Chelčický
Pá 23 září 2005
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).