Podcast: Exploring England’s Christian Heritage with Gerald Bray: The History of the Church in England

This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.

Church historian Gerald Bray joins the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast to discuss the profound impact of Christianity on England’s history and its relevance to today’s denominational challenges.

In this enlightening episode of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast, hosts Graham Nicholls and Lizzie Harewood sit down with renowned church historian Professor Gerald Bray to uncover the rich tapestry of Christianity in England. From the Roman Emperor Claudius’ conquest to the seismic shifts of the Reformation led by figures like Martin Luther and Henry VIII, Bray traces the evolution of the English church through centuries of change. Dive into the stories of historical giants like the Venerable Bede and Thomas Cranmer, whose legacies shaped the Anglican tradition and the King James Bible – a unifying force across denominations.

The conversation also tackles contemporary issues, including the Church’s response to modern moral debates like same-sex relationships, reflecting on how historical insights can guide unity and faith today.

This episode explores the interplay of faith, identity, and ecumenism amidst recent trends toward denominational reconciliation and societal shifts. Whether you’re a history buff, a theology enthusiast, or seeking to understand the Church’s role in today’s world, this discussion offers timeless wisdom and fresh perspectives.

Reverend Professor Gerald Bray (DLitt, University of Paris-Sorbonne) is Research Professor at Beeson Divinity School and Director of Research for the Latimer Trust. He is a prolific writer and has authored or edited numerous books, including The History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland and The Doctrine of God and Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present.

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Topics addressed in this Podcast:

• Historical Influence of Christianity on England
  The episode explores how Christianity has shaped England’s identity, beginning with early figures like the Roman Emperor Claudius and the Venerable Bede, who documented the emergence of an English Christian identity. Bray discusses pivotal moments, such as the arrival of Roman missionaries and the establishment of early bishops, highlighting the church’s foundational role in the nation’s history.
• The Reformation and the Anglican Tradition
  Bray delves into the Reformation, focusing on the schism with the Catholic Church driven by Martin Luther and Henry VIII. He emphasises Thomas Cranmer’s transformative contributions under Edward VI, arguing that these efforts, rather than Henry VIII’s break from Rome, truly defined the Anglican identity, with the King James Bible emerging as a unifying text.
• Evolution of Denominations and Ecumenism
  The discussion traces the rise of denominations like Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians post-Reformation, examining their socio-political roots. Bray reflects on historical inter-denominational conflicts, such as Spurgeon inviting an atheist to his pulpit, and contrasts this with today’s trend toward moderation and ecumenical unity across Christian groups.
• Contemporary Challenges in the Church
  Bray addresses modern moral debates within the Church, exemplified by his personal experience with a vicar blessing same-sex relationships, which led to his feeling ‘out of communion.’ He suggests that these tensions reflect broader issues faced by institutional churches (e.g., Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists) and ponders whether God might be ‘doing a new thing’ requiring steadfast faith.

Transcript

[AI generated]

[0:10] My name is Graham Nicholls. And I’m Lizzie Harewood. And welcome to the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast. And our special guest today is Gerald Bray, who has written about church history in general. And today we want to talk about the history of the church in England. And I’ve got a first question for you, Gerald, which I did warn you about, which was, why would we bother talking to you talking to anyone thinking about the history of the church at all but particularly the history of the church where we live why is that useful do you think to to think about and talk about well i think first of all for the more general question um i mean whatever you think about christianity or any religion i think you have to recognize that uh the influence uh on, the world has been enormous.

[1:06] In Christian terms, this comes in the form of the church, which has many institutional incarnations, but we can put it together as one thing. You see the body of believers in Jesus Christ. And so you can’t really have a balanced picture of the world, of anything, if you don’t include the study of the church and the history of the church and how it has influenced the development of human life and, indeed, how it has been affected at different times by events which have occurred in different places. When it comes to our own country, well.

[1:55] The two things are coterminous in a way. There wouldn’t be an England or a Britain as it is today without the Christian church. I mean, the two things go together. I mean, one of the things I found when I was writing my book on the subject, which is rather interesting, was that the Roman Emperor Claudius, who appears briefly in the New Testament because he expelled the Jews from Rome in the year 49, was also the Roman Emperor who invaded Britain.

