Architect of Anglicanism

Sachs, William L. "Architect of Anglicanism." Christian Century 113.36 (1996): 1231. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.

Thomas Cranmer: A Life.
By Diarmaid MacCulloch. Yale
University Press, 692 pp., $35.00.

What purpose can a new, lengthy biography of Thomas Cranmer serve? The question is justifiable. The facts of Cranmer's career and the course of the English Reformation are well known. It is clear that Henry VIII's desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon galvanized gradually building reform sentiments. As archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer eventually became the principal architect of religious reform, proceeding cautiously under Henry, then emerging to prominence under Edward VI.

Cranmer has been justly celebrated as the compiler of the Book of Common Prayer and as a patron of continental reformers who came to England. Though his life was snuffed out when Mary became queen and briefly reinstated Catholicism, the reforms for which he labored were secured by the accession of Elizabeth I. The form of the Elizabethan church and of later Anglicanism clearly reflects Cranmer's influence.

But beyond such a broad understanding, Cranmer's emergence and the exact nature of his role in the English Reformation have not been thoroughly delineated. Historians have cited Cranmer's reticence and deference, his careful scholarship and growing associations with reform. But they have not explored how such a man entered the swirl of English political and religious currents and began to give them direction. Nor have they traced how his religious convictions took shape or how politics influenced his religious intentions. This work ably fills the void. Diarmaid MacCulloch, an Oxford church historian who has worked extensively in the Tudor period, does not revise basic conclusions about Cranmer, but by thoroughly marshaling the sources, he does provide a greatly enhanced picture of this complex figure. Cranmer emerges as a distinctive reformer, one who first crafted the kind of religious and political balance that has been characteristic of Anglicanism.

A Cambridge don, Cranmer gained royal favor through his competent service on diplomatic missions to Spain and Italy. Guided by Thomas Cromwell's commitment to reform, the court sought learned and loyal advisers. Cranmer's gifts ideally suited this role. Meanwhile, as MacCulloch shows, his vision of religious reform emerged steadily.

Initially Cranmer's attraction to reform stemmed from his suspicion of papal power, admiration of ancient conciliarism and loyalty to the throne. Cranmer shared Henry's suspicion of Lutherans but instinctively set himself against such conservatives as Stephen Gardiner, who intended to keep England Roman Catholic. Cranmer's allegiance to the Reformation grew beyond his contribution to the argument for Henry's divorce and for the Act of Supremacy, which substituted royal for papal prerogative.

The key, MacCulloch suggests, was his evolving eucharistic theology, influenced by Martin Bucer and the Strassburg church. After staving off conservative challenges to his position following Henry's death, Cranmer set out to reform the English church. Had Mary's accession to the throne not led to his death and England's momentary return to papal allegiance, Cranmer might have led the church in more of a reformed direction than it finally took.

This biography addresses two basic issues which until now have not been very clear. First, MacCulloch skillfully traces and keeps distinct the religious and political issues with which Cranmer contended. In so doing he shows Cranmer to have been a premodern figure in his concept of royal supremacy, and a modern one in his theological views. The mature Cranmer, he observes, was a thorough predestinarian. But Cranmer focused his creativity on the church's worship as the key to its nature. Here the narrative presents Cranmer's achievement in its full scope.

Second, MacCulloch shows Cranmer as a religious leader wrestling with how to achieve his vision under a particular set of circumstances. He understood when and how to press his ideas, even on Henry, and when to remain silent. He developed a particular approach to reform which became characteristically English. MacCulloch's ability to depict both the man and his times with such clarity and dynamism marks this as a work of rare quality.

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Reviewed by William L. Sachs, rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Wilton, Connecticut.