The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Heresies and Evangelical Reform Movements

In our studies so far we have dealt largely with the broad, accelerating stream of Christianity as it was generally accepted in the Western church. We have followed its turbulent course and have witnessed its growing power, along with the church’s increasing world-mindedness. We saw how fearless men stood up making every attempt within their power to alter its devastating course; to reimbue the church with the spirit of self-negation and Christlike humility. But their efforts in most cases fell short; the greed for power in man and the desire for glory were stronger than the self-effacing love of Christ. PFF1 807.1

However, beside this broad, sweeping stream of the general church there were always other streams and streamlets through the ages, through which virile Christianity attempted to express itself. These streamlets were mostly branded as sects, or even as heresies, by the general church, and it is true that their adherents often held erroneous notions. But in most cases their lives were exemplary, and their ultimate aim was to serve God according to the dictates of their conscience along the lines of their understanding of spiritual things. These groups were the connecting link between the early and the Reformation churches. 100. A. Scott gives a discerning description of the sub merged Scriptural church as— PFF1 807.2

“that continuous stream of anti-Catholic and anti-hierarchical thought and life which runs parallel with the stream of ‘orthodox’ doctrine and organization practically throughout the history of the Church. Often dwindling and almost disappearing in the obscurity of movements which had no significance for history, it swelled from time to time to a volume and importance which compelled the attention even of unsympathetic historians. The initial impulse of such reaction and of successive renewals of its force was probably practical rather than intellectual—an effort after a ‘purer,’ simpler, and more democratic form of Christianity, one which appealed from tradition and the ecclesiastics to Scripture and the Spirit.... The notes common to nearly all the forms of this reaction [were] the appeal to Scripture, the criticism of Catholic clergy in their lives, and of Catholic sacraments in the Catholic interpretation of them, and the emphasis on the pneumatic [spiritual] character and functions of all believers.” ¹ PFF1 807.3