Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 March 2008 07:09:19
I'm currently lapping up The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray and have to say am finding it facinating. Now for anybody who's not a Baptist I better explain Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the most famous Baptist preacher the UK's ever had. Whilst he didn't found the modern Baptist denomination he generally has been given a similar status to that of the Wesley's in Methodism.
So anyway, Spurgeon, is a figure I have grown up hearing about and thinking I knew about (i.e. amazing preacher in the 19th century who was the ultimate Baptist). This book, which was originally written in 1966, has shattered that illusion, or atleast part of it. Spurgeon, it appears, was actually a complex and controversial figure who ended up resigning from the Baptist Union a few years before his death in what became known as the Downgrade Controversy.
Now in modern terms it appears that the Downgrade Controversy was where Calvinist conservative evangelicals were making a stand against the accomodation of the more liberal evangelicals within the Baptist denomination. I find this facinating on several levels. Firstly one of the things that Spurgeon couldn't accept was that some ministers and churches in the denomination were preaching against the whole penal substitution argument. Now for those who can think back a couple of years this was what the whole Steve Chalke Lost Message of Jesus storm in a tea cup was about. Steve Chalke was, then, not saying anything particularly new or shocking -Evangelicals and Baptist ministers had been arguing about it over a century before.
Secondly one of the problems that Spurgeon had with the BU was that it put unity before all else. Due to the nature of association between individual churches, which are all allowed to have their own position, as long as it generally fits in with the core values there is a huge spectrum of belief in churches; some being very conservative and some being more liberal, some being Calvinist in theology and some being Arminian in nature (free will arguement). Therefore, silence and sweeping disagreement under the carpet was the order of the day and this was something Spurgeon wasn't prepared to let go. He was not prepared to be in association with those whom he disagreed with most things, apart from adult baptism, on. Now to me, a century on, this mirrors the current situation. The debate on homosexuality which is going on in the church and wider debates and disputes within evangelicalism at the moment are just the current issues in a debate which has been going on for years.
Reading this book I have a much greater appreciation of where conservative evangelicals are coming from and the pain that they are currently going through. I am also, though, encouraged by the book because what it shows is in the end diversity and unity become accepted by the majority but those whose conviction may mean they feel they have to make a stand can still be celebrated for their overall faith and contribution to the community. Thus, I think it is important we actually look alot more widely at the lives and careers of some of the conservative evangelicals and celebrate the overall contribution they are making and their faith, even if we cannot agree with them. What we should do, though, is accept it is that very depth of faith they have which may mean some level of schism is inevitable.
Perhaps there should be a session on Spurgeon and what we can learn from him in this area at the forthcoming Anglican conference.