Thank Henry VIII for laying those foundations of freedom

Telegraph ^ | 22 Apr 2009 | Simon Heffer

[Sherman Logan]

... Every half-millennium or so an event occurs in our history that changes the basis of society. The Romans come, the Romans go. The Normans come; and between their arrival in 1066 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 there is one seismic event after which society sets off (after a false start or two) on an entirely new course: the Reformation in England. When the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church in England agreed in March 1531 to accede to Henry's demands about church governance that included the clergy's recognition of him as head of the English church, it also triggered a process of such profound economic and political change that even today there is still dispute about the extent of the consequences. Let me add my three ha'porth: without the Reformation we would not have had what Seeley called "the expansion of England", we would not have had a middle class educated and powerful enough to initiate the industrial revolution, we would not have had the empire we did, and would not have had the land and sea power that kept us free from invasion and foreign influence: not to mention the theological consequences.

[Sherman Logan]

The author claims that Henry VIII's break with the Roman Church was essential for the development of modern England and therefire by extension to of the USA. That if England had stayed linked to the Church the Industrial Revolution and indeed modern society would not developed, at least not as it did.

Given some of the pro- and anti-Catholic sentiment on FR, I thought this would make a nice hand grenade to toss into the forum.

I highly recommend reading of the entire article before posting comments or disagreements.

[NewJerseyJoe]

Henry VIII was someone who publicly showed that God's Will can be disposed with whenever it is "inconvenient," thus setting an example for future licentiousness, sin, and crime. Was he the first to do this? No. But he was probably the first head of state to do so, and to enforce his heresy by rule of "law."

Also one of history's great murderers.

Not someone to look up to by any stretch.

[2ndClassCitizen]

I would say that Henry VIII had little to do with it.

Martin Luther hit the nail on the head when he nailed his logic to the church door. The church was corrupt, even selling indulgences. The church, in that corrupt state, reminds me of the money changers in the temple, the ones that Jesus threw out.

Martin Luther started something big. The church and its corruption began to fragment as a result of this and many other forces. Attributing everything to Henry VIII is just not logical.

[goodwithagun]

There is a comment about the wealth of the Catholic church. My husband is Catholic and my son was baptized Catholic, and I have been thinking about joining the church. I have some reservations, though, and this is one of them. If so many people are impoverished, why can’t the church sell priceless objects and use the money for rice? They are after all, just objects. Painting, sculptures, land, buildings, etc.

[Fractal Trader]

Anglican Ping

[SlapHappyPappy]

I highly recommend reading of the entire article before posting comments or disagreements.

You've been here long enough to know better than to expect that.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I would further say it was the Protestant movement that started the scientific revolution. The Protestant countries were all making amazing discoveries that were not censured by their respective governments, whereas the Catholic countries were treating false ideas (Earth is the center of the solar system) as dogma, and therefore those who challenged these ideas were either tortured, imprisoned, or put to death. It is no accident that all the great advances came from protestant countries (Newton, Leibnitz, Huygens, Kepler). I credit the start of the Protestant movement with Martin Luther: the ability to question authority and live.

Henry VIII did not allow anyone to question him, nor did he foster that kind of environment. He merely didn't want to pay any more tax to the Pope, and he also wanted to get out of a marriage. Henry VIII made very little contribution, IMHO.

[GonzoGOP]

Any good which came from Henry VIII’s break with the Roman church was purely accidental. He was a fat, self indulgent absolutist dictator, who believed that rules applied to others, but never to him. He killed the innocent if their continued existence was inconvenient to him. Henry didn't disband the church out of some religious conviction, or because they were corrupt, but because they wouldn't pay him a cut of what they were taking in.

The closest comparison to Henry VIII in recent times is Bill Clinton. Some good may have come out of the 1990s but it was not by Clinton's design or but simply as an unintended consequence of his own lust and greed. If Bill could have done for Hillary and Monica what Henry did for Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard you can bet he would have.

[chesley]

Oh, well. At least Bill didn’t chop off Hillary’s head.

