THE GREAT HERESIES

Used, VG condition, from the Omni Reference library collection.
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\nBelloc's starting point is that Christian faith is under attack, and cites six different heresies, some of which are historical, and some a real danger today.
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\nHeresy has a very specifying meaning here for Belloc. It's when you take a basic idea, retain it, but twist one aspect of it. So all these attacks on Christianity started with Christianity itself, which is why the threats and attacks are so dangerous, but it is a perversion of the original idea.
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\nIncluded as heretical attacks on Christianity are both Islam and Protestantism.
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\nA heresy is when you take a basic idea, retain it, but twist an aspect of it. There are five heresies covered in this book which includes Islam and Protestantism.
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\n"Mohammed insisted upon a whole group of ideas which were peculiar to the Catholic Church... the very foundation of his teaching was that prime Catholic doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God," writes Belloc. And it is this proximity, this dangerous theft of Christian ideas, that marks Islam as so dangerous.
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\nThis book was written almost a hundred years ago when Islam was in a state of abeyance, but it clearly warns that at any time there could be a resurgence of Islam, which will mark danger for the west and for Christianity.
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\nArianism and Albigensianism are two other heresies which are of more historic.
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\nFinally Belloc goes over what he calls the "Modern Attack" which is his way of describing socialism and communism and warns it is, "a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith--upon the very existence of the Faith... The forces now opposed to the Faith design to destroy."