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Ranter Bay
The Ranters were one of a number of dissenting groups that emerged around the time of the English Commonwealth (1649–1660). They were largely common people and the movement was widespread throughout England, though they were not organised and had no leader. History The chaos of the Second English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I and the animosity between the Presbyterians and Independents during the era of the Commonwealth gave rise to countless sectarian groups that were attempting to make sense of their society and place within that society. The Ranters were one such group. They were regarded as heretical by the established Church and seem to have been regarded by the government as a threat to social order. The quote "...the bishops, Charles and the Lords have had their turn, overturn, so your turn shall be next...", published in a Ranter pamphlet, no doubt caused some concern in the halls of power. The Ranters denied the authority of churches, of scripture, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Dissenters
English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestant Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who disagrees in opinion, belief and other matters. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters, and founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities. Some emigrated to the New World, especially to the Thirteen Colonies and Canada. Brownists founded the Plymouth colony. English dissenters played a pivotal role in the spiritual development of the United States and greatly diversified the religious landscape. They originally agitated for a wide-reaching Protestant Reformation of the established Church of England, and they flourished briefly during the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. King James VI of Scotland, I of England and Ireland, had said "no bishop, no king", emphasising the role of the clergy in justifying royal l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerrard Winstanley
Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founders of the English group known as the True Levellers or Diggers. The group occupied formerly common land that had been privatised by enclosures and dug them over, pulling down hedges and filling in ditches, to plant crops. True Levellers was the name they used to describe themselves, whereas the term Diggers was coined by contemporaries. Early life Gerrard Winstanley was born on 19 October 1609, the son of Edward Winstanley, mercer, and was baptised in the parish of Wigan, then part of the West Derby hundred of Lancashire. His mother's identity remains unknown and he could have been born anywhere in the parish of Wigan. The parish of Wigan contained the townships of Abram, Aspull, Billinge-and-Winstanley, Dalton, Haigh, Hindley, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Anarchism
Christian anarchism is a Christian movement in political theology that claims anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the Gospels. It is grounded in the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable—the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus. It therefore rejects the idea that human governments have ultimate authority over human societies. Christian anarchists denounce the state, believing it is violent, deceitful and, when glorified, idolatrous. Christian anarchists hold that the "Reign of God" is the proper expression of the relationship between God and humanity. Under the "Reign of God", human relationships would be characterized by divided authority, servant leadership, and universal compassion—not by the hierarchical, authoritarian structures that are normally attributed to religious social order. Most Christian anarchists are pacifists who reject war and the use of violence. More than any other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
17th-century Denominations In England
Many religious denominations emerged during the early-to-mid-17th century in England. Many of these were influenced by the radical changes brought on by the English Civil War, subsequent Execution of Charles I and the advent of the Commonwealth of England. This event led to a widespread discussion about how society should be structured. * Fifth Monarchists * Grindletonians *Muggletonians * Ranters *Quakers * Seekers See also * Anglicanism * Anglo-Catholicism * Brownists * Diggers *The Caroline Divines * Congregational church * English Baptists *English Dissenters * English Independents * English Presbyterianism * Gangraena * Levellers *Puritans The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ... Further reading * * English Civil War History of Christianity in England Denom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seekers
The Seekers, or Legatine-Arians as they were sometimes known, were an English dissenting group that emerged around the 1620s, probably inspired by the preaching of three brothers – Walter, Thomas, and Bartholomew Legate. Seekers considered all organised churches of their day corrupt and preferred to wait for God's revelation. Many of them subsequently joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Origins Long before the English Civil War there already existed what the English Marxist historian, Christopher Hill, calls a "lower-class heretical culture" in England. The cornerstones of this culture were anti-clericalism and a strong emphasis on Biblical study, but specific doctrines had "an uncanny persistence": Millenarianism, mortalism, anti-Trinitarianism, Hermeticism and a rejection of Predestination. Such ideas became "commonplace to seventeenth-century Baptists, Seekers, early Quakers and other radical groupings which took part in the free-for-all discussions o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Robins (prophet)
