One April afternoon here in his Chelsea garden, one of the very greatest Englishmen strolled with his son-in-law: I wonder what the weather was like! He had insisted that his wife and daughter and other members stay back as he and 'Son Roper' made their way to a small landing stage where the garden met the river bank. An oarsman waited and the Thames lapped gently against the sides of the boat that was to take Sir Thomas More to Lambeth Palace never to return to his house on this very spot. These were troubled times.

Hardly could he imagine that he would be remembered so long after his age, though no doubt he well knew that the times were indeed troubled and that the world that had born him; the world that had shaped his bone structure of his creed; the world that could hoist a man onto a pile of logs, chain him and set both alight - the world of William Bird and Thomas Tallis - little did he know that his part in the profoundest change in European life since the middle of the eleventh century - that he would command such adulation and respect.

In 1963, the American film director Fred Zinnemann brought Paul Scofield to the screen as the indomitable Sir Thomas and no-one guessed - not even Lew Grade - that the story of one man's struggle to do his conscience over biblical, legal, theological and ecclesiastical technicalities would command such audiences in the cinema, not the least thanks to Robert Bolt's play. It is perhaps one of the greatest films of all times and continues to enthral even though there is something important about More that is missing: his hounding of heretics. Bolt did provide the educational establishment wuith a wonderful line: to Richard Rich - desperate for a place at court - Sir Thomas offers him a job at the new school: Rich is crestfallen: "A teacher!?" "Yes" says More "You'd make a fine teacher. If I did, who would know it?" "You!" says More "Your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public that!" I have never forgotten it.

Now in 1998, another book this time by Peter Ackroyd, is almost as dramatic and exciting as Fred Zinneman's film except that the book is in black and white! A persistent interest in this famous son of the Borough of Chelsea - Ackroyd also wrote about Oscar Wilde - is Ackroyd on the Council? - this interest is engined - is it not - by our fascination with the relation between behaviour and belief. There is nothing quite so compelling as a dramatic investigation of a man's struggle not against the sword but with his conscience; with what he knows to be right and what he knows to be true come what may.

It matches contemporary struggles of believers against believers - a business that probably began at creation. It never ceases. In our own times, as has been shown again and again, conflicts between believers embroil the innocent and flesh is charred not on the stake but in the cities of Ireland, and on buses in Israel and Mosques in Yogoslavia. These are violent times.

But in the days of Thomas More believing and belonging were two sides of the same coin, they were precise social and theological coordinates: undermining the creed meant undermining the very foundations of society: godlessness was treason; deviance was heresy. This was not a matter for the General Synod down the road from here at Church House! In the days of Thomas More, there was no need for planning permission to contruct gallows in Smithfield for the drawing and quartering of gentle Francisacn monks caught reading Martin Luther. Such executions for those with unorthodox beliefs were not only quite normal but provided a salutary example for those who dared to have opinions of their own in conflict with orthodox opinion; those who dared to question or who dared to fraternise with foreign views. The message of these events was undoubtedly clear to the lower orders, poor souls who might be temprted into eternal damanation merely by hearing the words of from the mouth of a heretic; they would so easily be led astray by treasonable - by which they meant foreign; or critical - by which they meant heretical ideas about the catholic truth. These were violent times.

Thomas More's Christian tradition had been handed down by Christ to the Apostles and confirmed again as mightily true by the succeeding councils of the church. These inviolate truths were protected by the pope as the representative of Christ and rightly by all parliaments as the servants of the pope. Thomas More's Christianity was global, universal, catholic. It was above and beyond the jurisdiction of any local language or custom and provided a sacred canopy under which all men whatever their - what we would now call national identity - and whatever their customs were protected and under which canopy they found the means of grace, they received sure salvation and were prepared for the only pathway to eternal peace and blessed rest from these violent days.

