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Liberty, but at what Cost?

We owe a great debt to Bishop John Hooper (1495-1555), even if this is the first time you have heard his name.  He gave us something of great worth and value: an example. To be sure, he was only reflecting the one who exemplifies truth, holiness, and sacrifice – our saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.  Nevertheless, his example of what it meant to follow Christ in the darkness of his time provides much light for how we are to follow Christ in the darkness of our time.

The Back Story

It is no exaggeration to say that Queen Mary was eager to unsheathe her sword of persecution towards protestants like Bishop Hooper. The facts bear witness to this as it only took a mere forty-four days into her reign for ‘bloody’ Mary to summon Bishop Hooper to face her council at the majestic Richmond Palace.   She had not even been formally crowned the Queen of England but, for Mary, the problem of Bishop Hooper could not wait. Being summoned to face her commissioners was no surprise to Hooper; he knew he was a marked man and so he had readied himself for such a summons.  Knowing his life to be in grave danger the bishop’s friends urged him to flee England, but he replied: “Once I did flee, and take to my feet; but now because I am called to this place and vocation, I am thoroughly persuaded to tarry, to live and die with my sheep.”[1]

It’s not hard to see why Bishop Hooper was an early target for persecution.  According to J. C. Ryle, he was renowned all over England as one of the boldest champions of the Reformation and the most thorough opponents of Popery.[2] For example, during his ministry as the bishop of Gloucester and Worcester he preached at least three times a day.  In a letter to their great friend and fellow reformer, Heinrich Bullinger, his wife Anna shared her concern that her husband’s preaching load might be a cause of his premature death! Crowds flocked to hear Hooper preach and even his enemies confessed that he was so much admired by the people that they held him out to be a prophet. He worked hard to reform the corrupted priesthood in his dioceses, was hospitable to the poor, visited schools, and was devoted to prayer. He was a true shepherd who understood the needs of his sheep, both the rich and the poor, having an equal concern for all, never showing fear or favouritism. 

The Bitterness of Prison

On August the 29^th 1553 Hooper’s brief but fruitful ministry as the bishop of Gloucester and Worcester came to end (it had only lasted two years, from 1551-1553). This was the day he gave testimony to the Queen’s commissioners at Richmond Palace.  Hooper did not speak as a man who sought to defend himself; he simply proclaimed the gospel and, in the process, outed himself as a man who upheld truth. He, like all the reformers of his times, denied the claim that the real body and blood of Christ was present in the Lord’s supper as Christ is physicaly in heaven and spiritually in his people.

Hooper refused to tolerate such a gross distortion of the gospel because it made participating in the Lord’s supper necessary for the forgiveness of sins. This was adding to the gospel and a denial of the sufficiency of Christ who saves us from our sins through faith in Him alone.  Hooper and his fellow reformers were right in ascribing this error as the ‘darling of the Devil’ (1 Tim. 4:1).[3] To say that Hooper was not received well by the Queen’s commissioners would be an understatement as was demonstrated by his being committed to London’s Fleet Prison where he would spend the last eighteen months of his life.

Prison life in the 1550’s was bitter but even more so for Bishop Hooper.  Babington, the prison warden, was friends with the Queen’s commissioner Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and he made sure that Hooper suffered.  The unspeakable cruelty which this godly brother endured far exceeded that of Fleet’s most wicked criminals. Babington refused him visitors, prohibited him to speak at meals, and after slandering him to Gardiner, increased his suffering.  For some time, he was made to sleep on a little pad of straw with a rotten covering and a healthy population of bed bugs.

The stench of the open sewer was unbearable and made Hooper ill.  Babington locked the ailing Hooper in a cell with chains and heavy shackles. His constant moaning and cries for help moved the other inmates to call out to Babington to help poor Hooper. Babington, seeing Hooper was close to death, would reply: “Let him alone it’s a good riddance to him.”[4] To rub salt into Hooper’s wounds, prisoners were required to pay the warden fees and board during their imprisonment and Hooper paid more in fees and board to his persecutor than most but was treated the worst. His pitiable condition drove the poor bishop to confess that he was uncertain if he would die before Queen Mary had the opportunity to condemn him as a heretic.

