Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Steve Smith on "Was Thomas More a Hypocrite?"
The title of this essay, by Steve Smith, in the latest issue of The Lamp, might seem designed to jar, even to scandalize, Mirror of Justice readers. But, press on! First, it's by Steve Smith so . . . 'nuff said. Smith reminds us that many of More's friends thought him -- at the time -- less a heroic martyr than one wallowing in (his words) “stubbornness and obstinacy.” Later, some would sniff at the talk of More, the champion of "conscience", given that he had, well, punished heretics. Hypocrisy?
Smith explores the possibility that More meant something by "conscience" very different than what we mean today (i.e., "I gotta be me."):
But if we understand conscience more substantively as acting on beliefs based on the collective understanding of Christendom, as More did, then it seems that he was not being inconsistent after all. That is because, sincere or not, the Protestants were not acting on conscience—not as he understood it. Rather, they were acting against conscience. Indeed, they were openly and unapologetically acting against conscience by setting up their own personal judgement in opposition to and in defiance of the doctrines held by the Church and by Christians generally. Martin Luther had been proudly explicit at Worms on exactly this point (“Here I stand, I can do no other”). For More, this course was not only hubristic and reckless and self-contradictory; it was precisely the opposite of what it meant to act on conscience.
But in More’s view the Protestants were acting against conscience in an even more basic and threatening way. They were not merely acting against conscience themselves; they were working to make it impossible for Christians generally to act on conscience.
Check it out.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2024/01/steve-smith-on-was-thomas-more-a-hypocrite.html