The Rise and Fall of the Baptist Aristocracy

1840-1912

The picture above is of George White; that is, Sir George White to you and I.  White takes his place with the names of other establishment grandees who were once part of Norwich Central Baptist Church (then known as St Mary’s Baptist Church). If you are local to Norwich you may recognise some of those names: e.g. The Coleman’s, The Jewson’s and, Sir Samuel Morton Peto. These men were the pillars of a protestant society: They were MPs, Sheriffs, Mayors, business magnates and - this is very ironic - knights and baronets. George White was an MP as well as director of the Norvic shoe factory which can still be seen on the appropriately names St. George's Street today. Norwich had lost its position in the textile business as textile production moved to the power rich north; it might also have lost out in the shoe trade were it not for White who introduced mass production to shoe making. In fact the St George's works was the largest shoe factory in Gt. Britain under one roof.

To quote the Norwich Heritage web site on George White:

White attended St Mary's Baptist Church in Duke Street for many years and was a Deacon there for 29 of them. The church was a fashionable place of worship for prominent Liberal businessman and provided a forum for debate on the moral and political issues of the day under the ministration of George Gould and his successor J H Shakespeare.

How is it, then, that a small Anabaptist* sect of 1669 inclined to fanaticism (as are marginalised groups in general) and oppressed by government and state church should eventually become a major and respected player in politics and business? That, no doubt, is a long story; the result of the confluence of many causes lost in the mists of time: One factor may have been the increasing confidence of an industrial nation growing in power as it left behind the paranoid days of pervasive fear about plots against the state by malign conspirators.  Moreover, after the repeal of the Test Act in 1823 (an act barring non-conformists from civic office) the way was clear for non-conformists to take up public appointment. The progressive Whiggish ethos at NCBC favoured an involvement in liberal politics and business.

The English Baptists had their origins in 17^th century republicanism and this was not conducive to them viewing the aristocracy and the concentration of power in a monarch with any great favour. Ironically, however, by the 20^th century these Baptists had become gentlemen and they were starting to ape the aristocracy of a former era. They were building churches that looked suspiciously like the worship houses of their well-to-do state church brethren. Moreover, the ruling influential families of the church now had their own coats arms and these can still be seen today in the stained glass windows of the main worship space of Norwich Central Baptist Church.  Viz:

In the left window the coat of arms with pictorial references to whelks is an echo of the family name of “Wilkin”. A notable member was Simon Wilkin: Although he had rather mixed business fortunes he was successful as a publisher and literary scholar.

In the right window are the coat of arms of the Jewson family: A notable member was Percy Jewson whose memorial can be seen in the church. He served as a Lord Mayor of Norwich and a liberal MP. 

In the middle window we have the coat of arms of the Colman family of Coleman’s Mustard fame. Notably Jeremiah James Colman attended the church (See also here). He was another Baptist who was a scholar, businessmen and politician. He became Liberal MP for Norwich in 1871.

Of course, those days have long since gone and a Baptist community well connected to the establishment has waned to be replaced by a congregation who from the outset take it for granted they are not so well enfranchised with power and influence and must cope with that fact. The ego nourishing self-image of Baptists has changed from establishment movers and shakers to that of the holy heroic remnant. There are opportunities and dangers for both types of congregation. The Baptist “aristocracy” of the past had the opportunity to bring a Christian influence to the corridors of power but a sense of having arrived might tempt them to put down roots in this world and lose that restless pilgrim striving which should always be the lot of the Christian. On the other hand the socially marginalised congregations of today are spiritually honed by their more humble status as they identify with the common people, but they may succumb to alienation and be plagued by separatist and sectarian paranoia. However, the underlying spiritual challenges of both types of Christian community remain the same:

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God……..  (Philippians 2:3-6)

Footnote

* Baptists of that time were called Anabaptist which means “Re-baptise”. This appellation would have had a subversive connotation as the state churches of the day endeavored to baptise all infants thus bringing them into the fold of state religion. Re-baptising was therefore likely to be read as a rejection of that religion.

Relevant Links:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/early-history-of-norwich-central.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/bishop-to-kinghorn.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/george-white.html

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/heraldry-at-ncbc-part-3.html

Christmas Midnight Eucharist at Norwich Cathedral

Norwich Cathedral: Romanesque and Gothic

The liturgy at Norwich Cathedral for the Xmas midnight service is, in my opinion, inspiring. It picks out all the positive aspects of the faith which we associate with Xmas and explains why Christmas brings light, hope and faith to millions of souls who have otherwise lost their way or are oppressed by darkness. Below I reproduce a few of the highlights from the order of service:

Prayers of penitence before the crib

Deacon: Christ the light of the world has come to dispel the darkness of our hearts. Let us turn to the light and confess our sins.

All: Amen

Deacon: God our father you sent your Son full of grace and truth; forgive our failure to receive him.

All: Amen

Deacon: Jesus our saviour you were born in poverty and laid in a manger; forgive our greed and rejection of your ways.

All: Amen

The Collect:

Bishop: Eternal God who made this most holy night to shine with the brightness or your true light..bring us, who have known the revelation of that light on Earth, to see the radiance of your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

All: Amen.

A Christmas proclamation

Choir: God is with us. Hear ye people. Even to the uttermost end of the earth. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. The people that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them the light has shined. For unto us a child is born! For unto us a son is given! And the government shall be upon his shoulder; And his name shall be called Wonderful! Counsellor! The Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace. Hear ye people. Even to the uttermost end of the earth. God is with us. Christ is born!

Hymn: It came upon a midnight clear

All: For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophet bards foretold,
When, with the ever-circling years,
Shall come the Age of Gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Prayers of intercession

Bishop: Father, in this holy night angels and shepherds worshiped at the manger throne. Receive the worship we offer in fellowship with Mary, Joseph and all the saints through him who is your Word made flesh, our saviour Jesus Christ. 

All: Amen.

The distribution

Bishop: Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Blessed are those who are called to his supper.

All: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.

