Talk:Christian heresy

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This article has one of the worst introductions I've ever seen on a Wikipedia page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam sk (talk • contribs)

I agree, but it looks like there was something else there at one time and was deleted. The current first paragraph sounds more like something that got moved up from later in the text. Sigil7 17:04, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

So... have you ever read WP:SOFIXIT? Rather than just criticizing, you could help improve the article. That said, Sigil17's hunch is more or less right. I created this article from an amalgam of stuff taken from Heresy, Early Christianity and History of Christianity. If the intro is lame, it's because I haven't spent any time focusing on it. Perhaps you could suggest how the intro could be improved and we can work on it together. --Richard 15:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the "Christianity" section of Heresy is now in dire need of improvement after I eviscerated it to make this article. The summary there is also pretty lame. Your help would be much appreciated. --Richard 15:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Montanism orthodox? 2 Major overhaul required 3 Definition(s) of Heresy 4 List of Heresies 5 Interpretive categorization of heresies 6 Lead changes 7 Early Christian heresies 8 Gnosticism and Marcionism sections getting too long 9 Suppression of heresies 10 Priscillian of Avila 11 Question on the Categorization of Heresies 12 Odd heresy 13 Making the list of heresies more than a list

[edit] Montanism orthodox?

This article contains the bizarre sentence, "The sect was much more orthodox than Christianity." This is self-contradictory. By definition, a heresy cannot be orthodox; orthodoxy is the opposite of heresy. Orthodoxy means, literally, "right belief" or "right worship," whereas a heresy is a different school of thought (as distinguished from orthodoxy). The author seems to be confusing "orthodoxy" with "strictness." MishaPan 17:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure they considered themselves orthodox (and everybody else borderline-heretical). Actually, describing one view as orthodox and another view as heretical (in articles like these) strikes me as blatant, if widespread, POV. Jacob Haller 19:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Another consequence of copying text from Early Christianity and History of Christianity. The sentence in question should probably be changed. How should we change it? Should we just delete it or can the sentence be salvaged? --Richard 14:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major overhaul required

I concur completely with Mr. Haller above. This whole article strikes me as deeply and hopelessly misguided--at first, I thought it was just the bizarre attempt to make a "list of Christian heresies." But the whole article is written in this spirit, that its purpose is to provide information about those Christian denominations (active and historical) that are "heretical," or to provide some sort of general description of what heresy is. Does this strike anyone else as a preposterous project? Obviously, every denomination (movement, theology, etc.) considers itself orthodox, and all who disagree with it (over the most important things, at least) heretical. There is absolutely no potential for a NPOV. (I'm no relativist, BTW. I firmly believe that my own denomination is correctly called orthodox, and that certain others are correctly called heretical.) An account of what is generally considered by Christians to be heretical would contain absolutely zero information, since the word is used only for disputes among professed Christians (the only thing unique about e.g. Arianism is that its proponents are all dead). . I cannot imagine how this article might be salvaged in anything remotely resembling its current form. The only halfway decent part is the Catholic part, on things like the RC definition of the term, historic use of the term (eg current decline, due to ecumenical sensitivities), response to heresy, etc. It's horribly written, poorly cited, and not particularly accurate, but at least they've got the right idea. We should provide the same information about Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, (the current "protestant" article is very poor), and so forth--and add country-specific information too, since historically it was the state that technically policed and punished heresy by laymen. . . . Get rid of all the other nonsense, and for heaven's sake address the general historical information on Christian denominations (even dead ones) on their own pages, or on ones for "historical" or "ancient Christian sects" or something like that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.59.32.37 (talk) 07:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

The word “orthodox” is used meaningfully to distinguish groups throughout history. Said differently, historical texts (books, journals, textbooks) all use the word “orthodox” in a meaningful way. It separates one group, the group that continued beyond antiquity / middle ages (depending on the context), from arians, monophysites, manicheans, donatists, gnostics, and so on. This encyclopedia is not about setting trends, but (as a tertiary source) it follows the secondary literature, and since this employs orthodox / heresies meaningfully, so should we. To do otherwise would be out of our place. All these groups, by the way, ended at a given historical point, so there is no risk in offending their members (modern reconstructionist movements, if they exist at all, are “neo” movements, not historically continuously connected to antiquity and thus outside of the scope of the terminology). I myself am using orthodox / heretical to distinguish between Catholics and Monophysites in my own thesis at present, without ado. In my view, objections to establish historical usage are based on ignorance of the literature and its terminology. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lostcaesar (talk • contribs) 08:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

