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Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
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Author:  kingjon [ October 2nd, 2012, 1:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
I've talked quite a bit in threads like "Portraying the Bible," "Writing Christian Fantasy," etc., about how I'm portraying the Christian faith and the Church in my fantasy milieu, but I haven't given my full description and discussion in any one place on HW yet. Thus this thread.

Each of the nations in the Shine and Wild Empire---the "country" with which my work is primarily concerned---is a Christian nation (though few have an established church per se. Its original nations were mostly originally settled by Christians who had stumbled through the interuniversal portals, or (in the case of the nations on the eastern coast) by deliberate colonization from lands that were becoming joined to the universe. But nations liberated from the Dragon Empire adopted the faith gladly, generally needing no missionaries beyond their liberators and themselves to convert but adopting forms introduced by the missionaries that were sent from the rest of the Empire anyway.

Matters were complicated significantly by the arrival of the Chosen, a large group of people from Earth who suddenly appeared about a century after the first settlements, just as a war was beginning. Nearly all, if not all, were also Christians, but from many different, highly varied denominations, while “denominations” were an utterly foreign concept to the natives. Because of this (and the difficulty of communication with the Earth hierarchy for Roman Catholics and other hierarchical denominations), five years after the war ended, the King called an ecumenical council to discuss these issues and to attempt to promote church unity. (More on that below.) Since then, ecumenical relations within the Empire have been far more cordial than those here on Earth in the last century.

While, as I said, there are few established churches per se, every government in Empire---along with nearly every other government we deal with except the Dragon Empire---explicitly acknowledges God’s sovereignty and authority and bases its laws on the divine Law. The Empire---and the other nations, with substantially less weight behind their words---enforces a (arguably rather loose) code of honor and conduct among nations it calls its friends, based on the idea that alliance with a nation that God is angry with is of dubious value at best. The following excerpt from the current draft of my novel-in-progress The Invasion illustrates this:

Alatumbra wrote:
“…However, if this friendship is accepted, be warned: The Empire tolerates neither human rights violations nor concessions to Evil among its friends.” The word I had translated as ‘human rights’ had nothing about humanity in it; it was closer to ‘the rights of those who speak with God.’ …


Above, I mentioned an ecumenical council prompted by the problems of integrating a group of Earth-raised Christians of various denominations, after their unexpected arrival, into a native Church that developed somewhat differently from ours.

The context of the Council: In the current version of the timeline (I plan to revise it soon, one of these days …) the Chosen arrive in the year 110, just as a war is about to begin. The war consumed the focus of the entire Empire and the efforts of most of the Chosen for two years, and maintaining the uneasy truce for three more years until a binding peace treaty was signed did not leave much room for distractions. After that, the Chosen began to find their place in Imperial society in peacetime, and the ecumenical problems gradually arose. While these did not reach the level of acrimonious dissension, the King summoned various Church leaders and all interested parties to that world’s first ecumenical council, the First (and so far only) Council of Capitol, in 117.

There were many areas for debate: liturgy, various areas of theology, the sacraments, ecumenical communion, and so on. And as nearly all participants wished to come to real agreement, and forestall any further problems, the Council went on well into the next year. The participants included many native church leaders, but among the Chosen they included a few pastors but mostly interested lay Christians, from various denominational backgrounds, including strict Calvinists, Lutherans, Baptists, and Roman Catholics and Anglicans—whose concern at being disconnected from Rome and Westminster, respectively, was a major reason for calling the council so soon.

One of the first major points that needed to be resolved was that of liturgy, which I’ll explain here as an example. Many of the Chosen came from churches that nominally eschewed liturgy entirely (though, as I've written before---but not here on HW---at length, every church has a liturgy, whether it calls it that or not), while many others came from traditions including highly structured, very formal liturgies. Each group has at least putative Biblical bases for its position, so neither group was prepared to accommodate the other, and neither was entirely satisfied with the semi-formal liturgy that was standard in the native churches. Beyond this, there was little agreement among some of the “highly-liturgical” camp, because of the legacy of centuries of schism here on Earth. Once a solution was put forth that all parties could accede to, a committee convened to produce a suitable liturgy to be promulgated within the Empire.

