Henry VIII: a providential bully?

David Bouvier

Our Pericles?

English liberty, as McFarlane's History of Capitalism makes clear pre-dates Henry VIII, but I guess he advantageously removed external threats to our liberty in his own self interest.

Simon Denis

This is the famous "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy favoured among all those who wish to see an "end" to history. It is an illusion. There was no guarantee that Henry Tudor's blunders would result in anything more than a poor, provincial, overtaxed, hereditary dictatorship. Equally, there is no reason to suppose that continued Catholicism would have been imcompatible with the development of a Renaissance or an Enlightenment. Indeed, it is not merely arguable but plain that England's Renaissance was set back a hundred years by the Reformation. The main currents in architecture swirled over our heads. Meanwhile, sinister Elizabethan spymasters erected their crazy, vulgar piles, in which a rump gothic was injudiciously mingled with random classical motifs. Conversely, the Most Serene Republic maintained her famously open minded intellectual life whilst enjoying the artistic and musical life afforded by hundreds of full time congregations. Liberal history, my dear sir, is a callous myth. It glosses over all those exceptions, those ifs and buts which are the very stuff of truth. France, it is often claimed, had a Revolution because she had missed the Reformation - as though such disastrous events are some sort of ticket to the modern age. In fact, the revolution started life as a fiscal crisis which got out of control.

It is Gibbon, not Macaulay, who hit the nail on the head with his view that history offers us a succession of "crimes and follies". Of these, the English Reformation must rank as one of the worst.

Ben

He..er...'reclaimed' the monasteries in the same way that Douglas Hogg reclaimed his moat cleaning expenses. You really are a bit of an anticatholic bigot Theo. Tut tut.

Roderick Blyth

He was an unmitigated disaster. He broke his coronation oath, divided his kingdom, bankrupted his successors, pauperised his poorer subjects, and failed, for all that, to guarantee the succession. Far from being a kindly, gradual and benevolent evolution, the system which he inaugurated was vicious from its inception, and miserable in its ends. Henry's father had put a stop to one set of Civil Wars, but Henry VIII promptly laid the foundations of another which would end with the public trial and execution of one of his successors; the humiliation of a short-sighted and self-interested Parliament; the military dictatorship of a tyrant and bigot; the utter alienation of the Irish; the disgrace of the national church; foreign invasions in 1788, 1690 and 1745; the installation of a land-owning oligarchy which kept a tight hold on all power,property and patronage; together with the growth of an explotative and oppressive colonial regime. Meanwhile the common people were dispossessed, exploited and starved. The truly mould-breaking events in America of 1776 and in France of 1789 were greeted with shock, horroe, amnd fear by all but a small and irresponsible part of the ruling elite, and the creation of a system of spies and prosecutions of which its victims such as Shelley, Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt have left such eloquent testimony. The Reform Act of 1831/2 was intended to start and stop with the admission to power of a propertied but patronised middle class, and it was only the Repeal of the Corn Laws, the consequent destruction of british agriculture and the squirearchy, and the transfer of money, power and influence to the industrial section, that led to the broadening of the franchise, and finally the creation of the modern democratic state as we know it. And who, at the moment, has anything to boast about as far as that's concerned?

Recusant

Ye Gods, you really don't understand anything about English history if this is your considered view.

Henry creating a purely secular power? No, he wanted to rules men's souls as well.

A creator of liberties? You mean the enabler of over 150 years of religious and political persecution. A man who trampled over the rights Englishman had enjoyed for hundreds of years.

A man who undertook the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history.

A man who caused the closure of the schools and hospitals that ministered to the poor and closed the monasteries that provided the only alms available to the destitute.

The man was a monstrous tyrant and it took almost 400 years for us to get over the ill effects of his regime.

Athanasius

"He ‘reclaimed’ the monasteries."

Destroyed them, more like!

"His reformation was not so much ‘Protestant’ as secular."

Certainly true. Do you really not see the can of worms that this opens, when we press for obedience to humans over and above obedience to God revealed through the Church?

"... but never has tyranny had such good long-term consequences"

Good for whom, exactly? Whom does it really serve to "float free of... theological orthodoxy"?

The mess that the Church of England is in at the moment would seem to indicate the inherent dangers of such a move. It is in a mess because it adheres to the whims of the times, to human authority, rather than to the unchanging Magisterium of Christ's Church.

David Bouvier

Funny how taking assets from the unbelievably rich church is taking money from the "poor".

The reformation of course led to various acts to implement communal poor relief, culminating in the 1601 Poor Law under Elizabeth, that set out a framework that lasted centuries.

Makes a change from charity tied to religious compliance.

Roderick Blyth

The monasteries were rich alright, David, but they were all that existed as a safety net for the poor to whom they provided much in the way of charity, and, of course, employment. The various Poor Laws were passed to deal with the homeless, dispossessed, and generally desperate who now had no other recourse. They were more repressive and coercive than genuinely charitable - their general purpose, when finalised by Elizabeth after harsher measures had failed, was, in the case of the able bodied, to set the poor to registered and supervised employment, rather than let them wander about in scandal and disorder. I think it's right to say that the dissolution made the rich richer, and the poor poorer - a pattern which recurs with greater frequency in history than the reverse. It can never been fun to be poorand homeless in England, but the dissolution made it worse. Just remember, the Work House was once seen, not as a disgrace, but a form of social progress. That gives you some idea of what it was like before even they were thought of.

Bill Markley

I would argue that Henry VIII's "change of heart" about staying under the Pope was not entirely "self-interested." Henry knew about the blood shed during the Wars of the Roses, and the turmoil related to questions of royal succession. I think his great fear that he might not get a legitimate male heir was tied at least somewhat to concerns that such turmoil could arise again. His own father's position was precarious for a while after gaining the crown at Bosworth Field. Henry VIII was certainly no angel, but it seems to me that he also wasn't completely lacking in good judgment and foresight.

Forlornehope

A level of cultural destruction that makes the Taleban's rule in Afghanistan like a night of drunken hooliganism by comparison. He introduced an absolutist monarchy without any of the checks provided by an independent church. Just one example is in the treatment of dissent. In England a wrong word on either side of Henry's line got you either hanged, drawn and quartered or burnt at the stake. By contrast, faced with the terror of the inquisition an apology let you walk out of the court, usually with a relatively minor penance. The Inquisition was bad, Henry's England was much, much worse. Don't kid yourself Tudor England was more like Stalin's Russia than a free, liberal society.

Simon Denis

I can only applaud Mr Blyth's learning and eloquence. When discussing the mediaeval church, most commentators focus on the institutional wealth which supported it. They fail utterly to register the extraordinary role it played in supplying any number of social benefits from teaching and healing to looking after the poor. This contribution is overlooked because of subsequent political tussles over the business of creating and distributing wealth. A certain strand of socialism - think of Conrad Noel - claimed the middle ages as their own. At the same time, the more doctrinaire among the Liberals were happy to associate the left with a supposedly "dark" or "superstitious" period and damn the two together. Both left and centre were and are in error. The whole point about the church is that as an agency independent of the state it requires no enforced cost from taxpayers. Its various institutions - priories, etcetera - produce the money to fund the charity. In so far as wider society offered financial support, it was in the form of voluntary bequests and contributions. Moreover, its functionaries, with certain glaring exceptions, being actuated by the highest ideals, ministered to the poor with an assiduity the state can only dream of.

And finally I return to the culture and the art. Only a philistine can take the cue of patriotism from a king and a regime which bulldozed so much which added lustre to the realm. Those chance survivals which remain to us from the high middle ages tell of an astonishingly rich visual culture. Can our tub-thumping neo-Elizabethans really consider the day on which a frenzied mob rampaged through old St Paul's and pillaged or shattered priceless funerary and other monuments with anything other than shame? Who was "worshipping" at John of Gaunt's tomb?

As to this question of "idolatry", unless it is defined with fair-minded precision, it can extend to almost any act. The more obsessive among its foes see it everywhere and end like the Taleban - no art, no liberty, no equality between the sexes - all from the fear of failing to honour God. For this reason, it is important to remember what worship is: it is the summit of love and it is upheld, not undermined, by the loves duly and properly given to the good things and beloved persons all around us. This love is moved by the perception of beauty - they are indeed answering concepts. Beauty is love made flesh. Christ is described in the Gospel as "full of grace and truth". To understand "grace" in this instance as removed from a sense of personal attraction is arid and pedantic.

