Will Pierce Meets The 1500s

He logs onto the Wi-Fi network and immediately finds himself in the sixteenth century. Will Pierce’s commute takes less time than you might imagine. It’s just a few steps from the barista station to a stool in the window.

Will has spent almost seven years exploring the religious conflicts that swept Christian Europe. His observations are gestating in a PhD thesis he’ll soon defend.

Martin Luther challenged Roman Catholic dogma by posting his Ninety-five Theses in 1517. They gave birth to the Protestant Reformation. And thanks to the Gutenberg Bible, the faithful had started to read the Word of God for themselves.

John Calvin preached that our lives are ‘predestined.’ You’re prosperous because God rewards righteousness or you’re wretched because you’re a sinner. Will explains that Calvin’s idea that a person’s destiny is a secret unto God caused monarchs to see their Divine Rights as threatened. That meant trouble ahead.

When the Pope wouldn’t approve Henry VIII’s divorce, the king created the Church of England with himself as its head. Then ‘Bloody Mary’ took the throne and earned her nickname by persecuting Henry’s Protestant followers.

Five years later, Queen Elizabeth I flipped the state back against the Catholics. The consecutive queens martyred the faithful of both religions. You were trapped on one side or the other. There was no such thing as being an atheist.

Will’s work pays special attention to the methods ‘Good Queen Bess’ developed to root out apostates, heretics, and traitors. What do religious strife, secrecy, and state surveillance do to a society?

As a member of the civil-liberties watchdog group Lucy Parsons Labs, he’s pushing back against data collection that ensnares arrestees who haven’t been tried or convicted.

Light pours through the windows at our corner coffee shop even on overcast days. Given that Will spends his time exhuming the remains of a dark and ungodly century, he needs all the light he can get.