I stand partially corrected. NPOV / accepted academic terminology is indeed a sociologically determined standard, and therefore the extinction of a sect does indeed make it OK to call them "heretical," just as e.g. a historical claimant can certainly be called a "pretender" in a way that would be inappropriate if the controversy were live at the time of writing. So yes, there's absolutely no NPOV violation in calling arians, etc., "heretics." That said, let me make a few comments:

First, the "list of heresies" section does need major culling by someone as principled as you. It has numerous post-antiquity sects on the list--including some still practised today, such as the Bogomils, and even some inclusions that are little more than a blatant attempt to insult (eg "Christian Zionists"). Second, even the standards you provide are quite telling. There is no such thing as "the" group that continued beyond the middle ages (unless one ends the middle ages in the fifth century); there are three: Chalcedoneans, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Church of the East. But you did say "antiquity," so perhaps you meant only to call older movements "heresies"...but then how did you write your dissertation on monophysites and use the term for them? The Church of the East is older, both by date of origin as a distinct movement and by date of schism, than the monophysites (and I assume by "monophysites" you mean eutychianism rather than OO, since they're still around, and proudly and legitimately identify as non-Chalcedonean), the youngest "heresy" you mention and the subject of your dissertation (good luck, btw; I am a Catholic grad student too!). If both Chalcedoneans and Church of the East(who readily and legitimately identify themselves with the 431 schism) are "orthodox," but the eutychians "heretics," we can see the true nature of the terminology employed: Orthodox does not, as you suggest, have some taxonomic legitimacy as a "group" or branch of Christianity; rather, responsible scholars like yourself are simply employing a term, which in its primary purpose simply means "correct," in a convenient and objective manner by taking ad hoc the toy perspective of the nonextinct group--e.g., when writing about the eutychians versus Chalcedoneans, you call the latter "orthodox" not because Chalcedoneanism constitutes or subsumes "orthodox Christianity" in some single principled, academically accepted, context-invariant sense of the term, but rather for your legitimate convenience in that particular paper.

I therefore urge: (i) That the primary, denomination-subjective meaning of orthodoxy versus heresy be put front and center--with a section explaining how it has been adapted as an objective term in historical scholarship--alongside my previous suggestions for denomination-by-denomination information; (ii) That extinct sects be dealt with in WP simply by their place in the Christian historical-theological taxonomy, since the fact that they can acceptably be called "heresies" is entirely an artefact of standards of academic etiquette and is of absolutely no inherent interest whatsoever. Following those standards is indeed our duty, and I stand corrected that this is not a NPOV issue. But here we have centered the article around the standards, and it's kind of misleading. What's helpful for a paper about a particular controversy is unhelpful as a blanket term in an encyclopedia article.

Well, there are certainly a lot of point there to discuss, and its difficult to decide where to begin. I will say, to begin, that I don’t mean to say that the current form of the article is conclusive in any sense; rather, I spoke only of the spirit of the topic. I think all would agree that work needs to be done, in some places extensively. Let me say that I think we can make distinction between contexts. A medieval western context is importantly distinct from antiquity, based around a Mediterranean culture. But, in a medieval context, I think we can safely call Catharism a heresy and its opponent orthodoxy without worrying over the relation between Latin Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox or other Eastern groups. This would need to be a careful process, perhaps best divided into other articles or at least separate sections, with proper historical contexts distinguished. And I think you are right that we need to consider Oriental Orthodox in a much different way. In other words, “non-Chalcedonians” is a separate category that is simply not the same as Arianism and the like. There are still “non-Chalcedonian” groups and their relationship with other groups is complex. But this itself is not insurmountable, as a proper historical view, observing later reunifications and similar movements, can, in my view, provide a path forward – a cautious one. “Eutychianism”, as you put it, is indicative of the intricacies in Christological issues and provides a real challenge to treating the material here and points to inner distinctions between “Monophysitism” / “Monothelitism” that simply cannot be accurately simplified into simple categories. But this does not change the fact that Docetism or Gnosticism can be fairly called a heresy, and I think we can carefully walk the tightrope if we are cautious, as you rightly observe. Thus, this has been a roundabout way of saying that your suggestions, (i) and (ii), are sage and well meaning, and should be taken seriously and followed with due diligence. We need proper contextualization, particular to given historical settings, and delicate articulation. That said, I believe we can safely call groups heretical without worry or violation of policy, following academic precedents. I would like to extend personal gratitude for the advice and well thought out points. Lostcaesar 17:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the scholarly-historical sense still conflates 'who won' with 'who was right.' I don't think it helps to describe any religious views as heretical. Jacob Haller 20:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree and disagree. I fully understand your point. Do we argue that Mormons are heretics? How about Jehovah's Witnesses? Are they any more or less heretical than some of the heresies which were active in the early history of the Church but have died out since that time? I think it is a bad idea for Wikipedia to say "x, y and z beliefs are heretical" as if it were true because we would be required to pass judgment on all sorts of Christian theology ranging from Mormons to JWs to liberation theology. The problem, of course, is that a belief can only be heresy in reference to an orthodoxy and we are then hamstrung as to which orthodoxy we should consider to be orthodox.