Finally, history is without an aim. Every step of the way is polyvalent and contingent. To declare that the Reformation brought freedom is demonstrably false in the short term and intellectual suspect in the long. Life may well be the unfolding of predetermined events, but history is not, as a discipline, equipped to discover this truth, which lies in the hands of the hard sciences and philosophy. And even were it possible to say that distant evil A led to current good B, that would still leave an ethical problem. It would found our happiness on the terrible agonies of Saints Margaret Clitheroe and Edmund Campion among countless others. To do so with the smug triumphalism of - say - Simon Heffer in the Telegraph is a sort of backlit Leninism to which nobody of good will should subscribe.

euSSR GO HOME

How tenacious these Papists and Norman-french are!!!

I hardly ever met one, before euroland took over. Now they feel safe to renew their agenda, they're vociferating everywhere, re-writing our history, and claiming back what never was theirs in the first place!!! Anyone who didn't know would think that Protestantism was the passing fad of a minority who had forced themselves on the British. Oh no; the true story is the other way around.

William the Bastard set up a frenchified rule in Britain, under the banner of Pope Alexander II (a Norman sympathiser). William had no business doing so [though doubtless that statement will elicit as much hot blog-air as the 'issues' of the Tudors or the anti-Darwinists]. In doing so he destroyed the independence of the indigenous people; and he perpetrated genocide on the Anglo-Saxons.

He also harried the North, both east and west, in 1069 - until it ran with blood. That was his response to our refusal to accept his dominion; some historians have suggested that re-population of the area probably didn't begin until the twelfth century.

Billy Conk's descendant broods then proceeded systematically to destroy the culture of the British, and tried to replace it with a frenchified version. The British preferred their own culture, however. They had much to be proud of. Among other things, theirs was the literary tradition that had produced Alcuin of York: Charley Boy's main man of the Carolingian Renaissance. So some British monks kept up with the tradition - they needed to anyway if they, or the scum floating about on top, were to communicate with the British.

Having seized all our lands and goods, the Normans followed up with 300 years or so of oppression - their policies included dividing and conquering the people of the island, but at the same time requiring them to fight wars the froggies set up [They were quite proud of it - on this cf Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1155) and Gerald of Wales (c. 1146-1223)].

During that time, the people suffered under the corruption and rapacity of the euro-Catholics (sometimes they had more than one Papa - and sometimes one was based in frogland). Wyclif (c. 1330-84)and his followers began a proto-reformation - way before Luther. And because the froggies needed to communicate with the people who fought their wars, English began to come into its own at both their royal and legal courts.

Then the froggies still couldn't agree among themselves, even within England - so they dragged us into the Wars of the Roses. And there wasn't much to choose between the sides, especially once it got down to Edward IV and his brother Richard III. Perhaps Edward was the greater europhile and he seems to have been over-sexed - devoid of morals. The debates about Richard's merits and demerits have never abated.

So some people tried to do something about it; and Margaret Beaufort brought some British blood into the illegitimate Gaunt-strain, through her marriage to a Tudor. And she saved her little boy from the worst of his uncles by sending him to - guess where - frogland!! After which he came back to rid us of RIII, and to make himself HVII - marrying EIV's daughter, Elizabeth of York, in a major move towards ending the wars. Margaret B. guarded that marriage - and continued to help her son.

As ever, various euros continued to hanker after the rich pickin's here in the islands. Part of the Tudor contribution was keeping them at bay. Except for Mary, of course; and her papist/hispanic fury probably wised us up to the Spanish Inquisition (and turned us against euro-ways)!

Another part the Tudors played was further confirmation of English as the lingua franca.

After the Tudors, the Stuarts tried to move us back to papism, infiltrating the place with more and more euros - and generally propagating even more corruption, degeneracy, and oppression than their predecessors. They tried for the Divine Right of Kings; and it didn't work. Puritanism evolved in response; and it was Puritans who closed the the theatres, btw. We'd fought long and hard for the freedoms we did have, you see. And we continued to do so.

So the point of this synopsis? To offer context for the discussion - and to show that the presumption of euro-rights here is just that: Presumption. British history does not begin with the froggies - nor did the Tudors dream it up; nor were they the first to espouse British freedom and independence. But they did demonstrate that, overall, we do better when we espouse those values than we do under the rapacities of foreigners.

British history itself also shows that the euros and the papists never give up, and they never change their methods or their tune.

I suggest that's why so much of the above resonates with the situation today. I also say that euros and papists are boring - which the Tudors never were!!!

hadrian

God, not history, works in mysterious ways. He scourged His back sliding Ancient People in similar manner as is recorded with undeviating honesty in Holy Scripture.
Simon Heffer got the measure of him perfectly in his recent Telegraph article. For once I think you've not done too bad a job either- with one major exception. You airily suggest it was some amorphous 'humanism' that won through in the end rather than greater Christian maturity through these chastening political vicissitudes the church (both Puritan/Presbyterian and Episcopal) went through during the Tudor and Stuart monarchies and the Commonwealth.
Protestantism's greatness lies not in encouraging a sort of early 'multiculturalism' but in emphasising that belief is the personal responsibility of us all as individuals. Our Faith must be personal, heartfelt and genuine- not merely 'inherited'. That, the Protestant doctrine of personal rebirth or regeneration, so derided by ignoramuses is the guarantee of of our civil liberties. Faith cannot by definition be forced. That is why the Reformers laboured in preaching to persuade men and have men of real conviction that the Gospel of Christ is true, God real and life sacrosanct with the standards of behaviour both personal and communal enshrined in Biblical equity. Humanism at its best- the respect for the individual- is a mere off-shoot of this conviction.

hadrian

As for all those gainsayers of Protestantism on here who deny history has an aim they are utterly ignorant of Scripture which hammers home the message it most certainly does- and the Sovereign God is working it all out to His Sovereign good pleasure, knowing and determining the End from the Beginning.
Henry was an arch hypocrite whose 'god' was worldly political power, glory and family. The Lord comprehensively destroyed all his most cherished projects not least the Tudor line.
As for asking us to believe the Church of Rome and its Magisterium are somehow superior to the Reformed faith one only has to give cursory glance at it to see what an illusion of unity that is!

Athanasius

"I also say that euros and papists are boring"

And your post wasn't?!!

Still, thanks for the history lesson. I would suggest that one reason we Papists never give up is precisely because Christ never gives up, but confirms His Church is eternal: "I am with you always, even to the end of the world!"

Of course, Henry VIII must have fitted into Our Lord's providence somehow. Perhaps we will never know quite how, until the last day, but I think it must be because he showed us all what happens when we break from true apostolic tradition. Henry showed us the inherent dangers of a man-centred faith rather than a God-centred one.

At the same time, the reformation had the undoubtedly good effect of a counter-reformation, and perhaps solidifying a drifting faith. When there are opponents to Truth, there are also apologists (think Arians etc.), which only strengthens the Church in the long run.

Alexandrovich

So, all in all then, it's amazing what a bloke will do to get his end away.

Athanasius

Re: hadrian

"Simon Heffer got the measure of him perfectly in his recent Telegraph article"

I respect your comments here and in other posts a great deal - your Protestantism seems the rather more honest kind and more intelligent than Mr Hobson - but this article by Simonn Heffer really was complete tripe. Badly argued and ignoring several important issues that I would think most Protestants are better aware of.

"Protestantism's greatness lies not in encouraging a sort of early 'multiculturalism' but in emphasising that belief is the personal responsibility of us all as individuals. Our Faith must be personal, heartfelt and genuine- not merely 'inherited'."

It is pure and unsustantiated propoganda to assume that Catholics' faith is not "heartfelt and genuine". Of course there are genuine believers and some less genuine among both Catholics and Protestants - that's the nature of faith. Still, your remark about an 'inherited' faith betrays you: you must distinguish between the notion of believing in something because one's parents did so (which may happen to us all, but has nothing to do with the issue in question), and the Catholic position of recognising that God reveals Himself to us through His Church.

When we strip away the Church, we are left with nothing. The real crisis about what Henry VIII did is that it shifted religion from being a God-centred thing to a man-centred one. The reformation allowed humans to think that they were capable of knowing God on their own terms - and the consequence can be seen doctrinally, since suddenly all those things that are difficult to believe eventually become abandoned (transubstantiation, sacrifice, absolution, etc etc.). Yet all these things are confirmed scripturally as well as by the tradition of the Church. Do you ask us to believe that God allowed His Church to grow up in error for c1500 years?