A Letter that Gives Light

The biggest difference between Hooper’s imprisonment and that of all the other inmates in the Fleet was not the cruelty he suffered but the liberty he relinquished. Hooper had countless opportunities to rid himself of his chains, but he chose not to. Why? He himself tells us in a letter he wrote while in prison to his friends three weeks before his cruel execution.

 “The grace of God be with you. Amen. I did write unto you of late, and told you what extremity the Parliament has concluded upon concerning religion, suppressing the truth, and setting forth untruth. . . But now is the time of trial, to see whether we fear God or man. It was an easy thing to hold with Christ while the Prince of this world held with Him; but now the world hateth Him, it is the true trial who be His. . . Imprisonment is painful; but yet liberty upon evil conditions is more painful. The prisons stink, but yet not so much as the sweet houses where the fear and true honour of God lacketh. . .[5]

Hooper had countless opportunities to gain freedom from his pain and suffering, all that was required was a willingness to tolerate error.  If he denied the sufficiency of Christ to save people from their sins through faith alone and upheld the error that forgiveness of sin requires a person to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ at the Lord’s table, liberty was his.  It was offered to him on many occasions. But, in Hooper’s own words, imprisonment is horribly painful; but liberty upon the condition of evil is far more painful.

Given the choice of either upholding truth or tolerating error he chose the former even if it meant the loss of possessions, family, friends, finances, work, and even life itself, all of which Hooper endured. On Saturday February 9^th 1555 Hooper’s faithfulness to Christ and the gospel cost him his life when he was burned at the stake in Gloucester. He understood the value and worth of the gospel and knew that if he tolerated such a wicked distortion, the church, God’s precious sheep, would be robbed of its one true foundation: the Lord Jesus Christ. He would rather die than see this happen.

An Example for Us

While Hooper’s life and death is a living vision of what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow the Lord (Matt.16:24), does his example speak into our times?  It does.  We may live in a vastly different world to Hooper’s, but we do have something in common; an increasing pressure for Christians to tolerate error and evil. Applying this pressure are elements of our culture and, more recently, our governments.

For example, our culture and government presses Christians to tolerate the error that death is a good and legitimate therapy. Christians who uphold the sanctity of life are told that abortion is a women’s right and to oppose or refuse this is to deny a woman her rights.  To oppose assisted suicide for those who are not only suffering a terminal illness but suffer the existential pain that is common to all is looked upon by our culture as cruel and ‘restrictive practice.’ In the state I live in, Tasmania, a doctor who has a conscientious objection to assisted suicide is required, by law, to provide the official contact information that allows the patient to find a doctor who will assist him or her in taking his/her own life.

Our culture and governments are pressuring Christians to tolerate the error that gender is not a God-given and appointed gift but is ‘fluid’ and all have the right to identify with whatever they want to.  Worse still is that upholding the truth that God has created male and female only and that we do not have the right to choose our gender is deemed as an evil act that is contributing to the poor health outcomes for transgender people and even their deaths. Some state governments (Victoria, NSW, South Australia, and the ACT) have enacted laws that make it illegal to give pastoral care to our sisters and brothers who are seeking help to overcome this sinful desire.

In Victoria, NSW, South Australia, and the ACT [6] it is against the law to pray with a sister or brother who is seeking pastoral support to overcome the sin of homosexuality.  The common name of the legislation, ‘anti-conversion laws,’ says it all; our lawmakers are against the gospel transforming the lives of sinners.  Christians leaders who uphold the truth that in the Lord Jesus Christ is everything we need to overcome all sin, including homosexual desires, and who faithfully exercise their pastoral duty in prayer, are now breaking the law.

At the end of the day, if the church tolerates these errors and evils we will end up with a distorted gospel: death is not an enemy that Christ overcame but a therapy to be embraced; Christ is not the Lord of creation who has the right to determine our identity; we are the gods of our own destiny; and sin’s power is not something that the risen Lord Jesus liberates us from for it continues to enslave us.

