chelcicky.rst


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Chelčický
#########

:category: faith
:date: 2005-09-23T18:34:00

`Charis Enns`_, quite interesting Canadian missionary in Tábor (which is
an interesting combination in itself), wrote about her wacky dream to
translate `Petr Chelčický’s`_ work(s) into English.

It is certainly a great idea and I would love to see her translations
publised (it would be nice to put Chelčický on CCEL_). However, I have
slightly uneasy feelings towards the ectasy of `some current Christian
authors`_ over his writings. Being `a conscientious objector`_, I
certainly accept value in his discovery of pacifism (as far as I know he
was the founder of Christian pacifism), but even that is usually read
through the eyes of `Leo Tolstoy`_

The problem with Chelčický is that aside from this interesting notion
(and being probably one of the first medieval anabaptists), there is not
much which could be useful now. Critique of pope and a German emperor?
Critique of society’s division into three classes (peasants, soliders,
and churchmen)? Who cares? Moreover, concerning the Czech brethern, the
problem is that (rightly or wrongly) brethern themselves later rejected
most of his teachings except of the general environment of legalistic
lay monasticism, which is IMHO not much useful today (`comments of the
Prodigal Kiwi`_ notwithstanding).

.. _`Charis Enns`:
    http://threehouses.typepad.com/three_houses/2005/09/petr_chelcicky_.html
.. _`Petr Chelčický’s`:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Chelčický
.. _CCEL:
    http://www.ccel.org
.. _`some current Christian authors`:
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852403039/
.. _`a conscientious objector`:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector
.. _`Leo Tolstoy`:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy
.. _`comments of the Prodigal Kiwi`:
    http://prodigal.typepad.com/prodigal_kiwi/