The point is that sincerity in faith is not enough. It must be faith in Truth (as St Paul reminds us). We cannot ever possibly know the fullness of God's revelation to us on our own - after all, give the same passage of Scripture to ten people you will certainly get ten different interpretations. Maturity does not and cannot exist where God is concerned - we must all be like children, willing to learn as He reveals Himself through the Church, Scripture and in our hearts.

Finally, you point out that there are difficulties of unity in the Catholic Church too. That is, unfortunately, true, although they are nothing compared to the disparity in Protestantism. However, I would point out that most of these contemporary difficulties are caused precisely by a desire for 'reform' that sprung up erroneously after Vatican II: a classic instance therefore of how man cannot be trusted to reform what God has ordained. Fortunately, these reformers are starting to drop away, and what they have done to the Church remains entirely superficial.

Simon Denis

I fear I have little but contempt for those protestants who claim so confidently to discern the workings of Providence in history. In the first place, their notions of English history at least are worthy of Doctor Pangloss. Roderick Blyth gave a masterly sketch of the ills consequent upon the reign of Henry VIII. From "euSSR Go Home" - the name says it all, really - we get a chauvinist rant which entirely misrepresents the past - suggesting, for example, that Anglo-Saxon England was in some way hostile to the Roman Church. This is only one of his preposterous blunders, culled no doubt from the back end of some curled up Victorian text book. The aim of these distortions? To prove that the obviously brutal, incompetent and costly reign of a savage butcher was in some ultimate sense marvellous. It's easy to think you are privy to God's plan if you entirely ignore reality.

Even those "Providentialists" who do pay attention to the truth, then go on to gloss over the obvious objection to their smug triumphalism - that it predicates our "happiness" on our ancestors' agony - by assuring us that it is all "the Will of God". In my view, this is to insult heaven. It is the equal in callous bigotry to the attitude taken by some imams to the south east Asian Tsunami: that it was a judgement on its victims.

Those writing from the Catholic position appear to take a much more nuanced and humble attitude. However, at the end of the day, no certainty on this matter is available to man. Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest Anglicans, was famously scornful of those who pretended to it and if he be not Christian, then who can say what Christianity is?

Athanasius

Re: Simon Denis - an entirely sensible point, thank you.

CS

***A man who trampled over the rights Englishman had enjoyed for hundreds of years.***

Provided they went obediently to church and thought as the clergy dictated. Oh very free.

It'd be more interesting to ask what Thomas More was doing to the ancient rights of all the freeborn Englishmne he burned at the stake for seeking freedom of their own conscience.

CS

***Do you really not see the can of worms that this opens, when we press for obedience to humans over and above obedience to God revealed through the Church?***

Obedience to God revealed through the Chuch??? What you're actually saying, Athanasius, is obedience to another human claiming to speak for God.

Do you seriously believe that God's mouthpiece would have had the slightest hesitation in annulling Henry's marriage to Catherine had he not been scared of the military consequences to his own position? Of course not. Like all Popes, he'd have interpreted Church law according to diplomatic pragmatism. Just as the Pope did when he decided that marrying your brother's widow was OK after all because it was convenient for the thrones of England and Spain to be allied.

There's a world of difference between dedicating yourself to God and blind obedience to a corrupt clergy in Rome which claims on Monday that God says black is black and then claims on Tuesday that God says black is white..

Athanasius

Re CS:

"What you're actually saying, Athanasius, is obedience to another human claiming to speak for God."

No, what I'm talking about is obedience to God through the Church speaking for Him. This is exactly how Jesus ordained it, after all (Mt 16: 19 cf. Jn 20:23).

The point is that knowing God and His will is not easy. He speaks to us through our heart,but we need a foundation, a framework within which to engage with His call. Otherwise our faith is built on sand, not rock.

"Do you seriously believe that God's mouthpiece would have had the slightest hesitation in annulling Henry's marriage to Catherine had he not been scared of the military consequences to his own position?"

The issue really is not whether an annulment would have been right or wrong, especially since as you say doctrinal issues were not necessarily at the forefront. The issue comes down to the fact that disobedience marks a break from the sacred tradition, which opens up that can of doctrinal worms.

"There's a world of difference between dedicating yourself to God and blind obedience to a corrupt clergy in Rome which claims on Monday that God says black is black and then claims on Tuesday that God says black is white.."

Indeed, there would be. But this does not happen in the Roman Church. We dedicate ourselves to God, revealed through His Church. And the Church does not change its mind in the arbitrary way you suggest - I challenge you to prove otherwise. Indeed, all matters of doctrine are assured precisely because of the continuum stretching back to Christ Himself.

My point was actually less about Henry himself than what he started, which was absenting himself from moral authority, and constructing religion as a man-centred not God-centred thing as a result.

If you're interested, I have some further comments about this discussion here:

http://tinyurl.com/q3kkte

and here:

http://tinyurl.com/r6jcxg

euSSR GO HOME

"a chauvinist rant which entirely misrepresents the past - suggesting, for example, that Anglo-Saxon England was in some way hostile to the Roman Church."

Can Denis read English? I stated precisely the opposite: that William, under the banner of his Pope, attacked and killed the English. The occasions were the Battle of Hastings and the later Harrying of the North.

Denis is a fine exponent of the techniques of cultural invasion, though. Now that's Communism for you!!!

He's also right about one thing. euSSR GO HOME says what it means, and means what it says. The British have a right to Home Rule, and a right to vote for that right.

To the other aggressive RCs on here: until now, I have never been anti-Catholic - I went to a couple of convents as a young girl, and retain fond memories of them. Nevertheless, I chose to remain Protestant.

However, the insidious Marxist-euro invation of the CoE - and finally this blog - have turned me so completely against Catholicism that I wouldn't go near one of your churches if it were the last building on earth. I no longer trust or believe that people who call themselves "Catholics" are Christians.

As to Christ's presentation of the keys to St. Peter - God gave the Law to Moses: I don't believe that in either case He requires us to follow later leaders who misrepresent and misuse the institutions.

YouCannotBeSerious!

ForlorneHope - I just finished watching David Starkey's series on Henry VIII, and Stalin's Russia was exactly the analogy which came to my mind as well.

How Theo Hobson can argue that the introduction of a brutal and absolutist monarchy, and setting the foundations for religious warfare for the next century was somehow liberal is beyond me.

Athanasius

Re euSSR go home:

Firstly, allow me to say I am very sorry that you have had such a negative reaction to the comments on this blog. I assure you that none of us speak on behalf of any Church, and I urge you not to base your judgements of Catholicism or anything else purely on what you read here. My apologies.

Nonetheless, I feel you may be projecting a falsehood onto the situation. There is really no connection between Catholicism and either Marxism or what you call the euSSR. I fear you may have a bee in your bonnet about this 'cultural invasion'. We Catholics are just living and evangelising our faith, and I see no reason why we should not do so on this blog or anywhere else. Marxism is quite opposed to Christianity, including Catholicism, and the link with Europe is rather laughable.

Also I question what you say about the keys of heaven and the comparison with Moses. It's actually an interesting comparison in a sense, but misleading. I wonder why you think Christ would have said He was building His Church on rock if what He really meant was building a Church that would have no authority in N-years time? Was the Church in error right up to the Reformation, or did they get it right at any point?! I recognise I'm unlikely to convince you of course, but I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the matter.

Even so, your response does rather remind me of a passage John's Gospel (6:60-8):

"On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"
...
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." "

The teachings of Catholicism are far harder to accept. But if we leave Christ's Church, to whom shall we go?

The Anne Boleyn Files

Great article!

I've recently been debating with various other Tudor history fans about whether Henry deserves to be given the title "Henry the Great". I'm of the opinion that you cannot call him great at all. OK, he kept England safe from France, the Holy Roman Empire and Scotland, but he massacred his people, ransacked his country's monasteries and killed his friends and two of his wives! So yes, he was a "greedy tyrant" and a "bully". The protestant church wasn't even down to him really, more down to Anne Boleyn and his relationship with her. He only broke with Rome to marry her and it was she who was the evangelical. Sorry to rant, I'm not ranting against your article, as I agree with it, just ranting against Henry!