My Comment

A humble stable, a helpless new born, a manger throne, worshiping ouctast shepherds, gentile astrologers, a mother of humble birth,... and above all the lamb of God who was to give himself to the uttermost.....who would have thought that these were to be the means by which in these last days God has spoken. Whoever, except from a divine perspective, would be able to say of those who viewed such an apparently prosiac scene: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light!

The stable throne isn't the natural revelatory expectations of guilt and angst ridden human religion, religion which likely majors in one or more of: high and mighty patriarchal rulers, power, authoritarianism, sectarianism. judgement, condemnation, rule driven salvation, punishment by torture, vengeance, fear, hell and hamnation for the infidel, gnosticism for the spiritual elite etc....... this clustered complex fills the heads of those who have yet to see a vision of the God of grace for themselves or who think the gospel is only for their very bespoke religious community with its proprietary practices and beliefs.  

In the above liturgy, however, we see divine self-revelation. In all its facets the Gospel is beyond human creative spiritual thought; the evidence of that is seen in the fact that just about every doctrinaire religious sectarian I have met, I have found they do all they can to de-legitimize and undermine the means by which the liturgy above is commended to one's heart, namely, the Spirit of Adoption which cries out "Abba, Father!"

In humble circumstances we find The Unexpected Revelation

Seventy Years Ago

The following picture is a scan taken from the post-VE day edition of St Mary's Baptist Church's magazine, The Messenger,  dated June 1945. The scan shows the lead article written by the then minister Gilbert Laws. It takes the view that God was clearly on the side of the British. There is some justification for that view: For a militarily ill prepared country things hung in the balance for a while and when against the odds victory came about such evil was uncovered  that it seemed impossible for God to have been on the side of the enemy. One other thing which comes out is that St Mary's Baptist Church clearly felt very much part of the British establishment Christian scene; an ironic fact considering their origins in a strongly dissenting out-on-a-limb nonconformity (See my NCBC History walk for more details)

(Click to enlarge)

Ten Years Ago, Sixty Years Ago & Eighty Years Ago

Our Oldest Church Magazine: August 1922

St Mary's Baptist Church (Now  called "Norwich Central Baptist Church") used to have a monthly church magazine called "The Messenger".  Copies of the magazine going back to 1922 exist in the church records and form a valuable historical resource. But The Messenger was axed at a church meeting circa 2005 after well over eighty years of distribution; the reasons for this were probably to do with a combination of a lack of interest, support and resources. 

The Messenger gave me an opportunity to contribute and so I wrote a few articles for it (four in all) entitled "Fifty Years Ago" (although one article was actually called "Sixty Years Ago"). In these articles I would quote text taken from a Messenger published fifty years previously but of the same month. I wrote these articles between 2004 and 2005, just before the magazine got axed. Below I reproduce an article I wrote for the April 2005 Messenger which harked back to April 1955. It tells us something very different about the state of the church and the youth work of that day: See if you can spot the difference.

***

From The Messenger of April 2005:

Fifty Years Ago

The Messenger of April 1955 records a membership at St Mary’s Baptist church of 513 and Sunday school with 319 “scholars” served by 63 teachers. And yet, twenty years before this date, the April 1935 Messenger reports a membership of 704, and a Sunday school in 1933 of nearly 700 “scholars” and 137 teachers. If by 1955 they were getting a little worried about decaying numbers they need not have done because the US cavalry were coming over the hill! The April 1955 takes up the story:

The telephones in the pressrooms are ringing impatiently, there is the whirr and click and flash of cameras. Hundreds of people have gathered at the quayside to give him a welcome. Eyes are goggly and mouths are agape. He is not from Hollywood, he is Dr. Billy Graham….. “Phenomenal” is the word for the way in which the secular Press have dealt with his return to this country …..

            …. In conjunction with the Dr Graham relays from Glasgow to Norwich, St. Mary’s is arranging for the training of counselors. The lectures will be available for all committed Christians and will continue on Thursday evenings at 7.30 in the Shakespeare room until 14^th April.

            Now to prayer for all these ventures and a humble trust in God whose harvest we seek to reap.

A year later the tone of the May 1956 Messenger is upbeat. In an article headed “It Grows and Grows” we read:

One of the most encouraging sights on Sunday evening is to look up into the gallery of St. Mary’s to where the young people, the church of the future, are sitting. A few weeks back there was only one vacant seat.

It’s just as well we haven’t got these numbers in youth church – if we did then when the young people go to their classes on Sunday morning, all the teachers would have to go with them, leaving the Rev. James East looking out on ……. an empty church.

***

Church attendance on a national level rallied somewhat during the austere fifties. But the sixties were yet to come and that decade broke many intellectual and social molds, putting church attendance under pressure and helping to create an embattled marginalized community conducive to the growth of fundamentalist attitudes. However, it's probably true to say that many parents of the fifties and early sixties, although still respecting the church as an institution, sent their children to Sunday school just to get a bit of Sunday peace and did not attend church themselves. Hence, the inflated ratio of Sunday school numbers to church membership that we see above. But I don't think anyone was complaining; it was a nice problem to have!

NCBC History Walk Version 5

Norwich started as a cluster of Saxon thatched huts in a river valley; after nearly a 1000 years the cathedral still dominates that valley.

A new version of my Norwich Churches and Belief Communities history walk can be downloaded from here.

Norwich Churches and Belief Communities: Unity Service.

