aisling7
7th December 2005, 01:27 PM
How many of you have read this author? What do you think of his preaching? Would you consider his theology to be reformed?
Jackie
JJB
8th December 2005, 12:22 PM
I believe George MacDonald was catholic, so no he is not reformed. I have a copy of one book and enjoy his writing. It's a fictional work and I cant' recall the name of it at the moment.
aisling7
10th December 2005, 04:04 AM
Oh no, no! He was not a Catholic. You would probably have to read all of his sermons to get a handle on his theology.
Jackie
Alexandrian
12th December 2005, 05:47 PM
George MacDonald was definitely NOT Reformed. He grew up in the Scottish national church, which is Reformed, but he himself despised Reformed theology and spent his whole life basically attacking it like he had a bee in his bonnet. He was kicked out of his Calvinist parish and spent the rest of his career as an itinerant preacher/writer. George MacDonald's most candid statements about Reformed theology can be found in the sermon "Justice," in which he presents these little gems:
From all copies of Jonathan Edwards’s portrait of God, however faded by time, however softened by the use of less glaring pigments, I turn with loathing. They yield the idea of the Ancient of Days, ‘the glad creator,’ and put in its stead a miserable, puritanical martinet of a God, caring not for righteousness, but for his rights; not for the eternal purities, but the goody proprieties. There is but one thing lower than deliberately to believe such a lie, and that is to worship the God of whom it is believed.
The prophets of such a God take all the glow, all the hope, all the colour, all the worth, out of life on earth, and offer you instead what they call eternal bliss—a pale, tearless hell. Of all things, turn from a mean, poverty stricken faith. From such and their false teaching I would gladly help to deliver the true-hearted. Let the dead bury their dead, but I would do what I may to keep them from burying the living.
JJB
18th December 2005, 01:23 PM
I'm happy to stand corrected on George MacDonald. :) Perhaps I am confusing him with George Herbert? Or perhaps I am just confusing..... :confused:
aisling7
18th December 2005, 11:47 PM
Weren't there two more posts on this subject? Were they removed?
Jackie