Just taking a brief break from the Reformation articles to tell you about a way cool cafe Berkelouw Books I went and saw Con Campbell do his Jazz thing there this afternoon and I loved it. The atmosphere is tops. The building is a converted warehouse and the art and decore is really well selected for the building.
This place would make an excellent venue for a dialogue meeting!
I liked it so much that I went back a after dinner. Anna and I were with friends and we played a game where we had 5 minutes to find two books - one with the best cover and one which everyone should read. I selected at the tomb of the inflatable pig and as my book everyone should read I selected "Texas, Yesterday and Today, with the Constitution of the State of Texas". It has Texas at the start and the end leading me to think that "with the" was the central part of the books chiastic title.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
English Reformation 2
Last I posted I mentioned that Henry VIII was keen to annul his marriage with his first wife, well his reasons for doing so weren’t… only about getting a son.
Henry’s interests had been set on another woman as well, Anne Boleyn. Anne was a smart girl who, it is thought, put a copy of a little tract by Tyndale in Henry’s hands which argued that in any realm there ought be only one King (i.e. the Pope wasn’t the boss). Henry loved it. With the help of two of his underlings, Cromwell and Cranmer and with an Act of Parliament the English church was born. This enabled Henry to annul his marriage to Catherine (ta Cranmer) and bastardise Mary.
Cromwell and Cranmer were an interesting pair – the politician and the parson. Cromwell managed to suppress a great deal of Catholic resistance (and there was heaps of it) and Cranmer, who was heavily influenced by the Reformers, set about making significant changes to the way church was done in England (starting with ending the mass and writing several prayer books in English.
Unfortunately for Anne, she too did not produce a son, and after producing a daughter (Elizabeth) and a miscarriage that would have been a boy, Henry turned on his young bride. Cromwell, opportunist that he was, moved against Anne and within a few months her head was on the block in the tower of London. Elizabeth was also bastardised (woot! Bastardised used twice in the same blog!)
Henry went on to have two other children, one illegitimate and the other in marriage (and this time a boy!) Edward (being the first male heir) went on to become king.
Henry is a bit of a disappointment as the reforming king. Not only were his sexual exploits not exactly honourable but he seemed to want a very catholic looking church, just with him as the English Pope. When he died he payed for two priests to say the mass for him forever. But not a single mass was ever said. Edward saw to that.
Edward was a deeply protestant young man (well, as much as you can be at age 9). He had no time for the superstitious nonsense his Father had organised so he scrapped it. But he was also very ill and died at 15. It was such a pity, as he had shown incredible promise, even competently attending parliament at 14. You’ve got to wonder what England would be like if he hadn’t died so young.
Being 15 and all Edward had neglected to have any children and so Mary (who, with Elizabeth, had been… un-bastardised… just before Henry VIII’s death) became the first queen of England since Matilda.
Things at this stage went really bad for the protestants, as Mary remained a devout catholic. Mary rounded up not only protestant leaders for the execution by fire but also ordinary people (such as a blind woman who saved up, bought a bible and paid people to read it to her). Fortunately for the reformation cause, she had two false pregnancies, with the second being a tumour of the bowel. She died childless and with her Catholic England failed.
Next post on her successor – Elizabeth 1
Henry’s interests had been set on another woman as well, Anne Boleyn. Anne was a smart girl who, it is thought, put a copy of a little tract by Tyndale in Henry’s hands which argued that in any realm there ought be only one King (i.e. the Pope wasn’t the boss). Henry loved it. With the help of two of his underlings, Cromwell and Cranmer and with an Act of Parliament the English church was born. This enabled Henry to annul his marriage to Catherine (ta Cranmer) and bastardise Mary.
Cromwell and Cranmer were an interesting pair – the politician and the parson. Cromwell managed to suppress a great deal of Catholic resistance (and there was heaps of it) and Cranmer, who was heavily influenced by the Reformers, set about making significant changes to the way church was done in England (starting with ending the mass and writing several prayer books in English.
