Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Paperback)

Thomas Cranmer is a complex character, and MacCullock deals fully with his contradictions: burning with hatred for the heresies of Rome, yet unusually (for the times) compassionate and often forgiving to his critics; uncertain and treading a very cautious path with Henry VIII, yet showing an absolute determination to push the Church of England towards a more evangelical perspective whenever he was given a free hand; weakened and broken by his imprisonment, yet finally triumphant in his last denunciation of all that Mary's church stood for. MacCullock clearly admires the Archbishop, but this does not make him blind to his faults: in praise or censure however he always presents all of Cranmer's actions in their political and theological context.

While the book is fully comprehensive on the political aspects of the mid 16th century, where MacCullock really stands out in is his detailed and highly precise awareness of theological controversies of the time. MacCullock has studied a vast array of 16th century theologians, and examined how they fitted into Cranmer's life. His grasp of these nuances is essential to an understanding of how and why both Cranmer himself, and the emerging Church of England developed. Any glance towards the footnotes illustrates the depth of research that MacCullock has undertaken to make sure that he has precisely captured Cranmer's changing views throughout his life.

The book is very long, as is necessary for comprehensiveness, however one never feels that it is too long: it is very well phrased and all terms and concepts are fully explained. This remains one of the best biographies of any figure that I have ever read: Cranmer has finally received a treatment worthy of his long and varied career.

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.