[2:39] So, you know, bringing Britain into history, really. You know, the first historical mention of the country, really. So you know the same man the man who the Roman emperor who was the first one to notice Christianity or Christians was also the one who established Roman rule in this country and laid the foundations for what later became, England so you know it’s interesting that they do go together in that way but perhaps more importantly still, is that England as a concept, as an idea in the mind, was really the creation of Bede, the venerable Bede, in his little monastery up in Jarrow, who wrote the ecclesiastical history of the English people. And he did that centuries before there was an England, as we understand it. I mean, there were Anglo-Saxon tribes here and there all over the country, but they weren’t united.

[3:49] They co-existed, I suppose, would be the best way to put it. But it was Bede who saw that this was a nation, and in his history, I mean, the point of his history was to say that just as God was bringing a new thing into the world by sending his son jesus christ so he was doing a new thing in human history by creating the english people um you know he tied the two things together uh so whether you agree with whether you agree with that or not there it is yeah that’s really interesting i mean as a human being you’ve made the case for being interested uh just to know your your international and national history. And I can see the value. I’m a Christian. I think I have other reasons for being interested, probably more to do with seeing how God’s worked in the past, seeing what lessons I could draw, being reassured that God can break into all kinds of different situations. Those things help me as well. I don’t know if you have the similar situation.

[4:58] Well, yes, of course. I mean, if you are a Christian believer, well, then you will see the hand of God at work in everything, and in particular in the history of our country, I mean, at different times. And again, you might say, well, it’s a matter of interpretation, but it goes together with faith and belief. And we’ve seen how this has worked over time and has taken a people who didn’t exist in the time of Jesus. I mean, there were no English people at that time and created out of nothing, apparently, you know, a nation which has not only spread itself around the world, but today, you know, our language, for example, is the international language. I mean, it’s everywhere. And you ask yourself, well, how did that happen?

[6:02] A little island where it never stops raining, you know, has produced this. And it doesn’t make sense in purely logical terms because, you know, it’s not a big country. It’s not a very populous country, really, when you compare it with other places. And yet its impact has been enormous. And a lot of that, of course, is tied up with the Christian church, with the gospel message. And in some respects, it still is.

[6:41] So I’m interested in, so just to give you a bit of background before some of the other conversations we had about the history of Christianity or the history of the church in Wales or Scotland. I went and did a bit of reading up about those places. I admit now, not only because I’ve been very busy this morning, but because I kind of feel, well, I’ve lived in England most of my life. I was taught about, you know, Henry VIII, about the Reformation. I know about, you know, the history of the church in England. But obviously those are going to be very surface or very shallow learnings of the history of Christianity or the history of the church in England. So could you give us perhaps a few of the very earliest milestones perhaps for the history of Christianity?

[7:35] What happened in the very beginning in Roman Britain? How did we first see the first Christians emerge? And what did it look like in the early days? Yes, well Roman Britain of course is in a way a bit of a mystery because we don’t have written documents, specifically from Roman Britain that would tell us who were the Christians and where did they come from and so on. What we do know is that when Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire, which was in the year 313, that at that time there were already three bishops, at least. There was one in London, one in Colchester, and one in York.

[8:25] And they went to a church council in Arles, in the south of France, what is now the south of France, in the next year. So that means, of course, that there must have been a sizable Christian presence in the country before then. How long before then, we don’t really know. The only person that we can even begin to imagine having existed was a Roman soldier called Alban, Albanus, in Latin, who was part of a Roman cohort that had arrested a Christian and were going to put him to death. And this man, Albanus, stepped in and said, I’ll die in his place because he’s innocent. And he died. He was put to death, and he was buried outside the Roman city of Verulamium on the hillside there. And of course, that is now the city of St. Albans.

