High Calvinists In Action

This contribution to the debate about the relation of religion to the modern city fills a gap in the historiography of early 19th-century religious life. It provides a pioneering study of local churches in the urban environment.

This valuable contribution to the debate about the relation of religion to the modern city fills an important gap in the historiography of early nineteenth-century religious life. Although there is some evidence that strict doctrine led to a more restricted response to urban problems, extensive local and personal variations mean that simple generalizations should be avoided. Ian J.Shaw argues against earlier prejudiced views and shows that high Calvinists played a vigorous and successful part in the response of early nineteenth-century churches to the process of urbanization. The study includes six substantial case studies of ministers and their churches in Manchester and London. Four high Calvinist ministers are considered, with two studies of ministers holding to an evangelical Calvinist doctrine also included to provide instructive contrasts. Detailed social analysis of the congregations is based upon extensive use of manuscript and printed sources, sermons, and local and denominational press.

"Tethered to the cross" is how the renowned nineteenth-century English Baptist minister Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892) described the task of ministry and his approach to preaching. For nearly four decades, Spurgeon served as the pastor of the church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. But what specifically guided the reading of Scripture by the man known as the "Prince of Preachers"? Tracing the development of Spurgeon's thought and his approach to biblical hermeneutics throughout his ministry, theologian and historian Thomas Breimaier argues that Spurgeon viewed the entire Bible through the lens of the cross of Christ. This method led Spurgeon to interpret texts in a consistent fashion, resulting in sermons, articles, and instruction that employed cross-centered language, which was aimed at the conversion of unbelievers. With Breimaier as our guide, better understanding of how Spurgeon approached the task of interpreting Scripture and preaching the gospel might enable us, too, to be tethered to the cross of Christ.

During the past three years Peter Toon published articles dealing with various facets of Calvinistic theology in the Age of Reason. These articles were by-products of research he was conducting at London University into the origins of a logical, arid form of Calvinism (hyper-Calvinism) found among Congregationalists and Baptists in the first half of the 18th century. His thesis was completed in March 1967, and with some modifications is now published as a book. Though his study has particular relevance to Strict Baptist, who have become the custodians of hyper-Calvinism, it is also a contribution to our knowledge of the 18th century Nonconformity as well as the history of the development of Reformed doctrine. In the Preface Dr. J. I. Packer states: "The story is a cautionary tale with timely lessons for those who seek a revival of Reformed Christianity today."

The claim that the Bible was 'the Christian's only rule of faith and practice' has been fundamental to Protestant dissent. Dissenters first braved persecution and then justified their adversarial status in British society with the claim that they alone remained true to the biblical model of Christ's Church. They produced much of the literature that guided millions of people in their everyday reading of Scripture, while the voluntary societies that distributed millions of Bibles to the British and across the world were heavily indebted to Dissent. Yet no single book has explored either what the Bible did for dissenters or what dissenters did to establish the hegemony of the Bible in British culture. The protracted conflicts over biblical interpretation that resulted from the bewildering proliferation of dissenting denominations have made it difficult to grasp their contribution as a whole. This volume evokes the great variety in the dissenting study and use of the Bible while insisting on the factors that gave it importance and underlying unity. Its ten essays range across the period from the later seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century and make reference to all the major dissenting denominations of the United Kingdom. The essays are woven together by a thematic introduction which places the Bible at the centre of dissenting ecclesiology, eschatology, public worship and 'family religion', while charting the political and theological divisions that made the cry of 'the Bible only' so divisive for dissenters in practice.

Various scholars discuss the thesis put forth in David Bebbington's increasingly popular 1989 book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s.

Revival is the arguable heartbeat of evangelical Christianity. Though a theologically diverse and globally diffused phenomenon, evangelicalism originated in a distinctly Calvinistic milieu. Many Puritans in the seventeenth century, "evangelicals before the revivals," emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit, including the importance of personal conversion. Unlike theologically Arminian proponents of revival such as Charles G. Finney, many Puritans and early evangelicals believed and taught that the absolute sovereignty of God was compatible with human responsibility. Calvinistic Baptists in the early eighteenth century who rejected this tension declined numerically, yet a new generation of pastors led their denomination through this impasse. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) defended Reformed doctrine in the Particular Baptist tradition while emphasizing the importance of human response in his preaching, writing, and fundraising for the Baptist Missionary Society. The fruit of Fuller's ministry included growth of churches in England, conversions among people groups in the Global South, and the preservation of Reformed theology in a challenging Enlightenment context.