Light in the Dark Ages

The history of Third Stream Christian groups from Constantine to the Reformation is one that has attracted renewed interest in recent years.

There is increasing evidence that Europe during these centuries contained many such churches and that it is only the difficulty in accessing the original archive material that has contributed towards the view that there was little evangelical witness in the centuries before Luther.

The following samples give a hint of the depth of evangelical spiritual life that existed, not only among individuals but among whole congregations in the centuries traditionally known as the Dark Ages:

• In his Sermons Against Heretics, Eckbert of Schonau condemns those "weavers...who say that the true service of Christ and the true faith are to be found nowhere but in their conventicles, which they hold in cellers and weaving establishments and similar subterranean places."

• Pope Innocent III addressed a gathering of bishops in the city of Metz in 1199 when he related the following:

"Our brother the bishop of Metz tells us that in his diocese and in your city a great many lay-folk, both men and women,...have had French translations made of the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, the Psalms...which they read together and preach from in their clandestine conventicles....resisting to their face the priests who would instruct them, arguing that they find in their books much better instruction."

• Before and during the Reformation, the "Christian Brethren" held regular meetings to celebrate the Lord's Supper with a full meal in the weavers' guild house in Saint Gall, Switzerland.

• In Brugge, in 1349, "a sect came up called the Cross-brothers....they did not adore the holy sacrament as it was raised aloft at the mass, nor did they show reverence to the priesthood....many were in the ban of the pope because of the Cross-brothers and the Lollards, persons who had fed them or had conversed with them."

• In 1145, reports of what appears to be a fully functioning evangelical church emerge from the city of Liege:

"In this heresy...they say that in baptism sins are not remitted; they consider the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ to be foolishness; that by the imposition of the pontiff's hand nothing is conferred; that no-one receives the Holy Spirit unless good works are in evidence."

• A century before the Reformation, the Dean of Notre Dame in Arras claimed that, "one third of Christendom if not more has attended illicit Waldensian conventicles and is at heart Waldensian."

All of the above are referenced in Leornard Verduin's illuminating work, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Dissent and Nonconformity)

Third Stream Christian Groups and Christmas

With the Catholic and Protestant Christmas celebrations at hand, it may be a timely occasion to consider the different responses to Christmas that third stream Christian groups have adopted over the centuries.

221 AD is the earliest proven year when we know that December 25th was widely advocated as marking Christ's birth, though it was not particularly an occasion for feasting or celebration. Tertullian (referred to elsewhere for his support of Montanism) makes no reference to it while Origen (hardly a third stream leader) denounced the idea, claiming that only sinners not saints celebrated birthdays.

During the Reformation, many Protestants avoided Christmas celebrations along with statues, incense and other Catholic rituals. Oliver Cromwell's government banned Christmas for 12 years, starting in 1647. A similar law existed in Boston from 1659 to 1681, though other colonies observed it freely in the period before American Independence.

The idea of a "church year" with certain special dates and celebrations was largely absent from Mennonite thought by the time it had transplanted to the United States, although some European Mennonites did pay more attention to the holidays of the church year. Christmas Day was rarely observed until the 20th century among such groups.

The Old Order Amish followed a somewhat different pattern. January 6th was their "Alt Christtag" (Old Christmas) marked in addition to 25 December. They celebrated this day with fasting, (i.e. omitting breakfast) but without church services, and followed by visiting relatives and friends.

The use of the Christmas trees in connection with the Christmas season was rejected by more conservative third stream groups. It was seen as a pagan symbol, out of place among Christians.

Most European Mennonites continued to observe Christmas with a church service and the following day (Boxing Day in Britain) as a holiday with a focus on family, friends and children.

As the practice of gift-giving at Christmas only became widespread in the mid-19th century following the publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, we ought not to be surprised to find it largely absent from third stream Christian groups before this period.

On a more contemporary note, it is interesting to reflect on the fact that some of the "new churches" that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK did not mark Christmas in any special way. Whatever their current practice, the Coign Church in Woking was one example of a new church that did not celebrate the event during its early years.

A Mennonite group from Canada has taken things a step further by inviting others to celebrate their buy nothing Christmas as an alternative to unrestrained commercialism.

