Tuesday, November 5, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

 

It is the 5th of November 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A special request came into the CHA hotline about today’s date- perhaps you, too, find part of this rhyme running through your head today- after all, we’ve been told to:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli’ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow;

By God’s providence he was catch’d

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him 

That’s right! Guy Fawkes- bonfires, effigies burning… political and sectarian violence, and threats of violence on account of a foiled terrorist plot. I don’t know what else is happening in the world on this, the 5th of November, that might draw our attention to the division and sectarian… never mind, you all didn’t come to hear my hot takes about this November 5th, the NFL trade deadline AND the day we get the first official BCS poll.

I kid- it’s election day in America, and on this day, we were told “to remember.” I think we might just have a lesson in political and religious violence that paved the way for the modern, happily more tolerant, relationship between church and state today.

Guy Fawkes was caught on this, the 5th of November in 1605- with three score barrels- well, that would be 60 (Yes?), and there were like 36- but that was over 1 ton of dynamite that had it gone off at the opening of parliament would have obliterated Westminster, the Parliament, the Abbey, all of it… it would have been the single biggest revolutionary moment in the modern world. That much dynamite, that close to forever changing the trajectory of England and the United States, and all in the name of a restored Catholic monarch.

Indeed the “almost-ness” of this served to scare many into thinking through church and state solutions that didn’t involve mass murder.  

Remember, England went from Henry VIII (Catholic, and then very Not Catholic) followed by the short reign of his son Edward and his Protestant advisors, only to be followed by the so-called “Bloody Mary” and then the long reign of the Virgin Queen- the Protestant Elizabeth whom Catholic France wooed. And when she died without an heir, and the crown went to a Scot- the son of another Catholic, Mary (the Queen of Scots) Catholics were hopeful that this son- James, should rule in favor of the Catholics.

He was much more concerned with uniting the English and Scots to care much about the old confessional settlements. There was a sizable, if not relatively silent, group of well-to-do Catholics who remained in England after the Oath of Supremacy required anyone in public life to swear fealty to the Protestant monarch. These well-to-do secretive Catholics were able to recruit the like of Guy, or Guido, Fawkes- an English Catholic mercenary in the Netherlands and others of his ilk.

They were able to use their connections to get that much gunpowder onto the floor of parliament- but the problem was that it got there too early. Parliament was supposed to open in January of that year, but it was postponed until October on account of the plague, such that when Parliament did plan to open and Guy Fawkes and his dastardly plot were found out, the gunpowder had likely gone bad. Yes, it could have blown everything to bits earlier in the year, but not by now. Furthermore, thinking that it would happen, many pro-Catholic riders went through the countryside proclaiming that it DID happen and that it still did not raise any large revolution- it seems the whole plan to remake Catholic England was not in the works, regardless of whether or not this plot succeeded.

But it put a healthy fear in the crown and the people that the old sectarian rivalries- Catholic and Protestant, however, they played themselves out, would need a new kind of religious settlement- the kind that just happened to be on the horizon. But today, we do well to “remember, remember” what could have been on this the 5th of November- and is celebrated with bonfires and effigies of the caught conspirator today throughout Great Britain.

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and from the great Penitential Psalm 51:

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins

    and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,

    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence

    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 5th of November 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Guys include Fawkes, Fieri, and Guy Patterson, drummer for the Oneders- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose favorite Guy is Guy Hebert, former Ducks Goalie and certainly not Guy Gisborn- noted Robin Hood Rival- I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.