COSC2U2@uhvax1.uh.edu (08/17/89)
A couple of factual corrections: > That part is moderately true. Constantine did scrupulously observe boundaries > between Church and State. He had problems with Civil Unrest because of the > Arian-Catholic Rift. The Council of Nicea was his way of having the Church > definitively settle their dispute, that is, to formulate a Statement of > Faith as a sort of a Church Constitution. The Arians were sore loosers, > and retaliated by getting Constantine to backslide. Though Constantine > apparantly recanted on his death bed, the damage had been done, and his > sons took the Arian position. A probable mistake, now that I look at Tierreny's Medieval History 300-1475 A.D. (I hope I didn't mess this one up too much). Apparently, Constantine had only one son to assume power. Same damage. . . . > I agree. See Jack Sparks'es Mindbenders. The theme of this book is > to equate heterodox with non-compliance with already accepted standards, > such as the Nicene Creed. Interesting is his argument that the Church > of Christ's "No Creed but Christ." led to the infiltration by Jim Jones, > and the Jonestown massacre. Shame on you Church of Christ members for not flameing me! It was the Disciples of Christ. (Funny what happens when you do things from memory) > Sparks goes on to demonstrate the slogan's > sophistery and nihilism. > >> > > -ceb [You can be forgiven for the confusion between Disciples and Church. My best source of information on American church history (Ahlstrom's book) says that the Churches of Christ are a conservative offshoot of the Disciples of Christ. In fact it looks to me like in the case of the more recent offshoot there may be some ambiguity as to which name should be applied. Perhaps someone more involved would like to clarify the relationship. I am particularly interested to know whether there are several denominations with similar names. I remember attending a church briefly that was called Disciples. It was a rather liberal denomination in the Reformed family. From the context it doesn't sound like this is what you are talking about, though from Ahlstrom's comments it seems at least possible that after the most recent split between Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ, the Disciples turned into a mainline church. --clh]