However, it is reasonable to say "x is considered heretical by most Christians whereas y is considered heretical by Catholics". To act as if the word "heresy" has never been used to apply to Christian beliefs is just as bad as to pretend that we are in a position to judge what is and is not heresy.

--Richard 23:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition(s) of Heresy

Well for the Eastern Orthodox heresy means a choice to go against how the established tradition runs and councils of the East. If a group or individual disagrees with the ecumenical councils in whole or in part then they fall into heresy. I can not per say tell what the definition is for the other groups of mainstream christianity. LoveMonkey 15:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Heresies

It is clearly non-neutral POV to label traditions heresies as such, which the list does. In contrast, it would be NPOV to state when one tradition considers another tradition heretical. POV: Arianism is a heresy. NPOV: The councils of Nicaea and Constantinople condemned Arianism as a heresy. Yes, it's longer, but it's NPOV and more informative too. As written the list amounts to the former POV statement for each tradition. Jacob Haller 21:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm... good point. I had thought vaguely about the issue but I hadn't come up with a good solution until I read your comment. How about we put it into a table and have the name of the heresy in the first column, a brief explanation of the heresy in the second column, notable leaders in the third, councils and other pronouncements against the heresy in the fourth and maybe comments in a fifth? This should be more useful to the reader than just a list of wikilinks. Of course, we would keep the wikilinks for readers who want more detail.

--Richard 22:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'd suggest breaking this down into smaller lists, e.g.:

• Doctrines which the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople considered heretical with short summary paragraph on the councils, the disputes, etc., and which churches accept the councils...
• Doctrines which the Council of Chalcedon considered heretical with short summary of the Christological controversy, etc.
• Doctrines which the later Roman Catholic Church considered heretical before the Council of Trent
• Doctrines which the later Eastern Churches considered heretical

and so on as appropriate... Jacob Haller 02:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interpretive categorization of heresies

re: a proper categorization of heresies, it is most pertinent to highlight the nature of the heresy in some kind of interpretive manner. Orthodoxy has been in the process of self-definition for centuries, defining itself in terms of its faith and changing or clarifying beliefs in opposition to people or doctrines that are perceived as wrong. A process of categorization might be:

1. Christological Heresies - elite arguments about the nature of Christ and, by extension, the cosmos. largely snuffed out around 7th century
   1. Arianism
   2. Nestorianism
   3. Manicheanism
   4. Bogomilism
2. Institutional Heresies - elite controversies that were part of the Catholic Church's institutionalization
   1. Donatism
   2. Eucharistic Heresies
   3. Spiritual Franciscans
3. Popular Heresies - popular beliefs about what the Church should be (i.e., poor) and whom it should include (often crops up in regions as a reaction to encroaching Church control) sometimes taken up by elites
   1. Henry of Lausanne
   2. Tanchelm
   3. Arnold of Brescia
   4. Catharism
4. Textual Heresies - undermine the power of the clergy by allowing translation and interpretation of scripture
   1. Lollards
   2. Hussites
5. Vestigial Paganism - popular practices that continued, unbeknownst to the authorities, in popular worship (like the worship of st. Guinefort, the holy dog)

This is a draft. Comments and criticisms?brandon cohen 23:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I have restructured the "List of heresies" section according to the above schema. --Richard 08:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

A question for those more knowledgeable than I - wasn't Catharism fundamentally cosmological rather than just about the Church and its membership? It would not imply any controversial claim about a historical connection to Manicheanism or Bogomilism to put it in the same category purely on the grounds of its views on the nature of the world and its creator. It would rather break the 7th-century barrier though.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.86.122.5 (talk • contribs) 08:20, 9 July 2007.

