Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gq7q9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T17:45:53.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Baptists and Fundamentalism in Inter-war Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

D. W. Bebbington
D. W. Bebbington*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Get access

Extract

The history of Evangelicalism, as Professor Ward has taught us, is greatly illuminated by international comparisons. Britain and America in particular have shared a form of conversionist Protestantism with a common origin and many parallel developments. The study of popular religion in each sheds light on similar phenomena in the other. Comparison also helps our understanding of the differences between the two. Fundamentalism is a case in point. The assertive defence of the faith in inter-war America had echoes in Britain, but the echoes were much softer. The series of booklets called The Fundamentals (1910-15) that gave the movement its name had British as well as American contributors. Yet the militant temper, the polemic in defence of biblical infallibility, and the urge to save Christian civilization from decadence were much more salient in America. Fundamentalism of this kind did exist in Britain, but it was a much weaker force than in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 7: Protestant Evangelicalism , 1990 , pp. 297 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For example, Ward, W. R., Religion and Society in England 1790–1850 (London, 1972), pp. 1–3Google Scholar; ‘The Baptists and the Transformation of the Church, 1780–1830’, BQ, 25 (1973-4), pp. 167–84.

2 Marsden, G. M., Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangel icalism: 1870–1925 (New York, 1980)Google Scholar.

3 For an international survey of Baptist history, see McBeth, H. L., The Baptist Heritage (Nashville, Tenn., 1987)Google Scholar.

4 For evangelical characteristics, see Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modem Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989)Google Scholar, cap. 1.

5 Marsden, Fundamentalism, pp. 157–61.

6 The Bible Call [hereafter BC], Mar. 1922, pp. 18, 24.

7 BC, June 1922, p. 41.

8 BC, Jan. 1923, p. 12.

9 Life of Faith [hereafter Lf], 14 Mar. 1923, p. 301.

10 BC, July 1924, p. 102.

11 Robbins, K., ‘The Spiritual Pilgrimage of the Rev. R. J. Campbell’, JEH, 30 (1979), pp. 261–76Google Scholar.

12 Yr Efengylydd, II, p. 19: quoted by Jones, B. P., King’s Champions (n.p., 1968), p. 99Google Scholar.

13 Bebbington, D. W., ‘The Persecution of George Jackson: A British Fundamentalist Controversy’, SCH, 21 (1984), pp. 421–33Google Scholar.

14 BC, Oct.-Dec. 1919, p. 7;July-Sept. 1919, p. 3;Jan.-Feb. 1921, p. 9.

15 Hewitt, G., The Problems of Success: A History of the Church Missionary Society, 1910–1942, 1 (London, 1972), pp. 467–71Google Scholar.

16 BC, March 1923, p. 40.

17 Free Church Year Book, 1916, p. 9: quoted by Jordan, E. K. H., Free Church Unity: History of the Free Church Council Movement, 1895–1941 (London, 1956), p. 129Google Scholar.

18 Journal of the Wesley Bible Union [hereafter JWBU], Aug. 1917, p. 173.

19 JWBU, July 1918, pp. 174–6.

20 Jordan, , Free Church Unity, p. 134Google Scholar.

21 Hayden, R., ‘Still at the Crossroads?: Revd J. H. Shakespeare and Ecumenism’, in Clements, K. W., ed., Baptists in the Twentieth Century (London, 1983), pp. 38, 46–9Google Scholar.

22 The Christian [hereafter C], 28 Nov. 1935, p. 12.

23 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 3;July 1925, p. 110.

24 Cook, C. T. to editor, LF, 3 Feb. 1926, p. 120Google Scholar.

25 The Baptist Handbook [hereafter BH], 1920, p. 189.

26 BC, Oct.-Dec. 1919, p. 12; Sept.-Oct. 1920, p. 8.

27 The Advent Witness [hereafter AW], p. 170.

28 Marsh, F. E. to editor, LF, 18 Apr. 1923, p. 439Google Scholar.

29 Cobb, R., Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood (London, 1983)Google Scholar.

30 Buxton, B. G., The Reward of Faith in the Life of Barclay Fowell Buxton, 1860–1946 (London, 1949), p. 218Google Scholar.

31 BC, May 1925, p. 79.

32 Buxton, , Buxton. H. S. Blackwood, Some Records of the Life of Stevenson Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B. (London, 1806), p. 361Google Scholar. Liebenrood, E. B. to editor, LF, 19 May 1926, p. 534Google Scholar.