Claire (www.theanneboleynfiles.com)

Roderick Blyth

It's also worth squashing the idea that Henry VIII was the gurantuor of English liberties against foreign aggression, and, specifically, the aggression of France. What Henry did, almost as soon as he came to the throne, was to resurrect, or to attempt to resurrect, dynastic claims on the kingdom of France that went back, at least, to Edward III. Those wars had brought lustre to the English crown, and had, traditionally, been a welcome distraction from difficulties at home, but they had been ruinously expensive, and had usually ended in abject disaster. The usurping Lancastrian dynasty, in the person of Henry V, had seen triumph in France as God's vindication of his otherwise questionable right, and Henry VIII, as the son of a second usurping monarch, may well have looked at the enterprise in a similar light. But the aggression was, as repeatedly before, not aggression by France, but aggression by England. The cost of these wars, which resulted, at their best, in the miserably short termed gain of the two french cities of Tournus and Therouanne achieved precisely nothing but a huge waste of money. The idea that Europe, or France and Spain backed in some sinister way by a conspiracy of jesuits, represented a threat to England entirely overlooks Tudor interference in France, the Netherlands, and the Spanish colonies - most of it more provoking, than provoked. Henry's rejection of Katherine of Aragon involved an awkward and difficult realignment with the French whom the alliance had originally been made in order to frustrate. It actually demonstrated that when it came to having his way, Henry didn't much care much about consistency, let alone the interests even of the Kingdom as a whole. The continental complaint that Reformation England became an unprincipled and pirate state demands much more consideration than is usually given to it in the island-centred view of our history, but it can certainly be said that the claim that Henry VIII was a wise, strong and noble protector of England against continental, priest ridden, absolutist systems is naive, self-serving and unhistorical.

hadrian

Athanasius,

Sadly I cannot agree with you that without 'the [Roman] church we are left with nothing', as if Rome were the benchmark of all orthodoxy, the scourge of all heresy. Er, not quite! Arianism has been mentioned on here and very embarrassingly for not just Rome but the Papal office itself it was the incomparable Athanasius [!!!] who stood staunchly against this whilst Liberius, the Pope did what? Er, he condemned the anti-Arian Athanasius and won, in return, the notorious withering condemnation of Hilary of Poitiers- Anathema to thee, Liberius!' So much for the indispensibility of Papal Infallibility for Church unity and orthodoxy! Pope Vigilius was just as hapless and erring.
One could cite at length further examples. Our Faith rests NOT on a fallible, erring, imperfect church but on the bedrock of the Apostolic ans Spirit breathed Word promised by Christ, the Living Word.
As for 'inherited' faith, absolutely nobody is a Christian by dint of parentage or upbringing, though these Covenant blessings may be and usually are the channel for Personal Faith through the working of the Spirit of God causing a person to be regenerated in response to the Word and Truth of the Gospel. Nominal 'faith' is no faith at all. Roman Catholics must live as do genuinely converted Protestants not in reliance on and subjection to a priestly system but on the ingrafted Word, the Bread of heaven-John Chap5v39.That Word the Church of Rome strove with might and main to withold from the laity.
For eye-opening histories of the Papal Office I suggest three R.C. authored books-
1)Saints and Sinners by Eamon Duffy
2) Vicars of Christ by Peter de Rosa
3) Lives of the Popes by Richard O'Brien.

Simon Denis

Hadrian's presumptuous reliance on scripture alone has been exposed a thousand times as insufficient by the bewildering variety of denominations, sects, secessions and conventicles which have swarmed from "reform" like flies from a corpse. Catholic inconsistencies are nothing beside such obscene and fanatical anarchy. How rightly Matthew Arnold stigmatised it as "hole in the corner" piety! True, the ultramontane position may well be a step too far. All genuine christian belief requires is an adherence to the historic faith of the church as professed by the Orthdox and the Catholics - including Old Believers, High Anglicans and certain Lutheran groupings. A prating heretic among a mob of idiots - and I use the term in its strictest sense - is hardly the chosen vessel of the Lord.

hadrian

...'Presumptuous reliance on Scripture alone'...well, of course the Roman hierarchy cannot abide that. The clarity of God's Word, its perspicuity, makes mincemeat of their blatantly false doctrines.Laughably it is this particular Romanist refrain-'so many to choose from, such fissile and confusion' that the unbeliever brings to bear on Christianity in general!
Anyway it simply won't wash. History proves that the Papacy if anything added to the divisivness of the church ( look long and very hard at all the 'rival' and overlapping papacies never mind the glaring Great Western Schism' to see what a pathetic guarantee of unity this man-made, man based, man centred concept has been.
The true Church of Christ is bound together by the mystic union of the Holy Ghost despite minor but not unimportant disagreements. The Holh Ghost who inspired the very Scriptures. Now, if you are telling us He cannot make His Word clear enough for us to recognise fellow believers then you impugn God, no less. His Word IS clear, but man in his sinful state, even regenerate man must wrestle to grasp the whole truth. This has been going on for centuries. The R.C. church of course substitutes a partial structural infallibility for this process. Oddly, all they do is push the problem back a stage, with the presumed ecclesiastical decress etc becoming the Word that in turn requires further clarification in an infinite regress. Rome has many flaws but her claim to exclusive possession of Revealed Truth figures as one of the worst and risible in the light of history.
Incidentally, all genuine evangelical Christians- with the root of the matter in them, most in the main things- can readily recognise each other despite differences on, say, the exact pattern of church government or baptism. Evangelical Anglicans, Reformed, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists can all charitably extend fellowship to each other. The alternative that is hierarchical, sacerdotal tyrany is anything but superior and the unity illusory in any case. I know countless Roman Catholics who take not a blind bit of notice of their church's rulings on various issues but blithely think they are still good catholics. To breed such disjunction between theory and practice and cynicism in what at heart are spritual matters is insufferable.

egh

They don't get it, do they?
Edward the Confessor with all his french favourites started the rot - and William of Normandy (that's in france, guys) set the french afloat on the top of British society.

These people did not intermarry with the English - most of whom they had killed anyway. They stayed French, and married among themselves or among other
euros [inbreeding, remember? keeping the great estates and the wealth to themselves, right?
In England and in france, right?]

They eventually ceased to be vassals of french kings, and
they kidded themselves - and everybody else, that they were English. Certainly, they were rulers of the British in England, but they were not English. Angevin is a french name, and a french line - not an English one. Moderns get past the difficulty by calling them "Anglo-Normans." The only blood they shared with some of us, though, was Viking.

Futhermore, they spoke french - as I pointed out above, until Chaucer's day and beyond.

Where were the British? What were they doing? Well that's a whole other story - but my point is that people are calling these bozos - er sorry, aristos -
English - and they weren't. They wanted people to believe they were; but the wars against the french were against their own friends and relations: that's why they could claim rights to each others thrones ad nauseam.

As I said before, the Tudors finally brought some British blood into the equation: and yes indeed most of them kept the various euros off the doorstep, Elizabeth was masterly in that specialty!

The Stuarts, however, were totally frenchified - and so there we went again... more euro rot.

So now the euros and the catholics are hard at work deconstructing the country that the British have built, and known, and loved; and part of that deconstruction involves
the good old marxist technique of
reinscription: in this case, of our history - so that, once more, said euros and catholics can rule and profit. That's why they're busy attacking the Reformation and Henry; and probably even deconstructing our parliamentary system.

Now neither I nor anyone I ever met sets Henry VIII up as a nice or even good man. But I'm very glad he happened. And I'll always be very sad that Gordo and Bliar gave it all away and replaced it with the gulag.

Simon Denis

I shall leave Hadrian's long winded ramblings to those who can be bothered with him. The good "egh", however, is another matter. Again we get the ludicrous imputation of "marxism"; again the frankly bone headed equation of that abominable philosophy with the Roman Church. Is "egh" totally ignorant? Has he never heard of Clochemerle or Don Camillo? Pius XII was a red, was he? John Paul II - instrumental with Maggie and Ron in bringing down the Soviet Union - some sort of supersubtle mole?

Then he goes in for the totally irrelevant blather about the European Union. I don't suppose "egh" or any of the other saloon bar Tudors on this site have even heard of Rocco Buttiglione. A good Catholic with the usual strict attitudes to sexual morality, he was denied promotion within the EU because the gay lobby objected. I suppose this was all a Vatican ruse, was it?

