Britons Wed Baptist Ecclesiology with Reformed Theology

The 1970s saw an evangelical renaissance in Britain as well as in America. Donald Coggan, retiring archbishop of Canterbury, led the evangelical wing of Anglicanism to new influence while the charismatic movement touched another circle of Anglicans.

Meanwhile, the Baptists were also awakening from slumber. Many joined the charismatic cause led by men such as David Pawson and Stanley Voke. It was Pawson who fought head-on the attack on Christ’s deity mounted by theologian Michael Taylor in 1971.

Another wing of the Baptist movement became aware of its Reformed, Calvinistic heritage. Fueled by Puritan and Reformed books reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust, these Baptists became increasingly persuaded by their Puritan past. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Victorian preacher, became their historical guiding star, and his evangelistic fervor came to characterize the Reformed Baptist movement in Britain.

In 1970, 40 men met by invitation at a Baptist manse in Highgate, north London. Their chairman was Herbert Carson, an articulate Cambridge man who recently had abandoned his Anglican parish. Carson’s book, Farewell to Anglicanism, presented his dilemma of conscience and aided many fellow strugglers. After assisting Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel, Carson moved to a Baptist position and pulpit.

The first conference at Highgate was so successful that a series of annual Carey Conferences resulted, the tenth of which was held in January. Concentrating on practical pastoral issues, the Carey Conferences attempt to wed Baptist ecclesiology with Reformed theology and evangelistic zeal (hence the reference to the missionary zealot, William Carey). Such synthesis is a tall order, but subsequent success has confirmed its viability.

Harry Kilbride, the successful Bournemouth pastor, put it this way: “We are not content to let the Arminians do the evangelism and then straighten out their converts theologically.” Kilbride’s evangelistic impact shows that he is capable of winning many with a thoroughly Reformed message. He even preaches double predestination evangelistically!

The Carey Conference of 1980 drew 150 pastors from all corners of the United Kingdom to Cardiff, Wales. Typically, pastoral matters dominated the program. Geoffrey Thomas, the lanky Welshman from Aberystwyth, tackled the question of divorce. Arnold Dallimore, biographer of George Whitefield, came from Canada to explain revival in the light of God’s sovereignty. (Last year an eminently appropriate topic for troubled Britain was a session on labor relations.)

Reformed Baptists also migrate monthly to the pastors’ meeting at Westminster Chapel. So valuable do the Reformed Baptists consider the Westminster sessions that men travel from all over the British Isles to attend. One pastor used to leave Penzance in the southwest corner of Cornwall on the 3 A.M. milk train to attend the fellowship.

Unless prevented by ill health, the venerable Martyn Lloyd-Jones takes the chair. Fielding questions with consummate adroitness, the “Doctor” (his affectionate nickname) waits for a subject to catch his fancy. Evangelism, for instance, occupied him at a recent session. He urged the 200 ministers to pull out all the stops, warning them not to become bound by tradition or intimidated by the religious establishment.

Since Lloyd-Jones is a Congregationalist, his leadership of the Reformed Baptist cause might be questioned. But Harry Kilbride insisted: “The Doctor only baptized believers at Westminster Chapel, and they by affusion.” Besides, Lloyd-Jones paved the way for Westminster Chapel to call its present pastor, R. T. Kendall, a Southern Baptist from Kentucky.

Erroll Hulse, the South African apologete of the movement, estimates that 90 percent of those attending the Westminster Fellowship hold a baptistic theology. They have been led into an expository preaching ministry by Lloyd-Jones and educated theologically to a great degree by his books of printed sermons.

The Westminster Fellowship holds a strongly separatist position. Pastors from theologically pluralistic denominations—almost all of the British denominations from the Church of England to the Baptist Union—may only attend if they are in the process of withdrawing.

According to a Bristol pastor, Andrew Anderson, Lloyd-Jones has exercised “an amazing influence by his willingness to travel and preach.” Though he will never speak for a society because of its prestige, he will preach in the smallest of chapels to assist a man faithful to Reformed principles. As one pastor’s wife put it: “The Reformed movement through the impact of Dr. Lloyd-Jones has had a disproportionately large influence on the English evangelical scene.”

Despite the twin supports of Carey Conferences and Lloyd-Jones’s fellowship, certain problems perennially plague the Reformed Baptist movement.

• Evangelism. As David Tucker, a young pastor from the south coast, said: “We’ve got to preach as though we were Arminians!” Another pastor said, “I got so excited preaching the gospel, that I almost gave an invitation.” It is the evangelistic appeal that most confounds the Reformed pastor and produces frequent criticisms of Billy Graham by spokesmen from the “Doctor” on down.

