A few weeks ago, I was watching the Academy Awards ceremony and was reminded that a movie about England's Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons, had won an Oscar for best picture in 1958. I decided to take a closer look at More to see what his life and writing might have to say to us. I found a lot, and some of it had to do with decisions that he made in his life.

Much has been written about Thomas More. He was born in London in 1478, the son of John More, a barrister. In his early teens, Thomas entered Oxford, where he imbibed the new humanism then sweeping the universities of Europe. This movement rejected the increasingly sterile scholasticism of medieval higher education and focused on the so-called humane studies, including grammar and rhetoric, especially as found in the Greek and Latin classics. Humanists considered these studies to be the keys to understanding life and preparing for useful service to society. Many of them also believed that applying the tools of their scholarship to the texts of the Bible and of ancient Christian writers could lead to a purer and more authentic understanding of Christian truths. This, in turn, might result in a reformation of the Church itself.

At his father's urging, Thomas did not stay long enough at Oxford to complete a degree but returned to London to study law. During his legal training, More lived among Carthusian monks and almost resolved to take holy orders. But, as he could not overcome his desire to marry, he decided, in the words of his first biographer, a son-in-law, "to be a faithful husband rather than an unfaithful priest." In 1505 More married Jane Colt, with whom he had four children. After her death, More married again, this time to a widow named Alice Middleton. During these years, he served a brief stint in Parliament, practiced law, wrote a history of the reign of Richard III, and became the leader of a circle of London humanists. It was during this time that he became a friend to the greatest Christian humanist of them all, Erasmus of Rotterdam, then a visiting scholar at Cambridge.

Erasmus and More discussed together on more than one occasion whether or not a humanist scholar should enter government service. Erasmus argued in the negative, saying that such service would take away a scholar's independence of thought and action.

More soon had to decide how he would deal with that issue. Young King Henry VIII invited him to participate in a diplomatic mission to Flanders. More accepted. It was a momentous decision. On the positive side, it gave him leisure, while carrying out the mission, to write his most famous book, Utopia. On the other hand, More's decision started him off on a road of public service in the government of King Henry which eventually resulted in his death.

I want to say a brief word about Utopia because it illustrates something about More's thinking and about his later behavior as well. In the book, Utopia was an imaginary island set vaguely in the New World. There, everyone worked, education was universal, care was provided for the poor and other unfortunates, and there was toleration of diverse religious beliefs. There was no private property and no money. Ever since the book's publication, scholars and others have pondered what More was trying to say in this famous satire. Surely at a minimum, he was criticizing many of the features of contemporary Christian society in Europe. Perhaps he hoped that England and even the whole of western Christendom could become a bit less greedy and class-conscious and a bit more concerned about the poor; in other words, a bit more Christian.

In the 1520s Henry named More his chancellor, which, among other things, made him the chief judicial officer of the realm. As such he made some important decisions, not all of them good. More successfully prosecuted several persons accused of heresy, resulting in their executions. This was in spite of the fact that his earlier writing of Utopia suggested that the chancellor might have had a more tolerant spirit. We know that his decisions were not just the carrying out of an onerous responsibility under the law. He once remarked that he hoped to live to see several things happen. One was the extermination of heresy. As chancellor, More could have shown mercy to persons whose religious beliefs different from those of the Church; his predecessor had done so. But the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation had somehow hardened More's heart toward those who wanted to take church reform further than he was willing to see it go. He wrote scathing tracts which attacked the character and ideas of Luther in Germany and Tyndale in his own country.

More's greatest decision in life came from what was called the King's Great Matter. By the late 1520s, Henry had decided to seek an annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Lust played its part, but so did the need for a male heir. Henry petitioned Pope Julius II for the annulment, claiming biblical support for his request. More aided in marshalling the king's case. Although the pope delayed a decision for as long as possible, he finally denied the petition.

Henry then persuaded Parliament to recognize him as the head of the English Catholic Church, to annul his marriage, and to declare Anne as the new queen. Parliament also passed an act requiring all persons in the realm to take an oath affirming that Henry, not the pope, was head of the Church in England.

This Thomas More, who by this time had resigned as chancellor, refused to do. Although he had often criticized the papacy and, along with Erasmus and other Christian humanists, had earlier called for reform within the Church, More was still a faithful Roman Catholic.

At first, it appeared that Henry might not punish More, at least not severely. But Queen Anne, miffed that More had refused to attend her coronation, insisted that the courts move against the former chancellor. Although refusing to take the oath was not punishable by death, additional related charges, trumped-up for the occasion, did lead to More's being convicted of treason. He was then imprisoned in the Tower of London to await execution. His wife begged him to take the oath, as this would have solved the problem, but he refused. He had made the decision to be true to his conscience. His cause was papal supremacy, an issue on which he had expressed some doubt in earlier years. More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. Among his last words was a protestation that he was dying the king's good servant, but God's first.

Most people honor More for his act of conscience, although it is difficult for Protestants to identify positively with the specific issues that led to it. We should remember, however, that More was dealing, in his own way, with an issue that all Christians face in our own society, the tension between respect for authority (both sacred and secular) and one's love of freedom. Paul says in Galatians 5:17 that we are called to freedom, but he wrote in I Corinthians 7:22 that we are also called to be slaves of Christ. Thomas More's understanding of these concepts led him to the block. We, like More, are called on everyday to make decisions that affect ourselves and others, some of them very difficult. Some of those decisions have great consequences. May we do our best to enlighten our consciences by the power of God's Holy Spirit and then to have the integrity to live by them.

I close with a paraphrased condensation of a prayer by Thomas More:

Give us your grace, good Lord, to set the world at nought, to set our minds fast upon you, to be joyful of tribulations, to walk the narrow way that leads to life, to bear the cross of Christ, to have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for us, and for his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks. Amen.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws