"Who was Thomas Cranmer?"

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kamaan said:
:ehh:

Is this a quote from somewhere/someone?
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No, he came up in another thread and I think it is important to know who he was, who King Henry VIII was and what was their relationship and how they affected Protestant Reformation.
 
Jimmy_B said:
No, he came up in another thread and I think it is important to know who he was, who King Henry VIII was and what was their relationship and how they affected Protestant Reformation.
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Okay. I didn’t understand the quotation marks.

Children’s version:

Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was instrumental in securing Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and in the marriage with and crowning of Anne Boleyn. After Henry died, Cranmer was able to introduce more reforms. After the ascension of the Catholic Queen Mary I, he was burned at the stake.
 
kamaan said:
Okay. I didn’t understand the quotation marks.

Children’s version:

Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was instrumental in securing Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and in the marriage with and crowning of Anne Boleyn. After Henry died, Cranmer was able to introduce more reforms. After the ascension of the Catholic Queen Mary I, he was burned at the stake.
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You’re right, good point. I cut and pasted it from a post of mine, from the other thread with the quotations marks.

That was an accurate answer and it was short and to the point. It may have been the shortest description ever…but accurate. You’d make a good lawyer, teacher or game show contestant… 😃

Thank you.
 
Dude… I just went to quote your post… What did you do?! Haha.
Jimmy_B said:
You’re right, good point. I cut and pasted it from a post of mine, from the other thread with the quotations marks.

That was an accurate answer and it was short and to the point. It may have been the shortest description ever…but accurate. You’d make a good lawyer, teacher or game show contestant… 😃

Thank you.
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I didn’t know how in depth of a description you wanted 🙂 To ask “Who was Thomas Cranmer” is a huge question! I thought I would do the easy stuff and let someone else tackle the details :yup:
 
kamaan said:
Dude… I just went to quote your post… What did you do?! Haha.

I didn’t know how in depth of a description you wanted 🙂 To ask “Who was Thomas Cranmer” is a huge question! I thought I would do the easy stuff and let someone else tackle the details :yup:
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True, he was a complicated character.
 
And he wrote the Book of Common Prayer; I think Anglicans remember him most for that (although that’s related to the rest of it, of course).
 
kamaan said:
:ehh:

Is this a quote from somewhere/someone?
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I found this quote very informative. It came from the other thread where it was off topic:
gurneyhalleck1 said:
Tommy,

While I think your adjectives were a touch much and over-the-top, I agree that Cranmer was not a great guy. Your description was interesting LOL 😛

That being said, I’m not a Cranmer fan by a long-shot (not the poster, the real Cranmer :D). I think he was an opportunist. I loathed the way he sold Catherine of Aragon down the river, backed up Hank with constant divorces and a steady supply of turning the other cheek with mass murders as well. His permitting Catholic priests, bishops, and other clergy to be drawn and quartered, ripped in pieces and genitals/organs sliced open is appauling for sure.

His marriage to Osiander’s wife’s niece in Germany while still a Catholic priest in good-standing was pretty under-handed and showed a lack of a commitment to his oath. I didn’t like his Eucharistic theology which he changed about six times during his journey as “archbishop.” He was a minimalist, a Calvinist with huge interaction between men like Martin Bucer and other Continental Reformed characters, his penning the Black Rubrics showed a hostility to Catholicism, his permitting the monasteries to be plundered and chalices and patens melted down for their gold, allowing altars to be pulverized and replaced with wood “communion tables” irritates me, etc.

I hate that Cranmer knew Anne Bolyn was guilty of charges against her, wrote a letter to Henry appealing to his sense of mercy for Anne, and yet quickly allowed her to go to the Tower of London and he went ahead and pronounced their marriage null and void and watched her get executed.

He was an iconoclast and hated any type of crucifix, iconography, roods, you name it. He forbade elevation of the Holy Eucharist, went from believing in transubstantiation to a type of Lutheran presence to Calvin’s view then finally more of a Zwinglian nothing view.