[9:33] And I recommend, if anyone’s going to look into this period, go to St. Albans, visit the Roman Museum in Verulamium, which is absolutely fantastic. It’s one of the best museums in the country, and you can learn all about it. That’s as much as we know, for sure. Then the next thing, of course, is that when the Anglo-Saxon tribes invaded, you know, in the fifth and sixth centuries, they were not converted. They were not Christians. They were pagans. But the British people, the people who were living there in Britain already, had at least been superficially converted. I mean, they were officially Christian. Whether they really were or not, of course, we have no way of knowing for sure.

[10:26] But it’s out of that struggle between the British and the Anglo-Saxons that the legends of King Arthur come. Because if King Arthur was ever a real person or on whatever basis of fact there is there, he was the leader of the British against the Anglo-Saxon invasions, which is rather ironic because he’s become an English national hero, even though he thought the people we call the English were illegal immigrants. He wanted them to go back home again.

[11:06] But of course, the legends of king arthur are also legends of christianity because the knights of the round table going in search of the holy grail what’s the holy grail it is the the the cup that jesus used at the last supper um the whole thing is is portrayed in a you know in a deeply christian way, um and uh although it’s it’s later the legends are later of course they grew up nevertheless there’s a feeling that this is foundational somehow, you know, in the national consciousness.

[11:42] Then, of course, you have Bede, who recounts the evangelism, the people who went and preached the gospel to various places in England, up and down the country, and really established the Church of England, which existed before the political nation existed, several centuries before. So what year would this be? Well, there was an archbishop in Canterbury in the year 597, and then an archbishop in York about, oh, it came a bit later, 627, I think it was. But the country of England, as we understand it, the Kingdom of England, wasn’t united until the reign of Athelstan, which was 927 to 940. So you’re talking about 300 years earlier.

[12:38] I mean, 300 years is a long time.

[12:43] And the church was already solidly implanted at that stage. The next big event was the Norman Conquest, because the Normans were organizers.

[12:58] They took over a country which existed, of course. The Anglo-Saxon England was there. But it wasn’t organized in the way that we would think of today with you know count well there were counties yes there were but you know a tax a taxation system for example that actually worked and and things like this you know where the king could control the country and and the nature of the counties, because if you look at France or Germany or somewhere like that.

[13:38] A county was ruled by a count who was a semi-independent ruler. But in England, this never happened. The English counties were never more than subdivisions of the kingdom, and the king always controlled them. I mean, there was never any chance that they would become independent states of their own. I never thought of counts as being connected with counties. I bet you’d work that out, Lizzie, hadn’t you? No, I certainly hadn’t. That was news to me. Oh, so they are. I mean, it’s quite legally obvious now you’ve said it. I thought, oh, yeah, that is kind of related. But, yeah. Well, we call them earls, but their wives are countesses. Yeah, and that’s related to countesses. Right. Well, and the Count of Monte Cristo or whatever. so I recognize the word count and count Dracula I was going to ask a question which was.

[14:32] Understandably it’s a bit superficial but there’s Bede, there’s these other archbishops and stuff in as much as we can understand it, would we recognize them as Christians who, believe the Bible who trust Jesus, who are following Jesus, in the way that we would kind of recognize they might be different but, Oh, well, yes, I think we would definitely recognize them. Of course, it’s always hard to say because we can’t just conjure them up and ask them questions. And they would be thinking in ways that were slightly different from ours. But I think the key is that they were evangelists. And they believed you see that you had to preach the gospel in order to bring people out of darkness into light and this is the thing you read through not just but.

[15:36] Of course I haven’t mentioned St. Patrick but you’ll do that when you do the Irish podcast, but there’s another person who believed that he was called by God to preach the gospel to people because they were dead. They were dead in trespasses and sins, and they needed to be brought into life. And the only way they could have life was by surrendering to Jesus Christ, who was the light of the world and the life of the world. So although they expressed their faith in what we might think of as fairly primitive terms.

