Ponderings

Tag: bible

  • The Abomination of Desolation

    On the 6th February, 1685, King Charles II died. He is chiefly remembered as the King who returned from enforced exile to restore the Monarchy. As the newly restored Monarch he helped to rehabilitate the divided nations after years of Civil War, and his influence shaped the culture and identity of what would eventually become the United Kingdom.

    However at the time of his Restoration, the nations were neither united nor cohesive, and the Kingdom itself was a distant memory. His own father had been executed, and in the interregnum tyranny had not disappeared, it was reanimated, albeit in a different form. The King knew that his father had lost the trust of many of his subjects. They believed that he had failed them and even abrogated his duty.

    King Charles I left a painful legacy where the remnants of his Kingdom had been torn asunder. The responsibilities of his successor were unambiguous but onerous. His main task was to unify the divided entities of his realm. The political experiment of the Republic, or “Commonwealth” tested the concept of a united sovereign state without a sovereign. In theory, it was a worthy experiment but it was worthless in practice.

    Fundamentally, such an entity could not work as Kings ruled the state and the Church, and Scotland along with England. King Charles II was conflicted between these two nations. The Scottish leaders demanded that he must accept the Presbyterian tradition. They also stipulated that this must be imposed in England, and also Ireland, nations that had very different religious traditions.

    Charles found these demands offensive and insensitive. He felt personally affronted, but he was caught in an almost impossible bind between the various factions, all of whom believed that they had legitimate grievances. The bloody years of the Civil War had not been forgotten, the wounds were still fresh metaphorically speaking.

    The seventeenth century was an era of great turbulence, when religious fervour dominated the landscape and impacted the lives of everyone on these islands. The struggle to survive was not merely material, it was spiritual. The King felt this more keenly, as he had inherited the role of Defender of the Faith. It was a weighty inheritance, and a burden. Eventually, he gave a tacit acceptance of the Scots’ demands, but there were other religious forces that he had to quell.

    It was a time of extreme piety, and bigotry. It was almost impossible to find a compromise between implacable religious sects. Any sensible discussion was insoluble because reason was so limited. Self-righteousness obscured perceptions of others, and tribal loyalties were entrenched. This prevented a common understanding.

    The most extraordinary religious sect that emerged during this period was the Fifth Monarchists. They interpreted the fall of King Charles I as the end of the Fourth Monarchy, a Biblical prophecy from the Book of Daniel. Their prime belief was that the Restoration of the House of Stuart was an obstacle in the coming of the Fifth. Many followers were prepared to use violence in the name of the cause.

    However the sect foundered when their most prominent follower, Thomas Venner staged an insurrection in London. He was arrested and put to death. His zeal was undimmed, as he proclaimed from the gallows, “if they had been deceived, the Lord himself was their deceiver”. Venner’s martyrdom did not help the fortunes of this dwindling sect, and they vanished.

    The new Stuart King regarded religious extremism distasteful. One of his first interventions was the Declaration of Breda. This was his manifesto for his newly restored kingdom. It declared that, “we do Declare a Liberty to tender consciences; and that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matter of Religion, which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom”.

    The austere years of Cromwell had ended, and he was eager to reform and reconstitute his kingdom again. A dark chapter had closed.

    The contrast between his reign and the dictatorships that preceded him were stark. Suddenly his subjects were allowed to have fun, and laugh again with the advent of “Restoration drama”. One dramatist, Thomas Shadwell, met the approval of the King with his satire “The Virtuoso”. This featured a notorious character called Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, from which we derive the word “gimmick”. Gimcrack is pompous, arrogant and devoid of any imagination. The play ridicules his lack of humour, his earnestness and pedantry. He embodies all of the worst characteristics of narcissists and tyrants, as he seems impervious to notions of moderation and disagreement.

    Gimcrack is a figure of ridicule, instantly recognisable and familiar to the King. Shadwell’s satire was appreciated by him. This was noted by the diarist Samuel Pepys. Pepys recorded a meeting with the King in which he regaled him with scenes from the play and spent hours laughing about it. The culture of the Restoration, including the extravagance of the fashions has left an important legacy. It is a vital part of our identity, and we must never forget its importance.

