History
Issues of church governance appear in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles; the first act recorded after the ascension is the election of Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot. Over the years a system of episcopal polity developed.
During the Protestant Reformation, arguments were made that the New Testament prescribed structures quite different from that of the Roman Catholic Church of the day, and different Protestant bodies used different types of polity. It was during this period that Richard Hooker wrote Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity to defend the polity of the Church of England against the Puritans.
Read more about this topic: Ecclesiastical Polity
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)