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When I became a member of an Evangelical Protestant church, I began to read a lot about the Leaders of the Reformation. However as I read about their lives, I began to grow more and more concerned with what I read. I began to have doubts about whether they could truly be considered Saintly or Holy men.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Quite simply because a person's inner life and closeness to God should necessarily be reflected in the way they live their outward life. The Reformers were men who made great claims. They claimed to be led by God to challenge and even to tear down the existing structure of the Church. They claimed the duty to expose a hypocrisy and falsehood at the very heart of the Church of God. They claimed to be chosen leaders, authorised to establish new, cleansed and reformed churches. Men who were truly being used by God for such a great work must surely display a holiness of the highest standard?

This principle was set out by Jesus himself when advising how to test the genuineness of those who claim teaching authority:

"A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit....Thus by their fruit you will recognise them." Matthew 7: v!8 and 20.

Surely then the Reformers should have led lives of exemplary holiness - certainly comparable to those of people like St Francis, Mother Theresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and other Christians who claimed far less for themselves.

BUT AREN'T YOU SETTING TOO HIGH A STANDARD?
MANY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WERE NOT EXACTLY MODELS OF HOLINESS THEMSELVES, WERE THEY?

No they weren't. But every human institution is imperfect and attracts corrupt people. People enter churches of all denominations for the wrong reasons, seeking power, influence and worldly success more than they seek to serve God. Yet for every corrupt Catholic there were many who lived good and holy lives.

The leaders of the Reformation, however, were not men who joined an existing institution for venial reasons. They were men who claimed express authority from God to destroy the old church and found a new church in its place. Surely it is not unjust to expect from such men lives of outstanding and exemplary holiness?

Yet is this what we find? Let us look at the facts.

1. MARTIN LUTHER

Luther was well known for his hot temper, pride and violent language, rather than for his saintliness and humility. He called the Pope the "Antichrist" and even heaped abuse on fellow-reformers like Zwingli and Bucer who disagreed with him. He encouraged the German Princes to seize church property in return for protection for the Reformation. Along with others, he issued a licence permitting the Landgrave of Hesse to keep 2 wives simultaneously. However worse was to come. His language grew in violence:

"If we punish thieves with the gallows . . . why do we not still more attack with every kind of weapon . . . these Cardinals, these Popes, and that whole abomination of the Romish Sodom . . . why do we not wash our hands in their blood?"

PEASANTS REVOLT

Inspired by the writings of Luther and others, which declared the Freedom of the Christian Man, and led by Thomas Muntzer, an ex-pupil of Luther's, German peasants demanded to be freed from Serfdom, joining in the Great Peasants Revolt. They hoped for Luther's support. But Luther owed his protection and high position to the German aristocrats. So instead, in a pamphlet entitled Against the Murderous Peasants, Luther told the princes and the nobility that it was right and lawful to slay at the first opportunity a rebellious person, "just as one must slay a mad dog."
He added:

  Let all who are able, cut them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel... For we are come upon such strange times that a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers.

Urged on by their spiritual leader, the nobles and their armies suppressed the revolts with great savagery. Molten pitch and sulphur were poured upon the peasants. Some had their eyes gouged out. The bodies of 5,000 retreating peasants were hung from trees across the countryside. For the leaders of the rebels a special form of torture was devised where their flesh was torn off with red-hot pincers. In all more than 100,000 peasants were slain.

Embittered with Luther, the German peasants named him Dr Lugner, or "Dr Liar" in English. The advance of Lutheranism in Germany stopped.

GERMAN JEWS

Luther was no less inflamatory with regard to the Jews, as seen in the following excerpts from his pamphlet: The Jews and Their Lies, (1543):

"First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honour of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians...

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them...

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb...

Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home

I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing; moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them."

The Jews were soon expelled from Luther's native Saxony.

So just how saintly was this first and greatest Reformer?

2. ULRICH ZWINGLI

Born at Wildhaus in Switzerland on the 1st of January, 1484, Zwingli came from a prominent middle class family. Chosen as People's Priest in Zurich, he declared Zwingliin 1522 that the fasting provisions for Lent were mere human commands, not in harmony with the Bible - the sole source of faith. In1524, indulgences and pilgrimages were abolished, the sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction rejected, and all pictures, statues, relics, altars, and organs were torn out of the churches.

