Talkin' Cranmer & Olympics with Dr. Ashley Null

Thomas Cranmer’s Theology and Martyrdom

Hey guys, and welcome back to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am your Calvinist, and I'm joined today by Dr. Ashley Null, a foremost expert on the subject of Thomas Cranmer. At least that's what I was told last night.

Is that the truth, doctor?

I do know a thing or two about Cranmer's theology, but I'm not the only person that studies him, and I think you might have good reason to say that there are other people who are as good, if not better, like Dermot McCulloch, my supervisor.

Oh, okay. I heard you mention his name last night during the Q &A. You said Dermot McCulloch, and I'm not even sure I'm saying the name correctly, but you said he might have something to say about that.

He's been very nice about my understanding of Cranmer's theology, but his biography of Cranmer from 1996 and the second edition, 2016, is the definitive biography of Cranmer.

That's amazing.

He's an amazing scholar.

And you are, last night, tremendous in your presentation, I just want to tell you, and I'm not saying that to flatter you, I really enjoyed it. My wife and I were both here, you spoke on the subject of Sola Scriptura, and we were both very encouraged, so I want to thank you for that.

Isn't it wonderful when a theological reflection of what God is doing in the world, and his means of making that known, i .e. Scripture, leaves people encouraged and edified? Isn't that the whole point?

Yeah.

But it doesn't always happen these days, does it?

No. Unfortunately, that is very true, that is very true.

But when we let the Word do its work, it is wonderful.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So this morning we had a men's breakfast at our church, and I was talking to the men about this talk you gave last night, mentioned your expertise in the life of Cranmer, and now I'm just, every time I say it I'm saying Cranmer, because you said last night how easy it is to call him Cranmer, and so this morning you said Cranberry.

Yes, Cranmer.

Cranmer. And as I was talking about it, one of our elders who has talked about Cranmer and some of his messages and stuff, had mentioned a story about his martyrdom, his death, and wanted me to ask you if the story is actually true, or is it embellished, and that's the story that he had recanted, signed a recantation, and then wanted to put his hand in the fire first, because it was his hand that with which he had had signed that recantation.

Is that true? Is that...

It's absolutely true. There's no dispute or lack of clarity in the historical record. Now the question is, what made him want to do that?

Yeah, well that's what I wanted to...

The fact that he put his hand in the fire first, and said, this hand hath offended, when it was holding it out even while it was sensibly burning. Now, to his Roman Catholic opponents, he was clearly trying to do Protestant penance, but that's not how Cranmer would have thought it.

In some ways, I think Cranmer is a man for our times, because he falters under pressure. He warned people that they should leave England, because they do not know how you will respond in times of physical threat and torture.

But he feels committed to stay, and he stays, and he gets arrested. And then while he's in prison, he writes a letter to the king and queen, King Philip of Spain, and his wife, Mary Tudor. And he basically calls the Pope Antichrist.

And this is not a shy and retiring man in prison to say to the Catholic monarchs, half Spanish and full Spanish, that the Pope's Antichrist. This is a man of courage.

Sure.

But by the end of his captivity, he has been both emotionally and physically manipulated. Most likely not physically tortured, but he was separated from people, and then they had friars confessing. And when he would say they did the academic argument, that maybe there were some weaknesses in his argument, and as he began to cede ground in the academic arguments, then all of a sudden he was allowed to have company and friends.

And then when he hardens, they withdraw that. Do you know the Stockholm Syndrome?

Oh, sure.

Where you begin to take on...

You empathize with your captor.

Right.

Yeah.

It's difficult to know what exactly happened, but that may be part of it. But by the time, and again they are shrewd, the first, he signed six increasingly abject recantations. One says, if I ever did anything wrong against God and his word, I am so sorry.

You know.

A blanket recant.

Yeah, means nothing of any substance. But by the sixth, when he knows he's going to be burned, and there's no hope of reprove, because he shouldn't have been burned if he was... He was not a lapsed heretic.

This was his first time, and if he signs a recantation, he shouldn't have been burned.

Yeah, should be free.