Discussion of these and other issues went on for many months, until the Council closed with approval of documents to secure ecumenical unity among the various churches of the Empire. But I’m not having many thoughts as to what form that discussion would take, what conclusions could be reached, or even what specific issues would have to be debated. Do you have any ideas? Or any other thoughts on these topics?
Author:  Politician de Paz [ October 2nd, 2012, 2:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
I would look into the debates that were held around the first couple hundred years of Church History or those held around the Protestant Reformation. That would probably give you a few ideas.
You could also just look around HW and see what we argue about a lot! If we argue about it, the people of your worlds probably would too. Though, it depends which kinds of denominations you have in your world. Probably among a lot of those (Lutherans, Calvinists, Roman Catholic) it would be a lot of theological issues (the Trinity, Bible, Liturgy, Sacraments). If there were some of the later denominations which were even more radical than those, there might be a lot of more 'practical' issues (warfare, politics, etc).
Hope that helps. Your world looks really interesting, good job on all the details!
Author:  Aratrea [ October 2nd, 2012, 3:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
For what specific issues would have to be debated, here's a list from the top of my head:
What books of the Bible are included (aka, about the Apocrypha)
What the Lord's Supper is and at what age people should partake.
What baptism is and at what age people can be baptized.
What happens at the end times (though I could see an argument for them deciding that wasn't as important so as to have an official position on it.)
If tradition should be held as near-equal to Scripture.
If one is saved by faith alone or by faith and works.
The Trinity.
How the church should be governed (it could go a lot of ways here.)
And of course the classic freewill/predestination debate...

Anyways, that's what I have from the top of my head. Hope it helps!
Author:  kingjon [ October 3rd, 2012, 8:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
One item of background that I forgot to mention (since it's general, not specific to this area) is that they do have access to knowledge of our history and to our books and documents---it's not used all that much because it's fairly expensive, but most major church libraries (for example) would have copies of the "essential" books.

Astronomer wrote:
Though, it depends which kinds of denominations you have in your world.

Among the Chosen, probably most major denominations are represented. Among the natives, by this point "denomination" is an utterly foreign concept. (Not unknown, but thought of sort of the way Americans might think about British politics.)
Astronomer wrote:
Probably among a lot of those (Lutherans, Calvinists, Roman Catholic) it would be a lot of theological issues (the Trinity, Bible, Liturgy, Sacraments).

The Trinity is probably a non-issue, as it seems to have become in recent times here. The Bible---or, rather, the Apocrypha---probably would be simply because the disagreement persists in the Church here today. Liturgy is one of the topics I named originally, but is so broad a description ... Sacraments, however, I hadn't thought of.
Astronomer wrote:
If there were some of the later denominations which were even more radical than those, there might be a lot of more 'practical' issues (warfare, politics, etc).

Warfare ... since the Empire has at this point never started a war, and the Enemy is almost-but-not-quite analagous to Satan incarnate, so ... :)
What do you mean by "politics"? (And what would "etc." expand to? :))

Aratrea wrote:
What books of the Bible are included (aka, about the Apocrypha)

Like I said, that's not one I'd thought of, and it would indeed probably come up simply because the representatives from among the Chosen would have disagreement.
Aratrea wrote:
What the Lord's Supper is and at what age people should partake.
What baptism is and at what age people can be baptized.

And the sacraments, too, are a knot of issues that would come up, and that I hadn't thought of.
Aratrea wrote:
What happens at the end times (though I could see an argument for them deciding that wasn't as important so as to have an official position on it.)

This, of all the issues, is most amenable to "applied-metaphysical veridication," but in any case speculation about the end of one world wouldn't really be seen as an essential issue to debate in an ecumenical council in another.
Aratrea wrote:
If tradition should be held as near-equal to Scripture.

This would, most likely, come up---but the natives have their own set of "traditions of the Church" to complicate matters further :)
Aratrea wrote:
If one is saved by faith alone or by faith and works.

Yes, that (and a whole host of other related issues) would come up. But I think that even phrasing the question like that would be somewhat foreign to the natives, which would help a resolution to be reached more quickly.
Aratrea wrote:
The Trinity.

Like I said above, while this was an issue in the early Church, it's a long-settled matter among us, and was probably similarly settled quite early in Imperial history, so I doubt it would come up (except that one of the first orders of business of the Council of Capitol might be to explicitly affirm the findings of the first several ecumenical councils (Nicea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, etc.)).
Aratrea wrote:
How the church should be governed (it could go a lot of ways here.)

Yes, that is in fact the issue that made the summoning of the Council of Capitol urgent: the Catholics and Anglicans/Episcopalians among the Chosen are now out of communication with Rome and Westminster, and all of the Chosen are accustomed to an utterly different form of Church organization (denominations) than they find among the natives. But how the native church is organized, and what the Council would come up with, I don't know yet ...
Aratrea wrote:
And of course the classic freewill/predestination debate...

I don't think that'd be likely to come up, since it doesn't really have any practical implications on orthodoxy, orthopraxy, or ecclesiology.

Aratrea wrote:
Anyways, that's what I have from the top of my head. Hope it helps!

Some good ideas I hadn't thought of.
Author:  Politician de Paz [ October 4th, 2012, 6:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
Politics would be sort of a two-fold sort of thing:
There would be church-politics (which might not be technically politics, but more how the church is organized/governed). They might also argue about how/where the church and state cross (especially if you have Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics).
Then again, if you have Anabaptists in your world you'd have a whole different argument over politics. :D
Author:  kingjon [ October 6th, 2012, 7:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
Astronomer wrote:
Politics would be sort of a two-fold sort of thing:
There would be church-politics (which might not be technically politics, but more how the church is organized/governed).

