Posted on 05/25/2014 10:52:33 AM PDT by Not gonna take it anymore
. . . . For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church, and up and down the country Tudor people preferred plain-speaking, rational men like Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin. Henry VIII achieved what all sane English and Welsh people had long desired – an excuse to break away from an anachronistic subjugation to the ridiculous medieval strictures of the Church.
, . . But the last 30 years have seen a revolution in Reformation research. Leading scholars have started looking behind the pronouncements of the religious revolution’s leaders – Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley – and beyond the parliamentary pronouncements and the great sermons. Instead, they have begun focusing on the records left by ordinary English people. This “bottom up” approach to history has undoubtedly been the most exciting development in historical research in the last 50 years. It has taken us away from what the rulers want us to know, and steered us closer towards what actually happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
This man is sooo full of himself he can hardly stand it.
Note that this guy has strong ties to Dubai and other middle eastern nations. Most of what he writes is not ‘new’ nor particularly insightful. More of what he writes is absolute nonsense
For decades now historians - Catholic, Protestant and those of no particular belief - have admitted that the story of the Protestant Reformation in England is little more than a constructed fraud.
Eamon Duffy showed that to be the case, conclusively, many years ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Stripping-Altars-Traditional-1400-1580/dp/0300108281
Spain got wealthy (for a while) off the back of having a huge Empire filled with bountious raw resources, especially silver.
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There was a really interesting story about that published on free republic about a year ago. The spanish galleons returning returning to spain after 1562 or so returned loaded with silver pieces of eight minted in the new world. This silver didn’t come from the Aztecs of the Incas but rather from some giant mines in Mexico and Peru. What’s more the silver from these mines had been inaccessable until about 1562—because the silver was locked in formations unfamiliar to european miners at the time. Somebody figured out how to extract the silver and and they drowned Spain in silver for two centuries. Spain spread the silver around to all of europe and the new world. The reason for the great tulip speculative bubble of the early 1600’s was that there was too much spanish silver mined in the new world— floating around. Up until at least 1750 the spanish pieces of eight were recognized currency in the american colonies.
I’m sure someone named Eamon Duffy would have no axe to grind.
“Yeah I’ve seen catholics on other forums make this charge. While a satisfying charge to make—it doesn’t properly connect cause and effect.”
Ultimately it does. It’s just very difficult to document such cause and effect because you’re talking about ideological movements rather than simple events.
“Until that Armada thing.”
Even after the “Armada thing” Spain was “the largest, richest and most powerful country in the world.”
Had to say it.
“Their marriage was probably “cursed” with an STD that Katherine picked up from the philandering Henry.”
There is certainly reason to believe that.
You could draw a parallel with the French Revolution (or with England's Cromwellian Revolution). Arguably, because these countries cut off their king's head in the 18th (or 17th century) they did go through the ordeals that countries like Spain or Germany or Russia or China or Japan would go through in the 20th century.
That doesn't mean that everything that happened in those earlier revolutions (or the Reformation) was right, or that the myths people have told themselves since are true. It may not mean that such processes were worthwhile. But some rebellion, some unruly behavior earlier, can spare you greater upheavals later, and may even prepare the ground for a modern constitutional democratic political order.
and why was Spain the ‘largest, richest’ country at that time? could it have more to do with the confiscation of the amassed wealth of their Moors and Jews, or more to do with internal industriousness?
“Lust and Greed caused the English to start the Church of England. “
perhaps....and the desire to not be overrun by Spain whom Rome favored so that it could maintain it’s geopolitical holdings.
In that day, one could not separate Rome, the political center of the world, and Rome the religious seat of Christianity.
The corruption of politics also corrupted the religion.
Ultimately the COE replicated the religious part, but made the political part Anglocentric. To this day many COE-derived religious ceremonies are very similar to Catholic ceremonies. Not so for most other Protestant sects.
Imagine the present cesspool in Washington in charge of our religious beliefs?
No, Henry did what was best for England at the time. Part of that meant that Rome had to lose control of religion in England.
What I meant to say.
Writing is hard.
bump for later.
