Controversial statements were nailed to the Cathedral door.
Except you probably haven’t heard about these. The Cathedral is St Paul’s in London, but not the one you see today. This is the Cathedral that stood on that site in 1395. The statements were Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards and they were nailed to the doors of St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. That was how they did things then. Like Twitter but with the chance of actually being burned.
Who are the ‘Lollards’? The word ‘Lollard’ is fun to say. Harder to describe. Some would call them early reformers, proto-Protestants, and followers of John Wycliffe. Looking back you could see why they wanted reform.
In 1395, the Bible was in Latin and you weren’t allowed to see it. By edict of the Church and Parliament. Reading the Bible was the priest’s job. But books were expensive because there were no printing presses. So the odds are the priest was pretty hazy about most of the Bible and relied on the illustrations and Christian iconography in the church buildings.
Priest? Yes, he was a priest. A celibate man (who might have a female, ahem, ‘housekeeper’) who acted as an intermediary between you, depraved sinner, and God. If you were lucky and stood near enough (Church was done standing up), you got to hear Mass said in Latin and maybe catch a glimpse of the Host through the incense. You would get bread. But no wine. Not you. No.
Iconography
On the way out of Church, a statue of a saint might remind you to pray. To that saint. Or the saint of the latest feast day. Your one ‘big trip’ in life, where you actually left your village, would be a pilgrimage. You would take money with you and hand it over at the shrine built around the saint’s collarbone or left shin. (For a funny song about this, have a look here). Having paid and prayed, you received an indulgence. This might mean decades off your time in purgatory. You’re a sinner, remember? You can’t just go to be with Christ. Your sins need to be purged because Christ’s death on the cross was not a full atonement.
Martin Luther famously took issue with this and hammered his own list of statements to a cathedral door. (For another video from A Monk’s Tale, see here.)
The Lollards, over a hundred years earlier, were also dissidents, unhappy with the status quo. So you’d think they were the cause of the Reformation in England. Historians of the past have often shown it that way – especially during the centuries when Catholicism wasn’t just associated with teachings about the Mass and Saints, but treachery. In 1605, Guy Fawkes was within a whisker of literally vaporizing Calvinist(ish) King James I and dozens of Lords and Members of Parliament. That Catholic stigma lasted centuries.
But today, there’s still a tendency among Christians to show that reform of the Roman Catholic practices of prayers for the dead, veneration of the saints, the cult of the Virgin and the Mass was ‘what the people wanted’. That any Calvinists should argue this is ironic. If we truly believe we are dead in our transgressions and sins, and support the view we do not earn our salvation, why should we want to support the view that we somehow earned a Reformation? This isn’t really how God works.
The Temple Yard Sale
Look at King Josiah. God chose to use a child king to demonstrate that reform is his work not ours. The story is an exhilarating read. The Law was rediscovered and read to the people (2 Kings 22) but Josiah hadn’t been looking for it. It just turned up. Maybe Hilkiah the High Priest was going to have a clear-out or a Temple yard sale. But there it was. The Law. King Josiah heard it and tore his robes, and then went around smashing idols, pulling down high places and desecrating temples. It was an impressive, urgent and necessary reformation.
And King Josiah lived a long and happy life, reigning until he died, like Moses, at the age of 120.
Nope.
2 Kings 23:26 says this: “Still the Lord did not turn from the burning of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.”
Ouch. So then what? Here’s what:
“Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him, and Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo, as soon as he saw him.” (2 Kings 23:29)
Josiah was killed in battle. It wasn’t exactly cinematic. But wait. Maybe there’s more. Josiah’s legacy lived on and Judah served the Lord with gladness and lived happily ever after?
Nope.
Josiah’s successors ‘did what was evil in the sight of the Lord’. (2 Kings 23:32, 37; 24:9) and Jerusalem was destroyed.
Back the Reformation
Biblical history is no way near as neat as we’d like it to be. Nor is ecclesiastical history. The story of the Reformation does not quite give us classic plucky underdogs that you get in movies where a small rag-tag group of oddballs and outsiders take on the establishment and win.
God uses King Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce, let’s not forget, from a devoted and faithful wife to bring about a break with Rome. But even this is not really a Reformation. It’s just change in the chain of command. It’s a reshuffle.
History shows there were just enough evangelicals in exactly the right places for the right length of time – and the sufficient number of others who were happy to do what they were told – that some kind of reform was credible. This is surely God’s grace.
This minor reformation went into abeyance for a few years at the end of Henry VIII’s reign who, frankly, was no Protestant. He was a proud, vain, mean man who liked being in charge – which is precisely the kind of person you don’t want in charge. But we’d had just enough Reformation for things to get going under Edward VI, where Cranmer could bring out an English Book of Common Prayer that expressed a Reformed Christian doctrine.
And Archbishop Cranmer lived happily ever after?
Nope.
Edward VI died at the age of 16. Like Josiah Mary became queen and Archbishop Cranmer, having been forced to watch two dear friends burn for their heresy, was then burned himself.
But God used those moments to show that maybe the newer Reformed faith wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, it was that Reformed faith that was reluctant to burn or execute anyone. In her forty-five year reign, Elizabeth the First executed slightly fewer heretics or ‘Catholic traitors’ than Mary managed in her five years.
By 1603, somehow, England was a Protestant country.
The nature of that Protestantism was to be sorely tested in the 17th Century. I would argue that the English Civil War was a religious one. The history books say otherwise, but that’s because those history books are by people who can’t imagine anyone being prepared to die for their faith. But that’s just not how things were. Anyway, that’s a story for another time.
Doxology
For now, we can praise God with the words of the apostle Paul, who also was not asking to be saved:
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:4-9)
If you’re interested in a funny explanation of the Reformation, why not get a copy of A Monk’s Tale on Audio CD?
Pardon?
It’s always seemed curious to me that America of all places allows the President to pardon people found guilty of federal crimes. Is the president some kind of monarch and final arbiter of the law? How can that be?
One wonders what comedians will do now Trump has left office. James Corden did an interesting musical number on that. There are still jokes to be made about another curiosity that ex-Presidents get: the Presidential Library. I’m not clear what those jokes will be in Trump’s case? Trump? A library? There’s probably a joke there, but nothing’s leaping to mind. This is why I’ve never made a career out of writing topical jokes. Mine are much more situational.
Writing topical jokes takes real discipline. I was never very good at it, although I had a good go in my early days when I was trying to break in. The fact is that you rarely feel like writing, or even feel like you have time to write. Even if you’re a full time writer.
You certainly never feel like writing for long enough to write anything good. It’s a habit. If you want to know more about cultivating good habits, have a look at my YouTube video on the subject. Or have at look my sitcom blog.
Thanks for reading all this way, if you have. I really appreciate your time. If you can bear to pass this on to someone else who might be interested, I’d be more grateful.
Thanks for this, James. I grew up in Amersham, Bucks, and there's a monument to the local Lollards on the top of the hill, not far from the Tube station, which I've walked to a number of times. It's sobering to read the inscription on the memorial stone: http://www.amersham.org.uk/martyrsmemorial/ ("his children were compelled to light their father's pyre". It sends shudders through me whenever I read it).
Co-incidentally, my first born is called Josiah, after King Josiah. Yes, King Josiah was a bit silly; he was even warned not to go to Megiddo (which is where our word from Armageddon comes from; it's a flat plain with a hill fort, I visited it once).