But Thomas More's world was changing: his global catholic Christianity and his English Christian culture was going to change with it. His bad luck was to be born at a time of transition and having a foot in the old order and one in the new: printing was getting clever after only about eighty years of technological development - ideas as well as people were travelling fast. Thomas More would have to ride two horses together pulling new ideas about the nation-state and about the origins of his beloved Catholic faith into the public arena: which came first the chicken or the egg - the Church or the Bible? Is the bible the product of faith or its source? Renewal was around the corner and Thomas More was as much beguiled by new discoveries of ancient Greek ideas - the New Thinking - as he was beleaguered by corruption in the church's hierarchy. The old Faith and the new thinking were untimely as well as unfriendly bedfellows.

To cap it all, his liege lord Henry the eighth of that name needed to change his woman: the nation needed an heir and the pope would have to make yet another special arrangement. And so as we all know, More resigned as chancellor, lost his uniquely favoured position close to Henry and began his attack on two fronts: across the channel, Martin Luther threatened the authority of the tradition and here at home Henry Tudor threatened the authority of the pope. One would put heretical ideas into the minds of the people and the other would put illegitimate powers into the hands of the state. Luther emphasised the idea of a 'free mind' and the law 'written in the heart.' This was anathema to More: for him all judicial sentences were the judgements of God; man in society was an autonomous but a servant force.

More resigned in 1534 and before long would be making his last journey from his Chelsea garden. The year before, Henry made himself Supreme Head of the Church and that same year saw uprisings and slaughter of the Anabaptist wild protestants getting their just deserts in northern Germany: they had laid siege with huge weaponry to the town of Munster so as to starve them out until they were born again! It would make every English Christian tremble.

That year, Luther finally finished his translation of the bible into German and the vast rank and file would now have an opinion about matters hitherto that belonged to the clerical establishment. A year later William Tyndale, the 'great beast' would be executed for doing the same in English: he was not only heretic but a schismatic - a creator of division. Christians were not permitted superficial opinions from their private contemplations; they were there to receive orthodox beliefs through the councils of the church. Too many new ideas were being printed abroad and being smuggled into England. The clergy, the titled and the humble were reading books and asking questions and spreading doubt. For More and others, this was the threat to the fabric of his Christian, global and monotheistic catholic faith - just as Jews had said two thousand years before: one God, one world, one Temple and one High Priest. Catholic Christianity had created its equivalent. Heretics were 'closet nationalists' and Henry had succeeded. Thomas More was now seriously vulnerable to treason and so he put all his energies into winkling out these devils. Once caught, it was dreadful. If they persisted in their wayward godlessness, they could only expect the burning at Smithfield. Thomas More was all in favour and he was by no means the only one. Robert Bolt's play missed this bit out. More's view of this world demanded that these temporal fires be lit; his view of the next world declared that these anti-Christs would burn not only here and now but for all eternity. "Fire the faggot and let justice be done!" the crowd shrieked. Some took almost an hour to die; it depended on the wind. But it was normal and these were - troubled times.

Today, we Anglicans celebrate the life of a great Englishman whose loyalty to his king was unswerving but whose loyalty to the catholic faith was impeccable - but - dare one say it? - flawed. But More was not to know that the new learning had a long way to go before it began to dismantle certainties about Christian origins that had lasted for for fiften hundred years. Thomas More knew well that Christianity gave Eupope its identity through the popes, however corrupt they had been or would be! Rituals, creeds and practices had been established for all time and by consent. By consent and consultation, clerical sleaze More believed, could be purged.

We don't know much of More's views on the eastern orthodox churches but no doubt he had taken a view on the Great Schism in 1054 between the eastern and western churches that broke global Christianity into two. It was an ideological dispute about creed, language, culture and theology - today all very abstruse and irrelevant, but perhaps not - in these hectic European Community days. More might have thought them irrelevant but he also might have said 'we have repaired that break and still keep our link through the apostles to Christ himself: that's all that matters. Tradition' - how else would our beliefs be tested? The New Testament is fallible without the guidance of interpretation refracted though the deliberations of the churches. As Ackroyd says: ".....it is impossible to over-emphasise the authority which custom and tradition exercised upon Thomas More." [p43] It is encouraging therefore to see the seated figure of Thomas More as the world drives easterly and westerly along this embankment. It is a tribute to this church and its leadership and indeed, I imagine to The Borough of Chelsea that his presence is maintained in such good order. What is he thinking to himself? "The past is all we have and is ourr best hope for the futre." Perhaps.