By contrast—Jewish/Christian theology begins with the premise that God is the measure of all things.
The shorthand here is that that philsophy is man centered bottoms up reasoning whereas theology is God Centered top down reasoning. Confuse the two and there’s hell to pay.
You conveniently leave out Jesus and, in particular, the generally agreed on theology that He is both God and man. If you take Jesus as your man-measure you are also taking God as your measure — or do you disagree with Jesus's assertion of he who has seen me has seen the Father
? (John 14:9)
LOL!
This is, ultimately, the effect of the 501(C)(3 ) tax-exemption — say something out of line
and the state can [monetarily] punish the Church.
“You seem from here, and other threads I have seen you on, to have a real visceral hate for Protestants.”
Not at all. Protestantism is sectarian filth. I have no “visceral hate for Protestants”. They are merely dupes. Some Protestants - the anti-Catholic kind - are apt to lie.
“I assume you live in the US, a country whose ideals are strictly routed in the Protestant world.”
Some of which are merely part of the Catholic patrimony.
“It must tear at your soul to walk the very earth that became the greatest nation on Earth, founded by our Protestant Founding Fathers, who were born from the bosom of the Protestant Anglosphere.”
No, since my King is Christ Who founded my Church - the Catholic Church - I can put up with just about anything.
“I assume you prefer to live under a Absolutist Catholic monarch in the order of a Bourbon or Habsburg than the Constitutional Republic created by Madison,Washington, Jefferson, etc, Protestansts all.”
No, since “Absolutist Catholic monarch” is largely an oxymoronic term. Catholic political theory really doesn’t make any room for absolutist monarchs in the political realm. That may come as a surprise to you, but if you look at the Catholic world of the Middle Ages you see no absolute monarchs in Western Christendom. Real absolutist monarchs came with the modern era and a fair number of them were Protestants.
“You strike me as someone who is anti-American to his core, in the same way the corrupt absolutist monarchs of early 19th Century Europe despised the United States.”
You mean like George III? Of wait, he was neither an absolutist nor a Catholic - but he hated the United States. Yet Louis XVI - an absolutist and a Catholic - loved the United States.
“If you despise the Protestant world so much, I suggest you move south of the Rio Grande and find solace with those more like minded.”
No, I’ll just continue to make the U.S. less Protestant and more orthodox Christian just like Christ would want.
“and why was Spain the ‘largest, richest’ country at that time?”
1) The Spanish were driven like other peoples of Catholic Western Europe to achieve.
2) Overseas conquest.
3) Massive trade around the world: spices, luxury goods, eventually slaves, silver.
“could it have more to do with the confiscation of the amassed wealth of their Moors and Jews, or more to do with internal industriousness?”
It had little to do with the confiscation of wealth of Moors or Jews. That wealth didn’t go very far. After the conquest of Granada (from the Moors), Spain had money to fund a little known sea captain named Columbus, however.
“perhaps....and the desire to not be overrun by Spain whom Rome favored so that it could maintain it’s geopolitical holdings.”
Do you know anything about history? Catherine of Aragon was from Spain. First she was married to Henry’s older brother, then Henry. England had an alliance during the reign of Henry VII and VIII - until the divorce. England had NOTHING to fear from Spain UNTIL it joined the Protestant Revolution and made common cause with Spain’s enemies in Holland.
You conveniently leave out Jesus and, in particular, the generally agreed on theology that He is both God and man.
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I believe that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
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If you take Jesus as your man-measure you are also taking God as your measure
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I’ve seen this come up in many contexts. You want to resolve something here that doesn’t really resolve. Its a pardox of christianity. How can Jesus be both fully man and fully God. Indeed how can he have such distinct natures that they are unknown to each other or even work distinctly from each other.
Answer: Sheesh beets the living poop out of me. But if you try to make Jesus just a man as the Arians do or only God as the gnostics then you get something very different.
This really goes to the question is : Is God sovereign or does man have free will. Both are true but there is tension between them. Try to resolve it either way and there is hell to pay.
It is safe to say there is tension in the assertion that Jesus is fully God and fully man.
It may well be that that tension is the dynamic heart of Christianity.
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