33 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 8.

34 Especially the long-term officers Bailey, W.J., Coverley, G. S., and Wright, C. C., who are likely to have been members of Mountain’s church. BC, Oct. 1923, p. 153;June 1924, p. 86Google Scholar.

35 Information from Mrs Lacey, D. H.. BC, Aug. 1923, p. 128Google Scholar.

36 The Record [hereafter R], 21 July 1933, p. 423. C, 6 July 1933, p. 12.

37 Mountain, J., My Baptism and What led to it, 2nd edn. (London, n d.), pp. 1, 6–7, 9, 187–8Google Scholar.

38 JWBU, June 1915, p. 130.

39 Mountain, J., Rev. F. C. Spurr and his Bible (n.p., 1922), p. 2Google Scholar.

40 BH, 1920, p. 191. AW, June: 1920, p. 104.

41 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 8.

42 Payne, E. A., The Baptist Union: A Short Histgty (London, 1958)Google Scholar, cap. 7. Nicholls, M., ‘The Downgrade Controversy: A neglected protagonist’Google Scholar; Hopkins, M. T. E., ‘Spurgeon’s opponents in the Downgrade Controversy’, BQ, 32 (1988), pp. 260–74, 274–94Google Scholar.

43 E.g., BC, Jan.-March 1920, p. 2; Nov. 1923, p. 164.

44 BC, May 1923, p. 80; Feb. 1924, p. 17.

45 The British Weekly [hereafter BW], 20 Nov. 1919, p. 162; 27 Nov. 1919, p. 197;4 Dec. 1919, p. 217. See also, Gladstone, H. H., Harry Tydeman Chilvers: A Modem Puritan (London, 1964Google Scholar).

46 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 7.

47 Wilson, John, Cuff, William, and Jones, F. A.: The Baptist Times [hereafter BT], 16 Jan. 1920, p. 41Google Scholar. Bradford, John: BT, 23 Jan. 1920, p. 57Google Scholar.

48 BT, 11 May 1923, p. 336.

49 BC, June 1922, p. 44. LF, 7 Oct. 1925, p. 1158.

50 BC, Mar.-Apr. 1921, p. 8.

51 BC, July 1925, p. 112.

52 Greenwood, B. I., The Contradiction of Christ (London, 1932), p. 6Google Scholar.

53 BT, 10 Dec. 1920, p. 815.

54 BT, 6 Oct. 1922, p. 638.

55 LF, 13 Aug. 1924, p. 970.

56 Quoted by Wilkinson, J. T., Arthur Samuel Peake: A Biography (London, 1971), p. 130Google Scholar.

57 BC, July-Aug. 1921, p. 16.

58 BC, Nov.-Dec. 1921, p. 4.

59 For example BC, July-Aug. 1921, pp. 7–8.

60 Bebbington, , Evangelicalism, pp. 187, 189–90Google Scholar.

61 LF, 7 Mar. 1923, p. 269.

62 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 3. JWBU, Apr. 1919, p. 87.

63 BC, Feb. 1926, p. 32; Mar. 1926, pp. 36–8; May-June 1926, pp. 70–1.

64 C, 13 Feb. 1896, p. 26. BC, Oct.-Dec. 1919, p. 7.

65 BH, 1920, p. 178.

66 BC, Mar.-Apr. 1920, p. 8.

67 LF, 12 Dec. 1923, p. 1535.

68 Jones, , King’s Champions, pp. 176, 271Google Scholar.

69 BC, July-Sept. 1919. p. 3.

70 BC, Oct.-Dec. 1919, p. 12.

71 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 8. Jones, , King’s Champions, pp. 102, 109, 120; 35–8, 262–9; 98Google Scholar.

72 BC, Apr.-June 1920, p. 4; Sept.-Oct. 1920, p. 8;Jan.-Feb. 1921, p. 1.

73 BC, Jan. 1922, p. 6.

74 BC, Nov.-Dec. 1921, p. 14.

75 BC, Nov. 1923, p. 160.

76 Carwardine, R., ‘The Welsh evangelical Community and “Finney’s Revival” JEH, 29 (1978), pp. 463–80Google Scholar.

77 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 8. Baptist Bible Union Manifesto, 3 Nov. 1920.