[edit] Lead changes

First, let me say some problems I have with the lead revisions. The lead now says that the first “comprehensive statement of belief” was the Nicene creed. This is problematic. The creed developed from baptismal professions in general, and an older Jerusalem creed in particular. The statement ignores this. Also, creeds, and credal hymns, actually form the oldest material of the New Testament, having been incorporated by St. Paul. Second, the paragraph makes it sound as if orthodoxy did not develop until Nicaea, which ignores the authoritative role of the apostles and early bishops, seen in the New Testament writings and Apostolic Fathers. Lastly, the paragraph makes orthodoxy sound simply reactionary, as if it formed (by a process of “self-definition”?) over differences that then became heresy. Now, I think we need to really improve the article, but this first step needs to be done better, in my view. Lostcaesar 10:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Right now, there is no lead. What happened? Can we simply restore the old lead and keep the etymology section after the lead? -Andrew c 16:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Orthodox doctrines are formulated positively, as ideas and beliefs change (think about the discussions about the divinity/humanity of Jesus), but they also include references to beliefs that are considered heretical, to explain why they are mistaken (the Council of Nicea was convened specifically to determine which branch of Christianity was going to be institutionalized--Arianism or what became Chalcedonianism). I consider this to be a process of self-definition (positively or negatively) through reaction to contemporary beliefs and political issues. brandon cohen 21:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, the difficulty in phrasing the lead is to find a description of heresy that will describe a 2000 year long historical process driven by myriad impulses. I think that taking a dry social science tone which discusses these topics in terms of institutional acceptance or rejection of proposed doctrine will avoid bias because it does not presuppose one to be correct. brandon cohen 21:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early Christian heresies

The following is copied here from my Talk Page--Richard 15:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

re: bible passages noted on Christian heresy, I argue that there must be a better place to put the information. The article seems to conflate too many issues--theological, sociological, political, interpretive, etc. And these are sentence fragments.

"Though Christ himself is noted to have spoken out against false prophets and false christs within the Gospels themselves Mark 13:22 (some will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples), Matthew 7:5-20, Matthew 24:4, Matthew 24:11 Matthew 24:24 (For false christs and false prophets will arise). On many occasions in Paul's epistles, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them by him. The epistles of John and Jude also warn of false teachers and prophets, as does the writer of the Book of Revelation and 1 Jn. 4:1, as did the Apostle Peter warn in 2 Pt. 2:1-3:."

How would you clean this up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brandon cohen (talk • contribs) 08:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Yes Mister Cohen the above addition was carried over to the article body by Richard from an edit war I was having with Andrew c on the Early Christianity article. You seem to wish to establish a relativist tone with heresy as if the term is purely subjective please clarify. LoveMonkey 03:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Aren't heresy and orthodoxy inherently subjective labels assigned by an institution? The passages, above, as quoted from the gospel, show that even though Jesus spoke out against false apostles, he didn't provide much guidance about clerical celibacy, payment for ecclesiastical office, a Christian way to live in a moneyed world, how to recognize saints, etc. These are all issues that became important over the two millennia of the religious institution's development. I object to leading this article with words from the gospel because that information--while factual--misrepresents the reality of Christian heresy, which was not anti-Jesus or anti-Christian. I suggest that we move the gospel quotes to a subsection near the bottom, and present it as "doctrinal justification for heresy" or something similar. Is that clearer, LM? brandon cohen 22:11, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Brandon. The Biblical passages are better for explaining WHY the orthodox consider unorthodox teachings to be heretical and WHY they treat heresy as they do. It is unencyclopedic to use the Bible as a source except when it is explaining the basis for religious doctrine (i.e. scripture is the source for belief and doctrine not the basis for fact). It's a fine line but it's an important one to draw.

--Richard 22:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

As a result of discussions on another article, I've changed my mind about what I wrote above. I think it is a bad idea to quote scripture as the sole support for religious doctrine because, unless that scripture is incontrovertibly unambiguous and not subject to multiple interpretations, doing so amounts to original research. It is far better to quote a secondary source and thus we would say something like "Prominent scholar P asserts that, according to Matthew X:Y, heresy should be punished and this is the doctrine of the ABC church". Doing things this way allows us to describe different doctrines related to history held by different churches or even the same church at different points in time.