[16:20] You know, I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, and so on. We might not, talk just like that. Nevertheless, we can see, you see, that there’s a marvelous poem in Old English, which is called The Dream of the Rude. And you can get it in translation and go on and Google it up and read The Rude is the Cross. And the genius of the poet was that he took on himself the persona of the cross and what it felt like to be the cross carrying the Savior of the world. How did it feel? And it’s an amazing poem because he talks all about the blood which was shed for the life of the people and how he, as the cross, had that inestimable privilege given by God to be the means by which this was accomplished. I mean, it’s a work of imagination, which is almost impossible to replicate. I mean, who would think of it in those terms?

[17:37] And yet, when he does that, and he puts it like this, you see, yes, I mean, he’s talking about the death of Christ for our salvation, and seeing that, you know, being the cross, he was at the center of God’s action in the world. So, although, as I say, we probably wouldn’t talk like that now, with a little imagination, you can see, you know, that the gospel message is definitely there, because the cross was bearing Christ, and Christ was dying on the cross. The cross was the means by which the work of atonement was accomplished, and the writer saw that. He said, this is the heart of the message, that without the cross there would be no salvation. I want to read that poem now. I’m quite interested by it.

[18:42] So that sounds very interesting. And I think, Lizzie, you should be very proud that, in a good way, that your county, Yorkshire, is very significant in the history of the English church.

[18:54] I suppose that’s why the bishops of York and Canterbury are seen as the top two. Yeah, I mean, I’m not from Yorkshire, so I can’t claim my birthright. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, everyone from Yorkshire is proud to be from Yorkshire. Yeah. After what reason, but yes, particularly as a Christian, absolutely. So if it’s at all possible, Gerald, to fast forward from that period, Obviously, in international church history, you’ve got the kind of schism of about a thousand with the Orthodox Church splitting away and stuff. You’ve got the, I suppose you could say, the moving more towards superstition in the Roman Catholic Church going on, which influenced, I guess, the church in England as well, which was roughly following the same trajectory. And we get to the Reformation, which we all think we understand. I think we understand the Reformation anyway.

[19:52] So, how would you sum up the Reformation? And are you talking about the Reformation in England or in Europe? Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, yeah, those are big questions. Well, first of all, I would go back before what we think of as the Reformation and point out that England played a very important role in medieval times in the wider church.

[20:21] If you read about it, you’ll read that Paris was the great sort of intellectual and monastic center of Europe at that time. But most of the monks who went to Paris were, in fact, English, because, of course, England and France were closely connected after William the Conqueror and so on. But they went there, and there’s some quite extraordinary people. I mean, a man called Stephen Langton, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, I think.

[20:57] Anyhow, he’s the man who divided the Bible into chapters. There were no chapter divisions before then. Although that may seem like a minor thing, it’s actually quite important because it’s a way of finding your place in the text. I mean, verses weren’t invented until the 16th century, but chapters were there. And he was responsible for that. And, of course, it was part of the dissemination of the text, spreading it around, teaching it, you know, very much involved with that. Quite a lot of the theology, you know, of the medieval period is associated with these people, the monks of St. Victor in Paris and Richard of St. Victor, Hugh of St. Victor, Andrew of St. Victor, who actually bothered to learn Hebrew. He’s one of the very few people who learned Hebrew so that he could read the Old Testament. and things like this. So there was bubbling up in England a great interest in the Bible, and in reading it and disseminating it. And, of course, this all came to a head in the teaching of John Wycliffe in the 14th century in Oxford.

[22:15] Where Wycliffe went out and said, well, the Bible is the ultimate source of our teaching. If you say something that doesn’t cohere with what the Bible says, as what the Bible teaches, then it’s wrong. We can’t. And this became a criticism of the church at that time. And, of course, it was Wycliffe’s understanding which spread to the continent because they all wrote in Latin, so it spread very quickly. And Martin Luther, who was credited with having started the Reformation in Germany.

[22:58] Actually got quite a lot of his ideas indirectly from John Wycliffe because it went to Bohemia, what is now the Czech Republic, to Jan Hus, and Luther got it from there. So there was a lot of influence that way. When it comes to England itself, initially when Martin Luther revolted against the Pope and the Roman Church, Henry VIII came to the Pope’s rescue, as it were, because that’s what he thought he was doing anyhow, and wrote a treatise against Luther called The Assertion of the Seven Sacraments and more or less demanded in payment a title from the Pope.

