ABSTRACT
The assertion of a via media by English theologians and politicians took many forms in the sixteenth century; in the 1560s, for instance, the Church of England claimed a predestinarian middle way between Catholic and Anabaptist free-willers. The Protestant rejection of Catholic traditions had left ambiguous a whole category of religious practices, 'things indifferent' or adiaphora in Greek that were neither positively commanded nor absolutely forbidden by Scripture. In the centuries since Queen Elizabeth I's reign it has been virtually unquestioned that the Church of England's official view of adiaphora was an essentially moderate and judicious response to the basic Protestant dilemma of reconciling the spiritual authority of the Word with the institutional authority of the Church. This chapter intends to challenge this assurance, not by arguing that there was anything intrinsically immoderate about the Church of England's position, but rather by arguing that 'moderation' very much depended upon one's point of view.