No wonder the worthy cause of Euro-scepticism has made so little headway. It seems to attract such a mob of head cases.

hadrian

At the very least the Reformation signalled that the old Rome dominated Church badly needed reforming but sadly for Rome's adherents all that Rome achieved in her 'Counter Reformation' and Tridentine definitions and cursings was a hardening and defence of the very root of the worst aspects and vested interests of her malaise.

hadrian

It is worth taking a long, hard look at the Vatican's approach to social affairs, Mr Dennis.
They have laughably careered all over the place from ultra reactionary to present day veiled socialist- social salvation by messianic bureaucracy. It is no coincidence that some of the most pro-E.U. aquaintances of mine are Roman Catholics. Rome smarted from her loss of temporal power when the papal states were taken from them and ever since have been readjusting her claims to temporal ascendancy to fit the modern world. The E.U. project suits them very well. However Rome, the great 'spiritial' humanist has a nasty step-daughter, the secular humanists and what we see in the E.U. is this tug of war.
As for Rome breeding 'strict morals'...one has only to cast an eue over the Popes themselves to see what balderdash that claim is. Her continued unBiblical, platonic view of the physical as it works out in priestly, enforced celibacy tells its own very sorry tale.
Ayn Rand got it right when she noted:' The Catholic Church has never given up the hope to re-establish the medieval union of church and state, with a global theocracy as its ultimate goal.'
Well, she does proudly proclaim to be 'semper eadem'!

Simon Denis

This is nothing but a conspiracy theory.

hadrian

Simon Dennis-
Could you clarify exactly what is a conspiracy theory in your opinion?
Rome's aspiration to world dominance is no illusion. Why do you think she claims to be the 'catholic' church, headed by a Roman Pontif? In one R.C. site one even reads the blasphemy that 'The Pope is the Way, the Truth and the Life.' Sounds pretty totaltitarian to me!

Simon Denis

When a man is reduced to asking what one means by a perfectly obvious term, it is clear that he has lost the argument. To suggest that the EU is some sort of Catholic ruse when it opposes key Catholic teachings - notably those to do with sexual morality - is obviously and blatantly a conspiracy theory: the view that irreconcilable differences are a mere smokescreen between two parties whose aim - or "conspiracy" - is "to take over the world" - what else? I imagine "Hadrian" entertains himself of an evening with visions of Pope Benedict chortling malignantly as he strokes a white cat.

Reading in America

RE: Mr. Dennis - "the view that irreconcilable differences are a mere smokescreen between two parties whose aim - or "conspiracy" - is "to take over the world" - what else?"

Thank you, Mr. Dennis, for trying to answer Mr. Hadrian's question. I often wonder what a conspiracy theory is, and why some people are always accusing others of having them. Your answer is difficult to follow, however; and I wonder if you could clarify:

In light of the discussion above, what differences are irreconcileable and why?
Who are the parties raising the 'smokescreen'?
If the parties are 'conspiring' -plotting, scheming together - why are they hiding from each other [your screen is 'between' the plotters]?

Also, I have closely read all the postings above. I see no suggestion "that the EU is some sort of Catholic ruse..." or that the ruse " ... opposes key Catholic teachings - notably those to do with sexual morality -"

I'm interested in the latter comment, though, because the News in America today mentions such abuses, attributing them to Irish Catholics in their schools and orphanages, etc. The authorities here claim that the Catholic Church protects pedophiles. This incident indicates that the Church suspends its own rules when convenient or politic.

I note that this blog is about the English Tudors... and know that the Church similarly changed its own rules in approving Henry's marriage to his sister-in-law Catherine of Aragon, even though that was, by their own rules, incest.

In what ways has the Catholic Church changed, would you say?

Simon Denis

Reading in America - you can't have examined the postings that carefully. Anything from "euSSR Go Home" seems to be predicated on the assumption that Karl Marx, Rodrigo Borgia and Jean Monnet are one and the same person. Worse, this master of disguise is supposed to be obsessed with doing down Britain. As for paedophil priests, there are plenty of protestant pastors with their hands in the choirboys' cassocks. And what about those grisly "televangelists" we hear so much about? As Sam Johnson observed, they discourse like angels but they live like men - or perverts. You can no more discredit the magisterium of Rome with a wad of scandal than you can rubbish the thirty-nine articles with reference to Rowan Williams' beard. As for Henry VIII's supposed "incest", I don't suppose he would have objected to rogering his grandmother had she managed to farrow a string of boys. The charge of incest was both technical and trumped up as most historians will allow. He was ditching a frump for a tart and that's all.

In what way has the Roman Catholic Church changed, you ask. In essence, not at all; not since she was founded upon Peter by Christ Himself. This may disappoint the proud, prattling mob of inconstant heretics out there, but the Church merely continues to sustain, preach and enact the Christian Faith.

hadrian

Of course the R.C. Church loves the E.U. ideal. Just look at its pronouncements on other supra-national agencies reputedly empowered to save the world from all sorts of global disasters - but in effect bumbling inefficient and corrup machines of too much vested interest. Want an example of typical papal policy? Look at John XXIII's Pacem in Terris, for example. He writes:
'Today the universal common good poses problems of world-wide dimensions which cannot be adequately tackled or solved except by the efforts of public authority endowed with a wideness of powers, structure and means of the same proportions: that is, of a public authoruty which is in a positio to operate in an effective manner on a world-wide basis. The moral order demands that such a form of public authority be established.' Therein he waxes lyrical about that useless bureaucracy, the U.N.
The E.U. therefore in principle has the Vatican's backing all right. The Papacy's mindset is that institutional structures and bureaucracy are what preserve the peace and will further her catholic ( universal) ambitions and claims. That the secular humanistic E.U. is not entirely docile is a minor irritant.
Rome's own track record on matters sexual is rather coming home to haunt her. The Report released today in Ireland makes shocking reading and as some of the victims themselves note it tells the tale of an instituition that above all puts self-interest first. The Church that cannot err cannot admit guilt.The blame then gets transferred away from the hierarchy and, of course, from the underlying unbiblical principle of clerical celibacy. Her institutional conspiring in this matter is patently obvious.
Finally it's worth remembering- human conspiracies do NOT imply invariably efficient conspiracies! Man as fallen is usually more likely to bungle.

hadrian

Mr Denis-
Two observations:
1)On hypocritical, canting, perveted 'TV evangelists' and their like, please note they are exposed and reviled for what they are and would most certainly be under the most severe church discipline of authentic Protestant Reformed denomnations- suspension from communion and church membership. Most of them exist outwith the various mainstream, orthodox evangelical denominations for precisely this reason! They would not be tolerated. Your 'argument' does not protect Rome against allegations of immorality, etc. on the part of her priests and others where these are not institutionally exposed and severely disciplined but merely covered up.
Remember: whilst the Protestant Churches cannot be blamed for institutionally protecting a backslider or apostate outwith their formal oversight, Rome can if she systematically refuses to discipline with 'defrocking' and suspension from communion.
2)Rome is certainly and depressingly 'semper eadem' when maintaining her worst faults but otherwise history makes a mockery of this proud claim. We could enumerate heretical and inconstant Popes but let's just look at one case in particular.
Pope LeoXIII declared in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus '...It is absolutely wrong and forbidden to narrow inspiration to certain parts of Holy Scripture or to admit that the scared writers have erred.'
PiusX followed this up with his encyclical, Lamentabili Sane in 1907 in which he categorically condemns in the most uncompromising terms various tenets of 'modernism', amongst others this:' Divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scripture so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error.' His 1909 Biblical Pontifical Commission explicity condemned evolution of mankind after the Darwinian model.
So far, so good- we see seeming continuity. However I have in my possession a booklet issued by the Catholic Bishops' Conferences of both England&Wales and Scotland; therein you will find the following statements:
'We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters. We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision.'(p18, The Gift of Scripture)
Laughably, further on there is a whole section dedicated to 'the danger of fundamentalism' which might impel 'people of one nation or group [to] see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.' Glaringly unintentional irony coming from an institution such as Rome and her overweaning claims and stained history!
We are also informed that 'Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.'- Again what cheek from an institution that elsewhere berates Protestantism for encoraging 'free thinking' and requires unthinking submission to the Roman and Papal Magisterium!
The point in hand however is that there is a blatant contradiction between the pronouncements of Leo and PiusX and these RC bishops! Are we to conclude error-or do we conclude but partial 'seper eadem'?!
The words of John Robbins are worth heeding:
'Of course it would be inaccurate to deny that the Roman Church-State has changed in the past century, but it would be irrelevant to assert it. The Church-State is always changing as circumstances change, yet always the same-semper eadem. Its tactics change; its strategy remains. The Roman Church-State itself forbids us to disagree with authoritative popes...'
Where does Roman Papal infallibility reside thus demanding of her followers complete unquestioning submission? That is a fascinating question for another post!