78 Best, G. F. A., ‘Popular Protestantism in Victorian Britain’, in Robson, R., ed., Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain (London, 1967)Google Scholar. Norman, E. R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

79 R, 5 Mar. 1925, p. 162.

80 R, 9 Oct. 1924, p. 658.

81 Hastings, A., A History of English Christianity, 1920–1985 (London, 1987 edn.), pp. 203–8Google Scholar.

82 Orchard, W.E., From Faith to Faith (London, 1933)Google Scholar.

83 BC, July-Sept. 1919, pp. 2–3.

84 Baptist Bible Union Manifesto, 3 Nov. 1920.

85 BC, July 1924, p. 100.

86 BC, July-Aug. 1920, p. 1.

87 Bebbington, , ‘George Jackson’, p. 428Google Scholar.

88 Bebbington, , Evangelicalism, cap. 5Google Scholar.

89 LF, 29 July 1925, p. 856. R, 21 July 1933, p. 423.

90 Jones, , King’s Champions, pp. 49, 83, 93, 95, 98Google Scholar.

91 On America, see Weber, T. P., Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1925 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar. On Britain, see Bebbington, D. W., ‘The Advent Hope in British Evangelicalism since 1800’, The Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, 9 (1988), pp. 103–14Google Scholar.

92 Hopkins, M. T. E., ‘Baptists, Congregationalists and Theological Change: Some Late Nineteenth Century Leaders and Controversies’ (Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1988), p. 166Google Scholar.

93 The Monthly Bulletin of the Advent Preparation Prayer Union [hereafter MBAPPU], June 1919, p. 1.

94 MBAPPU, June 1920, pp. 97–8; Aug. 1920, p. 120.

95 AW, Dec. 1923, p. 136.

96 AW, Feb. 1921, p.i.

97 Hicks, W. P., The Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in Relation to the Present World Crisis (London, 1925)Google Scholar.

98 MBAPPU, June 1920, p. 104;July 1920, p. 112. AW, Dec. 1921, p. 282.

99 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 101Google Scholar. C, 6 Mar. 1919, p. 19.

100 C, 20 Feb. 1919, p. 16.

101 BC. Mat.-Apr.1921, p. 6.

102 MBAPPU, June 1920, p. 97.

103 BC, Jan.-Feb.1921, p. 2.

104 Mountain, J., The Keswick Convention and the Dangers which threaten It (n.p., 1920), p. 10Google Scholar.

105 BC, July-Aut. 1920, p. 3.

106 BC, July 1924, p.99.

107 BC, Dec. 1924, p. 108.

108 Bebbington, D. W., ‘Baptists and Politics since 1914’, in Clements, ed., Baptists in the Twentieth Century, pp. 82–3Google Scholar.

109 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 147Google Scholar.

110 BC, Nov. 1922, p. 83;Oct. 1925, p. 131;Aug. 1924, p. 115.

111 BC, Jan. 1925, p. 16.

112 Gilbert, A. D., The Making of Post-Christian Britain: A History of the Secularization of Modern Society (London, 1980)Google Scholar, cap. 5.

113 AW, Dec. 1923, p. 136.

114 BH, 1920, p. 189. Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 36Google Scholar. Pierson, D. L., Arthur T. Pierson: A Biography (London, 1912), pp. 253, 267Google Scholar. Mountain, J., Rev. F. C. Spurr and his Bible (n.p., 1922), p. 2Google Scholar.

115 Jones, , King’s Champions, pp. 74–8, 101, 138, 202, 246, 279Google Scholar.

116 Gambrell, J. S. to Mountain, J., 5 Nov. 1919, in BC, Jan.-Mar. 1920, p. 6Google Scholar.

117 BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 7;Jan.-Mar. 1920, p. 7. Marsden, , Fundamentalism, pp. 160–1Google Scholar.

