This post was originally written to reflect upon the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It is done through the life and work of Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. He is one of the best lens to view the Reformation through, reflecting its good as well as its sin.
In 1556, Thomas Cranmer was to die as a repentant heretic under the bloody purge of "Evangelicals" in Mary Tudor's short and vicious reign. Cranmer had recanted on almost all of his works as chief reformer and archbishop of England's church. Before he went to the pyre, Cranmer had time to give an execution speech. Marian authorities expected him to warn reformers of their heresy, but instead, Cranmer stood his ground. He was a man who seemed incredibly chameleon, someone who was 'politique' and a survivor. Some have concluded that Cranmer was a toady, flexible in his views, and self-serving; others that he was merely a slow thinker, a timid scholar, an affable man, and someone highly committed to the English crown. The truth is probably a mix of things, but, as he stood on death's door, Cranmer had made up his mind.
Cranmer recanted his recantation, decried the pope as antichrist, and stood up for 'Evangelical' principles. Marian supporters booed and hissed, evangelicals cheered him on. The guards escorted Cranmer to his execution, bound him to wood, and set his pyre ablaze. With the fires already beginning to blaze, the degraded archbishop stretched forth his right hand into the flames. He confessed to the crowd that he had now burnt off the offending hand which had blasphemed in a moment of weakness. Cranmer perhaps seared off his hand with Christ's words in mind that it is better to lose a hand than be thrown into hell. In his last moments, as the inferno consumed him, Cranmer prayed with st. Steven's words that Christ would receive his spirit.
I admire Cranmer because he was one of the few major reformers who died a martyr. And I contend that Cranmer's burnt hand should be taken as a symbol for the Reformation as a whole. Primarily, I refer to the magisterial reformation, the major wings that sought (and gained) the support of the state. Calvin had Geneva, Zwingli had Zurich, Luther had Electoral Saxony, and so on. The support of the magistrate did not mean it was not a bumpy road. Certainly Geneva was an endless headache to Calvin. However, it did mean that the extant of a reformation depended upon the parameters of a particular magistrate, whether a prince or a city council. It should not be a surprise that Luther's haughty naivete, in a near "better a Turk than a Habsburg", quickly dried up as he relied on the prince to enforce his doctrine. By 1525, Luther turned his vicious pen against the peasants who misunderstood their man, and paid dearly for it.
Cranmer is a man who embodies the strains of the magisterial reformation. On the one hand, Cranmer was a humanist in the best sense of the term, someone who applied his mind to reassessing ancient sources. Ad Fontes was the cry of the Renaissance as well as much of the Reformation. It was in such an environment that Cranmer composed the Book of Common Prayer which would forever mark Anglophone piety. Cranmer's design for the English church's liturgy was one that would give the Bible to the common people in their own language. The lectionary was designed for the purposes of covering the totality of Scripture (so that all might hear, learn, and inwardly digest it). The prayers were soaked in words of patriarchs and prophets, addressing the struggles and joys of holy living and everyday life. Cranmer sought to bring monastic holiness into the day-to-day church, where all parts of life were to be sanctified through prayer and thanksgiving.
On the other hand, Cranmer aided in subjecting English Christians to royal domination. The church became an extension of Henry VIII's sacral kingship. Through his Reformation Parliament, Henry gained not only governance over the Church of England (something maintained by Elizabeth I and all her successors), but headship. This position made Henry a national pope, allowing him to alternate between the Evangelical Ten Articles (1536) and the Roman-conservative Six Articles (1539). Perhaps, one may argue, that without Henry Tudor (and his marital troubles) the English church would never have left the Roman orbit. But the witness of Lollardy is proof that, no matter how small, the truths of the Reformation would have survived without princely support. William Tyndale had drank deep from the Lollards before he became an ally of Martin Luther. Nevertheless, God uses many dishonorable villains despite themselves. On account of its magisterial attachments, the Church of England's history is blackened with persecution of the saints, greed, slavery, sloth, murderous violence, careerism, and partisanship.
And so far I've only referenced England. Lutheran and Reformed hands are stained crimson in an ocean of blood, as much as their Roman Catholic opponents. The many state-churches of Europe played the whore well, drunk on the blood of the saints and the oppressed. 1525, the Peasant's Revolt, is the tragic heart of the Reformation. The intensification of feudal life, developing the expansion of merchant capital, had reached a severe breaking-point. In many cases, the Reformation, rather than resist these social changes, allied itself to them. Christian ethics were once again compromised. Thus, to remember 1517 as some mythic event, where brave Luther stood against all, is to be perverse. Luther was no hero.
And neither was Thomas Cranmer. He wrote well, he promoted beautiful truths, he tried to reform his church to bring the gospel to bear upon the whole of human life. He took up the endless call of semper reformanda, always returning to the ancient truth. But his reform efforts were deeply compromised. The hand that wrote the prayer-book and the glorious articles of religion also penned propaganda for the realm, supporting Henry's tyrant reign. He gained a free hand under Henry's son, but was scared to compromise after Edward's short reign. Cranmer's hand justified horrors as well as proclaiming the gospel of grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Cranmer acted better than he knew. The Reformation has as much to offer as to disregard, it is a dead end that possesses seeds of life. It is the burnt hand of the martyr-bishop, full of compromise and courage. It straddles the ambiguity of "tradition": whether to pass on rightly, or to commit treason as a traitor. There is much to rejoice in the Reformation as there is to lament. Christ's church has suffered such contradictions and will continue to, as light and shadow mix in Christ's crucified body. May we learn from such, rejoicing and shuddering at once.
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