But because he's the one who approves the queen's mother's divorce, and because of the death of John Fisher and others, they're saying that he and Latimer and Ridley have to die as a balancing for the Catholic martyrs or whatever.

And didn't he watch their death?

He watched Ridley and Latimer's death.

Yeah.

So by the sixth, he knows that he's not going to get off the hook, and so signing the sixth recantation will make no difference. But he signs it like he's a worm, like the whole world has collapsed and he is the worst of sinners.

But tell me, what does the Gospel say if you're the worst of sinners?

Christ is a greater Savior.

Yeah. And in, on that morning, the sun didn't shine bright in the sky, but the Gospel illuminated Cranmer's heart to say, even if he was the chief failure of the kingdom, either to have led the kingdom away from the medieval Catholic truth, or to have preached it and now have signed all these, denouncing it.

Either way, he was a complete failure of the Protestant faith, which he had taught for so many years, said you could fall fully from God, but not finally. His love in the end would not let you go. And if anyone needed imputed righteousness at that moment, it was Thomas Cranmer.

He needed the Gospel that he had preached, that God's love was not too little for him, even though he had publicly increasingly repudiated the faith that he had spent years teaching people to believe.

And so he resolves that he will go out trusting in the atoning power of Christ for even such a sinner as him to have repudiated the Gospel in those recantations. So he renounces it, he renounces in the pulpit when they're expecting the great Cranmer to admit that he was wrong, and they are very unhappy with him, they pull him down and he runs to the stake with joy to realize that Jesus is with him even though he is such a failure.

His love will not let him go when he needs it the most. I always say, when do we need to know God's love the most? When we've done well or when we haven't? That's the whole point of raising in the sun.

It's when you don't do well you need to know the unconditional love of God, and that's what Cranmer had preached, and that's what he died in. So his hand in the fire is not trying to appease God, but this is an incarnationalist.

He believes in the power of physical symbols because we are soul and body. That's why he's a big believer in the sacraments, because they help make real and visible the promises of God. So what made clear to everyone that he was consciously renouncing his recantations, not in fearful penance but in joy that God had manifested his faith when he needed it the most, that his faith in God was God's work, his last work in Cranmer's life on that day.

So his hand was in there to show everyone the truth of the gospel that he had preached. Now one little detail people don't know is that Cranmer's heart survived the ashes, according to a hostile traditionalist Catholic account.

And they said, ah, just like Germanicus, whose heart survived because he was poisoned, Cranmer's heart surviving must show that it was the poison of heresy that kept it from being burned. Wow. Or you could say, in God's grace, it was his last sermon because the heart of Cranmer died trusting in God's promises written on it.

Mmm. That's powerful. And it's true! Yeah. It's ever heard the phrase evangelastic? I don't think I have. Evangelastic. Yeah. I love that. That's a term when preachers stretch the example's truth, you know, just to make a bigger impact for the gospel.

Sure. They exaggerate the stories. Mm-hmm. That's evangelastic. And this is not evangelastic, this is true. Amen. When you have the hostile Catholic saying it, you know. Well I can obviously hear your passion.

Coming out, and it's something that obviously showed last night in your teaching, but also just in your talking about Cranmer's life, and that's one of the things that I'm sure endears you to your students and makes you a great.

Teacher. I can't speak about that, but we have a generation that have wandered from God, and don't know how to come back, and think that it's up to them to find a way to come back. And the more they try to find a way to come back, the digger the hole they deep.

And for them, Cranmer should be the patron saint. He's an example of a man who did right, and then horribly abandoned it. But God came to him when he needed it the most, not condemning him for his renunciations, but reminding him of his loving promise.

And that's what gave him joy and resilience in the midst of the sheer physical pain, because it says he held it there the entire time until it was gone. Wow. So as I'm listening to you talk,.

Listening to you teach, as I said, it's obvious this is a passion and a joy of yours to teach, and that teaching ability has led to many areas of your life that you've had the opportunity to speak into the lives of people, not the least of which, you have been a chaplain with the Olympic Village.