RATS!!! :)

[Romulus]

The Tudors, beginning with Fat Hank, laid the foundations not for freedom but for the modern police state, including judicial murder, domestic spying, and unrelenting propaganda. Henry was a terrorist and social engineer on a massive scale.

[Ken H]

Thank Henry VIII...

I stopped reading right there!

:)

[frithguild]

The dissolution of the monasteries, which Thomas Cromwell effected for him between 1536 and 1540, broke up the main cells of the Catholic clergy in Henry's realm: it also initiated the greatest change of land ownership in England since the Conquest. Perhaps a quarter of land changed hands, bought by the aristocracy and by a newly emergent gentry and with the revenues going to the Crown.

I think this is a good point. While private property rights were in the ascendancy in England, the Italians were worrying about imprisoning Gallileo because he observed and recorded moons orbiting around Jupiter - which was against the "consensus" perception of the order of the universe.

[Romulus]

why can’t the church sell priceless objects and use the money for rice?

First, because this is the same question Judas asked.

Second, because the Church has a duty to preserve her inheritance for its intended use.

Third, because God has lots of money, and there's no need to choose between swell art and feeding the poor. If the poor are oppressed, look to where the real money is being spent in this world.

[Romulus]

private property rights were in the ascendancy in England,

Only for the king's friends. Catholic institutions could be despoiled (all that political muscle doesn't work for free, you know) and Catholic families taxed into ruin.

[stripes1776]

Henry VIII was someone who publicly showed that God's Will can be disposed with whenever it is "inconvenient," thus setting an example for future licentiousness, sin, and crime. Was he the first to do this? No. But he was probably the first head of state to do so, and to enforce his heresy by rule of "law."

Bishop Sheen said it very well in one of his TV programs back in the 50s. A church that believes in free will always be a church that contains good and evil. The church has always had hierarchs practicing licentiousness and sin. It would be naive to think otherwise.

I am not convinced that England could only protect herself with a powerful navy or establish an empire as a Protestant country. Spain still had a powerful navy after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and she maintained a vast empire for centuries.

I don't think Henry VIII is a man to emulate. But then neither is Mussolini, even though a lot of Catholics admired him when he first came to power in Italy.

[Romulus]

I would further say it was the Protestant movement that started the scientific revolution.

Please. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan monk who all but invented the scientific method. Copernicus, who developed the geocentric cosmology named for him, was a Catholic priest. Galileo was a practicing Catholic all his life. The universities were all Catholic institutions. Georges Lemaître was a Catholic priest who pioneered the development of Einstein's theory and first theorised the Big Bang cosmology.

Practically no manuscripts from antiquity survived past the first millennium; all we have is the work of (mostly monastic) copyists who preserved pre-Christian texts.

You are a victim of propaganda.

[Revenge of Sith]

Also, Edward VI and Elizabeth I did more for Protestantism in England than Henry.

[meandog]

Henry VIII was in a loveless marriage with his dead brother’s wife when Anne Boleyn found herself pregnant. But God in his infinite wisdom (IMHO) produced from that pregnancy the greatest queen England has ever enjoyed. Incidentally, Anne Boleyn was a RC and an Irish one at that (decended from the Butler clan) and had she had come along before Catherine of Aragon and not between Henry and his infatuation for Lady Jane Seymore, who knows what would have been the eventual outcome between the Irish and the English? You might say she lost her head over his wandering eye.

[sr4402]

One can compare Henry the 8th to King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel and Pharaoh who opposed God in the book of Exodus. God often raises those whom he wishes "To demonstrate my power" as it says in Romans and influence the course of History for His Purposes and Glory.

King Henry may have done it, thinking it was for his own glory, perhaps going the ways of the kings of this earth, garnering power unto himself. But we in the Presbyterian PCA believe God did it for the purposes of Reforming the Elect to God's Inerrant, Inspired and Eternal Word.

God often uses fallible men, sometimes even despite themselves, towards His purposes. The idea that He would use only infallible men would be laughable.

[AlaskaErik]

Irregardless of what made England so great, here should be no doubt that socialism will be the end of her.