Exciting topic, very pertinent to debate.
This guy writes crypto thrillers. He also takes a shot at bashing the Iraq war.
Nothing about the revival that was taking place during the reformation which replaced ritual with the Bible. I don’t think I will believing what he says.
I’ll agree that the Reformation was an imperfect start.
Quote from the article:
“In addition to the dramatic loss of these cherished protector figures, the parishes were also deprived of around 40 to 50 saints’ “holy days” (holidays) a year, when no servile work was allowed from noon the previous day. This was a dramatic change to the rhythms of life the country had known for centuries. The reformers were keenly aware this would boost economic activity, and welcomed the increase in output it would bring.”
Protestantism was supported by governments because, like Communism, it amassed wealth through theft and squeezing the peasants ever harder. In the process some Protestant governments banned begging which effectively starved out those viewed as unproductive.
“But by the late 1400s and early 1500s, religion had been taken over by the people — most notably in the form of the religious guilds that had mushroomed in every parish. For instance, King’s Lynn had over 70; Bodmin had more than 40.”
Yep, and the participation of common lay people in the religious life of the parish all but disappeared with the coming of Protestantism having been reduced to only formal worship services that everyone had to attend by law.
While I am an American and certainly no authority on British history, I have had a few courses and always understood that Henry’s break with Rome had nothing to do with the desires of the common people, but everything to do with his desire for a son. King’s generally don’t take into account the desires of their subjects; that is the nature of Earthly kings. Alfred the Great may have been an exception. The “spin” in this article is the author starting off with the nonsense that historical opinion has always been that Henry VIII was only yielding to popular consensus.
What the article sets forth is more a matter of interpretation than a matter of fact. All my readings indicate acts and events being pretty much as what is reported in the article. What is being emphasized by the article is the current worship of “The Community,” “The Masses,” “The Peasant,” etc. etc. The interpretation offered is narrow in that it overlooks the massive influence of the Nobility and the Clergy. The Protestant revolution did break up the Catholic religion in England and that revolution was effectuated by the LEADERSHIP of those days.
How sweet. King Henry would be so very pleased.
Lust and Greed caused the English to start the Church of England.
Now we see an attack on Protestants by a Godless secular press outlet.
Let's just sit back and see if the FRoman Catholic contingent can connect the dots here or if they will be inconsistent in their analysis. <crickets>
History Ping
This man is sooo full of himself he can hardly stand it.
Note that this guy has strong ties to Dubai and other middle eastern nations. Most of what he writes is not ‘new’ nor particularly insightful. More of what he writes is absolute nonsense
For decades now historians - Catholic, Protestant and those of no particular belief - have admitted that the story of the Protestant Reformation in England is little more than a constructed fraud.
Eamon Duffy showed that to be the case, conclusively, many years ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Stripping-Altars-Traditional-1400-1580/dp/0300108281
You could draw a parallel with the French Revolution (or with England's Cromwellian Revolution). Arguably, because these countries cut off their king's head in the 18th (or 17th century) they did go through the ordeals that countries like Spain or Germany or Russia or China or Japan would go through in the 20th century.
That doesn't mean that everything that happened in those earlier revolutions (or the Reformation) was right, or that the myths people have told themselves since are true. It may not mean that such processes were worthwhile. But some rebellion, some unruly behavior earlier, can spare you greater upheavals later, and may even prepare the ground for a modern constitutional democratic political order.
bump for later.
After much commenting back and forth on this thread (all very FRiendly let me just say for the record) I’ve just now read the linked article.
Very good and interesting, our gentle author looks like a bit of an odd duck, but that’s OK and fitting really.
Thanks for posting this.
Interesting little tidbit — and it has long been my view that ministers do this.
“We are brought up to believe that Catholicism is, well, un-English”
How many ministers of non-Catholic groups tell their people things like this?
Excuse me?
Hid the truth?
I doubt it very much.
This is a portion of a summary I wrote about 8 years ago for a Seminary class I audited on Church History. It was written for the section on England’s Reformation. The class studied Church History from before Christ’s birth up to about 1990. The last part of the 1900’s were a lost less in depth.
>>>>>>>>CHURCH HISTORY<<<<<<<<
>>>>>King Henry Leaves The Church<<<<<
To”To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesus receive my soul.”
With her last words still lingering in the air a skilled swordsman, brought over from France, beheaded the reason for England’s reformation. King Henry wanted an annulment from his wife, who had not given him a male heir, so he could marry Anne Boleyn.
In time she too would fail to give the King a son. Interestingly, shortly before her execution on charges of adultery, the Queen’s marriage to the King was dissolved and declared invalid. One would wonder then how she could have committed adultery if she had in fact never been married to the King.
Henry the VIII’s desire for a male heir to his throne led England on a path that would eventually lead to what English churchman would call a “Via Media”. Henry wanted freedom from the Popes authority but he still insisted his kingdom follow the Catholic doctrine, with only two changes. He wanted an English Bible used in all churches, and the suppression of the unpopular monasteries.
The King eventually put forth regulations that only the wealthy and aristocrats could read the Bible, and confiscated the property of many small monasteries adding their money to his royal treasury. Upon the death of Henry’s son Edward VI, Mary Tudor, known in history as “Bloody Mary”, would attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England. After almost three hundred executions, including that of Archbishop Thomas Crammer, Queen Mary had reversed most of what Henry and Edward had done. Mary died after only reigning five years and the daughter of the beheaded Anne Boleyn would assume the throne.
Queen Elizabeth, whom Mary’s cousin Charles V warned her to execute, not only reversed all of Mary’s policies against the Protestants, but she went farther in her reforms then Henry did. Elizabeth had a policy of theological inclusivism that had no room for Roman Catholicism or extreme Protestantism. Her ideal church was a state church that practiced uniform doctrine that united the kingdom in common worship. Elizabeth’s “Thirty-nine Articles” was essentially Protestant but worded in such a way that satisfied both Catholic’s and Protestants or, “Via Media”.
With the end of persecutions many Protestants who fled during Mary’s reign returned to England, only to find Elizabeth’s religious reforms did not go far enough. With Bibles such as Tyndale’s, Wyclif’s, and others that were written with the help of the newly acquired Greek documents, a new group of believers would emerge.
This new group influenced also by Calvin and other reformers from the mainland, believed in restoring the pure practices and doctrines of the New Testament thus their name the “Puritans”. These Puritans would eventually become a driving force in English religious life and lead the way to religious freedom and the “New World”.
Men like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox would set the groundwork for most denominations that exist today. The English Reformation came about because a King wanted a divorce, the French Reformation came via a class struggle, while the Swiss Reformation happened democratically after a debate won by Zwingli against Johann Faber. The Roman Catholic Church fought back with fire by using the Jesuits to re-educate the masses and the cruel use of the Spanish inquisitions, while the discovery of new lands allowed the Roman Church to enjoy its most rapid expansion ever.
Throughout history man has attempted to know and understand that part of his heart which yearns for God. Some men find every reason they can to explain that feeling in terms of what they can touch, taste, see, or hear. Other men have no desire to explain it because then they must face the reality that the evil things they do are wrong, so they just live for themselves. Then you have those who accept without any question, never waver from his word, and strive to bring others into the family.