common sense and courtesy to appreciate that by banging on and on and on and on and bloody well on and on and on about Constantinianism you are going to alienate a lot of posters - including many of those with a Baptistic or non-conformist persuasion.

    Heck, some of the posters who throw up their hands in despair when you get started come from similar church backgrounds and traditions to yourself.

    Shouldn't that tell you something? Instead of realising that you've bored the pants off everyone you take it as indicative that their level of Anabaptism isn't what it should be ...

    Which is bollocks, dorkish and intensely irritating.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Gamma gamma gamma gamma gamma Gamaliel
    He goes and goes and goes and goes
    Reading would be easy if his posts weren't so bloody long
    Hell, where's my bong? Where is my bong?

    You beat me to it!
  • We are living in the 21st century not the first. The sooner some people around here get used to that, and that we can have been accompanied on the journey between the two by the holy spirit, the better. Until they do, I simply can't engage with them; it's like playing dungeons and dragons as if the fantasy figures were real life,. There are real animals, real life, to engage with, and those substitutes, however finely drawn, are not adequate to the real thing, even if the latter is somewhat mangy. Yes, it's related to Constantinism because that seems to be the spell by which the fantasy figures can come to life. Or something.
  • I think I did the first 'Gamma Gamma Gamma Gamaliel ...' gag. On another post on another board.

    But I did like Mousethief's version.
  • by Gamma Gamaliel;
    How can I be responsible for lilBuddha's jibe that you consider Anabaptism to be 'incorruptible'?

    lilBuddha is more than capable of making up their own mind on your posts and your position without my help.

    Well I've spent so much time over years now making clear that I don't think Anabaptists are incorruptible or whatever, and that they are human and have their faults too, that lilbuddha certainly isn't getting that idea from me.... And whose misrepresentations am I usually having to answer when I'm making that point clear? Usually you. So where might lilbuddha be getting their wrong idea from?? Maybe not just you, but....

    by Gamma Gamaliel;
    Look, I get that you believe Anabaptism to the closest thing we have to NT Christianity as you understand it. If you want to believe that, fine.

    My own view is that all Christian traditions approximate to that to some degree or other but that none of us are bang-on commensurate with it because none of us live in the 1st century.

    Standard Gamma Gamaliel fudge. Inevitably all Christian traditions have something in common with NT Christianity; but they don't exactly all 'approximate to' that first tradition, and many of them are very far removed indeed. Question is, who might actually be closest?

    Sure, none of us live in the 1st century. And my concerns are very much in the 21st century world and how to resolve the problems of the here and now. And one heck of a lot of those problems go back to the misstep Constantine began, or to the comparable ideas in other religions like Islam. But hey, I'm a Christian, "Jesus is Lord" is a basic Christian statement of belief - and though '1st century', Jesus' teaching seems to offer better answers than the answers offered by the assorted 'religious state' versions.

    FWIW, I have been a 'Dungeons and Dragons' player - and a considerable fantasy and sci-fi fan. There is quite an interesting relationship between Aspies and the fantasy/sci-fi business. Essentially Aspies can only 'do' that genre by having an unusually clear understanding of the difference between reality and fantasy. Many Aspies are seriously 'fiction-phobic' because they can't do that.

    And going back up-thread

    by Gamma Gamaliel;
    All Christian traditions seem to have a propensity to think that the world would be a better place if only all other Christians saw things the same way as them.

    I've come across that with the Orthodox, the RCs, certain Anglicans - with Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals, Quakers even - and I come across it on your posts too. If only everyone else could see the error of their Constantinian or quasi-Constantinian ways ...

    And a related one which I can't trace right now (I think it may be on p1 of this thread?) which was a variant on the "there are lots of different opinions" idea.

    Thing is, I am well aware that there are 'lots of different opinions' including the various Christian traditions you mention above. And I'm also aware of something Gamma Gamaliel (and others who use this - posture rather than argument - on the Ship seem to forget....

    As it was put on the old Ship by one Gamaliel (I wonder what happened to him?) "THEY CAN'T ALL BE TRUE". And of course just the fact that they think they're right doesn't make them so. But the different effects of these different beliefs are such that it's actually rather important to work out which is - well, allowing for human fallibility, at least somewhere pretty close to true. Me, I don't use that posture as a way to slide round the question; I think answering it is rather important. So I use my rational faculties, and I gather evidence, and I try to work it out.

    I'm not totally denying truth to the ones I end up disagreeing with. I disagree with John Calvin about his part in burning one Michael Servetus, but I still regard the 'Institutes' as a major work of Christian theology. BUT - the basic idea of the Church as a 'kingdom not of this world' is the idea that has the evidence on its side. On that issue the others are clearly wrong.

    And at this time of night, that's enough for now.....







  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited March 2018
    lilbuddha certainly isn't getting that idea from me
    I certainly did get that from you. Incorruptible is hyperbole, but not crazy amounts of it.
    You stated Anabaptist was proof against Constantine-ish influence by the state. I don't remember how you tried to spin the Munster thing.
    And I'd wager a fair bit of dosh I've got you right on the "gay sex is dirty" bit as well.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    lilbuddha certainly isn't getting that idea from me
    I certainly did get that from you. Incorruptible is hyperbole, but not crazy amounts of it.
    You stated Anabaptist was proof against Constantine-ish influence by the state. I don't remember how you tried to spin the Munster thing.
    And I'd wager a fair bit of dosh I've got you right on the "gay sex is dirty" bit as well.

    As I said above, further on gay sex to DH, not here.