Unfortunately for Anne, she too did not produce a son, and after producing a daughter (Elizabeth) and a miscarriage that would have been a boy, Henry turned on his young bride. Cromwell, opportunist that he was, moved against Anne and within a few months her head was on the block in the tower of London. Elizabeth was also bastardised (woot! Bastardised used twice in the same blog!)
Henry went on to have two other children, one illegitimate and the other in marriage (and this time a boy!) Edward (being the first male heir) went on to become king.
Henry is a bit of a disappointment as the reforming king. Not only were his sexual exploits not exactly honourable but he seemed to want a very catholic looking church, just with him as the English Pope. When he died he payed for two priests to say the mass for him forever. But not a single mass was ever said. Edward saw to that.
Edward was a deeply protestant young man (well, as much as you can be at age 9). He had no time for the superstitious nonsense his Father had organised so he scrapped it. But he was also very ill and died at 15. It was such a pity, as he had shown incredible promise, even competently attending parliament at 14. You’ve got to wonder what England would be like if he hadn’t died so young.
Being 15 and all Edward had neglected to have any children and so Mary (who, with Elizabeth, had been… un-bastardised… just before Henry VIII’s death) became the first queen of England since Matilda.
Things at this stage went really bad for the protestants, as Mary remained a devout catholic. Mary rounded up not only protestant leaders for the execution by fire but also ordinary people (such as a blind woman who saved up, bought a bible and paid people to read it to her). Fortunately for the reformation cause, she had two false pregnancies, with the second being a tumour of the bowel. She died childless and with her Catholic England failed.
Next post on her successor – Elizabeth 1
Making sense of the English Reformation
One of the joys of studying at College is, from time to time you have to write essays on topics you know nothing about. I mean it. Nothing. Due to a clerical (deliberately ambiguous, do I mean administrative staff or clergy?) error, our Church History 2 essays, of which all the questions are about the English reformation, have been set to be due before we start that bit of the course.
So I thought I might put together a (very) basic overview that shamelessly links to wikipedia but gives everyone an idea of what was going on in the period, and some mental hooks to hang new knowledge on. I should say, I'm not going to interact with all the fancy shmancy historical theories, I'm just giving a brief overview. It’ll come over a few posts.
Ok. Firstly, what’s a Tudor or a Stewart etc.?
Where you and I have last names, Kings and Queens and their royal families are in houses (like at Hogwarts). Elizabeth II, the current monarch is in the house of Windsor. Henry VIII was the son of Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings. The house of Stewart followed the House of Tudor after Elizabeth I didn’t make any babies, but we’ll get to that later. We’ll start our story with Henry VIII
Well for starters he was never meant to be king. His older brother Authur was meant to be king. But with his premature death, the young Henry was required to take his brothers widow, the Spanish Catherine of Aragon to be his wife.
Henry VIII was at some level a religious man, brought up a good Catholic as you’d expect him to be. In fact to look at him in the early years of his reign you’d never think that he was in some way a reformer. He even wrote a treatise against the Lutheran threat on the continent. This little tract earned him the title “Defender of the Faith”, which he kept, even after he separated from the Pope who gave it to him.
But then there was a problem. No male heir. Catherine and Henry did have a child, Mary, but (and remember we are traversing culture here) a male heir preserved the House’s claim to the throne. When a female gets married she changes houses and thus the house in charge changes.
Henry, being an amateur theologian, was reading through Leviticus one day and came across Leviticus 20:21 (not 19 as it says in Heinze). Henry freaked out (and seemingly forgot that he wasn’t childless, Mary just wasn’t a boy). So he planned to annul his marriage with Catherine. Ordinarily the Pope would’ve been only too happy to ablidge, but he had just been invaded by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Catherine’s nephew. Awkward!
How’d he sort it out? Next post.
So I thought I might put together a (very) basic overview that shamelessly links to wikipedia but gives everyone an idea of what was going on in the period, and some mental hooks to hang new knowledge on. I should say, I'm not going to interact with all the fancy shmancy historical theories, I'm just giving a brief overview. It’ll come over a few posts.
