Wesley and Catholics Together

I'm sure if he had known their origin, Mr Walker would have written a hasty response (or as he puts it, "brief and rapid") and someone would have phoned up to shout at the editor to have them taken down or something. But since that didn't happen on this occasion, I can only conclude no-one guessed or knew the origin of the quotes.

On the other hand, the sane and sensible Dr Baugus (a fine man, accustomed to making constructive and reasonable contributions of late) might then have entered the lists to defend me, pointing out that I was only trying to make a point about the selective use of quotes. For the original post I was lampooning, ahem, I mean, flatteringly imitating, had quoted some nice things a certain Mr Wesley once said, as if they somehow disproved he was a charlatan or something.

By showing that Roman documents known for their gospel-denying and soul-destroying sectarian heresies could also contain the odd nugget of almost good stuff, I was trying to encourage a more contextualised, nuanced, and balanced approach to the dangers of undiscriminating appropriation. The odd decent quote here, the odd useful paragraph there, does not a sound theologian make. I should know (though I'm still working on getting a whole paragraph to be half decent).

However, I have noticed that this sort of thing is sometimes a bit what we Brits like to call "sophisticated." So I apologise if I have offended anyone's sensibilities by being a tad oblique in my method of engagement there. I'll try to do better with my next post, on "John Owen was a Catholic."