--Richard 05:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gnosticism and Marcionism sections getting too long

The current article is 39kb long. That's not too long but we cannot afford to have long sections on each heresy mentioned. I'm not sure why Gnosticism, Marcionism and Montanism have sections in this article. I think it's a historical artifact of text that I copied here from some other article (perhaps Heresy, perhaps History of Christianity.

In any event, detailed discussion of each heresy should be placed in the article on that heresy (e.g. Gnosticism, Marcionism or Montanism). This article should limit itself to one paragraph summaries of each heresy.

--Richard 20:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suppression of heresies

Can someone add specific sourced facts about the bad things that are implied. LoveMonkey 03:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you be more explicit about what "bad things" are implied? --Richard 05:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Priscillian of Avila

I'm kind of new to the fray here at Wikipedia and am loath to begin editing right away, but the section under "Suppression" about P of A is not strictly speaking accurate. P was accused of being a Manichaean, but the actual charge for which he was executed was witchcraft. If you need a reference, Malcolm Lambert's "Medieval Heresy" has it on page 12. Lexikonoklast 05:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Lexikonoklast

[edit] Question on the Categorization of Heresies

Why are the mormons, Christadelphians, and Jehovas witnessess listed under "Controversial groups"? None of these religions can adhere to the historic Christian creeds (Nicene, Apostle's, Athanasian, etc), and that alone classifies them as heretical. Why, then, are they classified as being "controversial"? It reeks of "political correctness" to me (i.e., Mormons, Jehovas Witnessess, etc., like to claim that they're Christians, so we'll water down reality to make them happy). MattH1517 14:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

On wikipedia, we follow the "neutral point of view" or WP:NPOV, which is basically a form of "political correctness". We allow all notable views to be presented in articles. Because Mormons and JW are notable groups who self-identify as Christian, we must respect that. On the other hand, if we have notable sources that say things like "Catholics hold that the Mormon belief in X is heretic" we can do that, as long as we make sure the content is verifiable (we do that by attributing the text to reliable sources). Conversely, we can also state beliefs that Mormons/JW view as heretical as well, if we have sources. So, please read through some of the links that I left you on your talk page that cover these concepts. Without qualification, and without a reliable source, we simply cannot call these contemporary sects heretical. -Andrew c ^[talk] 23:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Understood. But what about the fact that Mormons/Jehova's witnesses hold to doctrines which are identical to some of those already classified as heretical on the CH page (Both Mormons and JWs deny that Christ is one with God the Father, and that He is deity)? I understand the need for sources... but are we never allowed to use reasoning of our own? (e.g., group 1 believes X. X is established as heretical. Group two believes X and Y. Y isn't heretical, but X is. Therefore group 2 is heretical) MattH1517 01:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

No, we are not allowed to user reasoning of our own. This is called original research on wikipedia, and is forbidden (see WP:NOR). Wikipedia cannot publish original concepts. We'd need a source that specifically states that group 2 is heretical. And even then, we couldn't say "Group 2 is heretical" and cite the source. We'd need to qualify who believes that group 2 is heretical, and considering a citing a source from group 2 that responds to such criticism.-Andrew c ^[talk] 01:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who may be considered by another as a heretic is likely to consider themselves as orthodox and the other as heretic. So does Wikipedia then forbear from any entry on Heresy inasmuch as someone, somewhere may disagree? If this would be the operating policy for reference works then there would never ever be an entry on Heresy in any encyclopedia. Yet if one examines the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Encyclopedia of Religion, and the New Catholic Encyclopedia, cited by Wikipedia articles, one finds that Heresy is indeed a topic which can be defined.While I agree that labeling contemporary religious movements as heretical would betray a desired neutrality, it is not so difficult to reiterate what ages past have generally accepted as heresies. The Cathars, for example, were a noble people but in the context of the times when the Church Universal was governed from Rome, it is historically accurate to identify Catharism as a heresy. LAWinans (talk) 07:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odd heresy

I remember reading a faith column in The Indianapolis Star that listed a bunch of heresies. One of those heresies had the notion that Jesus did not have have bowel movements. Which one is this? --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 15:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Making the list of heresies more than a list

I've started work on taking explanatory sentences from each of the articles linked in the list of heresies. My hope is that this will make this article much more readable and make it easier for people do know why they'd dig deeper on any particular group. I'm out of time for tonight but I'll try to come back to this tomorrow to finish it off. If someone else wants to finish the job: awesome.

Lot49a (talk) 02:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)