christ's shoutout to BLM

 I am greatly enjoying Wolf Hall at the moment. And loving, as well, the takedown of Thomas More, at least as seen by Thomas Cromwell, who is seen by Hilary Mantel. Mantel was born a Catholic and had obviously fought against her Catholic heritage – so much so that certain writers in the pious journals have implied that she relies too much on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a ferociously anti-Catholic book.

I view Mantel’s view of Cromwell’s view of More through Cold War eyes, for it was in the sixties that More became a pop martyr, a truth teller. And, indeed, nobody can deny that More was burnt. Nor deny that he himself burnt – books and Protestants. He had one suspected heretic held in stocks at his own house.

All of which leads us to More’s great antagonist – not Henry VIII, who was merely a king. I’m talking about William Tyndale. The first translator of the Bible, whose translation was the go to crib for the 80 people assembled under King James to translate the Bible. This is not just a matter of the Bible: rather, Tyndale’s was the democratic spirit, re-emerging in common life. In a dispute with a priest who told Tyndale “we were better off to be without God’s law than the Pope’s”, Tyndale replied that he defied the pope’s law and added: “if God spare my life, ere many years I wyl cause a boye that dryveth the plough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost.” (the story is in Foxe – receive it under that caution).

This remark is not simply a bit of casual repartee, but at the heart of democratic culture. It has since been the aim of those who believe in democracy to cause the boye or girl who dryveth the plough to know more of the secrets of the CIA, more of the sources of money that go into the laws, more of the background considerations of the wheelings and dealings of the Justices, more of the inner workings of corporation honchoes, than any powerful heretic burner would like.

Alas, the ethos of “need to know” is accepted all too docilely by the citizens in our quasi-democracies. As a sign and symbol of this retreat in America, I would point to the tragic decline of knowledge of the Bible.

When I grew up, the Bible was not only in every hotel room but was actually read by high and low. It informed the prose of our culture, both as it came out of the mouths of people and as it poured into media. I was given my first bible, with a nice red cover, when I was six, I believe. I was promptly scolded by my Mom for writing my name in it in my utterly henscratching handwriting. I thought at the time and think now that I did no wrong, there.

If you look at the Hollywood portrayal of Americans – and of religious Americans – you will notice that none of the scriptwriters seem to have more than an impoverished Dummies guide to the Bible knowledge of the text. This reflects a great and sensible diminishment of knowledge of the Bible by those who supposedly are all about it, as for instance Fundamentalist Christians. American Christianity, of course, has long been something other than Christianity, as Jesus’s vita, ending in crucifixion and resurrection, has been replaced by Horatio Alger's Christianity, with Jesus preaching feel good messages that will help you in business as you get rich rich rich. In order to believe the latter, you have to very much cherrypick a few messages from the New Testament and add to it the Gospel as spoken by Ronald Reagan, or Donald Trump.

However, down at groundlevel, it used to be that there was some genuine knowledge of the psalms, the prophets, the histories, the vita, even Paul’s letters. Now, it is a mouthful of rightwing slogans and some knowledge of Revelations, a book that should never have made it past the Nicene Council.

What would Tyndale say about his ploughboys now? Perhaps: wake up! “ Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.” You know, Christ’s shoutout to the Black Lives Matter movement.