And I know that seems like a weird change, that we're going from Cranmer to that, but I can see why they would have chosen you. You obviously have a passion for.

Teaching, and... I just give them Cranmer for jocks. True! Who needs to know more than anyone else that when they stand before God, it's not based on their performance, but God's performance for them?

Who endures the bitter consequence of an evangelical gospel twisted by American culture, so you think God only loves you when you're good, and punishes you when you're bad? What's the number one question I'm asked by Olympic athletes in the Village when they, Christian athletes, when they don't reach their goals?

What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? Meaning, of course, if I did well, I would have won, but if I didn't win, it must mean that God thinks I didn't do well. Anyone ever read something about if the world loves you, you should be worried?

Anyone read John 15 to that every branch that is faithful and produces fruit, those are the branches that are pruned through disappointment, setbacks, heartaches, so they'll have more fruitfulness, but the more fruitfulness doesn't really hit home in the middle of the pruning, right?

Sure. Who else needs to know that God's love will complete the good work he has begun in them? That all their time and investment in sport, in God's economy, will be useful, even if they don't reach the goals they think they need to.

That God is faithful, and they don't need X to complete their lives. In Christ, they are already complete, and therefore they have the freedom to endure the ups and downs that come with the pursuit of excellence.

And although one can see it so clearly in the lives of elite athletes, it's true from everybody, because that's the human condition, and especially American culture, which says you have worth and value if you can prove it.

Performance Identity and the Folly of Striving for Approval

Yeah. So, in.

Your experience with the Olympics, that developed into a book. Yes, it did. I'd like to share that with the audience, if that's okay. I know you brought along a copy, and you brought some other things to show us, but we can start by talking about the book.

This is Performance Identity, The Folly of Striving for God's.

Approval. Now how long ago did you write that? Um, this has just come out in print.

In October. Oh, okay, so this is relatively new. How long were you with.

The Olympics? I've worked in six Olympic villages. Oh, wow. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you've known some of the greatest athletes in the history of the world. Not every famous athlete is interested in the Religious Service Center in the village.

I was.

Actually gonna ask you, what is, and I know there's probably, you can't give me a percentage, but how many, did a lot of the athletes come to you? Was it a relatively small minority that were Christian?

What was the experience of.

That with you? Um, it is always better to know the athletes before the games to be able to continue to support them during the games. As you can imagine, the Olympic village is not a happy place. Yeah.

It's an incredibly tense and pressurized, and you imagine athletes being reluctant to change their routine with something new and uncontrolled in the midst of the most important meet of their life? Sure.

But sometimes things don't go well, and then you're trying to figure out the meaning of life, and then you can meet a chaplain and talk. Some athletes will look for chapel because that's part of their normal rhythm.

Yeah. And obviously there are, American athletes are much more likely to have some kind of religious connection than, say, people from Europe, because that's just normal. And obviously Africans have a much greater sense of the connection between their achievements in sport.

Sure, sure. Well, tell us about the coins, and then we'll.

Draw this together. This was something you showed me before the show, and I was so impressed by these. You had these made for the, you said, for the Christian athletes, and you gave them?

Yes. There's something wonderful and tangible about a visual reminder of the truths that you hold. The purpose of the sacraments, of water and bread, is that it's tactile, right? Yeah. And I had two coins prepared.

Some athletes put them in their pockets so they could physically grab them and hold on to, literally, to the promises. Others put them in their shoelaces so they could look down at them and be reminded.

One particular athlete couldn't put the coin in his Speedo, so he made his coach hold it during his competition. And the coins basically summarize the message of the book, which is most athletes make the mistake of trying to earn love by accomplishment.

And I always say medals have to be earned, that's right and good. Love can't be earned. If it's earned, it's not love.

It's not love, yeah.

But Christian athletes easily get that confused. Not only do I have to win to earn the love of myself, of my coach, of my country, of my family, of my friends, or whatever, I need to win morally to win God's approval.

And if I don't have God's approval, He may not let me win to get the approval of others, and it can become a really toxic thing. And so this book is about what are the promises of God, and how should one face pursuing excellence, competition.