Ok. Firstly, what’s a Tudor or a Stewart etc.?
Where you and I have last names, Kings and Queens and their royal families are in houses (like at Hogwarts). Elizabeth II, the current monarch is in the house of Windsor. Henry VIII was the son of Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings. The house of Stewart followed the House of Tudor after Elizabeth I didn’t make any babies, but we’ll get to that later. We’ll start our story with Henry VIII
Well for starters he was never meant to be king. His older brother Authur was meant to be king. But with his premature death, the young Henry was required to take his brothers widow, the Spanish Catherine of Aragon to be his wife.
Henry VIII was at some level a religious man, brought up a good Catholic as you’d expect him to be. In fact to look at him in the early years of his reign you’d never think that he was in some way a reformer. He even wrote a treatise against the Lutheran threat on the continent. This little tract earned him the title “Defender of the Faith”, which he kept, even after he separated from the Pope who gave it to him.
But then there was a problem. No male heir. Catherine and Henry did have a child, Mary, but (and remember we are traversing culture here) a male heir preserved the House’s claim to the throne. When a female gets married she changes houses and thus the house in charge changes.
Henry, being an amateur theologian, was reading through Leviticus one day and came across Leviticus 20:21 (not 19 as it says in Heinze). Henry freaked out (and seemingly forgot that he wasn’t childless, Mary just wasn’t a boy). So he planned to annul his marriage with Catherine. Ordinarily the Pope would’ve been only too happy to ablidge, but he had just been invaded by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Catherine’s nephew. Awkward!
How’d he sort it out? Next post.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Repentance time: Mission round up and the Shake ‘n’ Bake.
From time to time I’ll discuss my sin on this blog. Not to glory in my amazing ability to overcome it, nor to wallow in it. I hope it’ll be encouraging as we see Jesus’ strength in my weakness.
Just before the term 1 holiday Moore College shuts down and all the students, in groups of about twenty, go out to a church to do/help with evangelism for eight days. This is called mission week.
This morning I had a brunch with the rest of the college team that went to Centennial park, St Matthias for mission. Warwick de Jersey, the head honcho of St Matthias was coming along as well. It was a kind of debriefish, evaluatory thing. I was not looking forward to it.
To be honest with you I was disappointed with mission. Although I did heaps of stuff like Primary School Scripture, I felt like I spent the week cluster bombing the gospel, rather than having genuine conversations with people. Even the door knocking I did to invite people to the Church’s Easter Picnic, which was happening after we left, seemed fruitless. Everyone else on team seemed to be having a great time and having the kind of Gospel conversations I was wanting to have and it seemed circumstances (rain, transport, timetabling) thwarted my evangelistic efforts at every turn. In short, although I would never had articulated it, I felt mission hadn’t really been “successful”.
But I was humbled this morning. Warwick and Archie spent about half an hour telling us in triumphant detail just how great the St Matthias Easter picnic and Easter services had been. The church was at standing room only, the kids ministries were ballooning. What’s more a bunch of these people came, either because of door knocking or because their kids had come to scripture and nagged their parents to let them come to church at Easter. Several people made Jesus their King over the weekend, several more have started meeting up with people from the church to try and make sense of Christianity for themselves.
Reflecting on mission now, I can see that what I was involved in was a “Shake ‘n’ Bake”. For those who haven’t seen Talledaga Nights, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C Reilly) and Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) were Nascar racing team-mates and Cal Naughton Jr. would deliberately allow Rick Bobby to slip stream and catapult forward to allow Bobby to win every time.
Mission time this year didn’t give me the opportunities to extend my evangelistic repertoire, or allow me to experience the joy of witnessing the “ah ha” moment as someone understands the gospel for the first time as they move from spiritual death to rebirth and life. But mission week isn’t about me. It is about the Lord Jesus and the extension of His kingdom and the building up of His church. He must be made great.
