Eller on Sects

Vernard Eller's theoretical introduction to the concept of Orthodox Protestant sects - which overlap considerably with the Third Stream groups described in this blog - is a helpful article for thinking about the differing aspects of the subject.

Eller - who died in 2007 and was a member of the Church of the Brethren - attempts to fuse the sociological insights on sectarianism of Ernst Troeltsch with the theological paradigm of Emil Brunner.

Eller's work is contained within chapter three of his Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship, here and includes his spectrum chart (left) of different understandngs of a sect.

Recommended reading.

On Reformation Sects

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"[Anabaptist sectarianism] attacked the new theological dogmatism, the compulsory State Church, and the tendency to secularization [of the Reformation "churches"]....

The Anabaptists deliberately opposed the results of this compromise, and in so doing they opposed the whole idea of the Church, and of an ecclesiastical civilization.

This violent opposition, however, proves that in reality it had been caused by the Reformation itself...."

Soren Kierkegaard

Martin Luther Rap

In the week that the Pope visits the UK, a new take on an old dispute.

Any artist who can incorporate the phrase "hypostatic union" into a rap song is worth a listen, in my opinion.

95 Theses Rap from 8BIT Network on Vimeo.

Give Me That Old Time Sectarian Religion

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Whatever of true Christianity is to be found in the course of the centuries must be found
in the sects and their like.

Søren Kierkegaard