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Anvil Volume 26 Number 2 2009

Guest Editor: Peter Williams

Evangelical Trends, 1959-2009

David Bebbington

Anvil first appeared in 1984. In this article, David Bebbington, a leading historian of evangelicalism, demonstrates how the half-century around that date witnessed a variety of changes within the Evangelical movement in Britain. Although the most typical characteristics of Evangelicals survived, there was a decline in anti-Catholicism, Keswick teaching, premillennial eschatology, traditional missionary-mindedness and internal unity. On the other hand there was a rise in the proportion of Evangelicals in their denominations, a broadening of their views and fresh ecumenical engagement. Reformed and charismatic sectors grew, black-led churches arose, gender issues became controversial, socio-political involvement increased and relative prosperity had major consequences. By the end of the period the movement was much more diverse than at its beginning.

David William Bebbington is Professor of History at the University of Stirling and the author of Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) and The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005).

Britain Today: How we came to be here and what we can do about it

Michael Nazir-Ali

In this challenging survey of the state of Britain today, Michael Nazir-Ali describes and explains our current situation, focussing on the state of the family, the rise of home-made spiritualities and the phenomenon of scientistic reductionism. In response he sets out a vision for how the church can serve the nation by reversing our amnesia about our Christian heritage (especially in education), bringing Christian values and virtues into the public sphere and the marketplace, making our worship visible, and renewing our commitment to mission and evangelism rooted in friendship and witness.

Michael Nazir-Ali is the Bishop of Rochester. He was previously Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan and General Secretary of CMS. He is about to embark on a venture of faith in supporting churches under pressure in different parts of the world.

'Pragmatic, comfortable and unobtrusive': Can the Church of England ever learn to evangelise?

Peter Williams

In this article, Peter Williams reminds us that the Church of England is in serious decline and that the contemporary challenge is to evangelise or die. Despite recovering from a comparably dangerous position in the early nineteenth century, through spiritual renewal and structural changes, in the second half of the twentieth century it reversed the progress. He argues it now has to overcome four inhibitors to evangelism arising from its heritage and, as it seeks to develop new strategies for evangelism, highlights eleven missiological principles from the past and from the story of contemporary success in other parts of the world. To put this into practice he presents the case that evangelism should be episcopally facilitated but without tight episcopal and institutional controls because churches need to have the freedom to get on with their own visions in their distinctive cultural settings. A key question therefore is whether the institutional bureaucracy of the Church of England can allow evangelism to be central to its culture without centralising (and thus destroying) its direction, energy and purpose.

Canon Dr Peter Williams is Minister of St Martin de Gouray, Jersey. Previously he was Vicar of All Saints Ecclesall, Sheffield and, prior to that, Vice-Principal of Trinity College, Bristol. He is guest editor of this issue and was Anvil’s first editor.

This article is available as a PDF to view/download. This article may be distributed freely, provided that it is not changed in any way, and that it includes the copyright and restriction notice.

The Growth and Future of African Christianity: A Personal View

George Carey

Although Africa is regarded as the ailing Continent, representing only 4% of the world’s GDP, it is a place of beauty and heroic faith. George Carey explores the contribution of Anglicanism in five countries he knows well, tracing the development of Anglicanism from the end of the colonial period, and reflecting on the successes and failures of its mission. He shows that, without intending it to be so, the legacy of colonial Christianity, for all its well-meaning intentions in South Africa – and to a lesser degree in Sudan – placed a burden on the emerging African leadership. Nonetheless, the Anglican tradition in Africa is now strong, resilient and growing. It reminds European Christians of the great truths of apostolic faith that growth arises not from ease and costless believing, but from sacrificial following and living the way of the cross.

George Carey is the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury and served in that office from 1991 to 2002. Before that he was Bishop of Bath and Wells, Principal of Trinity College, Bristol and Vicar of St.Nicholas, Durham. In retirement, he and Eileen are involved in inter-faith work and support of the Anglican Communion abroad.

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