[23:47] And he wanted a sort of recognition. He didn’t want money. He just wanted a title. And so the Pope had his arm twisted slightly and ended up giving Henry VIII the title Defender of the Faith, which, of course, the present king still bears, although the faith he is expected to defend is the one that Henry VIII was attacking. But that’s one of those details. I mean, Henry VIII, of course, for reasons of his own, eventually broke with the papacy because the Pope would not approve of the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which Henry believed he needed in order to marry a woman who would give him a son who would become the heir to his kingdom. And it was a very personal thing and one of the ironies there was that the great defender of Catherine of Aragon was Martin Luther, who said what do you mean we don’t want a king who wants to put away his wife for purely selfish reasons.

[25:08] And Luther objected to forming an alliance with the King of England because he thought the King of England was immoral.

[25:19] And, of course, Catherine of Aragon was one problem, but Anne Boleyn, who was the next wife, when he had her executed, I mean, Luther hit the roof. He said, what do you mean this man is killing his wife? You know what’s going on here. This is not the sort of reformation that we want. But fortunately, the Reformation didn’t depend on Henry VIII and his ups and downs. There was already quite a lot of ferment in England itself, particularly in the universities, and particularly in Cambridge, where I am right now, because there was a kind of secret underground trade route which went from Holland to London and then from London to Cambridge. It’s very interesting because John Wycliffe, because he was at Oxford and caused stirred up trouble, the government clamped down and put Oxford under censorship.

[26:28] And the students and lecturers at Oxford were very carefully vetted after that to make sure that they weren’t going to say anything that the government disapproved of. But for some reason, they never bothered about Cambridge. And so in the early 16th century, all these sort of new ideas could circulate in Cambridge quite freely. And Erasmus, actually, the great humanist from the continent, lived in Cambridge for three years and did most of his Bible translation here, although the text was published back in Germany.

[27:10] But this became a center for discussion and so on. And so there were quite a lot of people who were primed for new ideas. You know, they were hearing this. Yeah. So my oversimplified view, I suppose, is that there’s a mix of politics and kind of intellectual interest. Yeah. All kind of fomenting. but God in his providence worked it all out, I think, for good. Whatever you might think of the Church of England now, it would be a significant milestone to restoring the gospel in this country and giving lots of options for gospel preaching. So God used this slight mess of the personal, the political, the intellectual to kind of rebirth the church in a way. Well, that’s right. No, that’s right. You see, I think if you look at Henry VIII, I mean, what did God do? He kept Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, alive through the reign of Henry VIII, which, you know, if you asked one of Henry’s wives or some of the other people that were around him, you know, that was no mean achievement. I mean, to survive Henry VIII was quite a major thing.

[28:30] And it was during that time, of course, that he was able to think through things. And when Henry VIII died and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI, who was only nine years old, Cranmer, the archbishop, was put on the Regency Council to run the country and was given more or less a free hand in the church. And so it was then that the real Reformation began, because it was Cranmer who produced the prayer book, it was Cranmer who produced the Articles of Religion, it was Cranmer who allowed the clergy to marry. Basically the structure of the Church of England as we understand it today.

[29:23] Wasn’t the work of Henry VIII at all. It was the work of Thomas Cranmer after Henry died. But he happened to be the right man in the right place at the right time. And the other thing that we tend to forget, is that if you look at other countries, if you look at, say, Martin Luther in Germany, If you look at John Calvin in Switzerland and France, the great reformers of other countries, they all died in their beds. They just lived an ordinary life and they died. They didn’t pay any great price personally for their beliefs. Whereas the English reformers went to the stake. They were burnt to death for their beliefs. and they’re the only ones… Of whom that was true, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and so on.

