Thomas Cranmer

Once a month I teach my Sunday School class about the Reformation. We focus each month on one of the men who was involved, and they really enjoy these lessons. It's a combination of history and theology, and along the way they're learning to recognize and refute false doctrine. As an added bonus, they all know the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr.

This week we were up to Thomas Cranmer. I chose him because he is important from a historical point of view and he allowed me to give them a bit of English history as well: moving from Henry VIII to Edward VI to Bloody Mary, so they understand what was happening that affected the Reformation and the movement of Protestantism. This will come in next month as well. They might have been a bit confused about Henry's wives...but so is everyone!

Cranmer, though, is complicated. All the other reformers were more straight forward, even when we disagreed with some of what they taught. They generally had some sort of conversion experience, started preaching and writing against the Roman Catholic Church, and held tight to their convictions even when facing death (and some of them were put to death for their beliefs).

Cranmer....Well, he helped Henry VIII get his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and he broke his promise to the king when he tried to get Lady Jane Grey on the throne instead of Mary (Cranmer having promised to uphold Henry's daughters' rights to the throne...but Mary was a rabid Catholic and Jane was a Protestant). He had reasons for what he did, but it still doesn't make things like divorce and breaking promises right.

On the other hand, he was very influential in getting Protestantism into England. He convinced the king to allow English Bibles into the churches, he had prayers translated from Latin to English, and he put the king above the pope (and eventually the pope was not part of the Church of England).

Like I said: Cranmer was complicated. It gets worse, though. When Mary took the throne she had Cranmer arrested, partly for treason (Lady Jane Grey), partly because he was Protestant (the deal under Mary was Catholic or death) and partly because she hated him (Catherine of Aragon was her mother). The Roman Catholic authorities did whatever they could to get him to recant on the basis that he was a very important man in Protestantism and his recantation would hurt the entire movement.

Much to the delight of his enemies (and the surprise and dismay of my class) Cranmer recanted; in fact, he signed several recantations. Fear won.

And then Mary was determined to have him put to death anyway. The church authorities decided to make him read his recantation in front of everyone before his execution. They brought him to St. Mary's Cathedral and introduced him with a sermon denouncing his beliefs as heretical. Then Cranmer stood up...and recanted his recantation. He repented, he insisted that everything he has signed was a lie, he said that his right hand would burn first, and he said that the pope was the enemy of Christ. Then they led him out (very quickly) to be burned. He held his right hand out to the fire to burn first and so he died.

Cranmer is not a straight-up, easy to understand hero. He was about as messed up as the rest of us, he let himself be swayed by fear more than once, and he will forever be known for his biggest failure. Still, I find comfort in learning about Cranmer, because he reminds me of myself more than the other reformers. And in the end...God won.