John Blanchard is the most noted evangelist of the movement. “Election is the doctrine I am called to believe,” Blanchard mused. “Evangelism is the commandment I am called to obey.” Recently Blanchard resigned from the more broadly evangelical Movement for World Evangelization because he felt bound to teach limited atonement. The problem posed by J. I. Packer in Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God continues to stir in Reformed Baptists’ hearts.

• Hyper-Calvinism. In the past, many Strict Baptist Chapels have disdained even the simple notice board outside the chapel. They feared lest one of the nonelect might slip in and be converted. Hyper-Calvinism is a fluid term; as one pastor noted wryly, “Everyone who is more Reformed than I am is hyper-Calvinistic.”

• Isolationism. The separatist stand Lloyd-Jones has imparted increases the potential for withdrawal from other believers. Herbert Carson is concerned that Reformed Baptists will lose influence by retreating into a narrow doctrinal cell. Therefore he speaks at conferences such as the Baptist Revival Fellowship, an evangelical association within the British Baptist Union, and at Catholic seminaries in Ireland.

• A lack of theologians. Geoffrey Thomas notes that only Donald Guthrie, the New Testament professor at London Bible College, represents the Strict Baptists in the academic world. Thomas feels that preoccupation with pastoral and historical concerns must be balanced by a look at larger theological issues.

In spite of the problems, the future of Reformed Baptists seems assured. Throughout Britain large, urban churches are being drawn into the Reformed orbit. According to Erroll Hulse, “a network of distinctively Reformed churches of various denominations, mostly Baptist or Independent, covers the entire land.” Notable among these are Westminster Chapel, London; The Heath Evangelical Church, Cardiff; Lansdowne Baptist Church, Bournemouth; and Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh.

Even the historic Reformed Baptist groups are uniting. Last October the Strict Baptists got together with the Particular Baptists under the chairmanship of Geoffrey Thomas. As a result, the Grace Baptist Assembly was formed, embracing 80 churches committed to the Reformed position.

The surge is fired by a Thomas group of unusually persuasive preachers. The key to Reformed Baptist survival and success seems to be believing like the Puritans and preaching like the Wesleyans.

Oceania

Church Stance Helps Win New Hebrides Self-rule

The South Pacific Islands of New Hebrides become independent in May, largely due to the political involvement of Protestant church leaders over the past seven years. The new Chief Minister in the House of Assembly is Walter Lini, an Anglican priest, president of the New Hebrides National Party since 1974.

Another prominent figure in the struggle for independence has been chief Fred Timakata, a Presbyterian minister who became vice-president of the NHNP while serving as clerk of the General Assembly of his church.

The new name for the independent country will be Vanuaatu, which means “a country that has stood alone, and will continue to stand alone.”

Since 1906 the New Hebrides, a chain of 73 inhabited islands with a population of about 100,000, has been administered jointly by Britain and France as a condominium (the two nations duplicated medical services, police forces, customs and immigration, and even forms of currency). Schools taught in French are largely Roman Catholic, while most English-speaking schools are Protestant. With some 100 tribal languages in the New Hebrides, a pidgin English has evolved as the language used in common.

More than half of the people belong to or are connected with the Presbyterian Church of the New Hebrides, which owes its start to Canadian Presbyterians led by John Geddie. Since World War I, when transportation from Canada became difficult, support has come mostly from Australian and New Zealand churches. The Presbyterian Church became autonomous in 1948, 100 years from Geddie’s arrival.

As early as 1913 the Presbyterian Church declared opposition to the condominium form of government, and in 1973 issued a formal request for independence, a copy of which went to the United Nations.

DECOURCY H. RAYNER

World Scene

Swiss voters rejected separation of church and state last month in a national referendum by a margin of three to one. Most Swiss cantons (states) currently provide direct aid to churches or allow them to collect their own taxes; at the same time the churches provide many social services. German-speaking Roman Catholics were most opposed to the separation initiative, while French-speaking Protestants were least opposed.

After 35 years of persistent refusal, the Polish government is granting permission for the Roman Catholic church to build a seminary in Bialystok near the Soviet border. The seminary moved there when its former campus in the northeastern part of prewar Poland was annexed into the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The students have studied in private houses ever since, and the church has applied every year for permission to build. No reason for the government’s abrupt change of heart has been determined.