NCBC Unity Service display

Last Sunday evening at Norwich Central Baptist Church a service was held under the rubrick United Service For the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  The Sermon was provided by Father David Paul, dean of Norwich's Roman Catholic cathedral. It was a good sermon emphasizing a Christocentric faith, a Truine God, sin, repentance and forgiveness. Fr David likened the different expressions of faith to the very different building types one finds in Norwich; from the Cathedral to the University of East Anglia and everything in between. The above picture shows a display of tea lights and church names created during the service by representatives of the different fellowships present. I have listed those fellowships below:

Let's start the list with three well established churches taken from the three main English traditions: 

Norwich Cathedral - Church of England

St John the Baptist Cathedral - Roman Catholic 

Norwich Central Baptist Church - non conformist

The Others:

Witard Road Baptist Church

St Andrews and Christchurch, Eaton, (C of E)

Central  Council of Churches Together

St Peter Mancroft, C of E

St Luke's C of E

Norwich Prison Chaplaincy

Silver Road Baptist Church

St Giles C of E

St Matthews C of E

ChapelField road Methodist Church

White Woman Lane Methodist Church

Holy Apostles RC, West Earlham

The list above represents quite a mix of traditions, notably absent, however, are representatives of the more moderate evangelical fellowships of Brethren, Independents and Charismatic churches. But the fact is even some of these evangelical moderates march along the margins of the separatist hard-line sectarian world. Unity of this kind is a very fragile thing and for some an uncomfortable almost spiritually compromising experience. In this connection it is no surprise that Fr. David wasn't going make any mention of such subjects as transubstantiation, purgatory or the status of Mary and the Pope - that could be inviting trouble, needless to say. The ethos of this sort of gathering is that whilst we have differences of opinion on such subjects, we can nevertheless gather around central and essential unifying themes such as were focused on by Fr David.

It's instructive to contrast the above list with the purist sectarian and fundamentalist Christians I have met in my time, some of whom get dishonorable mentions  in my blogs. The list below embraces a variety of both fellowships, para-church organisations and individuals of this type. Unquestionably, they all to a man would thoroughly despise the sort of unity event of Sunday night. But they hardly need a bunch of ecumenically minded Christians as a pretext to hunt down "heresy"; they can find that enough among fellow fundamentalists to satiate the "error" correcting urges of even the most fastidious of fundamentalists. If some of the Christian fundamentalist brands listed below happened to confront one another the exchange would be sharp, irreconcilable and may well end up with mutual accusations of heresy, apostasy and even blasphemy; as Lord Clarke put it in his Civilization series, among fundamentalists there is an implicit belief in the Divine authority of their opinions. The Christians listed below would likely object to being gathered together with the more doctrinally unorthodox groups such as the JWs and Mormons, but in my experience these communities show such similarity in epistemic method, approach, attitude, concept, culture, ethos, and even use of language as to warrant common classification.  The list below is far from exhaustive; as I have said before, under every stone one turns a new version of Christian fundamentalism can be found.

Benny Hinn,

The 2 x 2 sect
Closed Brethren
Mark Driscoll,

Answers in Genesis
The Witness Lee Brotherhood,

Strict and Particular Baptists

Reformation identifying Evangelicals

Reformo-Charismatics

Children of God.

Strict and Traditional Brethren

Jehovah’s witnesses

Mormons

The Christadelphians

Strict and Traditional Evangelicals

Herbert Armstrong and the Plain Truth

The Jesus Army

Restorationists

Gnostic and fideist charismatics

The Snake Handlers sect.
Potters House
The Car Park Sect

Metropolitan tabernacle

Toronto Blessing revival

Barry Smith: Millennium Bug prophet

Gold dust and angel feathers Charismatics

Todd Bentley’s Lakeland revival

The Geocentric Christians

Christian Flat Earthers (Now defunct?)

Real Catholics (Michael Voris)

William Tapley, 2010 end of world prophet 

Harold Camping, 2011 end of world prophet

The people embodied in this list would undoubtedly crow over the flabby state of the church represented by Sunday night's service. But then look at the state of this list of fundamentalists; can you imagine any of them getting together for a united service without the precaution of wearing brickbat proof helmets? Does such a collection of contradictory nasties endear the church to anyone?

Relevant links:
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-escape-to-arcadia.html
http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/mouth-of-god.html

EARLY HISTORY OF NORWICH CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH

In 1669 the State Church and the recently restored Stuart monarchy did not tolerate the congregation of religious dissenters; these congregations were declared illegal and referred to as “conventicles”. In order to keep an eye on the situation in Norwich the Bishop of Norwich, Edward Reynolds, was commissioned with the task of compiling a “database” of illegal fellowships. This database was returned in 1669 and a reproduction of it can be seen above. It tabulates the type, size and leadership of non-conformist fellowships in the City. If you look closely you will see one group called “Anabaptists”  who are numbered at around 30 and headed up by Daniel Bradford and Henry Austin. It was this group from which Norwich Central Baptist Church has a long descent. It is this database that has given NCBC its “birth” date of 1669, although in actual fact the Baptist fellowship that was to become NCBC would have existed some years prior to that date. As the database suggests the sectarian situation was complex and not a simple case of State Church vs. Non-Conformists. The table itemizes under the heading of “Sects” a variety fellowships; Viz: “Independents”*^1, “Presbyterians”, “Quakers” as well as the so-called “Anabaptists” all of whom were vying for affiliates. Although these groups faced a common persecutor the disagreements between some of them were sharp and irreconcilable. Protestantism has always had a streak of headstrong factiousness about it.

***

My grasp of Norwich Central Baptist Church history owes much to Charles Boardman Jewson (1909-1981) one time member of NCBC (or St Mary’s Baptist Church as it was then called). Jewson wrote a history of the Baptists who have been worshiping at the current site on St Mary’s plane since 1744. This history, which was published in the Baptist Quarterly in 1941, could not have been compiled without a search of original (and often difficult to read) hand written documents and Jewson must have spent many painstaking hours doing this research. However, in spite of that, history always comes with an implicit caveat: Even though Jewson looks as though he did a very thorough job one must exercise reserve in the light of the possibility that a reappraisal of the known documents and/or the appearance of new evidence could conceivably lead to different conclusions. So, it is with this reservation in mind I express below my reading of Jewson’s early history of Norwich’s Baptists up until 1689, a date when non conformists were granted freedom of congregation and fellowship.

Jewson's Memorial on the Wall of NCBC. Notice the Jewson coat of arms. The picture was taken whilst the details of  Joyce Jewson were being carved - hence the mason's temporary red paint.

