عنوان

Non-Conformist Conscience? Individual Conscience and the Authority of the Church from John Calvin to the Present

Number

LA109354

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Non-Conformist Conscience? Individual Conscience and the Authority of the Church from John Calvin to the Present

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

John P. Bradbury

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

This article traces the continuities and discontinuities in the idea of individual conscience and its relationship to ecclesial authority from the Reformation period to the present day. It does this with particular reference to the Reformed theological tradition, particularly the British non-conformist traditions that today form the United Reformed Church. Through an engagement with John Calvin, William Ames, confessional texts and later thinkers, key shifts in the understanding of conscience, from being informed by revelation within the context of the Church, to the more contemporary individual subjective model are explored. An account of the place of conscience within the union negotiations that brought the URC into existence is offered based on archival material. It is argued that the shift of understandings of freedom of conscience to the secular political realm, opens up a specifically ecclesiological space in which the relationship between individual conscience and ecclesial authority has been, and can be, reconceived. This article traces the continuities and discontinuities in the idea of individual conscience and its relationship to ecclesial authority from the Reformation period to the present day. It does this with particular reference to the Reformed theological tradition, particularly the British non-conformist traditions that today form the United Reformed Church. Through an engagement with John Calvin, William Ames, confessional texts and later thinkers, key shifts in the understanding of conscience, from being informed by revelation within the context of the Church, to the more contemporary individual subjective model are explored. An account of the place of conscience within the union negotiations that brought the URC into existence is offered based on archival material. It is argued that the shift of understandings of freedom of conscience to the secular political realm, opens up a specifically ecclesiological space in which the relationship between individual conscience and ecclesial authority has been, and can be, reconceived.

Date of Publication

2014

Physical description

32-52

Title

Ecclesiology

Volume Number

10/1

International Standard Serial Number

1745-5316

Subject Term

authority

Subject Term

church unity

Subject Term

congregationalism

Subject Term

conscience

Subject Term

reformed tradition

Subject Term

the united reformed church

John P. Bradbury

Call Number

10.1163/17455316-01001004

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y