Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Every 500 years or so

Every 500 years or so there seems to be something big happen in the Church, some big divide.

Around 1500 years ago (okay, 1550) you had the first great split in the Church - the one we ignore. Plenty of Alexandria and Egypt didn't go along with the council of Chalcedon. There's a massive divide in the Church there.

Then around 950 years ago you get the Great Schism, the divide between the West and the remainder of the East. Things get torn apart.

Then around 500 years ago, you get the Reformation.

I think we are getting into one of those big things now, and I think it is about worship. The Church is going to split along lines of what it means to worship - is it entertainment and fun time, or is it the time where sinners receive forgiveness of sins? This is something that is popping up almost everywhere, across the board - and it's going to bring about a divide - in many ways it already has.

Thus is life in the fallen world.

1 comment:

123 said...

I'm not so sure, though I think it is definitely something big in the Western church itself. Vatican II seemed to open the adiaphora floodgates first proposed in the Reformation and cut off the church from the idea that lex orandi est lex credendi was, whatever Prosper's original intent, the way the church has done theology and done worship: the medium is the message (and vice versa) just as actions speak louder than words.

Someone once pointed out to me that the most high church, traditional parishes of the Episcopalian and Anglican churches tended to be very gay, sexually. This is true in NYC for the ironically named church of St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square.

An Orthodox blogger of rather acidic wit once noted that it was his experience that 'the Western Rite makes you gay', whether in or outside of the Orthodox WR. Not sure I agree exactly, but there is some kernel of truth in there.