Firstly a note about Jewson himself. On the first page of his history he remarks on the main Christian fault line which existed in England at the start of the 17^th century. This fault line was, of course, the division between the High Church of the State establishment and the dissenting Puritans. Quoting Jewson:

Neither the High Church party who wished to retain much of the medieval ceremony and teaching, nor the Puritans were content. Each side desired to force its faith upon the other. (p3)*⁴

That kind of observation is evidence of the partisan business that Christianity has always been! (See also 1 Corinthians 3). In making this observation without any appearance of partisan prejudice Jewson displays an intellectual detachment from the squabbles of the time even though he himself was a very committed Baptist. This ability to detach may have something to do with the fact that at the time of writing Jewson and his Norwich Baptist brethren were successful people; amongst them were civic leaders and respected business men with little left to prove and no axe to grind; they had, in fact, started to identify with establishment as evidenced by the kind of church architecture they had begun to prefer. As a rich and respected church community they contrasted with that frequent phenomenon one sees of the small elitist spiritual sect who respond to their well-earned marginalization and alienation by consolidating their identity as fanatical, noisy confrontational fundamentalists. The well-to-do background of the Baptist fellowship of that time perhaps puts a little perspective on Jewson’s calm and collected approach in his writings. It may also explain why a conciliatory man such as Jewson sometimes seems a little embarrassed about early Baptist sectarianism and does what he can to put it in the best possible light (p23).

At the start of the seventeenth century dissenters from the established church moved their pastorates to Rotterdam where interference by the English State was much less likely.  It is interesting to note however that many of these dissenters were actually clergy from the State Church who took up chaplaincy roles in Rotterdam. In fact according to Jewson the concept of a church separated from the state was not initially part of their mindset:

Revolutionary spirits began to separate from the established church, but few had yet conceived the idea of a church free from state control and patronage (p3)

Perhaps this is not too surprising: Western Christians had lived for more than a millennium in societies where state and church were inextricably bound together. Moreover, the early reform movements which revolved round Luther, Zwingli and Calvin made no clear annunciation of the political separation of church and state.

Jewson says that the dissenters who eventually returned to England from Holland after the 1642 civil war probably brought back from the continent ideas of adult baptism after contact with Mennonites (p19). For a while the Congregationalist non-conformists who still baptized infants remained in fellowship with those who believed in “re-baptising”*² adults. (p20).  But in time a more sectarian ethos started to emerge. Some of the Fifth Monarchists who were in effect the vehement “fundamentalists” of the day even regarded the puritanical Cromwellians as standing in the way of the imminent return of Christ. These Fifth Monarchists seemed to have the effect of helping to crystallize the concept of baptism amongst non-conformists and a polarization set in (p21). As this exclusive Baptist movement gained momentum the old Congregationalists who still practiced child baptism felt rejected. In 1657 they complained:

“Those who had not only forsaken the Churches for want of the Ordinance of Baptism as they say, but  also judged all the Churches no Churches that were not of their mind, or came not up to their practice” (p21)

Jewson goes on to say (p22) that sometime before 1667 the Norwich Baptists who ultimately were the forebears of NCBC had separated themselves from the Congregationalist communion.  Jewson points out the irony of this situation; this separation happened at a time when the whole non-conformist sub-culture was facing state sponsored persecution. (p23)

It may be true, however, that marginalization and opposition actually favours factiousness: Some Christian fellowships react to the existential crisis that may be induced by alienation with increasingly extreme posturing. The Quakers of the 1670s seem a case in point: They questioned the witness of Presbyterians and Independents (=Congregationalists?) and also suggested that the Baptist’s water baptism was neither that of  John the Baptist nor that of Christ’s Baptism of the Holy Spirit; in fact in the Quaker's opinion this Baptism was of little spiritual significance altogether! (p25). In their attempt to “return to a primitive Christianity without parish church, priest, sacrament or liturgy”*³ the early Quakers not only wrote-off Baptists and other non-conformists, they also became very confrontational, interrupting church services they didn't like and being disrespectful to magistrates (Ibid: See McCutcheon). It is no surprise therefore that they brought down on themselves opposition and persecution.  As Jewson said, Each side desired to force its faith upon the other and the early Quakers did what was within their power to impose their opinions on other Christians.

The State persecution ended with the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 and the act of Toleration of 1689. Thence on the differing dissenting splinters could establish themselves as legal, moderate and in some cases successful facets of English society.  It is ironic that today the Quakers are probably among the most liberal and tolerant of those Christian fellowships!

Footnotes:

*1 Presumably, the “Independents” were Congregationalists.

*2 “Anabaptist” means “re-baptise”

*3 This quote comes from page 78 of “Norwich Through the Ages” by Elsie McCutcheon (Alastair Press). This harking back to  a fancied pure primitive Christianity is always the claim of Christian sect start-ups. See here: http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sectarian-bondage.html

*4 Page numbers are from Jewson’s history.

BAPTISTS, FASCISTS AND FUNDAMENTALISTS

(Click to enlarge)

I found the above picture in a cache of old documents at Norwich Central Baptist Church. Below I publish the text that was attached to it:

The 1934 Congress in Berlin. Enlargement of a postcard from St. Mary's member, Mary Fisher, to Charles Jewson. The three figures under the cross behind the huge choir are: J G Oncken, who 100 years earlier baptised seven people in Hamburg which was the beginning of the modern Baptist movement in Germany. In 1934 there were 30,000 German Baptists. C H Spurgeon, 1934 was the centenary of his birth. William Carey, who died in 1834. Dr. Gilbert Laws, minister of St. Mary's, [Now Norwich Central Baptist Church - ed] took part as president of the Baptist Union. He told the family on his return how alarmed he was that young German ministers did not seem to realise the danger of developments in Germany. As the Hallelujah Chorus was sung he introduced the English custom of standing and, making a nazi style salute, said he saluted King Jesus. He also moved a resolution on 'Church and State', emphasizing the Baptist attitude denying the right of the state to interfere in matters of religion. Another resolution on racialism was welcomed by Jews round the world. Eighteen months later these reports and pamphlets were suppressed in Germany.

Is it my imagination or is the huge choir a sign of the collective spirit of discipline and identification of purpose that was abroad in Germany at that time? I’m not sure Gilbert Laws did the right thing in attempting to reload the Nazi salute with Christian significance – at best it would have had an ambiguous meaning especially as, Laws says, the German (Baptist?) ministers seemed oblivious to the dangers of Nazism. If there is a picture of this Baptist congress giving the Nazi salute with a Swastika in the background it would be very difficult to find a convincing excuse! * Rev. Gilbert Laws was a minister at Norwich Central Baptist Church before and during the War and more about him can be found here.

