Church History in Plain Language: Fourth Edition by Shelley Dr. Bruce L

Author:Shelley, Dr. Bruce L. [Shelley, Dr. Bruce L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

THE CURSE UPON THE CROWN

The Church of England

ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON in June 1533, a dark-eyed English lady, surrounded by the nation’s nobility, rode through London’s crowded streets and triumphal arches. Anne Boleyn, mounted on a chair draped in silver and gold, was on her way to Westminster Abbey where, next morning, she would be solemnly anointed and crowned Queen of England.

Behind that entourage was a series of fast-paced events that carried England into the reformation of Christianity in its own distinctive way and created the historic background for a host of Anglo-American denominations including Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Baptists.

If the Lutheran reformation began in a monastic cell, the Anabaptist reformation in a prayer meeting, and the Calvinistic reformation at a scholar’s desk, then the English reformation began in the affairs of state, specifically with the problem of succession to the royal throne.

In a sense England had two reformations: a constitutional one under King Henry VIII (1509–1547) and a theological one under the Puritans almost a century later. Under Henry nothing changed doctrinally. England simply rejected the authority of Rome. In this move, however, England forecast the future of Christianity in modern nations. She made Christian beliefs almost altogether a private affair and considered the practice of religion an instrument of the state. Later generations called it civil religion.

How could such a thing happen? Why did England, even without any great theological issue, overthrow the longstanding authority of the Church of Rome?

ENGLAND’S BREAK WITH ROME

The idea arose out of the marital problems of King Henry, whom Charles Dickens once described as “a most intolerable ruffian and a blot of blood and grease on the history of England.” Other influences, to be sure, contributed to the break with Rome, but succession to the throne was the primary constitutional factor in the transformation of the Church in England into the Church of England.

For centuries the Church in England had been moving toward independence from Rome. By Luther’s time, most patriotic Englishmen had a sense of the distinctive character of the faith in their fatherland.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1474–1530) is probably the best symbol of the independence England had achieved even prior to Henry’s break with Rome. Wolsey was the Archbishop of York, a Cardinal in the Church of Rome, and the chancellor of the English realm. So in his own person, he combined the Church in England, the Church of Rome, and the Kingdom of England. Yet in all of these offices he was the king’s henchman, subject to honor or disgrace at the royal whim.

Understandably, the schism in the church came over a royal problem, not over theological conflicts. Putting it simply, Henry VIII, King of England, revolted against the pope because he passionately desired the dark-eyed Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting of the court.

But that is only the headline. The important facts surround the royal succession to the English throne, not the personal lust of the king. Henry knew how to satisfy his lusts. He shared the customary royal pastime with mistresses and had at least one illegitimate son.

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