Bible-Burners (build it yourself bibles)

New Oxford Review ^ | February 2004 | Dwight Longenecker

[NYer]

Dwight Longenecker is the editor or author of five books, among them, The Path to Rome, a book of British conversion stories. He is co-author of Challenging Catholics: A Catholic-Evangelical Debate and the author of More Christianity.

[Bitter Bierce]

Thanks for the heads up!

[muawiyah]

Good reason for why you don't see Protestants doing this is Protestants got rid of most of the hierarchy ~ and many Protestant groups have no hierarchy at all.

In fact, numerous Protestant groups in America weren't even around at the time.

Pentecostals, for example, are probably totally mystified by what the Pope did in the way of an apology ~ Fur Shur it wasn't directed at them.

The Pope is a good man ~ he can apologize for whatever he wants.

[Esther Ruth]

The Catholic response was not to burn the Bible, but to burn Tyndale's Bible.

The Protestant Reformers may have been revolutionaries, but their revolution was extremist, not unlike that of the Taliban.

****

You agree with this? That it was a correct response to destroy "Tyndale's Bible" and that these reformers were not "unlike the Taliban"?

[SoothingDave]

You agree with this? That it was a correct response to destroy "Tyndale's Bible" and that these reformers were not "unlike the Taliban"?

Did you read the article?

Catholics burnt some Bibles, but the Protestants burned books on a scale that makes the Catholic fires look like the odd candle flame. In England, when the monasteries were suppressed, their libraries were most often destroyed as well. So the vast monastic libraries of religious texts encompassing many ancient, rare, and hand-copied Catholic Bibles were put to the flames. In 1544 in the Anglican controlled sections of Ireland, the Reformers put an immense number of ancient books, including Vulgate Bibles, onto the bonfires as they ransacked the monasteries and their libraries.

Sadly, the destruction was not limited to the burning of Bibles. Sixteenth-century England and Ireland witnessed the most monumental pillage of sacred property and destruction of Christian architecture, art, and craftwork the world has ever seen. In England between the winter of 1537 and spring 1540 over 318 monasteries and convents were destroyed. Parish churches were ransacked. Beautiful paintings and carvings were smashed. Sacred vestments and altar hangings with rich embroidery were confiscated and recycled into curtains and clothes. Vessels of the altar were stolen, melted down, and sold. The Protestants destroyed a religious heritage with the zeal and fury of terrorists, and what was left by the iconoclasts during the reign of Henry VIII was smashed further during the Puritan regime of Oliver Cromwell.

SD

[Campion]

You agree with this? ... that these reformers were not "unlike the Taliban"?

The reformation in England was a very violent and nasty affair, and the English reformers had a lot in common with the Taliban. Beautiful churches and shrines were desecrated all over the country, and their jewels and furnishings were either destroyed or, if they had monetary value, confiscated by -- who else? -- the King. The Church's lands were confiscated by the nobility. Religious houses were forcibly closed, the buildings themselves either destroyed or put to some other use, and those monks and nuns who objected sometimes ended up dead. Catholic decorations in churches were destroyed or defaced as "idols". (Having a picture of a saint was "idolatry"; destroying that picture and replacing it, not with anything remotely Christian, but with the royal coat of arms and a slogan commanding loyalty to the crown, was "patriotism".)

Read Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars for details. Duffy is a Catholic, but he's also a competent medieval historian.

[bahblahbah]

[TradicalRC]

The church which exemplifies this most is Westminster Abbey. Any Catholic visitor to London will be amazed at how this once proud Benedictine Abbey has been turned into a museum of English civil heroes. At every turn one finds statues of statesmen, kings, and politicians, while the heroes of the Christian faith are relegated to the margins.

England had long wanted to subordinate Church to the State. This goes back at least to William of Occam. Sadly, we are the child of England and have to a lesser degree, followed suit. The only difference being that The English government endorsed the Anglican Church while we endorse no church, merely a secular ideology which conveniently has no "organized" church.

[trisham]

bookmark

[Alex Murphy]

The Protestant Reformers may have been revolutionaries, but their revolution was extremist, not unlike that of the Taliban.

Another day, another flamebait thread....

[Pyro7480]

The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe (on 4 May 1415) a stiff-necked heretic and under the ban of the Church. It was decreed that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed. The latter did not happen till twelve years afterward, when at the command of Pope Martin V they were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the river Swift that flows through Lutterworth.

Objectively-speaking (and I'm a Catholic), what the Council and the Pope ordered was wrong. The guy was a heretic, but to desecrate the remains of a dead person is outrageous.

[Pyro7480]

The Protestant Reformers may have been revolutionaries, but their revolution was extremist, not unlike that of the Taliban.

Outside that line, is there anything that is inaccurate?

[bahblahbah]

"Sadly, we are the child of england?" You've got to be kidding me.

"Conveniently has no 'organized' church" Ya know, with comments like these no wonder there were a lot of anti-Catholicism in the early days of America.

[Pyro7480]

Ya know, with comments like these no wonder there were a lot of anti-Catholicism in the early days of America.

So you think it was justified?

[Pyro7480]

"Sadly, we are the child of england?" You've got to be kidding me.

I believe he was specifically referring to the State trying to subordinate the Church. The State is still trying to do it, centuries later.

[aimhigh]

Outside that line, is there anything that is inaccurate?

The whole article is Catholic revisionism. The Nazis try to deny the Holocost. Turkey denies the Death march. It's not surprising to see Catholics rewrite the Inquisition.

[Esther Ruth]

Here are some good links to biographys on Tyndale.
http://store.thebereancall.org/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=B08808
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=647370&netp_id=338364&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=01422X&event=CFN
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=50556&event=CFN

[Campion]

The whole article is Catholic revisionism ... It's not surprising to see Catholics rewrite the Inquisition.

The article concerns the Reformation in England and France. There was no Inquisition in England, and the only Inquisition in France concerned the Cathars, and was over centuries before the Reformation.

In other words, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.

[Campion]

I'm familiar with Mr. Tyndale.

My namesake, St. Edmund Campion, was a Jesuit priest who was hung, drawn, and quartered under Queen Elizabeth under a charge of "high treason". His "treason" consisted in saying Mass and hearing confessions.

Evelyn Waugh wrote a very fine biography of St. Edmund; it's available through Sophia Press.

BTW, do any of your sources mention that Tyndale was "fingered" to the ecclesiastical courts in Belgium by an agent of the (Protestant) King Henry VIII?