He was a confirmed Calvinist and the company he kept whether it was Ridley, Cromwell, Peter Martyr, or Bucer all are disturbing.

His recantation and then recantation of his recantation never impressed me at his martyrdom either. Cranmer is my least favorite Anglican of all time. He had a superb writing ability, hence the lovely wording of the Book of Common Prayer. His style is sometimes subtle, but other times bold and beautiful. There are parts of the BOCP that I find stunningly lovely. It’s a rich piece of literature for the Christian to be sure. But when I read the 39 Articles and get a taste for Cranmer, I’m turned off to be sure. Not a fan.
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I hope gurney does not mind reposting it here.
 
Cranmer2010 said:
Perhaps you need a bit of a refresher on Anglican History Jimmy. After King Henry VIII died, England was ruled by Bloody Mary who WAS Catholic and ordered the burning at the stake of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley.
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originally posted by** gurneyhalleck1**
I hate that Cranmer knew Anne Bolyn was guilty of charges against her, wrote a letter to Henry appealing to his sense of mercy for Anne, and yet quickly allowed her to go to the Tower of London and he went ahead and pronounced their marriage null and void and watched her get executed.
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True EXCEPT that there is no evidence, and plenty to the contrary, that Anne Boleyn was railroaded to the scaffold because 1. she was unable to provide a living male heir and 2. to make way for Jane Seymour.
The charges against Anne were never proven and were a conveinent way to remove her. Permanently. Courtesy of the ambitious Thomas Cromwell.
 
Perhaps you need a bit of a refresher on Anglican History Jimmy. After King Henry VIII died, England was ruled by Bloody Mary who WAS Catholic and ordered the burning at the stake of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley.
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Funny that Bloody Mary comes up. Mary ordered the death, for heresy, of less people than Elizabeth. It was close to be sure, and though Mary’s reign was shorter, Elizabeth didn’t get started burning until a fair bit into her reign.
 
My apologies. It was merely a TYPO! I meant to say “wasn’t guilty.” Eesh. Can’t believe I did that. Again, apologies on my part.
catsrus said:
True EXCEPT that there is no evidence, and plenty to the contrary, that Anne Boleyn was railroaded to the scaffold because 1. she was unable to provide a living male heir and 2. to make way for Jane Seymour.
The charges against Anne were never proven and were a conveinent way to remove her. Permanently. Courtesy of the ambitious Thomas Cromwell.
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I think to answer Jimmy, the OP, if you’re seriously, sincerely interested in understanding Cranmer’s life, motivations, and developing thought, read Diarmaid McCulloch’s AMAZINGLY scholarly work called simply “Thomas Cranmer.” McCulloch writes it as he does all his books, totally without bias and an axe to grind. Some historians on the Catholic and Protestant side are trying to prove a point through their own worldviews. He doesn’t. The guy’s scholarship is just first-rate. Try giving it a shot. Expand your library with this one:

amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Dr-Diarmaid-MacCulloch/dp/0300074484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283983134&sr=8-1

Cranmer was a complex cat. He was heavily influenced by Martin Bucer, continental Reformed theologians, and he became less and less Catholic as time went by. I adore the Book of Common Prayer and its beautiful linguistic praise to the Lord. It is a work of art, a labor of love from Cranmer, truly. The man was a phenomenal writer and I believe was sincere in his beliefs of more Reformed Christianity. But as I said in other posts, I hate the cowardice and cronyism he shows at numerous times in his life. I think he is one of the most important yet misunderstood characters of the Reformation era to be sure. Anglo-Catholics hate him or just generally shy away from him, the Evangelicals in Anglicanism flock to him like a moth to a flame.

He’s a fascinating, complicated, and in many ways enigmatic man. Just when you think he’s a full-blown Calvinist he’ll sound so Catholic?
 
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