Ian Farley reviews ‘The Nation's Gospel: Spreading the Christian Faith in Britain Since the Reformation: Volume 1’ by Jeremy Thomas (Wilberforce Publications, 2017).
The Nation's Gospel, according to the publishers, is “a living history, telling the stories of the Christian faith of past generations and its outworking in society”.1
There are two important points to note about this book: first, it is the opening volume of a four-volume series. Second, the author is a lawyer.
This volume covers 300 years (1516-1791 - from ‘Reformation to Revolution’), whereas Volume 2 covers 100 years (1791-1900) and Volumes 3 and 4 each cover only 50 years (1900-1945 and 1945-2015, respectively).
These are significant differences, especially considering Volume 1 deals with such enormous topics as the English Reformation, the Civil War era and the 18th Century revival. On each of these topics you could, of course, read multiple books. Inevitably this means the book is very brief on many issues - and yet remains quite dense, given its scope.
So, for those who know anything in reasonable detail about these 300 years, there will be little to learn, but for those readers who know less about Britain’s religious history (mainly England’s, but with small excursions into Scotland’s and Wales’), here is a one-volume whizz through the main points.
What Makes the Gospel Spread?
The subtitle of the book is ‘Spreading the Christian faith in Britain since the Reformation’. With this focus, Thomas goes beyond a simple description of what has happened in Britain’s Gospel history, to ask the intriguing question of what makes the Gospel spread successfully.
It is this that makes the book worthwhile (and hopefully will make the subsequent volumes worth perusing, especially the 20th Century ones).
Thomas asks the intriguing question of what makes the Gospel spread successfully.
In the vast scope of this first volume, Thomas focuses on just a few individuals at a little more length than others, as he explores this key question. He picks Catherine Parr (perhaps surprisingly) for the Reformation period, Richard Baxter for the Civil War, and George Whitefield for the 18th Century (with a special sub-section on Selina, Countess of Huntingdon).
He ultimately concludes that it is the doctrine of the Great Commission that matters most. In other words, in the midst of sermons, catechisms and good works, the Gospel spreads when simple personal faith in the substitutionary death of Jesus is proclaimed as the need of man (the main villain in Britain’s history, therefore, has been the teaching of baptismal re-generation, particularly by the Established Church. We presume that the next volume will have much to say about the Gorham controversy).
Legal Tone
Without resorting to a Dickensian Jarndyce and Jarndyce caricature, the fact remains that Jeremy Thomas has spent his life in legal matters, working as a corporate lawyer in the City.
As a result, his writing is laid out rather like a legal report. Every paragraph is numbered in bold type – 14.14, 14.15, 14.16 and so on – which makes the book rather staccato in style, with a lack of flow and continuity. For academics this might be helpful, and for some this will make the reading simpler and clearer – but for others it will be very dry.
Nevertheless, this remains a useful overview of a topic in which every British Christian should rightly take an interest and desire some sense of ownership – especially those who are concerned about the loss (and possible recovery) of this heritage today.
The Nation’s Gospel: Volume 1 (393 pages) is available here for £14.
References
1 Christian Concern News Release, 28 June 2017.
