Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 122:486 (Apr 1965)
Article: Politics and Preaching in the English Reformation
Author: Haddon W. Robinson

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BSac 122:486 (Apr 65) p. 120

Politics and Preaching in the English Reformation

Haddon W. Robinson

[Haddon W. Robinson, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary.]

At least two things should be noted about the English religious Reformation. At its heart, it was really not religious; in its results, it was not a reform. The movement was a political revolution. Of course, in no country in which the political stimulus was missing was the Protestant cause a success. In Italy, France, or Spain where political support was either absent or ineffectual, Protestantism was smothered. In North Germany, however, where state support was strong, the Reformation remained ablaze. Yet, in England the Reformation was more distinctly political than in any other country. It was a maneuver of the king to change the seat of authority. When the smoke from the stakes had cleared, the Crown ruled the Church; through Parliament, the Crown had revised the Church’s organization, liturgy, and to some degree, its doctrine. After the sixteenth century, the State ruled England.

Henry VIII started his revolution with some initial advantages which he inherited and did not create. The English State had enjoyed a stronger position in relation to the Church than did other monarchies. Under William the Conqueror, and in the fourteenth century, the kings won the power to nominate their own bishops. All of these powers were gained gradually, and little open conflict appeared between the State and the Church. On the surface, everyone recognized two sovereign powers working together in partnership and harmony; men’s souls were in the keeping of the Church and their bodies were in the protection of the State. Underneath the surface,

BSac 122:486 (Apr 65) p. 121

though, the Church had begun to lean heavily on the Crown for support. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of the king, might have seemed a powerful demonstration of papal authority in England. His actual position was much different. Not only did Wolsey owe his vast secular authority to Henry’s appointment, but his high ecclesiastical position was the result of Henry’s nomination. The Cardinal was the king’s man.1

Not only was the Crown assisted in its revolt by the gradual shifts of history, but it met with little resistance from a secular clergy and an indifferent laity. The wealth of the Church produced a current of anti-clericalism, and mammon had drained the Church of its spiritual power. The clergy lived unimpressive lives, and the shepherds bled rather than fed their flocks. Ecclesiastical courts were a constant irritation in the layman’s life. The desperate weakness of the Church to influence its age was ...

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