Teeming with varied subject matter and graced by vibrant writing,The Obedience of a Christian Man depicts the Roman church as a gigantic imposture affecting every department of English life. To disobey this institution to the point of martyrdom - and in particular to challenge the spurious laws it has made in supression of the Bible in English - is to obey God. As a moral alternative, Tyndale prescribes obedience to "the powers that be," a secular hierarchy descending from kings "the room of God" to fathers supreme in their own households. This conception of the social order well served Henry VIII's assumption of absolute power in the English reformation, which is currently viewed by many historians as having been imposed from the top down.
Tyndale's political thinking is based on texts marshalled from the Old and New Testaments, which he regarded as touchstones for all experience. It is in promoting the Bible as ultimate truth that Tyndale moves outside the "obedience" scheme and produces, inter alia, a witty attack on John Fisher's theology, a discussion of faith versus works, a critical review of the seven sacraments and a highly sophisticated essay on figurative language.