Anthropax's Old Blog

by Rev Dr Tom O’Loughlin I had a bit of free time on Tuesday, and so nipped along to see the good Rev. Doc. give a rather good lecture on this subject, as part of the public lectures on Anglicanism series that the Uni was holding. He raised the fascinating idea of a Religious Tradition being defined by little theological 'nuggets' that are very dear to the majority of the believers in that tradition. Fellow blogger Greg came along as well, and therefore we had a very good discussion about the ideas raised, as well as many other enjoyable topics after the talk. Tom's major 'nuggets' for Anglicanism were:

• The Bible: Tom put forward the idea that one of the striking differences for him, was the high position given to the Bible in the Anglican tradition. He provided a superb explanation for this, reasoning that as Anglicanism came about after the reformation, the view of scripture was linked to how scripture wasdisseminatedd at that time. Printing of Bibles was going along well, and so Anglicans view scripture as one single tome, as opposed to a collection of various books. This results in a rather monolithic view of the Bible, as opposed to the recognition that the Gospels are more important that the rest of the New Testament, and then the Hebrew Bible.
• The Book of Common Prayer: Mainly, a fondness for the liturgy, and the way it replaced at least four other books that were used before. Mentioned the Prayer Book Society, who seem to be mostly young folk.
• The Early Church: The feeling that if the Early Church did it, then it must be OK. If you can find in the early texts, something that can back your arguement up, then a feeling of relief comes over you, as you can't now fail. Tom also talked about how you can tell the different types of Christians by the dates of their 'Early Church History' courses. As well as this was talk about the four eccumenical councils.
• There may have been a few other 'nuggets' that he mentioned, but I'm afraid that I didn't take notes, and am, well, a bit rubbish - if you were there, comment and I'll update the post.

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