Yet at the same time Zwingli was known to be immoral sexually. One historian writes: "He did not let his sacerdotal vows exclude him from the pleasures of the flesh; he had some affairs with generous women." Zwingli soon renounced his vows of celibacy living with Anna Reinhard for some years before finally marrying her..

Like Luther, with whom he quarreled, Zwingli was a user of intemperate language, and refused to come to any compromise with fellow-reformers on the matter of the Eucharist. Within Zurich Catholicism was forbidden, but particular hatred was reserved for Anabaptists. From 1525 Zwingli persecuted them mercilessly with imprisonment, torture, banishment and death. The Anabaptist leader, Felix Manz, was drowned. Under Zwingli's influence, penalties of drowning, burning or beheading were decreed by the Council.

'It is our will,' they proclaimed, 'that wherever they be found, whether singly or in companies, they shall be drowned to death, and that none of them shall be spared."

To compel the unwilling neighbouring Catholic cantons to accept his new doctrines, Zwingli urged open war, and drew up a plan of campaign to conquer the mountain cantons and impose his teachings by force. After provoking a conflict by cutting off food supplies to the Catholic mountain cantons, Zwingli marched out of Zurich with an army. His protestant troops met the catholics in battle at Kappel on the 11th October 1531. However Zwingli's plan for expansion ended when he was killed in the battle.

3. JOHN CALVIN

Calvin, known for his harsh theology (see Free Will or Predestination), became the leading Reformer of Geneva, where he established a virtual theocracy which ruled every aspect of peoples' lives.In the constitution he drew up for the city, the death penalty was laid down for blasphemy, heresy and witchcraft.

It did not take long for this to be applied. Within a few years fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile took place in Geneva. Two examples:

1. James Gruet, was alleged to have posted a note which implied that Calvin should leave the city:

He was at once arrested and a house to house search made for his accomplices. This method failed to reveal anything except that Gruet had written on one of Calvin's tracts the words 'all rubbish.' The judges put him to the rack twice a day, morning and evening, for a whole month . . . He was sentenced to death for blasphemy and beheaded on July 26, 1547.

2. The Spanish Reformer Servetus had dared to criticize Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" and began an angry correspondence with him. Calvin promised: "If he comes here and I have any authority, I will never let him leave the place alive."

Servetus visited Geneva on 13 August, 1553. The next day Calvin, who had seen him in church, had his critic arrested. Calvin drew up forty articles of charges concerning the nature of God, infant baptism, and the attacks on his own teaching. On August 20, 1553, Calvin wrote: "I hope that Servetus will be condemned to death"

On October 26, the Council ordered that he be burned alive on the following day.

Servetus took half an hour to die. Calvin noted: "'He showed the dumb stupidity of a beast . . . He went on bellowing . . . in the Spanish fashion: "Misericordias!" . .

In1554 Calvin wrote the treatise Against the Errors of Servetus, in which he tried to justify the execution: "Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face."

The modern-day Congregational, Prebyterian, Reformed, Baptist and many of the Charismatic churches, all look to this same Calvin as their founding spiritual authority.

4. THOMAS CROMWELL

The Reformation in England was brought about largely by state power. This was undertaken at the instigation of King Henry Vlll. The story of Henry's marriages and of his many cruelties is well-known. Yet it has been argued that Henry was not a Reformer at all - more a man greedy for a new wife and to get his hands on the wealth of the Church.

So let us look at some of the other key figures of the English Reformation, and see whether they were of a different stripe.

Cromwell as Earl of EssexIt often surprises people that the first leader of the Church of England under Henry was not Archbishop Cranmer, but Thomas Cromwell - who was made the king's Vicar-General, with direct authority over the Church and its Bishops. Cromwell was a Reformer, and pushed through the main religious changes of the 1530s - the royal supremacy, the printing of the English Bible, the closing of the monasteries, the destruction of shrines and images, and the restriction of Holy Days.