And so one is a motivation coin. Is this the camera?

This is your camera, right here, yeah.

And on one side is a roaring lion, and the inscription reads, fear prowls around like a lion seeking to devour you. It's my paraphrase of 1 Peter 5 -6.

Yes, sir.

It's designed for Olympic athletes, so you'll notice they have the Greek border. And then on the backside, Nehemiah, but the joy of the Lord is your strength. And what is the joy of the Lord?

Trusting Jesus.

Yes.

And because it's for the Olympics, we use the ancient Greek sign for Jesus, the fish, and the Greek letters in it spell out as an acronym in Greek, Jesus Christ, God, Son, Savior. It's ikthus, which happens to be the Greek word for fish.

That's why the fish was the ancient symbol for being a Christian, because it represented you believing Jesus Christ as God's Son and my Savior.

Oh, wonderful.

So this is the motivation coin. Do I compete out of fear that I have to prove I have worth, or do I compete out of joy because Jesus has given me a worth that will not go away no matter what happens today, and therefore I can enjoy the privilege of doing what I love to do at the highest level?

Fear or joy through Jesus? And the other is the promise coin. How do you put together your pursuit of excellence in sport with your Christian faith? Sport says you get what you earn, right?

Yeah.

Is that what Christianity says?

No.

What does Christianity say?

You get what Christ earned.

Right. So I get a gift in my faith, but I have to work for it in sport. People can get really confused putting those two together, right?

Yes.

So we want people to understand a biblical way of putting sport and faith together, and that is Philippians 1 .6. What is his promise to you? God will complete the good work that you began for him. Is that what it says?

No, sir.

What does it say?

But he began in you.

Right. If God has begun Christian faith, if God is giving you talent and motivation to begin to pursue excellence in sport, who's going to make that time in sport meaningful, productive, and a source of joy?

What you're able to accomplish today or what he has promised to do for you that he will bring it to completion? That in the end, you give your all, but you don't think your effort will determine your destiny.

You give thanks that the one who loves you, he's going to bring it to a good end.

Amen.

And Ephesians 2 .10, that you were created to do good works he has prepared in advance for you to do. Your goal is not to decide what great things to do for God, but what great things God has set aside for you and to lean into them.

I always say being in the Olympic Village is like tending 10 funerals in one wedding. Most people's dreams die in the Olympic Village. That's why it's really cool to win.

Yeah.

And why it's rare. It's so typical of God that when we least deserve it, he makes clear that his love, like Cranmer, will not let us go, and that he will use us for the purposes he had set aside, and that we will be stunned to see what God does with our frail, fragile, feeble attempts to do something for him.

He makes the jacket lines of our life something really beautiful.

Amen.

Olympic Chaplaincy, Christian Athletes, and the Coins of Performance Identity

Well, Dr. Null, I'm so grateful for you sharing your experience and your knowledge and your wisdom with us. Most of all, just sharing the love of God with us and the fact that you were able to do that through all of the lives of those young people and all the lives of your students that you continue to teach, and for sharing it with us this weekend at the conference.

So I want to thank you for all that you have done and all that you are doing.

Thank you very much. It's a joy to be on your program. Thank you for inviting me.

Absolutely. And again, I want to thank you guys for being a part of the show today. I want to remind you that I'm at the Reformation Conference here at Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. I think they're going to have the videos of the sermons up at some point, so I'll be sure to link those when they come available.

Go ahead.

I am such a poor salesman. I forgot to tell people where they can get the book.

Yeah, and I was going to say, we want to tell people, I can put the link in the description, but tell us where to find it.

It's very simple. It's if you Google Null, N-U-L-L, and then performance identity, it'll come up immediately on Amazon, and you can buy it on Amazon for $14 .95, which is five cents cheaper than you can at the conference.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I will put that link in the description.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. And again, I want to thank you guys for being a part of the show. Remember, one of the best things you can do to help us out is simply subscribe to the channel, and if you like this video, hit the thumbs up button, and if you didn't, hit the thumbs down button twice.

Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.