[30:22] They paid with their lives. And it’s very fashionable, of course, in England to mock the Church of England and say it’s half-reformed and it’s this, that, and the other. And we can be very critical of it in many ways. but were the only church that was founded on the blood of martyrs, Protestantism, you know. And this shows the seriousness of it, you know, because these people weren’t killed accidentally. I mean, they went to their deaths knowing full well what they had done. And, you know, you think about this. And one of the most moving testimonies of this that I ever heard was the late novelist P.D. James. You know P.D. James, the mystery writer? I heard her give a talk on this some years ago and it was published in the Prayer Book Society magazine.

[31:31] And she said every time, you know, in her house when she lit a fire in the evening, in the wintertime, She couldn’t help thinking of the English martyrs, you know, who were faced with that terrible choice of going to their death by fire or renouncing their faith. And when they had to decide, you know, they went into the flames. And this shows a degree of commitment, a degree of conviction, which really lies at the foundation of the Protestantism of England.

[32:14] We’re going to have about another 10 minutes, so I’m going to ask you in five minutes to kind of try and summarize not so much the rest of the history of the Church of England, but since the Reformation. I mean, there were before that Anabaptists and various others, but probably more since the Reformation, lots of other church groupings, whether it’s the Brethren or the Baptist movement or other things. Yeah that have all kind of arisen i mean did they all spring out of that or were they all springing out independently or i know it’s really hard to summarize that yeah well it’s it’s a mixed bag i mean um you know the the methodists for example take the largest one from from the 18th century i mean john wesley was an anglican yes he was a member of the church of england he never left the Church of England. He was basically forced out because he had a vision for evangelizing the country, which wasn’t shared by the bishops.

[33:22] They didn’t want to do anything. They just wanted to leave things well enough alone, and they couldn’t cope with a spiritual revival. The Presbyterians well of course that goes back to the 17th century the Puritans and so on they were arguing not really about faith but about church government how the church should be run.

[33:46] With the Baptists it’s somewhat similar they kind of modified Anabaptism which they picked up on the continent and brought it into England and so on, It was really the political failure. If you look at the 17th century, the early 17th century, there was only one church, the Church of England, and then there were a few…

[34:15] Dissenting voices here and there. But they, of course, banded together and overthrew the government, killed the king, set themselves up as a commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, who was a very gifted man, a strong believer, a Christian believer. But as often happens in these cases, these people knew what they were against, but they couldn’t really decide on what they were for. And this is how they fell out. They argued over things like, should you celebrate Christmas and this sort of thing, which to us today seems a little bit odd. Why are you doing this. But to them, of course, it was very important at that time. But inevitably, they kind of went too far, too fast, and fell out among themselves. They couldn’t agree with each other.

[35:21] And so it all collapsed. And the solution was to allow different groups to form what we would today call denominations. And what we call denominations were legalized in England in 1689 at the time of the Glorious Revolution when King James was sent packing and William and Mary came over from Holland and took over the country. So it was really from then on, And that’s why we have these differences today.

[35:59] But I think we have to balance this, you see, all the time, because although we have all these different denominations, and have had them since the late 17th century, we’ve only ever had one Bible.

[36:16] The King James Bible in 1611 was the universal Bible that everybody used. I mean, there was never a Baptist Bible or a Methodist Bible or a Presbyterian Bible. Everybody used the same Bible. And although we have many translations today, they’re not denominational on the whole, you know. And this is important because the Bible is the foundation of our faith. This is, you know, we all believe that it is the fundamental text from which our teaching and our practice is derived. Now, we may have different interpretations here and there, yes, but the foundation remains the same, and that produces a unity so that, you know, I mean, I’m an Anglican clergyman, but I can go to a Baptist church or a Methodist church or whatever. I mean, it doesn’t really matter, a free, independent church, and worship with them, you know, and we’re brothers and sisters in Christ, because ultimately, it’s not the denominational label that we wear that matters. It’s our loyalty to Scripture.

[37:33] So, sorry to butt in there, I’m just interested that as to perhaps the formalized acknowledgement of this, would you say then that that was something that helped to birth kind of ecumenical movements?