    It is pretty much a tautology that if people take a basically Anabaptist view of state/church relations they'll not be wanting a church like the Anglican, RCC, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Lutheran or the various others which consciously ally with the state and expect special privilege in the state. Anabaptism Mennonite-style is also pretty much proof against the kind of halfway house position seen in movements like the Religious Right in the USA and among Protestants (and many Catholics) in Ulster, which doesn't have a specific established church but nevertheless expects a 'Christian country' in general terms and uses phrases like 'godly government'. Transatlantic Mennonites describe that position as 'Neo-Constantinian'.

    The UK/American movement which became the 'Baptists' (but as Gamma Gamaliel has pointed out, would have also been described as 'anabaptists' by their opponents) has always been a bit more ambivalent about said 'halfway house', probably because of the different circumstances of their origin in the English Civil War period.

    A movement which obviously originated in a time of autocratic/oligarchic/aristocratic governments and was for centuries driven underground is currently more 'in the world' than it was in the past, and is working through how much it can properly be involved in modern democracies - no definitive answer yet, as I've pointed out a few times, but what I would see as a healthy scepticism of politicians. It's an area I'm still working out myself.

    There is no real need to 'spin' the Munster thing. This was in the 1530s at a time when in wake of the Reformation all kinds of ideas were being tried out all over Europe and there was massive instability well into the 1600s even early 1700s - see, eg., the English Civil War and some of the oddities on its fringe. At that time one relatively small group did get the idea of believers' baptism, and therefore were properly described as 'Anabaptists'. Unfortunately they didn't also have the separation of church and state idea and did have apocalyptic ideas of setting up a kingdom of God on earth, the kind of kingdom that uses armies and spreads itself by force just like the RCs, Orthodox, and Protestants around them. Which of course makes criticism from the RCs and Protestants rather ironic and even a bit hypocritical I'd have thought....

    It is significant that this appears to have happened after the Anabaptist conference which produced the 'Schleitheim Confession' laying down the mainstream Anabaptist ideas of separation from the state and pacifism - the Munsterites were in effect already out of date and a minority among Anabaptists, with the mainstream of the movement going a very different way. Again, making it rather perverse that RCs and Protestants continue to use Munster against the mainstream Anabaptists....

    Menno Simons, who gave his name to the Mennonites, was an RC priest until 1536; before Munster he was already well on the way to becoming a Protestant, it seems Munster convinced him that in effect all three sides there were wrong and he joined the mainstream Anabaptists instead. Some accounts suggest that he had a brother who had joined the Munster group and was killed in a battle around one of their minor strongholds in North Holland.



  • Thunderbunk; just a quick thought as I've a busy afternoon coming up....

    The body count associated with 'Islamic State' is not a 'fantasy creature', nor is it 'first century' (especially given that Muhammad was seventh century anyway!). Likewise the body count of the Ulster Troubles which played a major role in the rethink which got me into Anabaptist ideas, and which still hasn't totally gone away - indeed there seems a serious risk that difficulties associated with Brexit might revive that problem.

    I'm very much thinking in this century and about problems of this century. For Christianity, the first century answers coming from Jesus and the early church offer a good response to those all too modern problems. Constantinianism, mind, does have considerable 'fantasy' elements....
  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    Is it just me or is Steve doing it again?
  • Ironic how this went from a thread of venting about how Steve Langton constantly derails threads by pontificating on Constantinianism to a thread in which Steve Langton pontificates about Constantinianism.
  • CallanCallan Shipmate
    Well, perhaps that's predictable. I have no brief for Steve Langton, but if someone starts a thread saying he's wrong, perhaps he might turn up and explain that we've got the wrong end of the stick. And if you call it Co Co Constantine, he might even work Co Co Constantine into the Co Co Conversation. We all know that Steve can Bo Bo Bore for England on the subject but starting a thread on his favourite subject and then telling him off when he turns up and puts his point of view is, just speaking on behalf of the international Erastian Conspiracy is, like being a Co Co Co, bit of a Cock.
  • agingjbagingjb Shipmate
    And, given where the thread is, I think Steve Langton can say anything he likes.
  • All true @Callan and @agingjb. But still ironic, I think.
  • It certainly is ironic, but perhaps not unexpected and I should have anticipated it. More fool me.

    Look Steve. We all bloody well know what your views are on the Constantinian / church-state relations thing. You have told us a million times. We don't really need to hear it all again here in Hell, but I suppose it was inevitable.

    Perhaps that's what Hell is. An endless round of being bored to distraction by someone's obsession or one's own.

    I have to say, though, that I'm pretty gob-smacked at being blamed for lilbuddha's apparent 'misapprehensions' about Anabaptism.

    I've never misrepresented Anabaptism to anyone on these Boards.

    If anything, most of what I say about Anabaptism is positive. Heck, I've even said positive things about it here in Hell on this very thread. I'm writing a book that will be published by an outfit with an Anabaptist background for Pete's sake.

    If I had a big issue with Anabaptism I wouldn't be doing that would I?

    It's not Anabaptism that I have a beef with.

    It's Steve going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and ...

    When we've all heard it a million trillion times.

    Trouble is, all I've done is given him an additional platform to blart on and on and on and on again ...

    He shouldn't be blaming me. He should be thanking me for the extra exposure.

    And other Shipmates would be right to dog-pile me for handing him the microphone.

    You live and learn. Or not.

    For crying out loud. Steve. We know what you believe. You have told us. Again and again and again. Now give a bloody rest will you?

This discussion has been closed.