Just Lulling Around

At Pyromaniacs, Phil introduced me to the Lollards. (Granted, a professor in college may have shared about them, but I didn't pay attention then.)

According to Anabaptistnetwork, here is some information about the Lollards convictions:

1. Personal responsibility to Biblical Authority

The Lollards denied that a believer should depend on the understanding of their Priest and encouraged personal Bible study.

2. Rejection of superstition

Specifically, they believed the Bible should be read in the language of the people (instead of Latin, which wasn't even the original form), and they rejected concepts of transubstantiation, purgatory and praying for the dead.

3. Priesthood of All Believers.

Not only was the Body responsible for personal study, they were also called to do ministry within the church. Interestingly, they also believed a member of the Body was justified to with hold giving to a church with apostate teaching.

4. The Sacraments.

Quoting from the site: "Lollards stressed a common sense approach to faith and applied this to issues such as communion, where it seemed obvious that the bread remained bread, whatever the metaphysical explanations behind the traditional dogmas...In some areas, infant baptism was held to be as acceptable in a ditch as in a font, or rejected altogether, on the grounds that infants were redeemed by Christ in any case and did not need to be sprinkled with supposedly holy water."

5. Ethical Perspectives.

They called for repentance, discipleship, simplicity of life and concern for the poor.

6. Mission.

Lollard preachers were a mission band that contrasted sharply with the maintenance orientation of the parish priests and the monks. Unlike the settled leadership of parish priests, Lollard leaders moved from place to place in order to spread the message and establish new groups.

Brothers I didn't even know I had!