A Man For All Seasons

After watching a movie with your children or students, we encourage parents and teachers to look for education opportunities to teach with movies. Here are a few discussion topics that can help with lesson plans or teaching in the home.

At his trial, More makes reference to the biblical scripture, ?For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?? (Mark 8:36). How did More apply this Christian teaching in his life?

The film’s script quotes from historical records the actual words spoken by Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, after each of them had fallen from the King’s favor. More is reported to have said, “The King’s good servant, but God’s first,”  while Wolsey declared, “If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs.” What insight do these statements shed on the practice of “situational ethics?” —meaning to shift one’s values or behavior according to the prevailing circumstances? What other characters in the movie subscribed to this philosophy?

To learn more about Sir Thomas More, see www.luminarium.org/renlit/morebio.htm. While you are there, check out the biography of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey at www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/wolseybio.htm.