Not long after I happened upon the above material an interesting album of photos was passed on to me. This album was apparently compiled by a Miss M. Kirby, a Baptist from Norwich, The Album is a record of a tour of Belgium and Germany by British Baptists in 1936, two years after the Berlin Baptist congress. In the album Miss Kirby records her thoughts and observations besides the photos. The contents of this album can be browsed here.

Below I have transcribed some of the comments of Miss Kirby which reveal how the German ruling Nazi regime impacted her observations.

***

On Tuesday morning we adjourned to the garden after early morning prayers & breakfast to hear something of the German Baptists problems. Dr Slavensky told how Hitler tried to unite all Germans through the common love of the Vaterland and how the question of race was important to Germans. He spoke of Hitler’s strength in quieting all the numerous small political parties. The German Baptists in the main appear to be fundamentalists. They traced back the race problem to Adam and pointed out the Bible teaching regarding intermarriage of nations. Said Jewish persecution not supported by Christians.

My Comment: Here we see evidence of Hitler’s suppression of all opposition and his ability to use an innate human propensity for tribalism to rally people to what was basically a call to arms against the fancied conspiracies of other tribes. Miss Kirby puts it a little euphemistically "Hitler’s strength in quieting......"! Interesting is the reference to the German Baptists being fundamentalists and their attempt to justify apartheid from the Bible**. The term "fundamentalist" no doubt had different connotations from today, but if fundamentalism is in general characterised by its epistemic arrogance then the term is wholly appropriate for the German context at that time. I can almost see Miss Kirby muttering the clipped and abbreviated sentence “Jewish persecution not supported by Christians” quietly into her sleeve. Typically timidly British, not wanting to upset the apple-cart – I  know the feeling, particularly when one’s hosts are polite and friendly as were these German Baptists.

Tuesday evening we had an informal discussion of the mornings lecture. Interesting points mentioned were:- English Christians believe “Thy Kingdom come on Earth”, German Christians believe that Christians can only be leaven in the world & help to save souls.

My Comment: Oh dear, that does look a lot like the fundamentalism we see today, viz: everyone’s going to hell except us and therefore it’s our business to make sure they join our tribe!

On Friday Dr. Slavensky gave a very long lecture on the New Heathen Groups in Germany & their adoption of the Edda……In the afternoon we visited the huge lunatic asylum at Mulhausen (On of the biggest in Germany) It is almost self-supporting with big dairies, kitchen farm etc.

My Comment: Was this a show asylum? I've heard other stories about the asylums in Germany at that time!

Sunday was a very hot day. We went to the Baptist church at 9.30 & had a very pleasant service. Although the German Baptists are so strict in many ways, the ladies are allowed to take off their hats. The church was quite full and reminded me of one of our Norfolk village churches. We were told that the German service is a lengthy affair but it was specially shortened for our benefit

My Comment: We see an example here of the Germans being better than the British at collective acts of discipline. The British, who do like law and order, usually admire this trait of the Germans. In fact at that time some Britons even went as far as admiring Hitler. But when the chips are down the British don’t want it for themselves. Moreover, we now know that the crowd discipline and group think which went with it had a terrible downside!
The reference to “Norfolk village churches” is evidence that the author of this album is from Norfolk. At the end of the album there is a list of the tour party. This list includes the name of a Miss M. Kirby from Norwich. As Miss Kirby is the only person listed from Norfolk I conclude that it was her who created the album.

It was in the Baptist printing house we heard the first suspicions of criticism against Hitler. Apparently a certain amount of restraint is put upon the Baptist Press. Everywhere else we heard nothing but praise of Hitler.

My Comment: In the final analysis Baptists are all about devolved government so it should be no surprise that Hitler’s policies rankled with them just a bit; but according to Gilbert Laws they didn't rankle enough!

The prayer of a young Baptist boy is that Hitler might become a Christian and use his fine organizing powers for Christianity. The Germans like a strong leader who they can follow and sacrifice themselves for.

My Comment: .....and sacrifice themselves they did - in their millions! Once again we see the German ability to get behind and identify with a single cause especially if espoused by a charismatic leader. The British admire the Germans for it but they both love it and hate it. 

More Jews lived in Frankfurt than anywhere else in Germany. We passed some synagogues where a few windows were broken…We learnt that they still have services in the Synagogues.

My Comment: Here we have, I guess, hints of the persecution of the Jews. I have a feeling that Miss Kirby didn't want to believe it – in fact did anyone in Britain want to believe it except perhaps Churchill? Re Churchill: The British, like the Germans, shared the same human trait of needing a charismatic leader to galvanize and rally them into action. It probably helped that Churchill was also an aristocrat, perhaps even a kind of King Arthur figure  in Britain’s hour of need.

It was a most enjoyable tour. The people were all very nice some especially so and I benefited greatly from hearing of their experiences and sharing in the fellowship. There were fortunately some very humorous people and we had great fun. Everyday the Germans were very friendly & anxious to please.  Every young German has either been to the “camps” or was hoping to go. Instead of being places of torture that we are lead to believe they are apparently places of joy to the German youth. Almost every German idolizes Hitler & he has certainly done a lot for them. The children are all being brought up to do the same & they are all belong to some Hitler Youth Organisation or other.

My Comment: Like I said, I don’t think these British Baptists really wanted to believe Hitler was as bad as all that or that their German brothers and sisters were erring.  As a whole the British probably had a too cynical a view of leaders to idolise someone like Hilter.  Trouble was, it really was as bad as all that. I once heard a Dutchman say that the British tend do sweet Fanny Adams until the dead bodies start appearing. Perhaps this indecisive wait-and-see attitude maybe a good thing, but then again perhaps not! Let's wait and see! Empiricism as a philosophy tends to be favoured by the British!

Footnotes
* To be fair, Laws probably wouldn't have been able to anticipate what a Nazi salute would have looked like many years down the line!
** It's debatable whether or not the OT demarcates on the basis of religion rather than race.