118 Mountain, J. to editor, LF, 12 Sept. 1923, p. 1065Google Scholar.

119 R, 23 Oct. 1924, p. 689. LF, 17 june 1925, p. 676.

120 BH, 1920, p. 166.

121 McCaig, A. to editor, BT, 9 Jan. 1920, p. 27Google Scholar.

122 JWBV, Dec. 1917, p. 271.

123 BT, 16 Jan. 1920, p. 41; 23 Jan. 1920, p. 57; 30 Jan. 1920, p. 73; 6 Feb. 1920, p. 88.

124 JWBU, Mar. 1915. p. 56. BT, 5 Mar. 1920, p. 156; 12 Mar. 1920, p. 173; 19 Mar. 1920, p. 189; 2 Apr. 1920, pp. 222–3.

125 BT, 2 Apr. 1920, p. 223.

126 Thomas, J. to editor, BT, 30 Apr. 1920, p. 289Google Scholar.

127 BC, Apr.-June 1920, p. 11; July-Aug. 1920, p. 4.

128 BT, 16 Apr. 1921, pp. 256–7.

129 BW, 15 Apr. 1920, p. 44. AW, March 1922, pp. 39–40.

130 Jordan, , Free Church Unity, pp. 127, 134Google Scholar.

131 BC, July-Aug. 1920, pp. 5–10; Sept.-Oct. 1920, p. 3.

132 Cook, H., Charles Brown (London, 1939), p. 62Google Scholar.

133 Brown, C. to editor, BW, 14 July 1921, p. 276Google Scholar. Mountain, Keswick Convention and the Dangers.

134 BC, Nov.-Dec. 1920, p. 11.

135 Mountain, , Keswick Convention and the Dangers, p. 13Google Scholar.

136 C, 29 July 1920, p. 15.

137 BW, 11 Aug. 1921, p. 339.

138 BC, Aug. 1924, p. 128.

139 BH, 1920, p. 202.

140 Mountain, , Keswick Convention and the Dangers, pp. 11–13Google Scholar.

141 Mountain, J., What Keswick needs: A Reply to ‘What Keswick stands for’ (n.p., 1921), p. 8Google Scholar. BC, March-April 1921, pp. 13–14; May-June 1921, p. 7. Mountain, J., Rev. F. C. Spurr and Keswick (n.p., 1921), pp. 3–6Google Scholar. BC, July-Aug. 1921, pp. 3–4.

142 C, 7 July 1921, p. 11.

143 Mountain, , Spurr and his Bible, p. 2Google Scholar.

144 BH, 1926, p. 258.

145 Mountain, , Spurr and his Bible, p. 7Google Scholar.

146 Wood, H. G., Terrot Reaveley Glover: A Biography (Cambridge, 1953), esp. p. 150Google Scholar.

147 Oswald Chambers: His Life and Work (London, 1959 edn.), p. 164.

148 BT, 4 Mar. 1921, p. 132.

149 BT, 6 Oct. 1922, p. 635.

150 JWBU, Mar. 1923, p. 58.

151 “The Peril of Extremes’, BT, 23 Mar. 1923, p. 207.

152 Glover, T. R. to editor, BT, 6 Apr. 1923, p. 244Google Scholar.

153 BT, 13 Apr. 1923, p. 259; 20 Apr. 1923, p. 286; 23 Jan. 1920, p. 57.

154 BT, 13 Apr. 1923, p. 259; 2 Mar. 1923, p. 149.

155 Wood, , Glover, pp. 152–4Google Scholar.

156 BT, 27 Apr. 1923, pp. 302–3.

157 Wood, , Glover, p. 155Google Scholar.

158 BC, June 1923, p. 81.

159 R, 14 June 1923, p. 387.

160 Glover, T. R. to editor, R, 21 June 1923, p. 402Google Scholar.

161 BC, July 1923, p. 112; Dec. 1923, p. 186; Feb. 1924, p. 30.

162 BC, Nov. 1923, p. 164; Oct. 1923, pp. 150–3; Dec. 1923, p. 189; Apr. 1924, p. 59.

163 BC, Feb. 1924, pp. 23, 25; June 1924, cover.

164 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 204Google Scholar.

165 LF, 14 May 1924, p. 564. BC, June 1924, pp. 81–4.

166 Bartlett, D. H. C. to editor, R, 6 Apr. 1922, p. 224Google Scholar. BC, May 1922, pp. 36–8.

167 Glovet, T. R. to editor, R, 21 June 1923, p. 402Google Scholar.

168 BC, Jan. 1923, p. 10. Jones, , King’s Champions, pp. 192–3Google Scholar.

169 BC, Jan. 1923, p. 8.

170 BT, 27 Apr. 1923, pp. 296, 302.

171 BT, 4 May 1923, p. 323.

172 C, 4 Feb. 1926, p. 11. BC, May 1923, p. 75;July-Sept. 1928, p. 33.

173 The Fundamentalist [hereafter F], Aug. 1930, pp. 176–7.

174 F, Sept. 1931, pp. 206–7; Nov. 1931, pp. 258–60; Jan. 1932, p. 13. Thomas Greenwood was almost certainly Benjamin’s brother.