  • Out of the Shadows

    The 15th August is the annual commemoration of the Assumption of Mary, the date when the Blessed Virgin Mary was believed to have entered the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a solemn and momentous day in the Church calendar. It is also one of the four Marian dogmas.

    Mary is a holy and revered figure within the Roman Catholic Church and she plays a vital role in its doctrine. Catholics venerate Mary, as they feel a special connection to her as the Mother of God. In the Bible she was inviolate, specially chosen by God to bear the Messiah. Her life, and her fate after death were clearly marked out for her.

    According to prophecy, her emergence into the world was entirely without sin, and her exit out of it was as equally seamless. Catholic doctrine also stipulates that her entrance into Heaven was not just seamless, but swift and unlike mortal humans, she did not have to face the usual trials to enter God’s eternal Kingdom. Her status as inviolate continued in the hereafter, and her body and soul remained incorruptible.

    After the Reformation, Protestant countries in Europe made strident and often defiant attempts to undermine these traditions. They were convinced that the veneration of Mary in particular was indicative of idolatry, and heretical. This, however, was a fundamental misunderstanding, which unfortunately continues today. Ignorance is at the root of Catholic prejudice, and it is a driver of division and hatred.

    Roman Catholics defend the practice of praying to statues, arguing that they are not in fact worshipping an “idol”. Statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary are visual representations that aid prayer, comparable to the visual reminders of family. It is normal to find family photographs in people’s homes, but nobody idolises the photographs, they are only placed there to remember the people we love and have loved. It is useful to draw this analogy, because far too many people have a literal interpretation of Catholic ritual.

    The denigration of Catholicism in this country has been a tragedy, as it has detached us from our spiritual origins. The Church of England did not emerge out of the ether, it was created from the remnants of English Catholicism. The Anglican Church owes an immense debt to this venerable institution. Anglicans are the spiritual heirs of the reformed Catholic Church, but this is often forgotten or maligned. Sadly many continue to deride Catholicism, and treat its many dogmas with contempt. However the Church itself would not exist without its Catholic foundations.

    The English theologian and Catholic revert St John Henry Newman is considered by many eminent theological commentators to be an important bridge between the two Churches. Newman lived and worked in nineteenth century England. It was a time of increasing material wealth, and luxury. However this came at a cost, to the soul of the nation. Religion went into a decline. No-one really considered the profundity of the spiritual realm and nobody feared God.

    Newman knew from an early age that he had a definite calling, to restore the spirit and faith of the nation and to return its people back into the benevolent arms of the true Church. In his memoir he recalled how this nascent vocation manifested itself, he opined,

    “I thought life might be a dream, or I an Angel and all this world a deception”.

    Unlike his contemporaries who sought fame and fortune, he shunned these worldly desires. In his mind, superficial and fleeting things like money merely formed part of “the unreality of material phenomena”. In his eyes, there was a higher reality.

    When Newman attended Oxford University, he was part of a coterie of students who debated the key tenets of Anglicanism. It was called the “Oxford Movement”. This exclusive group of scholars focussed upon the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent within the Established Church. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1825 and three years later he was appointed the vicar of St. Mary’s in Oxford. His flock included a particular set of devoted undergraduates who were so wrapped up in their piety that they would fast before attending his services.

    However Newman was torn, he could never reconcile himself with a Church riddled with ambiguity. Ultimately he had to make a decision. He was certain, he had to make the path towards Rome. In 1845, he relinquished his Anglican faith and was accepted into the Roman Catholic Church. In 1847, he was appointed priest at the Oratory in Birmingham. He continued his scholarly work in tandem with a selfless ministry attending the poor.

    He never lost his religious convictions, maintaining that Roman Catholic theology was absolute truth. He never deviated from this position, while other theologians attempted to soften the more dogmatic aspects of the faith he kept his ground. He lived at the Oratory until his death in 1890. The inscription on his gravestone read “out of shadows and phantasms into the truth”. His legacy as a truth teller continues to be admired by both Anglicans and Catholics today.