24/07/15 Relevant links:
Below is a link to a web article which raises questions as to whether the German Christian response to Hilter was all that it should have been. But it's easy to criticize from a position that doesn't face the challenges and threats of Nazi Germany.

http://www.bpnews.net/43382/baptists-humbled-by-failure-to-oppose-nazis

PERSONAL TESTIMONY and the FIVE Ps

The above picture is a group photo of the Vulnerable Mission conference held at Norwich Central Baptist Church in November 2013 (Not all delegates shown; five or six are missing). The paper I presented at this conference is now available here:

http://www.vulnerablemission.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/OB_Spring_2014.pdf  

The content of the paper is very much bound up with my own personal Christian testimony; it combines theological view point with my delvings into the "Five Ps", namely  Physics, Programming, Philosophy,

Psychology and the Paranormal. But it's not the sort of thing that can be presented at the Sunday service "personal testimony" slot!  I'm just not that kind of deal! In fact, the ideas in the paper are likely to have ramifications that will not sit well with some of the  intuitions of folk evangelical Christianity.

NCBC LEAKS: No 1

Below are a couple of Norwich Churches related documents that have recently found their way into my possession. I'm not sure what to make of them. The first is a letter written by Pastor Tom Chapman of Surrey Chapel who signs himself as "Chair of the University of East Anglia Christian Union Board". He writes on behalf of various Norwich Christian ministers. The Rev Chapman's letter is a protest about what he refers to as the University authorities limiting religious activity on the Campus. It is addressed to Professor Neil Ward, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs (Click document to enlarge):

Well, the good Professor replied and his reply can be seen below (Click document to enlarge):

Basically Ward says that he doesn't know what Chapman is talking about; there are no new regulations limiting religious expression. In fact Ward says "I am not quite sure how these anxieties have been fuelled or whether they originate on or off the campus".  You might expect both Ward and Chapman to be in a position where they're in the know; so how come this "serious misunderstanding" as Ward calls it?

I have an interest in this matter because one of the signatories is the Rev Mark Tall who is presumably signing on behalf of the church I attend, Norwich Central Baptist Church.  I have no knowledge of this affair or what it is about, but that's no indicator as I'm not part of the social nexus or inner counsel circles where discussion of this matter would be current. Moreover, as I tend to live in a world of my own I can easily fail to pick up on such things even when they are announced.

However, I'm just a little concerned. Three of the signatories, Tom Chapman, Mark Tall and Alan Strange are known to me as moderate and intelligent evangelicals. But I have to say that I cannot vouch for some of the other signatories who, as far as I know. lean in a fundamentalist direction*. Given the clear link between fundamentalism and conspiracy-theory-thinking this gives me some cause for concern; religious paranoia polarises, and reads between the lines in a very imaginative and mythical way. And yet I respect the opinions of the three ministers whom I name. Set against that is the frank and open tone of Prof Ward's letter who is perceptive enough to use that very loaded word "anxieties". I'm not sure what to conclude!

Postscript
Islam's tradition of propagating it's faith by military conquest along with Koranic injunctions to wage holy war has given Islam a pathological weakness for belligerence. Similarly, Christianity's history of persecution along with Biblical verses raising an expectation of persecution has given Christianity a pathological weakness for a collective paranoia. Sometimes this paranoia becomes intense enough to fuel full-blown conspiracy theories. I have confess that these kinds of thought surfaced in my mind when the above first came to my attention.

Relevant links:

.http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/public-vs-private-polarisation.html


Footnote:
* There is a distinction between moderate evangelicals and fundamentalists - a subject on which I am currently compiling a post. 

SERMONS IN STONE

Dereham Road Baptist Church,

before the war

The date was 1995. The significance of that date was that it was one year after 1994. It is now fading into the mists of time, but 1994 was the year when the "Toronto Blessing" (I like to call it the "Carpet Blessing" for obvious reasons) appeared on the scene and was subsequently promoted by many Christians who regarded it as "God's New Thing". It took about a year before someone somewhere thought that our church was "up for it" (more like "in for it"). So, the spring of 1995 was the date when touts in favour of the "blessing" arrived at Dereham Road Baptist Church determined to revive us during a church weekend held on DRBC premises. Well, the weekend did inspire me, but not in the way that would register on the revivalist scales of these touts. It resulted in my writing an essay called "High pulpits, High Priests and The Bedford Blessing". This essay can be downloaded from here (See the "file" drop down). A spin-off from this essay was a photographically illustrated work on the meaning of the pseudo Gothic architecture of Dereham Road Baptist Church: This latter work was completed in 2007; the "blessing" was then well into the past, its historical memory  no longer relevant and so I extracted the bits from High pulpits, High Priests and The Bedford Blessing that focused on DRBC's buildings, added some more text and illustrated it with photographs. This work, called "Sermons in Stone", can be downloaded from here

NCBC HISTORY WALK

The East Granary; one of the first meeting places of NCBC

The notes for my history walk can be downloaded as a PDF from here ("File" drop down and then "Download") This walk starts and finishes at NCBC and draws attention to the historical connections the church has with it's locality. This walk was first used in "anger" at the November "Vulnerable Mission" conference. As tasters I quote below the introduction and finale of these notes:

The Introduction:

Norwich was for a long while the second city of the English Christian realm that through its 18^th century industrial revolution became the mother of the modern world. This revolution brought with it all the issues of riches and wealth disparities that we see today. Above all this revolution helped usher in a secular world view along with its philosophical pathologies. Therefore it is perhaps not an exaggeration to claim that the history of Norwich is central to contemporary world history.

This tour looks at English history through its connections with Norwich Central Baptist Church. Studying Norwich history through its religious history may throw light not only on contemporary times but also the problems Christians face in coming to terms with secular society.  

The Finale:

The contemporary Christian response to civic marginalisation has often been a reactionary swing to overcompensating forms of charismatic Gnosticism, wooden Biblical literalism, sectarianism, mysticism or very woolly liberalism. Faced with issues of epistemic insecurity churches today are trying to find a path between overcompensating extremes.

