Some may say you have lost your head if you are willing to die for a principle, but Thomas More (1478–1535) is best known for doing just that. His satirical work, Utopia, describes life in the titular and imaginary island where, to quote Mr. Spock's favorite axiom, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” He was contrasting what is an ideal communist state with the inequities of his own society. Of course, no such perfect communist state has ever existed and probably never will. The communist countries that emerged and collapsed in the twentieth century were the brutal and barbaric totalitarian antithesis of this idyllic ideal.

More studied Greek, Latin, and law, but also wrote comedies and was interested in the humanities. He attempted to live within a monastic order but gave that up after about four years. He eschewed ascetic self-denial for the very worldly realm of politics. He became a member of England's House of Commons and eventually an intimate of King Henry VIII.

Mutual admiration between the two men turned sour when More refused to side with Henry when the monarch sought to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boylen. Henry's first wife could not have children, and Henry wanted a male heir to his throne.

Catholic law, of course, forbade divorce, and the pope had refused to accommodate the King in this matter. More, a devout Catholic, would not defy the Church and was beheaded for his beliefs. The Catholic Church canonized him 400 years later, a symbolic pat on his back for a job well done.

Henry VIII defied the Catholic Church and thus the Church of England was established. A faith founded on the fact that a man wanted a divorce might seem to be a faith built on a foundation of sand, but in truth the winds of Reformation had been stirring for some time, and the resultant tsunami reshaped the face of Christendom.