http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Dr-Diarmaid-MacCulloch/dp/0300074484/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1289088305&sr=8-5#_
The history of the Reformation in England could be seen as the extended story of the willful squabbling of the Tudor family. In a simplistic retelling we have Henry VIII leading his nation out of the Catholic Church to obtain a divorce; his son, Edward VI, piously carrying the Reformation even further; Mary, Henry's daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, determined to return the island kingdom to the faith of Rome; and finally Elizabeth, Henry's second daughter by the second of his six wives, restoring a sort of stability after this period of confusion.
This simplistic story leaves out many of the more interesting and influential figures of the Tudor age, among them Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and chief architect of the Church of England. Long remembered mainly as a martyr to the Protestant cause, Cranmer was a towering figure of his time. He was largely responsible for the strategy which finally won Henry his divorce from Catherine and it was under his guidance that the English church began to find a middle way between the extremes of the continental Protestant Reformation and the reaction of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. His story is an important one and Diarmaid MacCulloch tells it well.
As MacCulloch notes in his extensive biography, among Cranmer's most lasting contributions were his words. A master of English prose, Cranmer's BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (1549) helped shape the development of literary style in English, just as his knowledge of theology and abiding faith helped determine the course of English religious life. Today, those of other denominations, even other faiths, still feel the influence of this English cleric of centuries past.
Rick Hunter offers a "street review" at http://www.amazon.com/ wherein he observes some important--at points wrong--matters.
The history of the Reformation in England could be seen as the extended story of the willful squabbling of the Tudor family. In a simplistic retelling we have Henry VIII leading his nation out of the Catholic Church to obtain a divorce; his son, Edward VI, piously carrying the Reformation even further; Mary, Henry's daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, determined to return the island kingdom to the faith of Rome; and finally Elizabeth, Henry's second daughter by the second of his six wives, restoring a sort of stability after this period of confusion.
This simplistic story leaves out many of the more interesting and influential figures of the Tudor age, among them Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and chief architect of the Church of England. Long remembered mainly as a martyr to the Protestant cause, Cranmer was a towering figure of his time. He was largely responsible for the strategy which finally won Henry his divorce from Catherine and it was under his guidance that the English church began to find a middle way between the extremes of the continental Protestant Reformation and the reaction of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. His story is an important one and Diarmaid MacCulloch tells it well.
As MacCulloch notes in his extensive biography, among Cranmer's most lasting contributions were his words. A master of English prose, Cranmer's BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (1549) helped shape the development of literary style in English, just as his knowledge of theology and abiding faith helped determine the course of English religious life. Today, those of other denominations, even other faiths, still feel the influence of this English cleric of centuries past.
Rick Hunter offers a "street review" at http://www.amazon.com/ wherein he observes some important--at points wrong--matters.
http://www.amazon.com/review/RV8BAP20NAUOZ/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RV8BAP20NAUOZ
Traditionally, one is to give something up or take something on as a Lenten discipline. I did the latter, albeit inadvertently. Around Ash Wednesday of 1998, I began Darmaid MacCulloch's magisterial biography of Thomas Cranmer (Yale University Press 1996). I finished this magnificent tome on Holy Saturday. As the time passed, I came to realize that this Lent was for me a time to study a key figure in the Church and compare his often--to modern Episcopalians-- unorthodox theology against what I have come to believe.
Thomas Cranmer is a pillar of Episcopal history (and hagiography). One literally cannot participate in a Sunday service without reciting or hearing his words. In 1549, he compiled the first Book of Common Prayer. Many of the collects we say are either his original compositions or alterations upon existing texts. MacCulloch says of the Collects:
"There is little doubt we owe him [Cranmer] the present form of the sequence of eighty-four seasonal collects and a dozen or so further examples embedded elsewhere in the 1549 services: no doubt either that these jewelled miniatures are one of the chief glories of the Anglican liturgical tradition, a particularly distinguished development of the genre of brief prayer which is peculiar to the Western Church. Their concise expression has not always won unqualified praise, especially from those who consider that God enjoys extended addresses from his creatures; but they have proved one of the most enduring vehicles of worship in the Anglican communion."
To me, today, the Collects focus and gather the scripture for each service.
Cranmer's beliefs were distinct, certain, and in some respects quite different from what I had thought. He was a strong predestinarian, and for this reason felt that "good works" had no effect upon where a soul went after death. He viewed the Pope as the Antichrist, and profoundly believed that the Ruler of England was the Head of the Church. (This led to his profound spiritual disorientation and crisis when the Catholic Mary succeed Edward VI; suddenly the person whom he viewed as Head of the Church was allied with evil personified).
Cranmer was decidedly "low church" in his beliefs and liturgy. The Eucharist, for him, was purely a memorial, and the bread and wine were not the true Christ. In his view, Christ was sacrificed once only at Golgotha; to say that each Eucharist was a new sacrifice was for him anathema. (A vestige of Cranmer's clear belief survives in the language of the Rite One Eucharist--"one oblation of himself once offered.") During his time, he had rood screens and images removed from churches, removed many saints' and holy days from the Church calendar, moved altars away from the church wall and toward the worshipers (this, at least, agrees with our modern theology), and changed the language of worship to English.
What made the Cranmer biography a Lenten discipline, and not just leisure reading, was for me to see again how literally every rite, word and image in our service comes from serious theological reflection and humankind's continuing effort, sometimes stumblingly, to find and reflect God's will in worship. I do not agree with Cranmer's view on predestination, although I certainly understand the sincerity with which it was held, and the struggles which brought him there. I have always found the Eucharistic language "one oblation of himself once offered" terribly stilted and prosaic; I now understand that Cranmer and subsequent Prayer Book compilers said exactly what they meant to say. (One of the great gifts of the "big tent" of Episcopalianism is that all of us --both those who view the Eucharist as memorial only and those who see the true body and blood transformed--may worship at the same table). While and since reading this fine biography, I find myself approaching almost everything we say and do in worship in a different, more reflective, posture. Next year for Lent I perhaps will give up chocolate. (I have tried this in other years, never making it as far as Refreshment Sunday.) Reflective Christians, however, who do not mind serious scholarship (this is not light reading) conveyed through lively prose could do worse than to take up this life and biography of Archbishop Cranmer.
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