Plaque memorialising NCBC's presence  over 320 years ago

BEWARE OF IDLE THOUGHTS ABOUT IDOLATORY

I was fascinated to find the above Christmas shrine set up in one of the rooms at Norwich Central Baptist Church. Let me first say that this idealised kitschy display doesn't do a great deal for me. However, there is, in my opinion, much latitude in how people can express their faith; this kind of reification of cherished religious scenes is only human.

Now, here's an interesting hypothetical: Imagine  NCBC becoming an archaeological site many years into the future. Imagine that the archaeologists have come to the conclusion that the site of NCBC was a place of "ritualistic" significance. If with this conclusion in front of them our archaeologists dig up the above statuettes (which by then are likely to have lost their relation to one another) they might conclude that they have in their hands the deities worshipped at NCBC; a very  natural and understandable conclusion, but it's wrong, of course. 

History may be far less straightforward than archaeology (and even documents) can tell. These figurines are, in fact, not idols but symbols representing cherished ideas about God. The lesson is this: When interpreting the signals we receive from history, the data can be ambiguous and we must be careful how we interpret those signals. 

When Michael Ward in his book Planet Narnia talks about the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten's attitude to the "Sun God" (or the "Aten") we find that we cannot accuse Akhenaten of Sun Worship, any more than NCBC could be accused of worshipping porcelain deities. As Ward says:

The Solar monotheism of the Hymn to the Sun seems better, in one way, Lewis argues, than the primitive Judaism we find in the early books of the Old Testament, but it does not follow that 'Akhenatenism' would have been a better  first step in the history of divine revelation. Akhenaten was astonishingly advanced; he did not identify God with the Sun in a strictly heliolatrous way but understood the visible disc as a divine manifestation. This early Egyptian religion, 'a simple, enlightened, reasonable Monotheism,' looks much more like developed Christianity, from one perspective, than those first documents of Judaism in which Yahweh appears to be little more than a peculiar tribal deity.

Our archaeologists would probably be a bit puzzled by the presence of a porcelain baby. If they are so far into the future that our times have become merged with the societies of the agricultural revolution as a whole they might think that this figure has sacrificial significance. In the sense they are likely to picture this sacrifice taking place this would be wrong, of course; but it is ironic that in another sense they would be close to a shocking truth!

BISHOP TO KINGHORN*

Offering the right hand of fellowship: The Bishop of Norwich

The above is a picture of the Rev Mark Tall, minster of NCBC and Transforming Norwich Chairman, talking to the Rt. Rev Graham James Bishop of Norwich at a recent leaders meeting where the Bishop was guest speaker. Coming shortly after Norwich Baptists celebrated their 344 week this picture is both significant and ironic. After all, it was the Bishop’s church that gave Norwich Baptists the number 344; viz: 2013 – 344 = 1669, the date when the Church of England listed Norwich Baptists as one of several outlawed fractious Christian sects! How things change!  Reading the associated Network Norwich and Norfolk article the talk is now all about unity. Not that I'm complaining! Although it has been a very instructive study I have perhaps spent too much time researching the crank religionist fringe: Jehovah’s’ Witnesses, The Witness Lee Brotherhood, Answers in Genesis, Potters House, Metropolitan Tabernacle, various restorationist groups and fundagelicalism in general. All these groups have a concept of unity that involves a strict separation from the “heretical” mainstream in favour of a fervent adoption of their proprietary and quirky opinions. In comparison the linked to article on NN&N is a breath of fresh air! This is the Open Gospel at work!

* Joseph Kinghorn was a formative figure in NCBC history.

GEORGE WHITE

Baptists having fun on the forecourt of George White School

Last week Norwich's Baptists celebrated 344 years of their presence in the city. Strictly speaking their history goes further back than 344 years: 2013 - 344 = 1669, where 1669 is simply the date that England's state church registered the outlawed Baptists as a subversive congregation in Norwich.  These Baptists had been around for some years prior to 1669 and had in fact emerged out of Congregationalists who practised child baptism.

Norwich's contemporary Baptists finished their celebration week with a "Fun Day" at a local school - see the photo above. This school, as an outcome of purely fortuitous circumstances, was none other than the George White Juniors. George White was another of NCBC's (and Norwich's) illustrious patriarchs; a philanthropic businessman and liberal MP. You can read about him here:

http://www.heritagecity.org/research-centre/whos-who/george-white.htm 

Very appropriate then that NCBC and its fellow Baptist churches should finish their celebration week here!  Given the venue of the "Fun day" the lesson that cried out to be noticed last Saturday is how things have changed! In 1669 the Baptists were a marginal and persecuted group. By George White's time they walked the corridors of power and influence. However, One Hundred and One years since the death of White in 1912 we find that once again the Baptists are a fairly marginal group. But this time they are just one marginal group amongst many other marginal groups in an eclectic society, a society that now has to live with diversity rather than respond to it with fear and persecution - unless it wants to tear itself apart.

My guess is that in the confident heady days of George White there would have be less need to have a week of the sometimes spirited rallying of the Baptist troops that we saw in last week's 344 celebrations. Marginalisation can, if we are not careful, create pressures that encourage tribalisation. But as we learn from the book of Jonah the most unlikely tribes can turn to God, even if they don't turn to us and we may have little to do with it!

Like a Godfather George White presided silently over the last hours of Norwich's Baptists 344 celebrations and no-one remarked on  the irony!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NORWICH CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH.

In the November of 2013 NCBC hosted the UK-2013 conference of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission. The following historical resume accompanied the publicity for the conference. This article below was written for missionaries attending the conference, a conference I helped to organise. 

Norwich Central Baptist Church is among the oldest Baptist churches in England. It dates itself from 1669 when its congregation appears on a record commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This record was compiled to help keep an eye on Christian congregations that were not part of the state church, the Church of England. Under the reign of the Stuart Kings the state was suspicious of non-conforming congregations and outlawed them. However, freedom of worship for non-conformists was granted shortly after 1688 when the Catholic slanting Stuart monarchy was deposed, and the constitutional monarchy of William of Orange instituted.  After the 1688 revolution NCBC’s congregation met freely in various locations one of them being the East Granary (pictured above). This building was once part of the Cloister of St. Andrews Hall and today is used by the Norwich University of the Arts. Eventually the congregation settled at the current venue in 1744 where they have been ever since. The church came to be called "St Mary's Baptist Church" (SMBC) because of its location on St Mary's plane.

