Love ‘Em Or Hate ‘Em: Christian Sect Leaders Through The Ages

Henry VIII

The King of England in the early 1500s, Henry longed to have a son to succeed him to the throne. At the time, it was believed that the mother was responsible for the gender of a baby, and repeated miscarriages and daughters with his wife cause Henry to desire a divorce. However, as a devout Catholic, Henry could not legally and by faith divorce his wife. Declaring himself by divine right sovereign over the England faithful, Henry formed what would eventually become known as the Anglican Communion with the Church of England. Though predominantly Catholic in theology and practice, modern strains of reformation have pushed Anglicanism to social liberalism in many of its churches (like the Episcopal church in the USA).

John Calvin

Raised as a dedicated clerk to a bishop, John Calvin was a trained humanist lawyer who taught at the College of France but was forced into hiding and exile when his Reformation views were declared heretical by the senior Catholic faculty. Making for the free city of Strasbourg, Calvin was forced to detour to Geneva, where he was eventually made a pastor by the reformation church there. His views on predestination, covenants and especially the sacraments would be ascribed to by the followers of Ulrich Zwingli, and the modern Reform identity was born. John Knox, in exile from Scotland under the Catholic Mary Tudor of England, would learn from Calvin and eventually found the Presbyterian church on his return home.