A double agent of the South African government worked in the Geneva, Switzerland-based International University Exchange Fund (IEUF) over a four-year period, according to the Toronto Star. The IEUF, substantially funded by church groups, channeled funds into South Africa for antiapartheid activities. The “mole,” Craig Williamson, 31, had been deputy director since June 1978. Actually a captain in the South African police force, he returned to South Africa in January, fearing imminent exposure by former South African agent Andrew McGiven, who recently defected to Britain. Williamson’s testimony is expected to be used to support a new wave of arrests and trials of both black and white dissidents and to discredit the Fund.

Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, last month was ordered by the Department of the Interior to surrender his passport. He had been slated to lead a South African delegation to a World Council of Churches consultation in Kenya this month. In February the SACC recommended that black Christians next year form a “confessing church” similar to that organized by anti-Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. It also asked churches to withdraw their ministers as marriage officers to protest laws against interracial marriage, and to cease participation in religious programs of the South African Broadcasting Company because it branded them “a vehicle for racist propaganda.”

Bible schools in Ethiopia are increasing in both number and enrollment for the Word of Life churches in spite of the upheaval created by revolution. The Sudan Interior Mission-related denomination now reports 65 Bible schools in operation with no expatriate teachers, and financing and organization totally in the hands of the churches. The enrollment figure is 3,714.

Reform Jewish leaders in Israel are intensifying their drive for legitimacy. In February Mordechai Rotem became the first Israeli to be trained and ordained as a Reform rabbi in Israel. Israel’s two chief rabbis pronounced the ceremony invalid and harmful. Now Reform Jews are asking the Minister of Religious Affairs to empower two Reform rabbis to issue marriage certificates. The expected refusal would set the stage for a court case.

The Israeli government reverted to the monetary unit used in Israel during much of the Old Testament period in February One shekel replaced 10 Israeli pounds in a move designed psychologically to combat inflation and avoid confusion between “new” and “old” pounds or liras. In announcing the currency change, the government also stressed the shekel’s biblical symbolism.

One positive result for Christians in India resulting from Indira Ghandi’s return to power has been the scuttling of the controversial “Freedom of Religion Bill.” The bill, favored by elements in the Janata coalition, which has now disintegrated, would have banned nationwide the use of any “inducement” to bring about conversion from one religion to another. Mrs. Ghandi denounced the bill as unwarranted government interference in the religious arena. Similar legislation remains in force, however, in several of India’s states.

Six church groups are again meeting in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia (Kampuchea), according to the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Four pastors and two laymen are leading the congregations in house meetings, but it is anticipated the government will soon return two former church buildings.

There has been a significant turning to Christ among the Cambodian refugees in the Khao I Dang camp on the Thailand border. Reports indicate that more than 20,000 of the 105,000 interned in the camp are now believers. From a nucleus of three Cambodian pastors and 300 Christians, the movement has mushroomed with the help of several lay leaders and Overseas Missionary Fellowship missionary Don Cormack.

Two official churches have recently been opened in China’s Chekiang province, according to the China Research Center in Hong Kong. Both are in the capital city of Hangchow, not far from Shanghai. Chekiang was one of the first provinces opened to foreign missionary penetration in the nineteenth century.

Islam is making inroads in South Korea. When the Korea Muslim Federation was formed in 1967, it had fewer than 3,000 members. Now its ranks have grown to more than 10,000. A mosque has been built on the outskirts of Seoul, and another is under construction in Pusan.

Personalia

The National Association of Evangelicals, meeting in annual convention last month in Los Angeles, installed as its twentieth president Bishop J. Floyd Williams, general superintendent of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, succeeding Bethel (St. Paul, Minn.) College president Carl H. Lundquist. The NAE recognized ministries of three persons; Abner Haldeman, the former mayor of Upland, California, as layman of the year; Paul S. Rees, former Evangelical Covenant Church pastor and vice-president at large of World Vision International with the “Faithful Servant” award by the social action commission; and Frank Ineson, for his support ministry for missionaries, with the “Helping Hands” award by World Relief Corporation.

William R. Hausman was elected president of North Park College and Theological Seminary in Chicago. Hausman, whose election is subject to final approval by officials of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America, presently is associate dean of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He succeeds Lloyd H. Ahlem, who resigned last June.

Religion editor Tom Harpur of the Toronto Star recently resigned his orders as an Anglican priest, citing irreconcilable conflicts of interest between being both priest and journalist. With the Star since 1971, Harpur said his stories related to Anglicans often have brought accusations that he was betraying his church.

David Gill, a Congregational minister, has been elected general secretary of the new Uniting Church of Australia. Gill, 40, has spent most of his career overseas, much of it on staff appointments within the World Council of Churches.

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