175 F, Dec. 1931, pp. 269–72. This controversy, together with Glover’s theology, is reviewed in Clements, K. W., Lovers of Discord: Twentieth-Century Theological Controversies in England (London, 1988), pp. 107–29Google Scholar.

176 Wood, , Glover, pp. 158–63Google Scholar. The article was republished as ‘Nonconformity Old and New” in Fifty Years: Memories and Contrasts (London, 1932), pp. 120–6.

177 F, April 1932, p. 83; May 1932, pp. 97–100; July 1932, pp. 161–4; Sept. 1932, pp. 195–8.

178 F, Dec. 1928, p. 268.

179 BC donation lists. On Bolton, see Kendall, E. E., Doing and Daring (Rushden, n.d.), pp. 124–5Google Scholar.

180 BC, Dec. 1925, p. 174;Oct. 1925, p. 144, Oct.-Dec. 1926, pp. 102–3.

181 BC, Apr.-June 1920, p. 8.

182 Jones, , King’s Champions, cap. 15. Grubb, N. P., Rees Howells: Intercessor (London, 1952), caps 25–37Google Scholar. JWBU, July 1924, p. 163.

183 BC, July-Aug. 1921, p. 8.

184 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 203Google Scholar.

185 McCaig, A., Grace Astounding in Bolshevik Russia (London, n.d.). R, 21 July 1933, p. 423. BC, Apr. 1924, p. 60Google Scholar.

186 MBAPPU, July 1920, pp. 105–6. BT, 5 Mar. 1920, p. 156.

187 Wright, D. F., ‘Soundings in the doctrine of Scripture in British Evangelicalism in the first half of the twentieth century’, Tyndale Bulletin, 31 (1980), pp. 87–106Google Scholar.

188 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 138Google Scholar.

189 MBAPPU, July 1919, p. 203. Bebbington, , ‘Advent Hope’, pp. 108–9Google Scholar.

190 BW, 11 May 1922, p. 124.

191 Payne, , Baptist Union, p. 242Google Scholar.

192 LF, 20 Oct. 1926, p. 1189.

193 LF, 30 July 1924, p. 895.

194 LF, 30 Jan. 1924, p. 122.

195 Payne, , Baptist Union, cap. 9Google Scholar.

196 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 204Google Scholar.

197 BC, Oct.-Dec. 1919, p. 6.

198 For example, about recreation eclipsing evangelism. London City Mission Magazine, Sept. 1930, p. 142.

199 BC, July-Sept. 1927, p. 34.

200 The figures are for entrants to the ministry in the period 1890–1919. Brown, K. D., A Social History of the Nonconformist Ministry in England and Wales, 1600–1930 (Oxford, 1988), p. 60Google Scholar.

201 That is, one out of twenty-four, excluding Irish representatives: Thomas, John. BC, July-Sept. 1919, p. 8Google Scholar. Baptist Bible Union Manifesto, 3 Nov. 1920.

202 BC, Nov. 1920, p. 3. C, II Feb. 1926, p. 4 (J. W. Thirtle).

203 Glover, W. B., Evangelical Nonconformists and Higher Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1954), p. 139Google Scholar.

204 BC, Mar.-Apr. 1921, p. 7. Fountain, D. G., E.J. Poole-Connor (1872-1962): Contender for the Faith (Worthing, 1966), pp. 121–8Google Scholar. LF, 16 Jan. 1924, p. 60.

205 Jones, , King’s Champions, p. 244Google Scholar ( Russell-Jones, D. M.). AW, Sept.-Oct. 1928, p. 361Google Scholar (E. BuckhurstPinch).

206 C, 7 Mar. 1935, p. 6.

207 C, 22 Apr. 1926, p. 20. AW, Jan. 1932, cover. Jones, King’s Champions, p. 167.

208 Liberty in the Lord: Comment on Trends in Baptist Thought Today (London, 1964).

209 Balfour, I. L. S., ‘The Twentieth Century since 1914’, in Bebbington, D. W., ed., The Baptists in Scotland: A History (Glasgow, 1988), p. 74Google Scholar.

210 Davies, J. E., Striving Together: A Statement of the Principles that have governed the Aims and Policies of the Evangelical Movement of Wales (Bridgend, 1984), p. 5Google Scholar. Murray, I. H., David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899–1939 (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 193Google Scholar.

211 BT, 20 Apr. 1923, p. 271.

212 Morgan, K. O., Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880–1980 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 136, 197–201Google Scholar.

213 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, cap. 4.