Although I didn’t find the same enjoyment that I have had on other missions, in reality I had very little to complain about. I was treated exceptionally well by my billets (they lent me their “spare” car, see photo below), Anna had a great week and the more I think about it, the more instances of other team members getting to have the conversations that I didn’t get to have pop into my mind. So what if I didn’t! Others were!
Please join me in thanking God for the work he is doing in Paddington and Centennial Park. Planting and watering aside – God is giving the growth.
Just before the term 1 holiday Moore College shuts down and all the students, in groups of about twenty, go out to a church to do/help with evangelism for eight days. This is called mission week.
This morning I had a brunch with the rest of the college team that went to Centennial park, St Matthias for mission. Warwick de Jersey, the head honcho of St Matthias was coming along as well. It was a kind of debriefish, evaluatory thing. I was not looking forward to it.
To be honest with you I was disappointed with mission. Although I did heaps of stuff like Primary School Scripture, I felt like I spent the week cluster bombing the gospel, rather than having genuine conversations with people. Even the door knocking I did to invite people to the Church’s Easter Picnic, which was happening after we left, seemed fruitless. Everyone else on team seemed to be having a great time and having the kind of Gospel conversations I was wanting to have and it seemed circumstances (rain, transport, timetabling) thwarted my evangelistic efforts at every turn. In short, although I would never had articulated it, I felt mission hadn’t really been “successful”.
But I was humbled this morning. Warwick and Archie spent about half an hour telling us in triumphant detail just how great the St Matthias Easter picnic and Easter services had been. The church was at standing room only, the kids ministries were ballooning. What’s more a bunch of these people came, either because of door knocking or because their kids had come to scripture and nagged their parents to let them come to church at Easter. Several people made Jesus their King over the weekend, several more have started meeting up with people from the church to try and make sense of Christianity for themselves.
Reflecting on mission now, I can see that what I was involved in was a “Shake ‘n’ Bake”. For those who haven’t seen Talledaga Nights, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C Reilly) and Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) were Nascar racing team-mates and Cal Naughton Jr. would deliberately allow Rick Bobby to slip stream and catapult forward to allow Bobby to win every time.
Mission time this year didn’t give me the opportunities to extend my evangelistic repertoire, or allow me to experience the joy of witnessing the “ah ha” moment as someone understands the gospel for the first time as they move from spiritual death to rebirth and life. But mission week isn’t about me. It is about the Lord Jesus and the extension of His kingdom and the building up of His church. He must be made great.
Although I didn’t find the same enjoyment that I have had on other missions, in reality I had very little to complain about. I was treated exceptionally well by my billets (they lent me their “spare” car, see photo below), Anna had a great week and the more I think about it, the more instances of other team members getting to have the conversations that I didn’t get to have pop into my mind. So what if I didn’t! Others were!
Please join me in thanking God for the work he is doing in Paddington and Centennial Park. Planting and watering aside – God is giving the growth.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Ta da
Hi everyone.
Welcome to the Box Pop blog (again).
In 1st year I enthusiastically started a blog by the same name but like a seed in the third soil, the pressures of the College curriculum, my busy gardening schedule and above all, my laziness ended my brief paddle in the blogging kiddie pool.
But having been bullied by my friend Steve Kryger, and having played around with guest blogging, I think I'm ready to try again.
In the coming weeks, I'm going to talk about a few different things: I'm going to be writing on the material covered in Moore College's second year Philosophy and Church History and I'm going to be inviting you to get involved in the world views project Anna and I are leading at church.
Welcome to the Box Pop blog (again).
In 1st year I enthusiastically started a blog by the same name but like a seed in the third soil, the pressures of the College curriculum, my busy gardening schedule and above all, my laziness ended my brief paddle in the blogging kiddie pool.
But having been bullied by my friend Steve Kryger, and having played around with guest blogging, I think I'm ready to try again.
In the coming weeks, I'm going to talk about a few different things: I'm going to be writing on the material covered in Moore College's second year Philosophy and Church History and I'm going to be inviting you to get involved in the world views project Anna and I are leading at church.
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