Simon Denis

I note Hadrian carefully washes his lily white hands of all those protestants who are beyond the control of mainstream evangelicals. It is, of course, because of initial protestant arrogance that this lack of control arose in the first place. It was visible from the very first days of the Reformation: diggers, ranters, shakers, quakers, adamists and adventists etcetera, etcetera.

As for the Church and the Church-state, they are clearly different things. All states are mutable.

Turning to the Church's changing stance on Darwin and Biblical criticism, two points. First, as Athanasius points out in earlier postings, the virtues essential to Christian unity are humility and obedience. Augustine of Hippo - a fount of inspiration to all Protestant "reformers" - recognised this in his campaign against the Donatists. Therefore, whether the Church turns out to be scientifically right or wrong is a secondary matter. The Church is at least capable of the necessary flexibility in this important area. Thus it is that she can accomodate most of the findings of the Enlightenment, whilst the protestants are left clinging to obscurantist "creationism". This makes their (and unfortunately by association) our religion look ridiculous. How, I wonder, do they distinguish themselves from reactionary Islam?

As for paedophil and abusive clergy, many Catholics have harried the hierarchy for failing to react to this issue with sufficient vigour and despatch. However, thanks to the unity of the Church, at least the proper mechanisms for dealing with it actually exist. In a protestant society, the guilty party just sets up his own religion.

Reading in America

You insult everyone, Mr. Dennis! Is it Christian to practice such bad manners? Is it Christian to be so crude or so careless in your arguments? You use little care in reading my questions.
Mr. Hadrian, on the other hand, is as polite as the best Americans; his arguments depend on logic and facts, also; they are not long diatribes of ad hominem attacks.
Shame on you!

William

'whilst the protestants are left clinging to obscurantist "creationism".'

No Creation means No Fall means No Redemption means No Christ means No Christianity.

So what do you actually believe, Mr Dennis?

Simon Denis

Those calling themselves the "best Americans" are notorious bores. I insult nobody. I merely present them to the world as they present themselves to me. And anyway, the paranoid lucubrations of these protestant contributors are innately insulting. They tell us on the one hand that the church is "all over the place" and on the other that it plots and plans throughout the ages for world power. They tell us that it is even behind the EU and the UN - as if these institutions are the Cosa Nostra or the KGB; as if they are the same! Is this not insulting? As applied to other ethnic or religious groups it might - in these PC days - even merit the attentions of the police. As for William's offering, it is breathtakingly fatuous. There's another insult for the pompous American bore. "Creationism" is not the belief that God created the Universe but that he did so in seven days, chiselling every primrose and assembling each of the ants. I quite happily declare that I most certainly do NOT believe such rubbish. God is more than capable of working over billions of years or of setting up a process which does it for Him. As I say, the protestants - with their misunderstanding of the Bible as a sort of superior Koran - are left hugging such rebarbative articles of faith with brittle, miserable zeal. And finally, they prove that the destruction of Catholicism, far from putting Britain on some undeviating path to science and democracy in fact constituted a RISK to both those institutions. This in turn illustrates the fact that historical determinism is nonsense. God does not set up the Universe with all its laws and all its challenges to conscious being merely to intervene every five minutes, as the hysterical heretics imagine. We find our way toward the timeless through time. That is the pilgrimage of being.

Athanasius

Hadrian, you are clearly intelligent and articulate, and have thought about your protestantism rather better than our friend Theo Hobson; however, you do seem to be rather confused about the nature of Church doctrine and infallibility.

For instance, you cited Athanasius and the Arian controversy in an earlier post. You might grant me that I probably know a little bit about this, since I chose Athanasius as my pseudonym! And I can assure you it does not affect the issue of papal infallibility - indeed, it reaffirms it. However, it would take too long to provide a full defence here - I merely suggest that you read up on it.

Since you were kind enough to suggest some reading material for me (I've come across two of those books by the way - the least said about Richard McBrien [sic] the better, he's something of a joke in Catholic circles for his 'dissent for its own sake' approach), may I suggest to you that you read the studies of John Henry Newman on the early Church, and perhaps his letter to the Duke of Norfolk too, if you haven't already.

William

'God is more than capable of working over billions of years'

I'm still none the wiser as to what you actually believe. Are you saying that God created a world where death and decay were present from the start and then called it 'very good' (as the Bible states)?

David Bouvier

Oh I love this thread. I am wondering if Simon Denis is the kind of Catholic who wishes he was a "Dan Brown" monk-assassin.

The absurd tendency to claim that the Roman church perhaps 'properly understood' is always right in all things even when it is wrong or inconsistent is quite brilliant.

It is the mark of the serious zealot throughout history. I thought today that it was only the nutty left who had people who had a complete re-interpretation of history to suite their present day political stance.

Sensible people I suggest are willing to accept that error, foolishness and conceit is pervasive amongst Popes, Kings and indeed coffee-housers. Simon's underlying belief in his sides perfection makes it impossible to take him or his apologetics too seriously.

Simon Denis

I don't believe I have been particularly zealous. Nor do I suggest that Rome is always right. I certainly don't assert that it has competence to judge of matters scientific. Nothing in any of my posts will be found to contradict these assertions. I do believe that the Church - not the Pope, note, but the Church - must be considered infallible in faith by anyone calling himself a Christian. I see the subtlety and unity of Rome as infinitely preferable to the raw, proud, cacophonous obscurities of the protestants. More importantly, I do not see the Church as the brake on progress that protestant and whig have declared it to be. I suggest that in such things as "creationism" and Biblical literalism, it is the protestants who stand in the way of Enlightenment. Finally, this demonstrates that the whig and later marxist view of history which proposes connections between distinct and remote historical developments (such as the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution) is nonsense. Worse nonsense arises from the smug evangelicals who claim to discern the workings of Providence in the horror and anguish - such as supplied by Henry VIII - which makes up so much of our history as a species.

Helena

Really, I think Dennis is using the strand as a sort of personal 'speculum.'

Unfortunately, he seems lost inside the looking-glass: more concerned with the effects of argument than with a search for Truth.

Simon Denis

And the greatest effect of argument is the discovery of truth. Helena has simply offered us the old platonic objection to the sophists: they deal in reasoning; we deal in reality. But Plato himself was the worst sort of sophist, for disinterested reason is the high road to reality. Those who offer alternatives are liars or fools. Religion itself makes efforts to convert through the use of logic. Does Helena endorse those other methods (terror, manipulation, blackmail) which used to be employed? No? Then why impugn argument? Either reply to it or keep silent, madam. Firing blanks at the messenger is contemptible.

Marian C

Well said Simon.

Helena

@ Dennis the Menace:

H thought: D is "...more concerned with the effects of argument than with a search for Truth."

D said 1 [D1]: "And the greatest effect of argument is the discovery of truth."
H replies: Sounds good. I'm glad the present discussion leads Dennis to recognize this. I believe D1 only holds, however, if the arguer a) seeks truths; b) is capable of recognizing truths when he finds them; c) is honest enough to admit that they are truths even if he doesn't like them.
I note Dennis ignores my structure: "more....than..."

A definition of ‘argument' inheres this statement, also. H regards argument as a process depending on analysis of facts, support of their validity, interpretation of the facts (also supported by respectable authorities) and finally the synthesis of a thesis statement built upon the analysis and interpretation.
How does Dennis define Argument?

D said 2: H uses...."the old platonic objection to the sophists: they deal in reasoning; we deal in reality."
H replies: Sounds good. Sweeping generalization though, D oversimplifies two schools of philosophy and provides no authority for the assertion. I think it illogical to suggest that Plato did not employ reality to structure his reasoning - especially in light of the Socratic (catechetical) method Plato usually applied. He did so in "The Cave," for example, where it seems to me that he encouraged the student to compare images and ‘real life' situations.

D said 3: "But Plato himself was the worst sort of sophist,"
H replies: Sounds good; but D3 assumes that D2 is true - and Dennis has not proved that it is.

D said 4: ..."for disinterested reason is the high road to reality."
H replies: Sounds good; I suspect that Plato would agree in part.... but I would question D's use of ‘disinterested.' If he refers to ‘objectivity' - then I subscribe to the view that humans cannot achieve that ideal - the presence of an observer changes any given situation, and the observer's interpretation of the situation depends on his experience and knowledge. "Reality" is another concept that is relative to the knowledge of the interpreter; and one might argue that Plato devoted the entire "Theaetetus" to consideration of ‘knowledge.'