Where to from here?

When our liberty is conditional upon tolerating the error and evil that distorts the Gospel, we must be willing to uphold truth and holiness even if it means we suffer loss. Pastors, ministers, elders, bishops, moderators, chaplains, and all leaders within the Church are to lead the way by boldly declaring the grain of the gospel and not the stubble of distortion (Jer. 23:28,36).  Those of us who lead must be willing to seal our preaching with the loss of liberty, friendships, reputation, finances, work, or whatever is required of us.  We who shepherd the flock need to pray for, when called upon, with all our people, all the time, and with all sorts of request, without fear or favour (Eph.6:18).[7]  The Church needs its leaders to model what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow the Lord.

I know of a Christian who for many years worked in the financial sector with a major bank. He left his senior role because he was unwilling to embrace the social agenda of the company he was working for.  He was told in no uncertain terms that people like him, those who hold to the fundamentals of the Christan faith, were not welcome. I can only see such pressure increasing and every Christian ought to be ready for the possibility of suffering the loss of work, finances, goods, reputation and even our liberty on account of Christ. Christian health professionals are particularly vulnerable as they face increasing pressure to act against their conscience in the areas of abortion, gender, and assisted suicide.

The original version of the recently passed ‘Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act would haverestricted or even silenced the teaching, preaching, or publicly discussing certain aspects of the truth of the gospel. That the government wanted to rush this bill, which would have given extraordinary powers to the state, through the parliament in a matter of days when normally a bill such as this would take months and that a version of this bill must have been written before the Bondi massacre, is a timely reminder that Satan will vigorously seek to maintain his kingdom, and that human nature is far more corrupt than we suppose. We must be vigilant in prayer and diligently readying ourselves for the increasing opposition to the faithful preaching of the gospel and the real possibility that this may require us to suffer much loss.

Hooper’s exhortation to those who lived in his time is a word in season for our time: “Loss of goods is great; but loss of God’s grace is greater. . .It is pain and grief to depart from goods and friends; but yet not so much as to depart from grace and heaven itself. Wherefor there is neither felicity nor adversity of this world that can appear to be great, if it be weighed with the joys or pains of the world to come.”[8]

To be sure, no Christian, including leaders, are up to the task of suffering for the sake of Christ, but remember that dwelling within us is the one who is seated at the right hand of the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is with us and so it is not by our might or strength, but by the Spirit of the Lord of heaven’s armies we can willingly suffer for the sake of Christ (Zech. 4:6). Let our troubled times move us to pray for our governments, our Church leaders, our church denominations, our Christian advocates to parliament and ourselves.  Let us come to God’s throne of grace with confidence that we will receive the mercy and find the grace we need to uphold truth and holiness, never tolerating the error or evil that distorts God’s glorious gospel.

– Pastor Jason Summers

[1] Foxe, J. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, e-book ed., Spire, 336.

[2] Ryle, J. C. Light from Old Times, e-book ed., Crossreach Publications, 216.

[3] In a letter written in prison fellow Martyr John Bradford (1510-1555) used this phrase to describe transubstantiation.  See Letter 3, To Lancashire and Cheshire in: https://www.ccel.org/b/bradford/writings/letters.html

[4] Foxe, J. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, e-book ed., Spire, 340.

[5] Latter Writings of Bishop Hooper. Ed, Rev. Charles Nevinson for The Parker Society, 1852, page 618.

[6] The state of Tasmania is currently proposing its own version of anti-conversion laws.

[7] Thankfully the NSW Presbyterian Assembly encourages“Christians to be unafraid to proclaim the truth of God’s word in matters relating to sexuality, marriage, identity and gender, and to provide prayer for those who seek to live a godly life in obedience to God’s word and aligned with God’s purposes, notwithstanding that they may be subject to a complaint under the Conversion Practices Ban Act for doing so.” See https://www.acl.org.au/blog/sydney-anglicans-back-clergy-against-government-overreach/

[8] Latter Writings of Bishop Hooper. ed, Rev. Charles Nevinson for The Parker Society, 1852, page 618-19.