The Anne Boleyn Fellowship and Webinars

Ooh, I wish I could afford it! Afraid it’s a bit too much for me at the moment. I do however have an idea for what may make a great webinar or even a post on here. I have been watching Starkey’s Six Wives tv show on YouTube today and he mentioned the kerfuffle over the English translation of the bible in the section on Anne. How the conservatives frowned upon the common people being able to understand the book themselves, realise what the priests have been up to the whole time attempting to use people’s fear against the for their own personal profit etc. and I thought how little those conservatives have changed and reflected on how much dear Anne has truly done for people like me.

From my reading this site Claire, I understand that you are a Christian lady, whereas I am personally an atheist with a distrust of all organised religion and dislike for anyone that uses their religion to inflict harm etc. What I doubt many people realise if they are not an atheist themselves, is how dear Anne is to us, how much we truly appreciate the good deeds of good Christians like her that set humanity on a path for knowledge as power.

Before Anne, there wasn’t a choice. You HAD to believe what you were TOLD in church by your leader. No questions, no interest wanted, just do what you’re told and don’t ask questions. People couldn’t understand the bible or what their priest was reading from it, all they could do was take their leader at their word and not cause trouble. Not believing wasn’t an option. The church leaders had ALL the power, ALL the control. No one had knowledge, so power was out of their grip. They spoke English and maybe if lucky some broken Latin. They didn’t have a shot at understanding the bible in full.

Anne changed all that. Suddenly people had power from their knowledge and from necessity different sects grew. There was no one correct religion or correct view. The bible was a contradictory, enormously weighty document that caused great arguments! This exploded and suddenly people moved from being fear filled dark ages superstition believers to being rational, knowledgeable, thought-provoking individuals with complex views and with their greater understanding had much less fear as result.

Anne ended the Dark Ages. A cursory glance through history will show you that mankind was more progressive before the birth of Jesus than in the 1500 years following it. Ancient Rome and Greece were far more pleasant places for differing views and ideas about women than 1350 Britain, to pick just one quick example. After the fall of Rome people for some reason promptly forgot all the comforts and innovations and great things about the way they once lived and reverted to a long dark age where every day revolved around fear of the unknown because what was unknown was everything. Religion held everyone back, and one wouldn’t wish the lives of the peasants in that time on the worst of their enemies. Anne, by insisting on spreading the English translation of the book, was trying to put an end to the dark ages! And she set the wheels in motion that’s for sure. This view wasn’t just hers of course – all across Europe similarly enlightened people were doing the same and slowly but surely science was being established and wonderful people like Copernicus and Gallileo and Da Vinci were etching out names for themselves…but what bravery! She had a devoutly religious husband with insanely conservative advisors from the church, and her views were dangerous, but she put her neck on the line anyway! Indeed, can anyone name another female doing similar at that time throughout the world? A woman – someone deemed terribly inferior due to their gender – was publically supporting a dangerous probably heretical version of a new bible. One which would render priests and religious leaders vulnerable and far less neccessary and expose all their lies and manipulations over their lifetimes…I don’t think she’s ever been properly examined and lauded for her contributions to our current freedoms. We are (generally) no longer subject to fear and superstition from day 1 of our lives but are brought up (in the west at least) in an environment relatively free from religious persecution, we get to see lots of different faiths and ideas and we can choose to accept a faith or we can have none at all and expect to be treated equally no matter which we prefer. We find answers to things through science and medicine rather than an old book. Non-believers are the average person in the street in Australia and Britain, and bit less than 1 in 5 even in America! In Anne’s day these perfectly lovely innocent people would face a terrible death by burning, but today they are just us. I truly adore Anne for what she has done for science and medicine and women and non-believers. Believers should also love her too, for giving them that CHOICE, for doing the undeniably right thing to do. I think of Anne as one of the few true Christians of the world. A true Christian is someone that strives to live their life like Christ himself would have had he lived. Of course, that’s extremely rare, but many claim to it. Recall Anne, wanting to give the monies for the Crown to the poor and Cromwell wishing for it to be spent on aristocrats? Anne was always generous with the poor, and yes we all know she was no Christ and had her faults like anyone, but undoubtedly the church at the time was a corrupt and horrifically cruel institution, and Anne obviously wished to admonish it. She knew her subjects needed knowledge to gain power so she encouraged the English bible. Can anyone doubt that Christ would have wished the same? Or could you see him supporting the corrupt fatcat church instead? Hah! Unlikely. Though even today there’s PLENTY of church higher-up’s that would tell you he would, just like they tell us he really loved greedy rich people and that the ‘eye of the needle’ was in fact a gate which a camel could pass through!! (Many Christians still claim this but they are lying – there were never any gates called such and in any case if there were it would render his metaphor meaningless!)

So people of science, of medicine, or anyone that values knowledge should appreciate Anne’s bravery! I really appreciate what she has done in the long run for women and for the religious and non- religious alike. She gave us the gift of knowledge so we could better make that choice. So thank you, Anna Bollina Regina! (that’s my nickname for her!)