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Abecedarians
by C Michael PattonNovember 11th, 2008
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A 16th century German sect of Anabaptists led by Nicholas Storch who believed that all knowledge, even knowledge of the alphabet, prevents people from a true knowledge of God. Abecedarians believed that God would provide all necessary understanding through divine means such as visions and ecstatic experiences. According to them, all theology and “academic” learning amounted to an idolatrous abandonment of the Christian faith. Their name, Abecedarians, comes from their denial of the ABCs.
Working in my field, I often wonder if we don’t have more modern day Abecedarians in the Evangelical church than we know.
What do you think?
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14 Comments
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Yup, I think I’ve hung around some of them. Oh heck, I used to be one of them.
The problem is that it creates a false dichotomy that says we want to know God but we don’t want to know God. This position supposes that experience can be divorced from an intellectual assent, instead of birthed by it. Without a proper knowledge about who God is, on what are we basing our experience? It is absurd.
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How do we know about these people? Did they write anything themselves? And if so, what alphabet did they use? lol
And, Michael, given your frequent typos and your recent spelling of supralapsarianism as “superlapsarianism,” I am wondering if you are an Abecedarian descendant
jk
Also, you can use the fancy “Abecedarian” term for anti-intellectuals if you want. I just prefer to use the popular and easier label: morons LOL
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So they couldn’t read the Bible then?
What’s more, they reject others who could read and write like Paul, Peter, Moses, David, even Jesus.
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I have experienced Abecedarianism first hand. Its those, who I suspect are rather Pentacostal in their experience, who rely on experience over Scripture. Its anti-RTFMism and thus dismisses the special revelation given to us by God. There are many that poo-poo seminary (oh, you are going to “cemetery”) and reading additional writings about Christianity. We should not wallow in our finitude but rather pursue knowing our Creator. Westminster Catechism, Q.1 could be interpreted that to enjoy God we should know him. And the best way to know him is through his word.
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Eric, assuming I’m reading you correctly, I love your use of “RTFM” in the context of Scripture reading. I’ve considered that myself but I don’t believe I’ve ever voiced it.
Michael, could those people who respond to evidences with the old “But if you have proof then there’s no room for faith” fit the bill?
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Yes, people like that are out there. They may not claim to go to that extent (no knowlegde or reading at all), but they prioritize the “divine means such as visions and ecstatic experiences” to a much, much higher level than anything else (including Scripture).
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“But if you have proof then there’s no room for faith”
I would consider this “argument” as an expression of insecurity rather than faith.
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Although I fully understand the sentiments here I thing we need to be a tad careful before dismissing them as “moronic” as one poster has already done here.
Maybe I am saying this becasue there is more than a touch of the Anabaptist about my particular expression of Anglican Christianity. I was reading the chapert on the Anabaptist movement whilst reading “A Generous Orthodoxy” recently and found myself feeling strangely drawn to these people, although not this particualr sect!
Suerly, in all things there needs to be a balance and in this case there needs to be a balance between the intellectual, theological acadmenic approach to learning and a God-given emotive, intuitive approach to faith which can be validated so long as it is in klline with biblical truth.
I am from a more charismatic background, and yes we have all hung around some of these guys, and at times they drive us crazy. But there is an equally dangerous approach which seeks to inform the mind but soemhow bypasses the heart and the soul. If an intellectual, theological approach to our theologising does not result in setting our hearts and sousl ablaze, my question is… is it worth having?
By the way, was I the only one to notice that the first five letters of the alphabet )not just the first three0 are to ber found in the first six letters of the title of this sect?
Finally, is there an similar term for those who believe that the Christian faith is an academic and intellectual exercise as opposed to being an emotional or experiential one. We need to keep as careful an eye on these people too.
We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, souls and strength…in equilibrium. There does not appear to be any biblical justification for elevating one of these areas of human experience above any other. Surely it is a matter of striving to keep all these areas in balance and equilibrium.
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On first glance I read it as ‘Abecetardians’
I thought it was working into some punny thing. I guess the joke was on me.
I’m not agin the alphabet but reading comprehension is definitely evil.
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Re: The Russian Alphabet
“Knowing all these letters renders speech a virtue. Evil lives on Earth eternally, and each person must think of repentance, with speech and word making firm in their mind the faith in Christ and the Kingdom of God. Whisper [the letters] frequently to make them yours by this repetition in order to write and live according to laws of God.”
Vladimir
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Vladimir,
Thank you for that wonderful quote.
Sue – also known to some as Abecedaria.
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Michael,
Is there some way that I can respond to Lisa in the last thread or is that thread closed? She asked me a lot of direct questions.
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Abecedaria-Sue,
Why do you go by that name?
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Abecedaria basically means a listing of the letters of the alphabet. I blogged about different writing systems for a year or two, and tested out the different input methods for different scripts – as a hobby. That’s a link to my website above.
But some people called me Abecedaria, and I took on that identity – but only on the internet.
Then one day, I happened to read a Bible blog. I was interested in the fact that there are various ways to input polytonic Greek and it is quite a difficulty in cross use of Bible software. I felt I had a good relationship with men in technology on the internet up till that time.
And then I started reading about how women would be saved by childbearing and if they displayed the proper submission to the male, and it kind of freaked me out.
I noticed some odd things, like one theologian said that in all the Bibles he owned in many languages God had only sons, that women were represented by the word “sons.”
So, I asked to guest post on the Better Bibles blog about how the King James Version and Luther Bible used “children of God.” Luther used predominantly Kinder and not Sohne, for Christians.
So, then I felt that readers and theologians had forgotten the traditional translations. I wanted to resurrect a feeling for the traditional Bible translations.
Anyway, I like picayune details and blogging about that. So, I went from there to reviewing Greek evidence for authentein and kephale and so on. And that is when I found out there wasn’t much.
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