John Robins (fl. 1650–1652) was an English Ranter and plebeian prophet. Though imprisoned for his teachings, he avoided charges of blasphemy by signing a recantation. Life and work Robins, a ranter, was a man of little education. By his own account, "As for humane learning, I never had any; my Hebrew, Greek, and Latine comes by inspiration". He appears to have been a small farmer, owning some land. This he sold, and, coming to London with his wife Mary (or Joan) Robins, was known in 1650 to Lodowicke Muggleton (1609–1698) and John Reeve (1608–1658) as someone claiming to be something greater than a prophet. He was commonly spoken of as "the ranters' god" and "the shakers' god", and was effectively deified by his followers. His wife expected to become the mother of a Messiah. Robins probably viewed himself as an incarnation of the divine being; he asserted that he had appeared on earth before, as Adam, and as Melchizedek. He claimed a power of raising the dead. Robins p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Bauthumley
Jacob Bauthumley or Bottomley (1613–1692) was an English radical religious writer, usually identified as a central figure among the Ranters. He served as part of the New Model Army, leaving in March 1650. After the Restoration of 1660, he took up a job as a librarian in Leicester, where he produced a book of extracts from John Foxe, published in 1676. Biography Bauthumley is known principally for ''The Light and Dark Sides of God'' (1650). This work was regarded as blasphemous for its pantheistic tendencies, including the following: After the Blasphemy Act of August 1650, he was arrested, convicted, and burned through the tongue. Bauthumley had served in the Parliamentarian Army; Norman Cohn states that he was in the Army while writing the pamphlet, and took part in Ranter and Quaker meetings in Leicestershire in the mid-1650s. Christopher Hill says that he left the Army in March 1650. His family had earlier suffered ostracism, for permitting sermons by Jeremiah Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primitive Methodism
The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primitive Methodist Church had eighty-three parishes and 8,487 members in 1996. In Great Britain and Australia, the Primitive Methodist Church merged with other denominations, to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 and the Methodist Church of Australasia in 1901. The latter subsequently merged into the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977. Beliefs The Primitive Methodist Church recognizes the dominical sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, as well as other rites, such as Holy Matrimony. History United Kingdom The leaders who originated Primitive Methodism were attempting to restore a spirit of revivalism as they felt was found in the ministry of John Wesley, with no intent of forming a new church. The leaders were Hugh Bourn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or see "that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa. Some 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to ''evangelical'' and ''programmed'' branches that hold services with singing and a prepared Bible message coordinated by a pastor. Some 11% practice ''waiting worship'' or ''unprogramme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christianity, Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before God in Christianity, God), ''sola fide'' (salvation by just faith alone), ''sola scriptura'' (scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice) and Congregationalist polity, congregationalist church government. Baptists generally recognize two Ordinance (Christianity), ordinances: baptism and Eucharist, communion. Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship. For example, Baptist theology may include Arminianism, Arminian or Calvinism, Calvi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilgrim's Progress
''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of theological fiction in English literature and a progenitor of the narrative aspect of Christian media. It has been translated into more than 200 languages and never been out of print. It appeared in Dutch in 1681, in German in 1703 and in Swedish in 1727. The first North American edition was issued in 1681.Lyons, M. (2011). Books: A Living History. Getty Publications. It has also been cited as the first novel written in English. According to literary editor Robert McCrum, "there's no book in English, apart from the Bible, to equal Bunyan's masterpiece for the range of its readership, or its influence on writers as diverse as C. S. Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, George Bernard Shaw, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; baptised 30 November 162831 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress,'' which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons. Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the Parliamentary Army during the first stage of the English Civil War. After three years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had learned from his father. He became interested in religion after his marriage, attending first the parish church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group in Bedford, and becoming a preacher. After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in prison as he re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
