So, Who's your favorite Heretic?

[James the Persian]

I know the character was only based on the real person. Was just making sure I was making the right connection, however flawed the original connection may have been.

On a side note, I'd love to visit Romania. The UU church I attended before I moved had a sister Unitarian church in Nyomat, Romania with whom we shared correspondence with and our minister and several church members visited. It's a completely different world.

Sorry. I have a bit of a bugbear with all the usual western misconceptions about Vlad Tepes, so I probably went a little overboard with the information.

Romania is probably my favourite country in the whole world (though I've still yet to visit anywhere in Transylvania - not that Vlad Tepes came from there - which I hope to remedy in future). I'd well recommend a visit. I'd just suggest avoiding Bucharest as much as possible. I hate the place and Ceausescu didn't do it any favours with his 'modernisation'.

James

 

[Shadow Wolf]

To the best of my knowledge he died reconciled to the Orthodox Church

I have always heard Vlad was excumminicated from the Orthodox Church.

 

[James the Persian]

I have always heard Vlad was excumminicated from the Orthodox Church.

He quite probably was, but excommunication in Orthodoxy is not permanent. Self-imposed excommunication (like leaving for another church) might be but the Church only excommunicates people for a period of time so that they can't partake of the Eucharist unworthily. Excommunication, for us, does not mean that you are thrown out of the Church as a punishment but that you are excluded from communicating (taking the Eucharist) for a time for your own good. It is not at all the same idea as the medieval (modern, too?) Roman Catholic idea of excommunication.

James

 

[lilithu]

Namaste David,

ressurecting this thread. I could swear that I responded to this thread when you first posted it but can find no posts by me. Who was I discussing Giordano Bruno with and were? Oh well.

I just read Rebecca Parker's talk that she gave at the John Murray Distinguished Lecture awards a few years back. In it she says that her early goal in life was to be tried for heresy within her faith, but when she joined UU, she resigned herself to the fact that she could never realize that goal.

But the real reason why I dug this thread up is because I've also been reading Theodore Parker. And I don't know whether in the grand scope history Parker qualifies for his own chapter on heresy, but he certainly was considered a heretic in his day, even in Unitarian circles. Channing said that we were made in the image of God and therefore good, but Jesus was still essential to his understanding of the good. Emerson argued that Christianity was only one of many valid paths. BUT Parker, was the first one to argue that it was Jesus' teachings and actions that were most important, not Jesus himself. And that if Jesus had never existed, the truths within his teachings would still have come out. The Truth of Christianity was independant of Christ! Granted that this was the logical extension of the ideas of those who had gone before him, but he spelled them out explicitly in "The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity." And he didn't even know that he had said anything particularly radical, because it was the logical conclusion of his tradition. He stepped into the controversy without seeing but he never backed down from his beliefs. Channing may have had detractors but was well-respected. Emerson was idolized, and if he left Unitarian ministry it was by his own choice, not because others drove him out. But Parker was a social pariah; other Unitarian ministers would not even trade pulpits with him.

 

[ChrisP]

Yeah, Galileo, Ghandi and Jesus.

 

[Ciscokid]

I would say Martin Luther for sure. He really rattled the cages of the Catholic Church who was not interested in allowing it's members to think and study for themselves.

I'd also say Marilyn Manson. He's done a good job of speaking out against dogmatic religions. Okay he's technically not a heretic but he plays the part real well.

 

[Davidium]

Theodore Parker is one of my favorite Heretics... and he just about qualifies as the only Unitarian Heretic. But history has vindicated him within our movement.

But what is amazing and telling to me is what "heresy" Parker was charged with when the Unitarian Conference considered removing him from Fellowship. He was charged with "Deism". Not necessarily the Deism of Paine, but actually something much closer to modern Deistic thought. He was in essence the first to publically question the absolute validity of the Christian Revelation.

While it did not get the public play of Emerson's "Divinity School Address", Parker's "Transient and Permenant in Christianity" was I think a more effective essay. Other ministers could dismiss Emerson's conclusions, and it caused a sensation mostly because of where he chose to deliver those conclusions, (at the Harvard Divinity Commencement). Parker's was more low key, but the theology was near unassailable by any reasonable method (without resorting to pure faith). Which is why, in the end after much debate and arguing, he was not removed from the Unitarian Ministry. They might not have agreed with him, but they could not reasonably refute his position.

Theodore Parker is a hero of mine. Of all the UU Founding Fathers, the two that I have the most in common with are Theodore Parker and Hosea Ballou. Both were charged with "Deism" at one point or another.

I would like to think that I chose to attend the Seminary I did (Meadville Lombard) because of the students, the academics, the faculty, and the feel... and not because when you graduate from there you pick up your diploma from Theodore Parker's writing desk... but I'm just afraid I wouldnt be honest if I said that....

Yours in Faith,

David