In what ways can Mr. Dennis claim that his attacks on Henry VIII and English Protestants are ‘disinterested'?

D said 4: "Those who offer alternatives are liars or fools."
H replies: Sounds .... er... like sweeping dismissal of anybody who disagrees with Dennis. Also assumes that the issue is bipolar: black and white - no modulation here. Dennis knows the Right Way, the Truthful Way, and He alone can Enlighten the Way - ---
How relative is your perception of Truth, Dennis?.

D said 5: "Religion itself makes efforts to convert through the use of logic."
H replies: Sounds good. I see. I think...
How does Dennis define ‘Religion."
What examples can he provide of the process D5 describes?
Which religions does he include in his statement?

D said 6: "Does Helena endorse those other methods (terror, manipulation, blackmail) which used to be employed? No?"
H replies: Sounds ... Patronizing. Presumptuous. 'Helena needs to recognize that, at best, she's an ignoramus and an idiot who can no more think of other ways to proceed than Dennis can...'
Used to be?

D said 7: "Then why impugn argument?"
H replies: Sounds as if I do. I don't. I cannot respect argument for argument's sake - I equate it to art for art's sake.

D said 8: "Either reply to it or keep silent, madam."

H is too busy learning to stand to attention to reply, at first. Now that takes Obedience, and Humility...
Who authorized you to require my response in those ways, Dennis?

D said 9: "Firing blanks at the messenger is contemptible."

H replies: Sounds as if Dennis thinks he's a Messenger, an Angel. How Sophistic is that?

Replying to his gunfire only elicits more Ad Hominem/feminam argument, Helena didn't know that's what Angels did; silly, ignorant, stupid, English Protestant that she is!

Deo Gratias that the Tudors initiated our 500-year release from this sort of thing. Amen.

hadrian

No, Simon,
W do not believe the church, the mystical body of Christ, his elect saints, are 'infallible'! Far from it! That is why, dear sir, we Protestants do indeed exist in denominations- A) as discipline is exercised to exclude and suspend those who fall into sin and error B) to allow the mystical church to mature in her faith through toleration of 'secondary' matters. That is why the evangelists you so abhor are outwith the orthodox denominations who excercise due discipline. What these false prophets and miscreants do outwith those churches' control is a civil affair- freedom of speech and all that. Are you as a Romanist suggesting they all be suppressed by the civil authorities?!
As for Semper eadem, you cannot so simply slither out of Rome's blatant changes! Pope PiusX in the fullest authority of his encyclicals denounced evolution as the apex of modernism and his Biblical Commission specifically attacks it. There are Roman Catholics who are as a 'creationist' as any conservative evangelical Protestant, my friend. Look up Kolbecentre for starters. Rome HAS moved on this. Another glaring example is the issue of Papal Infallibility itself. For years prior to Vatican 1 this was scoffed at as Protestant scaremongering and denyed in R.C. catechisms etc. At Vatican 1 Bishop Strossmeyer has some exceedingly trenchant things to say against it. Again, no fair mnded outsider will credit there was not a fundamental change effected. Semper eadem, one thinks not!
As for your own suggestion that Rome operates some sort of ludicrous conspiracy ( and it WAS you who started that!) I think you'll find that the truth is infinitely subtler than the crude control mechanism you seem to want us to envisage. The fact is Rome operates on a particular mindset that the institutions you mention ( U.N. & E.U.) share. Rome may not control them as she'd like but has no fundamental objection to them and the humanistic concept behind them.
On the question of the extent and locus of Romanist Infallibility it would be easy to offer up lots of inconsistent RC opinionsbut it does seem to me from all the encyclicals, CTS material etc that she claims submission to the Pope just because of WHO he is rather than the man's persuasiveness by strength of argument as any Protestant churchman must seek to do. The Popes themselves seem very insustent on their perogative and right to expect submission of intellect and will to them as God's voice on earth. Would a 'modern' pope get away with the blatant self contradictions of, say, a Pope Liberius.
If I were a Roman Catholic I should certainly be very troubled by the blatant change of view of Holy Scripture as formally voiced by LeoXIII and PiusX on the one hand and modern bishiops in official conference. One lot extend inerrancy to each and every part of Holy Writ whlst the others, having imbibed hugher critical mindsets, deny this outright. What's going on here? Little wonder there are even RC 'Sedevacantists' on the go!!
Incidentally I can cite and quote lots of official RC material on Infallibility; it'd be a bit tedious but I'll do it if the necessity arises. Roman unanimity and unity are far more ephemeral than the gret hulking institution suggests.Whilst formal church order and polity is important Protestants recognise the essence of Church unity is SPIRITUAL and MYSTICAL and cannot be crudely bound up in one pretentious branch of the church.

hadrian

As for Providence, in the 'horror and anguish' I suggest you either believe God does work through catastrophes and cruelties of evil hardened men or you just don't believe in Providence at all- and certainly not the Bible's clear teaching on His providential use of evil men and evil acts. As Joseph says to his brothers:
'But as for you , ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good....'Genesis 50v50

Was the Roman Church without error in pursuing the horrible Inquisition?

Athanasius, No I have not read Newman's letter to Norfolk which I shall if I can find it online! His concept of the evolution of doctrinal understanding is not off course in as much as God does in fact sanctify the church at large through maturing and increasing understanding of Scripture and its application with the process of time and increase in Wisdom through the generations. No Protestant would disagree with that.We must also humbly admit past and present faults and misunderstanding of Holy Scripture. However what we cannot and will not do is set the church adrift from the control of Scripture. Apostolic Doctrine and all Revelation now reside complete in the written Word. Such doctrines as the immaculate conception of Mary and bodily assumption are quite independent of any fair reading of the Word so are rejected on that ground alone, never mind the other implications they carry against explicit Biblical teaching. Newman's 'kindly light' if it removes us from the lamp of SCRIPTURE is anything but 'kindly' I earnstly suggest.

hadrian

Again, Mr Denis

You scathingly dismiss any idea that God could create the many fantastic complex aspects of nature in a twinkling.
I am enormously puzzled how a self proclaimed orthodox RC could speak in such a manner.
The Lord attended a wedding at Cana if you recall. It is recorded for us that he changed water into wine. Now if He can in an instant create one substance that normally takes a long process of time from another I see no problem whatsoever in accepting God's creative power can work in entirely the same manner. In Psalm 33 we sing : He did speak the word and it was; He commanded and it stood fast.
You see the trouble with Rome now? She has compromised just as much with higher critical method as any of the apostate 'Protestant' groups you so detest. Rome's teaching unity is as exploded as you accuse Protestantism of being.
The miracle working God is also the instantly creating God. His Word witnesses to us of it and we take Him at His word. That is faith.

Roderick Blyth

Oh Theo, do come back and give us a new theme!

And perhaps Hadrian would like to start a blog of his own?

David Bouvier

Who can come up with a topic sillier than Theo's actual next post? The man is an open goal for pastiche.

Roderick Blyth

How about a celebration of John Milton as the unsung prophet of modern divorce legislation? Discuss.

hadrian

It's very nice to be suggested as a candidate for starting a 'Blog of One's Own' but I think I'm on here often enough as it is and anything further'd be positively unhealthy! Still, when classic Protestant, Reformed Apostolic Christianity needs a voice to defend it, however imperfectly, I do feel it a duty to speak up.

Roderick Blyth

O.K. Hadrian, off you go and answer me this!

What's the Classic Protestant Reformed Apostolic Christian ('CPRAC') view on divorce?

How does it conform with Mosaic and Gospel teaching?

And to what extent is current divorce legislation as enacted by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 conform to it?

Oh, and is it a particularly CPRAC thing, particularly when viewed from thr point of view of any children of the marriage?

Roderick Blyth

I'm sorry. That last bit got somewhat mauled in transmissiom.

What interests me is what CPRAC -or anyone else for that matter, thinks about divorce.

Issues such as abortion, the use of condoms, criminality among the clergy and so on seem to get a pretty comprehensive airing in the secular press, but no one talks a great deal about divorce which strikes me as a significant blight for which the liberals are largely responsible.

Are some of the more destructive fruits of modern divorce legislation sufficiently awful to in themselves justify the traditional christian teaching (under which divorce was initially forbidden, then made subject to annullment on limited grounds, then allowed but on severely restricted grounds), or is divorce to be justified on liberal, pragmatic and secular grounds.