But tradition was not all that mattered: he and his friend Erasmus were talking of what we now call 'Humanism'- the new learning that brought philosophy and theology into even closer contact. Humanism was beginning to ask troublesome questions not so much about the why of revelation but the when and the how? The catholic creeds spoke of eternity and Christ coming at the middle of time or at the climax of creation. At the centre of the churches' liturgy was ofcourse, the Mass and the scriptural texts that gave the details. Now trickles of enquiry were flowing inexorably into a torrent of scepticism and doubt about the historical reliability of the Christian stories. For Thomas, there was no doubt: the events of the Christian gospels happened as they stated. Any ambiguity would be resolved through the Holy Spirit working through the councils of the church. Thomas More straddled two ages - or at least one coming into and one going out of focus; the new thinking was to undertake the painful search for the facts of revelation on which his cherished law, custom and tradition had been built for so many centuries. He went in search of that city of god - that utopian ideal [from the greek 'no-place'] which asked whether the state was the product of revelation and therefore of laws descending from God; or was it the result of natural agreement and association between human beings? Was it about human ingenuity rather than divine prescription?

Thomas More gave his life for a belief - or rather a coherent clustre of interconnected beliefs: take one away and the whole structure was in danger, unstable and vulnerable. It is easier for us to applaud him for his sacrifice than to judge him for his obstinacy. We admire his tenacity: he stuck to his conviction to his own tragic end but at the same time, he pursued his opponents with equal determination for their own tragic end. We cannot admire it but it was normal for these were troubled times; human rights did not apply in this world - only the next. Would that both parties could have heeded the words of a later Chelsea resident: "Spare no effort in your search for the truth but beware the man who has found it" - John Henry Newman.

At the end of our millenium, the Christian churches and western culture face as profound a challenge as did he. In the eleventh century, the authority of a singular church was lost. for More it was the loss of papal authority. Five hundred years later for us it is the loss of biblical authority. There are so now many different truths; truth is relative; morality is contextual or for what is best for the greatest number. There is scientific truth, political truth, mythological truth historical truth. They are on offer to a rising generation distinctly averse to any authority dispensed from above: it must come from below, from within, from the interaction between human beings who devise them in the setting of a dynamic social order which shapes our opinions and our concepts: indeed, our very selves. Not God but society. Modernity even post-modernity says that it must be good for me and perhaps even for you. Modern values are therefore temporal and not eternal. Thus the new religious movements and Christian cults spring up in this climate and seem to thrive. They come and they go. Fanaticism, advertising, television each has its way over the vulnerable, the gullible and especially those in search of an identity, a mission in life, a sense of belonging, commitment, spiritual enhancement, inspiration, consolation, purpose, even a sense of the divine. Post-moderns turn to therapists and not to theologians.

Thomas More sits on his beloved Chelsea Embankment - I doubt he approves of the traffic but adores the Flower Show - and if you were to listen carefully, perhaps he would say "I have been this way before; I found the divine in an eternal revelation but in traditions embodied in a temporal, fallible institution: ecclesia." We however in these post-modern millenial times must find the eternal in what man has made: history, art, dispute, memory and humanity's sacred stories - Jewish, Christian among many. The challenge of post-modernity is huge but: "God made the angels to show him splendour as he made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But man he made to serve him wittily in the tangle of his mind! If he suffers us to fall to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can and clamour like champions - if we have the spittle for it!" On leaving to take the boat, he knew the worst "Son Roper, I thank our Lord the field is won." He stood to the tackle: so shall we!

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