Cromwell's methods however, were anything but holy. He was a genius of sorts, helping to construct a tightly-controlled police-state, the type of which any 20th Century dictator would have been proud. Cromwell erected a system built on fear, torture and death. Criticising the king, his divorce, or failing to agree that Henry was head of the church, now became high treason - to be punished by disembowelment whilst still alive, hanging and quartering. In the end, even failing to denounce anyone else who criticised these things became treason. Guilty verdicts were ensured by the introduction of the "Double Grand Jury" which made the jury trying a case liable to face trial themselves by a second jury if they came up with the wrong verdict. Acts of Attainder, allowing the execution of victims without any trial whatsoever, were also introduced. All these things were needed to enforce the Reformation in England.

Churches, shrines and abbeys were plundered for funds to build Henry's palaces and fortiffications. priceless ancient books and works of art were torn apart for their value in gold and gems.

Victims excuted by Cromwell included Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, as well as countless lesser-ranked people such as the Carthusian Monks, Observant Friars and any who dared to protest at the break with Rome. All of these suffered hanging, disembowelment and quartering. Abbots who refused to surrender their monasteries also fell victim:

Letter of Richard Pollard to Thomas Cromwell, November 16, 1539

Pleaseth it your Lordship to be advertised that..[On November 15] the late abbot of Glastonbury went from Wells to Glastonbury, and there was drawn through the town upon a hurdle to the hill called the Torre, where he was put to execution; …Afore his execution [he] was examined upon divers articles and interrogatories to him ministered by me, but he could accuse no man of himself of any offence against the king's highness, nor would he confess no more gold nor silver nor any other thing more than he did before your Lordship in the Tower…I suppose it will be near Christmas before I shall have surveyed the lands at Glastonbury, and take the audit there….

Cromwell personally gained many of the monastic lands including all the lands of Lewes Priory, and the Abbeys of Colchester, St Osith and Launde.
Jealousies led to him being accused of treason, and he was executed without trial under his own laws in 1540.

5. THOMAS CRANMER

If Henry and Cromwell were seen as the dark side of the Reformation, then surely the martyr Archbishop, Cranmer, who wrote the fine words of the English Prayer Book, must show its other face?

Thomas CranmerYet while Cranmer's acts cannot compare with the horrors his two contemporaries performed, the Archbishop's own story is far from edifying.

He came to power with the Boleyns, writing an opinion in favour of the King's divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon. For a time he was the Boleyn family chaplain. With Anne Boleyn's patronage, he became the first protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. Among his first acts was to pronounce the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and then marry Henry to Anne Boleyn. At this time, despite his vows of celibacy, he kept a wife in secret, who he had smuggled into the country from Germany.

As Archbishop, Cranmer presided over the executions of both Catholics and Protestant extremists. He was quite happy to condemn Protestants to the stake even though they held views similar to those that he himself revealed when it was safe to do so.

When Anne fell from favour with King Henry, Cranmer turned against his former patroness. Three years after he had married Anne to Henry, and days before her execution, he pronounced that the marriage had been invalid from the start. No reason was given. However this enabled Anne's daughter to be removed from the succession, clearing the way for Jane Seymour's marriage to the king - which Cranmer performed.

This was the period when the monasteries and friaries were being ransacked and destroyed. Many were killed in this process. On 8 April, 1538, Friar Forrest was taken to Lambeth, where, before Cranmer, he was required to state that King Henry was Head of the Church. This, however, he firmly refused to do. Forrest was sentenced to death, and on the 22nd of May he was taken to Smithfield and burned.

In 1540 when the king moved in a less protestant direction after Cromwell's fall, Cranmer was quite happy to burn protestant protesters as well. However when the archbishop feared that King Henry's fifth wife, 20 year-old Katherine Howard, might lead him in a more catholic direction, he conspired to bring about her downfall. Learning rumours of Katherine's unchastity before her marriage, Cranmer quickly brought these to the attention of the king. The Queen was arrested at once, and Cranmer was put in charge of the investigation. He oversaw the torture of the accused men and soon he had more than enough material to present a case against Katherine. She and many others were sent to the block.

On Henry's death, Cranmer was placed on the Council of Regency for the boy king, Edward VI. Allying himself with Suffolk, and "Lord Protector" Somerset, Cranmer was free to come out in his true Protestant colours. The Latin Mass was abolished - replaced by Cranmer's own sonorously-worded Book of Common Prayer - and another plundering of the Church began. However when Suffolk fell in a coup to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Cranmer again turned his coat and signed his former ally's death warrant.

