Beyond the Reformation?

Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition

Paul Avis

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9780567033574
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567317049
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: World History

Beyond the Reformation? sheds fresh light on divisive issues of authority in the Christian Church and puts them in a new historical and ecumenical perspective. Against the background of the perennial tension between the mystical and the institutional dynamics in the life of the Church, it goes beyond the tragic divisions of the Reformation era in two major ways. First, it examines the power struggles of the medieval period, the largely abortive attempts at reform, and the theological solutions to apparently intractable divisions that were proposed by the Conciliar Movement and enacted by the reforming councils of the fifteenth century. It shows how the legacy of conciliar theology was both continued and modified by the Continental and Anglican Reformers and how this has shaped the churches in the modern world. It examines the question of continuity and discontinuity in the Reformation, seeing that event as an unresolved argument within the family of the Western Church. But this book also seeks to move beyond the Reformation in a second way. Drawing on Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican theology, the book explores the theme of conciliar and primatial authority in relation to the ecumenical quest for reconciliation and unity in the fragmented Church of today.
In this major, ground-breaking work, Anglican theologian and ecumenist Paul Avis adds to his repertoire of studies of authority in the Christian Church, brings together historical, confessional and ecumenical aspects of ecclesiology, and charts a course for convergence between the major traditions on the thorny questions of authority, primacy and unity.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. THE CHURCH AS MYSTERY AND INSTITUTION
• 2. MODELS OF AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH
• 3. THE EMERGENCE OF MONARCHICAL AUTHORITY
• 4. PRECURSORS OF CONCILIARISM
• 5. WYCLIF AND HUS: SUBVERSIVE NON-CONCILIARISTS
• 6. THE GREAT SCHISM OF THE WEST AND THE COUNCIL OF PISA
• 7. THE UNIFICATION OF THE CHURCH AND THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE
• 8. THE ECLIPSE OF CONCILIARISM AND THE COUNCIL OF BASEL
• 9. THE LEGACY OF THE CONCILIAR MOVEMENT
• 10.THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION AND CONCILIAR THOUGHT
• 11.CONCLIARITY IN THE ANGLICAN TRADITION
• 12.CONCILIARITY, PRIMACY AND UNITY IN THE WESTERN AND EASTERN CHURCHES
• 13.SEMPER REFORMANDA: THE IMPERATIVE OF REFORM IN THE CONCILIAR MOVEMENT, THE REFORMATION AND THE MODERN CHURCH
• Bibliography
• Index of Names