The plaque on NCBC commemorating the presence
of those early Baptists at the East Granary. 

The plaque on the East Granary commemorating
 the presence of those early Baptists. 

After the repeal of the Test Act in 1823 (an act barring non-conformists from civic office) the way was clear for non-conformists to take up public appointment. The progressive ethos at SMBC favoured their involvement in liberal politics and business. Subsequently its congregation has included members of parliament, mayors, sheriffs and notable business grandees. Their contribution to public, civic and industrial life has been memorialized in city street and school names.

The industrial revolution started not long after 1744 and runs in parallel with the rise in the status and influence of SMBC. Throughout the nineteenth century the effects of the industrial revolution increasingly took hold of the country, radically changing the conditions of life and bringing about a world unprecedented since history began. Baptists, such as we find at SMBC, were in the thick of these changes and its members became increasingly respected and well placed in society. They were progressive and whiggish in their outlook. In 1781 their pastor Rees Davies denounced the war against the American revolutionaries. In 1831 the anti-slavery campaigner William Knibb preached at the church. Simon Wilkin, a member of one of SMBC’s high-status families, edited the first complete edition of the works of Norwich polymath Sir Thomas Browne. Liberal MP and industrialist Sir Jeremiah James Colman and his family attended the church.  The Baptist Sir Samuel Morton Peto, a businessman who pioneered the world’s first railway networks, was a friend of Rev. William Brock pastor of SMBC from 1833 to 1849 and attended the church when he was in Norwich. Philanthropic businessman and Liberal MP Sir George White was also a member of the Church and one of its Sunday school superintendents. 

A maker of the modern world: Samuel Morto-peto
centre stage at Norwich Railway station. 

SMBC’s move into a more mainstream Christian affiliation and away from their alienated sectarian and separatist past is symbolised by their 1860 defeat of a legal case that attempted to force closed communion on the church. Subsequently SMBC assumed more and more the culture of an establishment church. The signs of this shift in culture among mainstream Baptists are evidenced by an architectural legacy that apes the architecture of the established church. The high-status members of the church almost became a kind of neo-aristocracy. They were changing, and their mission field was changing with them.

The history of SMBC covers a period that saw the formation of modern times, from the nascent English democracy of pre-Newtonian days, through the enlightenment and the growth of the New World, to the huge social, political and Weltanschauung changes driven by industrialisation. As we have seen, members of SMBC were at the forefront in the exploitation of the new mechanico-industrial paradigm that now suffused society. Latterly, however, SMBC witnessed the late twentieth century marginalisation of Christian influence and a recrudescent Christian sectarianism and separatism. 

In 2003 SMBC merged with its daughter church, Dereham Road Baptist Church to become Norwich Central Baptist Church (NCBC). Like many another church merger it was an event pressured by the decaying Western Church population. With a loss of rich Christian benefactors and influential public leaders there is a corresponding loss of confidence among contemporary churches as they face big challenges about how to respond to tensions between fundamentalist and liberal interpretations of the faith and between schismogenic tendencies and compromise.

SMBC & NCBC’s history of adaptation to prevailing conditions cuts across the idea that there is a timeless detailed blueprint for Christian community; changing conditions changes how Christians think of themselves, their culture, their practices and how they communicate the eternal truths of the Gospel to the vicissitudes of their mission field. Today, European Christians effectively find themselves as Vulnerable Missionaries in their own society, but not because they have chosen this role: Changed circumstances mean they no longer hold the reins of power or act as benefactors with overriding influence. Therefore using only their local resources and native languages Western Christians are thrown back almost entirely on the intrinsic persuasiveness of their lives and the message they bring.

Beyond the walls of the European church the general populace has become increasingly cynical, disaffected and confused about its worldview. That confusion is a legacy of both the anti-authoritarian freedoms introduced by the Reformation and the enlightenment discovery that mechanism is more predictable and comprehensible than either magic or the numinous. The post-enlightenment Westerner, now liable to question self-proclaimed authority, asks “Does it work?” rather than “Is it the will of the Spirits?”. This change of emphasis in the way the Creation was interrogated and used, eventually reaped the wealth of industrialization. 

But these changes also brought with them a loss of both social anchorage & philosophic direction. In the human context freedom brings fearsome responsibilities, difficult choices and contention; as a result some kind of escape is often devised. In one of those tempting artifices used to simplify reality, it is all too easy to draw a circle round the science of mechanism and declare that to be the sum total of reality. The ill-fitting remnant of phenomena that are not easily placed into the categories of mechanical science may be referred to as “magic”, often with pejorative & dismissive connotation. But by itself the science of mechanism is hard pressed to give satisfactory answers to questions about life's meaning or provide a religious rationale which, as is so often true in the past, has been the source of community cohesion.

Significantly, the very same question about the incommensurability of magic and mechanism is uppermost on the agenda of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission as this Alliance grapples with very fundamental questions about intercultural mission. NCBC is privileged to host the November 2013 UK conference. The Alliance’s cutting-edge ministry is very much in line with NCBC’s forward looking traditions. There are lessons here that go well beyond foreign mission fields, because it seems that in today’s secular Western societies Christians are by force of circumstances Vulnerable Missionaries.

Addendum December 2022: A Disclaimer

Although I have long accepted Jim Harries' VM thesis that cross-cultural missionaries working exclusively with local languages and local resources will have a greater chance of probing deeper into a culture than Intercultural Integrated Mission, I would nevertheless want to express my opinion that VM will never be (or never should be) an exclusive approach to Christian mission. I also find myself disagreeing with many of the embellishments that Jim adds to his account of VM, embellishments which look to be more an expression of a reactionary worldview than necessary accoutrements of VM. My divergence from Jim's worldview has become increasingly clear to me as I have read his recent book on "anti-racism".