Lollards - Medieval Church Planters

The term "Lollard" may have meant "babbler" or "mumbler" and was probably a pejorative comment on the preaching of this third stream Medieval movement.

The Lollards were the English followers of the reformer and Bible translator John Wycliffe. By the end of the C14, due to extensive evangelism and teaching in the midlands and south of England, Lollards maintained a number of congregations and enjoyed considerable support among the artisan and middle classes.

In 1395 Lollards submitted a document to Parliament summarising some of their beliefs and complaints. In particular, they emphasised the centrality of personal faith in Christ, opposed hierarchy in the church and rejected transubstantiation, clerical celibacy and the church's temporal power. In addition, they rejected prayers for the dead, pilgrimages and images of the saints. They saw the primary duty of priests to preach and teach the word of God and wanted the Bible to be made available in the common tongue for all believers.

As an aside, there is debate over the extent to which Geoffrey Chaucer represented or even endorsed Lollard ideas in his Canterbury Tales. He was certainly familiar with the movement.

Although outlawed as a movement in 1401, and despite many leaders being burned or hanged, Lollardry continued to spread. When the Reformation got under way a century later, much preparatory work had already been done in England. Lollard ideas were already part of the English consciousness.

A season of revival in the C16 in London, East Anglia and the Chilterns added to the movement's strength and influence.

Understanding the Mennonites - Part 2

At the radical end of the Protestant Reformation of the early C16, the Mennonites (so-called) were part of a wider movement seeking a return not only to a Biblical doctrine of salvation but were also prepared to look more closely at the implications of this salvation for an understanding of the nature of the church.

The idea of a local church as a community of saved believers is so widely accepted now that it is difficult to imagine how radical a concept this was in the context of C16 Europe.

While Luther was articulating a clear doctrine of justification through faith, and could see how clearly this truth challenged the Catholic concepts of the mass, the priesthood, indulgences, purgatory and the veneration of Mary and the saints, Luther remained firmly wedded to an institutional model of the church. When his followers were forced to separate from the Catholic structures, it was reluctantly and with the aim of establishing a purified state church, a mixture of saints and sinners.

Groups such as the Mennonites went much further than this. Seeing clearly that those who had been justified through faith comprised the people of God on the earth, called out and separate from the world, these Anabaptist groups began to understand the church as a community of believers committed to one another and to a life of discipleship.

Although numerically small, the influence of these groups continues to be felt today as modern evangelicalism now broadly accepts the concept of a church made up of believers. Whether contemporary evangelicalism takes as seriously the related call of a life of discipleship is another question.

Understanding the Mennonites - 1

In this, the first article of several on the history, beliefs and practices of the Mennonites, we will consider the origins of the movement, principally through the story of the leader whose name became synonymous with the churches he founded.

Menno Simmons, a Catholic priest, was converted to an evangelical Christian faith around 1525 as a result of reading the writings of Martin Luther.

Attracted to Anabaptism (though an opponent of its militant wing), his leadership and preaching gifts were recognized and he soon emerged as a leading figure in the Anabaptist movement in the Netherlands and North Germany. Within this region, he traveled extensively preaching the gospel, founding and establishing churches and writing numerous books, letters and pamphlets.

Menno stressed the idea of the local church as a community of believers committed to a new life of discipleship, sealed by believers'’ baptism and closely knit in fellowship and brotherly love.

Suspicious of dogmatic theology, Simmons was reluctant to use terms not clearly located in Scripture -– his avoidance of the word “Trinity” being one of the more controversial expressions of this approach. This should not be confused with his Trinitarian beliefs, which were in line with the historic creeds and confessions.

Frequently opposed by both Catholics and mainline Protestant reformers, Menno Simmons was often forced to move on from place to place in the course of discharging his ministry,– which was described by many of the churches he served as “apostolic”. He died in the town of Wustenfelde in 1561.

Early Moravians in America

Moravian women taking part in the sacrement of foot washing; engraving from David Cranz, Kurze, Zuverlässige Nachricht, von der, unter den Namen der Böhmisch-Mährischen Brüder Bekannt, Kirche Unitas fratrum, Halle: 1757