Yep; that's one of the reasons the Council was called.
Astronomer wrote:
They might also argue about how/where the church and state cross (especially if you have Lutherans, Calvanists, and Catholics).
Then again, if you have Anabaptists in your world you'd have a whole different argument over politics. :D

Yes, there might well be argument about these issues---but I suspect they would be postponed for later discussion as not properly within the Council's purview, and (except for the Reformed viewpoint, which would find itself in general agreement with the natives on most of these issues) generally dismissed by the far-more-numerous native leaders (who have a well-founded and working political system and church-state relationship, and would see no need for changing it).
Author:  Sam Starrett [ October 7th, 2012, 3:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
I seriously doubt Catholics (or the Orthodox if you have them) would agree to an "Ecumenical Council" that allowed Lutherans, the Reformed, Anglicans, and other professed heretics to participate on equal terms with them, especially since many of these groups don't even pretend to have bishops, and only bishops can vote in an Ecumenical Council.

How will that work out?
Author:  kingjon [ October 7th, 2012, 4:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
Sam Starrett wrote:
I seriously doubt Catholics (or the Orthodox if you have them) would agree to an "Ecumenical Council" that allowed Lutherans, the Reformed, Anglicans, and other professed heretics to participate on equal terms with them, especially since many of these groups don't even pretend to have bishops, and only bishops can vote in an Ecumenical Council.

How will that work out?

That's a point I hadn't thought of. But the council is of the bishops of the churches in the Empire and its allies (whose communion with what became the Roman and Eastern rites arguably is lapsed because of communication difficulties, not because of excommunication, so the only objection to the council's authority would come from the anti-hierarchical denominations), plus an open invitation for interested parties from among the Chosen (and there might be one bishop among that denominationally-diverse group of a few hundred people) to ensure that their concerns are heard. The alternatives for Catholics and Anglicans are "integrate without approval from Rome/Westminster," "schism without provocation and without approval from the hierarchy," or "talk things out in a council of the Church."
Author:  Sam Starrett [ October 7th, 2012, 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Faith in the Empire and the Council of Capitol
kingjon wrote:
Sam Starrett wrote:
I seriously doubt Catholics (or the Orthodox if you have them) would agree to an "Ecumenical Council" that allowed Lutherans, the Reformed, Anglicans, and other professed heretics to participate on equal terms with them, especially since many of these groups don't even pretend to have bishops, and only bishops can vote in an Ecumenical Council.

How will that work out?

That's a point I hadn't thought of. But the council is of the bishops of the churches in the Empire and its allies (whose communion with what became the Roman and Eastern rites arguably is lapsed because of communication difficulties, not because of excommunication, so the only objection to the council's authority would come from the anti-hierarchical denominations), plus an open invitation for interested parties from among the Chosen (and there might be one bishop among that denominationally-diverse group of a few hundred people) to ensure that their concerns are heard. The alternatives for Catholics and Anglicans are "integrate without approval from Rome/Westminster," "schism without provocation and without approval from the hierarchy," or "talk things out in a council of the Church."



Well, first of all, do you have Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox Christians in the Empire? Their ecclesiology is significantly different from that of Rome, so they might handle this situation differently.

Basically, although the situation with the non-Chalcedonians ("Oriental Orthodox," "Monophysites," "Miaphysites," etc.) is tricky, in general the Orthodox agree that the Orthodox Church is the Church. I as an Orthodox catechumen do not believe, indeed, cannot consider myself faithful to Church teaching and believe, that Orthodoxy is "the Church that's right for me" or "the Church that's closest to the truth" or even "the part of the Church with the fullness of true doctrine." I must believe that the Orthodox Church is the whole Church, and that ecclesial bodies that do not profess Orthodoxy or are separated from the Orthodox Church are not properly part of the Church at all.

Rome, on the other hand, acknowledges that the Orthodox Churches are real Churches. It holds them to be in schism and perhaps heresy, but they have "valid orders," meaning that their bishops are really bishops, their priests are really priests, and their sacraments are effectual.

In short, then, Rome might very well consent to allow Orthodox bishops to participate in a Council. The Orthodox would be much less likely (though it's not impossible) to allow Roman bishops to take part in a Council.

Anglicans, however, are a different story. Anglican priests entering either the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church must be reordained if they are to serve as priests in their new Church. This indicates that neither Rome nor Orthodoxy acknowledges Anglican bishops as true bishops nor their priests as true priests. There is no way they could participate in an infallible Ecumenical Council like Nicea I through Nicea II.

Also, depending on when the Anglicans come from, they might have women bishops. Any small chance that Anglican orders were valid will be destroyed by women bishops, since neither a "bishop" who is a woman nor a male "bishop" who traces his Apostolic Succession through a woman could ever be accepted as a bishop by the Roman or Orthodox Catholic Churches.
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