English Reformation

Reformation in England

• See here for a talk on Anglicanism I gave at the local Oratory
• Placher disputes that Henry VIII "started" Anglican church
• tradition of reform went back a century or more
• Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop was the prime mover –
• particularly in focus on worship and The Book of Common Prayer (together with the later emerging King James Bible)
• Lex orandi, lex credendi is a fundamental character of Anglicanism (relation between worship and belief)
• "Anglican (195) could hold any theology from near Catholic to Calvinist"

From Puritans to Quakers

Some identifiers

• Puritans sought to "purify" the church – particularly with regard to worship (only scripture)
• Anglicans who reacted to Puritans: John Donne, William Laud, Lancelot Andrewes, Richard Hooker and the via media
• "Hooker did not accept the Roman Catholic position that tradition has an authority independent of Scripture, but he did use it as a reliable guide to the interpretation of Scripture, while the Puritans wanted to read their Bibles unencumbered by traditional assumptions."
• moderate and radical Puritans – radical appealing to individual experience (of Spirit) cf. Quakers (George Fox)
• Puritan party reacting to the conservative (i.e. not-sufficiently-reformed aspects of Elizabethan/Hooker compromise
• Principle: "all practice and belief must stem from New Testament"

Migration

Legacy

• "purifying" church, work hard and save money
• as "character" working hard (capitalism, spirit of United States)
• is material success a sign of Grace?
• overall impact of these developments on the United States
• Puritans and Capitalism (20th c. scholar: Weber)
• Oliver Cromwell and the mixing of politics and religion

Knox & Arminius

• possibility? necessity? to rebel against authority that demands betrayal of faith
• prophets to denounce injustice & call to action (Knox in Scotland)
• Arminians argued that one could refuse grace – in opposition to predestination of Calvinism (cf. p. 194)

Predestination

• clearly we are not saved by good works, therefore it has to be God's decision
• "Reflections on how we come to be saved led to the doctrine of predestination (189 ff.)
• single? double?
• Interesting fictional representation