Comments: HERESY OF THE DAY.

Eeeeeeek! These people seem even more conservative than my church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Makes me glad I'm converting to the ELCA...

Incidentally, how many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Change? Huh?

Posted by Chris at December 26, 2002 11:40 PM

Hahahahaha! I too was raised Missouri Synod, so nobody likes a good Lutheran joke (or heresy) better than I. (Let me tell you, it wasn't easy finding a Lutheran church in places like Tokyo and Bangkok in the '50s and early '60s; sometimes we had to make do with less godly denominations -- the folks back in Iowa would have shaken their heads and muttered the ultimate Midwestern imprecation: "My, that's... unusual!")

Posted by language hat at December 27, 2002 09:41 AM

Lodowick Muggleton: Lytton Strachey wrote a beautiful little essay on Muggleton--it's a gem. It's been reprinted in his "Biographical Essays," which I think is still in print.

I do believe in God alone,
Likewise in Reeve and Muggleton.

This is the Muggletonian's faith,
This is the God which we believe;
None salvation-knowledge hath,
But those of Muggleton and Reeve.
Christ is the Muggletonains' king,
With whom eternally they'll sing.

Posted by Pete at December 30, 2002 02:14 AM

Pete: That's (sob) beautiful -- I'm going to post it as an addendum, and perhaps it will bring people to the True Faith of Muggleton. Thanks for that, and for giving me the chance to get acquainted with The New Companion!

Posted by language hat at December 30, 2002 09:43 AM

Thank you! I should have attributed the poem (I think it's a Muggletonian hymn). Strachey quotes it at the end of his essay.

Apparently, the Muggletonians held out for over 300 years--the "last Muggletonian" died in 1979 in Kent.

Here's an interesting page on them. It says that Muggleton "engaged in a furious polemic" with the Quakers, which is mind-blowing in itself.

Posted by Pete at December 30, 2002 03:11 PM