The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Wade wrote:Is there any denomination that doesn't sway history when they write it to make themselves sound good?

When we look at scripture, the church had many issues. I think this was just being humble and honest.
For more thoughts on this look up David Bercot - "What True Greatness Looks Like"


I believe Peter Hoover was very honest in, "The Secret of the Strength." - That is a good read.
I would question some of the later parts of the book especially the chapter "In Spite of Terrible Mistakes". That, I believe, reflected a Conservative Mennonite perspective rather than something Peter discovered in the Old Anabaptist manuscripts, and I suspect it was added at the prompting of his editors/publishers. Peter, like Elmo Stoll, seemed a lot more radical at one time, but he bowed to the necessities and demands of his culture.
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EdselB
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by EdselB »

Wayne in Maine wrote:
Wade wrote:Is there any denomination that doesn't sway history when they write it to make themselves sound good?

When we look at scripture, the church had many issues. I think this was just being humble and honest.
For more thoughts on this look up David Bercot - "What True Greatness Looks Like"


I believe Peter Hoover was very honest in, "The Secret of the Strength." - That is a good read.
I would question some of the later parts of the book especially the chapter "In Spite of Terrible Mistakes". That, I believe, reflected a Conservative Mennonite perspective rather than something Peter discovered in the Old Anabaptist manuscripts, and I suspect it was added at the prompting of his editors/publishers. Peter, like Elmo Stoll, seemed a lot more radical at one time, but he bowed to the necessities and demands of his culture.
As one of the "editors" and the person who saw the original version of The Secret of the Strength through to publication, I can put your suspicions at rest about the chapter, "In Spite of Terrible Mistakes." It was all Peter's and was part of the manuscript before John D. Martin (the other editor) and I saw it. Indeed our "editing" was more along the line of copying editing and helping with the bibliography, than any revision of the content.

The "mistakes" of the early Anabaptist that Peter discussed are:
1. a case of fornication by an early leader,
2. the celestial flesh Christology,
3. believers leaving their unbelieving spouses
4. allowing for remarriage after divorce
5. a tendency toward asceticism
6. the prophesying that gave rise to Muenster

I "suspect" that if he hadn't included # 4, you would have had little problem with the chapter.
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Josh
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Josh »

EdselB wrote:The "mistakes" of the early Anabaptist that Peter discussed are:
1. a case of fornication by an early leader,
2. the celestial flesh Christology,
3. believers leaving their unbelieving spouses
4. allowing for remarriage after divorce
5. a tendency toward asceticism
6. the prophesying that gave rise to Muenster
#2 and #4 are of particular interest to me, as Holdemans hold to celestial flesh, and allow remarriage after divorce in very limited circumstances. The only reason Holdemans hold to celestial flesh at all is because John Holdeman was essentially a "restorationist" of early Anabaptist thinking, eagerly reading every piece of early Anabaptist writing he could. One thing he really walked away with was a strong appreciation for anything Menno Simons had to say.

I am curious in what way #2 would be a mistake.
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haithabu
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by haithabu »

The dismissal of any connection between the Waldensians and the Anabaptists seems to me to be a case of taking the absence of documentary evidence as being the evidence of absence.

However, there is some evidence. Geschichte der Bernischen Taeufer (written by Ernst Mueller, a Reformed clergyman) attests that this connection was believed to exist by the early Anabaptists' contemporaries and adversaries. He cites the imperial mandate of April 23, 1529, which described the Anabaptist movement as a resurgence of the earlier groups.

Mueller goes on to examine the circumstantial evidence, especially the parallels between Anabaptist and Waldensian positions and concludes that the Bernese Anabaptist doctrine and systematic Bible knowledge most likely grew out of a pre-existing knowledge base among the Bernese farmers.

He also believed that the deeply conservative Bernese rural culture (which he was closely familiar with) made it unlikely that a large segment of the population would have embraced new and unknown doctrines as quickly and deeply as they did. Rather it was a case of a new plant being grafted onto an older, existing root.

As to the historical gap between the last recorded Waldensian execution in the area (Freibourg, 1456) and the public emergence of the Bernese Anabaptist movement, consider that the passage of 70 years is equivalent to that between today and 1947, a time which was well within the living memory of the adult family members I grew up with.

Is it that hard to consider that a loose network of Waldensian related families might have lain low in the Bernese hinterland during that period as "the quiet in the land", biding their time until conditions had improved? That is essentially what they did in Bern between the Reformation and the time of exile, why not before?
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Wayne in Maine »

EdselB wrote: As one of the "editors" and the person who saw the original version of The Secret of the Strength through to publication, I can put your suspicions at rest about the chapter, "In Spite of Terrible Mistakes." It was all Peter's and was part of the manuscript before John D. Martin (the other editor) and I saw it. Indeed our "editing" was more along the line of copying editing and helping with the bibliography, than any revision of the content.

The "mistakes" of the early Anabaptist that Peter discussed are:
1. a case of fornication by an early leader,
2. the celestial flesh Christology,
3. believers leaving their unbelieving spouses
4. allowing for remarriage after divorce
5. a tendency toward asceticism
6. the prophesying that gave rise to Muenster

I "suspect" that if he hadn't included # 4, you would have had little problem with the chapter.
No, not specifically #4.