The churches, guilds and chantry chapels were now stripped of their furnishings, and plate, silver and gold - much of which ended up in Dudley's hands. Priceless books and missals were burnt in great bonfires, little escaped. A final betrayal occurred when the boy King Edward came near to death. Despite being first signatory to King Henry's will, guaranteeing the succession of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth, Cranmer again broke his oath and backed the attempt to place Jane Grey on the throne. It was for this act of treason as much as for his religious views that he was condemned to death under Queen Mary. In fact Cranmer recanted his protestantism when he thought this would save his life, but un-recanted when told he would still be burned.

6. HUGH LATIMER

LatimerLatimer was a close associate of Cranmer, and rose to the rank of Bishop of London under King Henry. He was burnt with Cranmer under Queen Mary. But was even he the holy and innocent man of legend?

Once again when we look beyond the official gloss, we find this man that some have called a "saintly martyr" approving the burning of Anabaptists and obstinate Franciscans under Henry VIII.

Latimer was involved in the case of John Forrest, one of the friars who denied the Royal Supremacy over the Church. Far from feeling any respect for the friar's stand, he wrote to Cranmer that the condemned prisoner was too well treated in Newgate prison, and that he, Latimer, would have to "play the fool" overseeing the friar's execution. To add to the ironic humour of this public spectacle, the friar was to be burnt over a bonfire of religious statuary. Forrest was chained across a large holy statue which had been brought from the church of Llanderfel in Wales, and burned alive. Latimer expressed no remorse.

In the 1548, under King Edward, Latimer was again involved in heresy trials and condemnations. He joined Cranmer in justifying the execution of Lord Seymour after the Dudley coup. In April 1549 Latimer joined Ridley in condeming the anabaptist Joan Bocher, better known as Joan of Kent, to death by burning. Young King Edward at first refused to sign the death warrant, but Cranmer pursuaded him to do so.

So when Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were burned under Queen Mary, they were following a road along which they had sent many others before them.

7. JOHN KNOX

Founder of the Presbyterian and Established Church of Scotland.

John KnoxBorn at Haddington, Scotland, in 1513; he was a priest and went to Rome before becoming a follower of Calvin. He spent time in Geneva, which he considered "The most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the Apostles."

Returning to Scotland in the 1540s, he became involved in a plot to murder Cardinal Beaton at St Andrews. The murder took place on 29th May 1546. The assassination was approved and applauded by Knox, who describes the deed with a gleeful and mocking levity. He remained with Beaton's murderers in the castle of St. Andrews, which they held for some months until a large French fleet forced their surrender. Knox was imprisoned for nineteen months on board a French galley. In other writings he reiterated his views that every Christian man (i.e. Protestant) had a right to slaughter every idolater (i.e. Catholic), if he got an opportunity.

In 1560, following the withdrawal of French troops from Scotland, Knox returned to lead a campaign of reform by riot, moving from town to town accompanied by the Protestant lords and urging his supporters to destroy all "Popish" images in churches and drive out Catholic clergy, monks, nuns and friars. The Catholic population were intimidated whilst most of the country's monasteries and cathedrals were razed to the ground. Finally reaching Edinburgh, an unofficial "parliament" was called which banned Catholicism on pain of death.

Knox feared the return of Catholic Queen Mary, despite her declared policy of religious toleration, and became her sworn enemy.

In March 1564, aged 51, he married Margaret Stewart, a girl of sixteen.

When, on the 9th March 1566, Queen Mary's Italian counsellor, Rizzio was brutally stabbed to death in a conspiracy by Protestant Lords before the pregnant queen's very eyes, Knox stated that "..the act was most just and worthy of all praise."

"Foolish Scotland", the founder of the Presbyterian church said when the plotters failed to kill Mary, "hath disobeyed God by sparing the queen",

* * *

From the above it can be seen that, almost without exception, the Leaders of the Reformation, had an appalling record. They quite simply failed to live anything that could reasonably be called an exemplary Christian life.

SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE THEIR TEACHING, AND THEIR CLAIM TO HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT?

 

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