Prospect and Retrospect 1952 -2002

John Doggett

A dank February morning; power and heating short; rationing still five years after the war.  The phone rang; my colleague answered it. He looked up. ‘The King is dead’ , he said. Elizabeth's departure for Africa had been all over the morning papers, but the fact that he was dying had been kept from us. The sense of shock was very real. We had come to respect his integrity and that of Queen Elizabeth, and their commitment to us during the war years. 

The young Elizabeth was untried. Some looking back in hope dreamt of a second Elizabethan age. It was not to be. Our once great empire was already in terminal decline. The political and social consequences of that fact were to preoccupy both Crown and people through the years ahead. Others, however, dared to hope that some of the spiritual blessings of the first Elizabethan age might again be granted to us and ordered their prayers accordingly.  

‘The Old Paths’ 

At Westminster Chapel, London, since 1939 Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had been preaching the largely forgotten evangelical Calvinism to his hearers. He was now at the height of his powers, destined for 20 years yet to continue to do so not only at this strategic centre but widely about Britain. The monthly meetings of the Westminster Fellowship, over which he presided, also gathered growing numbers of ministers and Bible teachers, and a very warm relationship grew up between them. At the same time the annual Puritan Conference, chaired by ‘the Doctor’ and organised by Dr J I Packer, introduced an ever-widening Christian public to the Puritan Age, but in the case of Baptists, to Confessions of Faith largely forgotten and unpublished for a century or more. 

‘The Lord gave the Word…’ 

1954 saw the first Billy Graham visit to Britain. Inevitably it had a mixed reception; caution rather than enthusiasm was the keynote. In fact the impact of this Crusade was memorable both in the short and long term. There are still those who remember his powerful and oft-reiterated use of the phrase ‘the Bible says’ as he drove home his message from Scripture. Beyond doubt many people were brought to saving faith by the Holy Spirit. Others had their zeal stirred up or were brought to a new vision, not least some readers of this magazine. Billy's later visits do not seem to have made the same impact: the more so as he and his team adopted an increasingly ecumenical approach. 

‘Those who published it’ 

One modest token of coming change was perhaps the appearance in January 1955 of ‘The Free Grace Record’. A quarterly, committed to evangelical Calvinism, its early contributors included Dr Packer and Professor F F Bruce. Later ones were to include Paul Helm, Robert Oliver and David Smith. In the summer of that year, the writer was preaching at Oxford. In his congregation was a young graduate, Iain Murray. A few weeks later he received through the post Number 1 of ‘The Banner of Truth’. (Number 462 of that magazine is on his desk as he writes). 

Thereafter as they appeared ‘Banner’ books were noticed in the ‘Record’. It continued as a quarterly magazine until 1970. By then two other monthly magazines, one founded in 1831, the other in 1895, were in difficulties. It was therefore decided to amalgamate them with the ‘Free Grace Record’ as a new monthly titled ‘Grace’, so drawing together both Baptists and readers from other denominations committed to historic Calvinism.  At about the same time also Erroll Hulse launched ‘Reformation Today’ as a magazine directed to churches worldwide holding the 1689 Confession of Faith or local variants of it. Appearing six times a year it is now also a thriving and much regarded magazine. 

‘A time to plant’ 

The Sixties were indeed an exciting decade in so far as Baptists intent on rediscovering and widely publishing their heritage were concerned. The 1689 Confession itself was widely circulated both in the original and also in a modernised text. The National Assembly of Strict Baptist Pastors and Deacons (a body in the first instance primarily set up for the purpose) published ‘We Believe -The Strict Baptist Affirmation of Faith 1966’, followed by a manual of local church practice. A new hymnbook, ‘Grace Hymns’, appeared - the first for many years. In sum these events amounted to a radical return to the beliefs of the founding fathers of men like Bunyan, and a decided repudiation of the hyper-Calvinism of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed such was the atmosphere that in 1966 an experienced pastor remarked to the writer that it almost seemed as though revival might break out at any time - but it was not to be! 

Nevertheless should not this continue to be our daily prayer: ‘Lord will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you’?  We may be a minority in an increasingly pagan society, but may we not rest assured that in his own time the great Head of the Church will hear and answer?

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