I wanted to know whether any CPRAC view was one which Hadrian to be regarded as of general application, or whether its application was limited to right thinking people like himself.

hadrian

Roderick,
I'm no expert on current divorce laws.
As for the Reformed View I think it is to be understood in the light of Covenant and the right of protection for the innocent and injured party.A broken covenant ( through adultery or desertion, for instance) will release the victim if they so desire it.

A fuller explication can be found in
John Murray's Divorce
or
Ray Sutton's Second Chance

David Bouvier

Hadrian - just take care to never describe yourself as a "Classic Reformed Apostolic Protestant" Christian. :-)

Roderick Blyth

Well, Hadrian, that's a bit disappointing for any of us who had imagined that CPRAC might involve more than tribal chauvinism.

hadrian

Sorry to disappoint you, Rodders, but just where does 'tribal chauvinism' come into this all of a sudden? I can see no logical connection.
If you're referring to Henry's marriages and divorces, then as a Presbyterian I should have no hesitation in calling him an arch hypocrite and adulterer!
The classic Protestant view of marriage is that expressed in Scripture- believers should enter into covenant marriage bond only with a fellow believer; however if married to an unbeliever they must remain in that union unless the partner deserts or commits adultery/'uncleaness'. Marriage is not a sacrament but a creation ordinance.

Roderick Blyth

That's much more like it, Hadrian!

Now, what are the passages of scripture on which you and CPRACs rely?

Henry's marriages to Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Anne of Cleves were actually anulled, not terminated by divorce, and in each case, the polygamous monarch was able to quote scripture in support.

Furthermore, you would no doubt argue that the Pope's refusal to grant an annullment of the spanish marriage owed entirely to the pontiff's local difficulties, and that Henry was justified in taking the matter into his own hands.

Furthermore, if the charges of adultery against Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were true, then it seems that, by CPRAC logic Henry would in both cases, have been the injured party and entitled to divorce.

You might also consider that, as King, he was perfectly entitled to have off the ladies' heads for treason as well.

hadrian

My point about Henry is that he himself was commiting adultery with impugnity. His wronged wives had every right to demand their freedom from such a covenant breaker but for obvious reasons couldn't!
The scriptural locus for divorce is found in
various O.T. passages to numerous to enter into here but where the Covenantal bond and dissolution due to some form of capital offence or 'uncleaness' are the controling elements.
In the N.T. we find it in Matthew5v32 & 19v9 Also in 1Corithians7v8-24.
The term in the Matthew passages is traitionally translated as 'adultery' but the Greek word is actually 'porneia' and has wider reference than 'adultery'.
Divorce in itself is a necessity to protect the rights of the victim in a regretable situation. God himself issued 'bills of divorcement' against His chosen when they broke covenant-cfIsaiah 50v1 and Jeremiah 8v1-10
Like all legislation the Biblical data are very complex but can be worked through and established. I again direct your attention to the two books refered to above.

Roderick Blyth

Yes - what interests me is Jesus' statement first of the ideal, which is monogamy (Matt.19.4-7), and then his qualified recognition of the legality of divorce (Matt.19.8 - 'because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so'.)

So the ideal, as you would expect given the general tenor of the Saviour's teaching, is forgiveness and accommodation, with divorce limited to such cases where forgiveness and accommodation is rejected by the party who has done the wrong, thereby demonstrating 'hardness of heart'.

This was the universal view of the early fathers (who had a low opinion of marriage generally), but it is a view that seems to bear no relation at all to divorce as endorsed by law and practice in the liberal order that Theo Hobson finds so laudable.

David Bouvier

Oh, I had always understood that the ideal was celibacy, and it is only the unforgivable tardiness of the 2nd coming that has led Christians to both breeding at all...

As ever, religions adapt their stories to reality, while insisting it is the unchanging revealed word of some god.

hadrian

Well, David, you thought wrong.
Scripture clearly teaches 'Marriage is honourable in all and the bed undefiled but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.'
The cultural mandate also clearly enjoins marriage- 'be fruitful and multiply.'
Marriage is first and foremost the God given companionship of man and wife to undertake their part in the call to dominion.
Dedication to celibacy is severely restricted to a few who genuinely have a capacity for chastity.

TBF

I've suggested to Peter Hoskin that Archbishop Cranmer should be invited to take over this part of the Coffee House blog. He's a sound Tory and a sounder Anglican. Theo just gives us one post a month of theological drivel.

If His Grace isn't interested, then I second Hadrian's nomination. Anyone to rid us of Theo's intermittent banal waffle.

Helena

Re TGF: I Second and Third your suggestions, respectively!!!

Helena

Sorry - I meant TBF. It's all this scrolling up and down...

David Bouvier

hadrian

Sorry but my knowledge of biblical exegesis is quite limited. Can you tell me where that verse is and which book; and what is understood about the date it was written and the editorial process it went through.

I know there has been some recent challenge to the idea that celibate Christian Essenes were key early Christians,but I had always understood the Pauline view was precisely that celibacy was preferred though marriage was better non-marriage if celibacy wasn't achievable - with the imminent 2nd coming being his reason for his lack of concern over reproduction.

Of course, 2000 years later consistent mass celibacy would not persist in a community, so we you have to expect either (a) extinction or (b) doctrine to have changed to accommodate reality.

Henry Lawson

He was a serial killer by contemporary standards so you can forget all these other half baked accolades.

hadrian

The portion is from the Epistle to the Hebrews, marked Chapter13 Verse 4.
As for your assumptions of merely human origin of Holy Scripture, if you do not have faith you will not believe- even, as Christ warned, though one should rise from the dead.
The human element of Scripture is real enough but as the Scripture itself tesifies: 'Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' ( That's in Peter's Second Epistle General, at Chap1v21)
Also the idea that the Second Advent was viewed by the apostolic Church imminent runs quite counter to the tenor of the New Testament teaching: consider, Christ commissioned the disciples to go into all the world, teaching all nations; in Revelation the anticipation is that the universal church would consist of those called out from every tribe, nation, people and tongue; Christ also explicitly warned the early church that any future gazing and timetables were illicit- only the Father knew the time set for the Latter Day.
Paul did not proceed on any different assumption: he was future orientated as his epistles and preaching/teaching in Acts amply demonstrate.
His view of marriage seemed perfectly sane, it was ordained for most people, though some if gifted with the gitf of sexual continence could devote themselves more particularly to the extension of the Kingdom outwith family; his approach was quite sensible and balanced, lacking in the false asceticism of Platonic/gnostic/ material hating ideologies and sects.

David Bouvier

hadrian

Thankyou for that - I will have to do some reading and research. It is interesting to talk to someone who both takes their faith seriously and is willing to talk about without instantly retreating into subjective mysticism. (which I guess puts me in the dump Theo, elect Hadrian camp)

Given that the boundary betweeen the apocrypha and the bible has been porous and subject to political decision-making processes, it seems impossible to reconcile a guiding hand of god creating scripture with the revealed content varying over time - unless you except that it may well be in error now - or at the very least may need to change in the future.

And the political editorial process seems like a more credible explanation of the mass of contradictions and historical oddities that litter the bible than some single guiding hand.

Let alone the idea that its meaning can exist independent of cultural context, which makes the bible mean something different now than it did in other times and places.

hadrian

David,
You seem to assume you have the right as a creature to stand over God's Word, question it and judge it. That is the root of spiritual rebellion-'Hath God Said?' as Satan puts it.
The Apocrypha became recognised as part of Holy Scripture by the Roman Church; it was ever accepted by the Jewish O.T. church as canon.
As for the 'mass of contradictions' etc., that is the thought of the sceptic not of the faithful.
The meaning of Scripture remains very clear, Truth unchanged, unchanging, as classic Protestants put it.That's why it stirs up such hostility, why Christ was hated.
His fundamental message is such an insult to autonomous man- you are a fallen rebel by nature and need spiritual rebirth in faith and repentence to escape the judicial sentence that is eternal death. Christ alone can save, having suffered the just for the unjust to bring His people to God.

John

Why must commentators continue to find excuses for the old monster? Terrible fellow, but it all worked out for the best?

No, no, no.

Revisionist historians have demonstrated that Catholic England was alive and well. Would it not have developed?

Must we really try to reconcile ourselves with the propoganda with which we grew up? Why not admit it was all a ghastly mistake?