That whole chapter just seemed out of place in the text as a whole. I only have the first 16 unedited chapters and some portions of other later chapters (from 1996), so I don't know when it was written. It's difficult to sort out who were the actual predecessors of the modern Anabaptists, and that makes it hard to judge what their "terrible mistakes" were in some instances. Muenster, for example, was a terrible mistake, but was it really part of the movement that we know as the Swiss Brethren or the Hutterites? At the same time too who are modern (ethnic) Mennonites to judge them (including their conclusion on points 3 and 4)? And what terrible mistakes are "we" still making? What beam in our eyes did we inherit from them that we still bear today? That's the bigger difficulty I have with Peter's critique of his forefathers.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Wayne in Maine »

haithabu wrote:The dismissal of any connection between the Waldensians and the Anabaptists seems to me to be a case of taking the absence of documentary evidence as being the evidence of absence.

However, there is some evidence. Geschichte der Bernischen Taeufer (written by Ernst Mueller, a Reformed clergyman) attests that this connection was believed to exist by the early Anabaptists' contemporaries and adversaries. He cites the imperial mandate of April 23, 1529, which described the Anabaptist movement as a resurgence of the earlier groups.

Mueller goes on to examine the circumstantial evidence, especially the parallels between Anabaptist and Waldensian positions and concludes that the Bernese Anabaptist doctrine and systematic Bible knowledge most likely grew out of a pre-existing knowledge base among the Bernese farmers.

He also believed that the deeply conservative Bernese rural culture (which he was closely familiar with) made it unlikely that a large segment of the population would have embraced new and unknown doctrines as quickly and deeply as they did. Rather it was a case of a new plant being grafted onto an older, existing root.

As to the historical gap between the last recorded Waldensian execution in the area (Freibourg, 1456) and the public emergence of the Bernese Anabaptist movement, consider that the passage of 70 years is equivalent to that between today and 1947, a time which was well within the living memory of the adult family members I grew up with.

Is it that hard to consider that a loose network of Waldensian related families might have lain low in the Bernese hinterland during that period as "the quiet in the land", biding their time until conditions had improved? That is essentially what they did in Bern between the Reformation and the time of exile, why not before?
I have a copy of a paper around here somewhere written (If I recall right) By Robert Friedmann specifically refuting Muller. If I can find it I'll pass the references on.
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Heirbyadoption »

Wayne in Maine wrote:Broadbent was not original in proposing an underground apostolic lineage of churches. I don't recall the author, but there was a German scholar in the 19th century on who proposed the same thing and who outlined the historic connectivity of these different groups. John Horsch accepted the connection of the Waldensians to the Anabaptist as outlined in this work, but later scholars disputed the connection, simply by pointing to the fact that the Waldensians had died out entirely in the regions where supposedly they have contacted and influenced the first generation of Anabaptists.

What is more important is to consider the real diversity of beliefs and practices of the groups Broadbent (and others) have tried to link together. They were not all "Baptist" in theology or "Anabaptist" in practice.
Wayne, bear in mind (and yes, I know you were simply stating the fact of later scholars' dispute), the Waldensians' writings remained as a potential influence, if nothing else.
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Heirbyadoption »

Judas Maccabeus wrote:
Ernie wrote:Here is what Bercot has to say about the Pilgrim Church...

"...the phrase "Pilgrim Church" really has no historic meaning. It was a term coined by Broadbent in his book The Pilgrim Church. Broadbent was a Baptist. So the groups that he calls "the Pilgrim Church" don't necessarily hold to kingdom values.
Baptists include themselves as part of the Pilgrim Church, as do the Plymouth brethren. Yet, their values are quite different than ours. In the end, "Pilgrim Church values" simply mean non-Catholic values."
Foreword by David Hunt is a dead giveaway. Actually both Verdun and Broadbent seem to be of Plymouth Brethren alignment. I am mentally trying to sort out the ancient origin verses Zurich origin thing.

J.M.
Unless I'm mistaken, Verduin remained Reformed in his ecclesiology. Am I incorrect in this?
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Heirbyadoption wrote:
Wayne in Maine wrote:Broadbent was not original in proposing an underground apostolic lineage of churches. I don't recall the author, but there was a German scholar in the 19th century on who proposed the same thing and who outlined the historic connectivity of these different groups. John Horsch accepted the connection of the Waldensians to the Anabaptist as outlined in this work, but later scholars disputed the connection, simply by pointing to the fact that the Waldensians had died out entirely in the regions where supposedly they have contacted and influenced the first generation of Anabaptists.

What is more important is to consider the real diversity of beliefs and practices of the groups Broadbent (and others) have tried to link together. They were not all "Baptist" in theology or "Anabaptist" in practice.
Wayne, bear in mind (and yes, I know you were simply stating the fact of later scholars' dispute), the Waldensians' writings remained as a potential influence, if nothing else.
That would be if they were known and read by the early Anabaptists. There is no indication that they were. To the best of my knowledge such writings were never mentioned in their own writings.
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Re: The Pilgrim Church, E. Hamer Broadbent

Post by Josh »

Landmarkists of all stripes (Anabaptists and otherwise) all seem to want to claim some kind of alternate apostolic succession through the Waldensians, despite the historical record showing they basically died out and their writings were not very influential.

At some point, we have to accept that God is able and willing to imbue every generation with his spirit and restore genuine Christianity.
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