[37:51] Well yes in the end i mean it took a long time of course you see but um yes because the question arose well you know what how important are the differences between say anglicans methodists presbyterians baptists and so on um now if you look back and say well they fell out you know for various reasons at the time, that might be all very well if you’re just thinking about England. But once you go overseas, and both as settlers, I mean, to places like Australia, Canada, and so on, where English people went to settle, but also as missionaries to Africa and so on, I mean, What’s the point of taking 17th century English divisions, you know, to Central Africa? I mean, where they haven’t a clue about any of that. And you suddenly realize it doesn’t matter so much. And the mission field became the birthplace of what we call ecumenism.

[39:04] Because people, you know, who went there, well, you know, they set up a church, and although they represented a denomination of some kind or other, they realized that that wasn’t the main thing, and that there was an underlying unity of belief. And you often get this now, I mean, you know, overseas, where English missionaries have gone or settlers have gone. You’ll have a community church or a local church, which doesn’t really have a very clearly defined denominational allegiance. But it’s the local church and everybody goes there, you know. And so denominations become relativized in a way. And that’s the way it is. Yeah, I think…

[40:05] Roughly speaking, there’s a good ecumenicanism, and there’s maybe a not so good. I’m not going to be the one to define which is which. But in broad terms, there is a kind of, well, just say we’re Christian so we can unite. And then there’s people who are genuinely enlightened because, as you were just describing about missionaries, they genuinely are together in the gospel, in their understanding of the centrality of Christ and the Bible.

[40:33] I think various attempts in this country I mean affinity is one of them in a sense is that you have an organic unity in affinity because you have lots of different denominations and groupings but there is something of a structural unity as well, so the organic is more relational, trust relationships understanding that you believe the same gospel and then there’s a structural one which people always need a bit of as well which is here’s a statement of faith here’s the things we would say and here’s the things we wouldn’t say and sometimes there’s an obsession with the structure either in me or in other people and sometimes there’s an obsession with the the organic to say well it doesn’t really matter what we believe we know we’re christians and you need to kind of find find your way through that i mean you would know from church history statements of faith have been significant and important at times.

[41:23] In saying we can rally around this but perhaps they become masters in an unhelpful way at times as well yes that’s right and i mean these two dimensions coexist they both have their their place and it’s a case of how do you you know how do you bring them together how do you how do you work with this um it’s it’s it’s very complicated issue but if we look back say to the the 19th century not that long ago, I mean, Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher in London.

[42:01] You know, the elephant in castle, metropolitan tabernacle, very well known, very famous, and very influential at the time, was also, and people don’t necessarily realize this now, but he was a strong campaigner for the disestablishment of the Church of England, which he regarded as a monstrosity, you know, the link between church and state. And he felt so strongly about this that he invited Joseph Chamberlain, who was a politician, a liberal politician, but a self-proclaimed atheist, to take the pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle to advocate disestablishment for the Church of England because Spurgeon felt that deeply about that particular issue.

[42:53] Today that wouldn’t happen I think you wouldn’t get people of different Christian denominations fighting each other in that way, you know it would be very difficult to imagine anybody, inviting a proclaimed atheist into their pulpit to attack some other church, I mean, whatever you think about that other church.

[43:26] And I think in some ways we could say, well, the deep feelings that there were at that time, which were still based very much on denominational allegiances, that these have moderated. I mean, and today, I mean, it would be very rare to meet somebody who… You know, was so Methodist or so Anglican or so Baptist that they wouldn’t have anything to do with anybody else. I think, to be honest, I think the divisions within… Well, that’s right. …are often more combative. I mean, we see that, don’t we, in the church? Well, that’s absolutely right to see because, I mean, I’ll just share before we break up. I mean, my own church that I attend, And our vicar has recently decided that she will bless people who are in a same-sex relationship.

[44:31] And I can’t receive communion. I mean, I’m out of communion with that, you know, because it’s wrong. And this is the drama, of course, that we’re faced with, not just in the Church of England, but the Baptists are facing it, the Methodists. I mean, all the churches, the institutional churches are facing it. And I think that, you know, God is perhaps doing a new thing. And I guess just like the martyrs of the past, there may need to be martyrs in the future who are deciding that this is an issue on which we need to stand. We’re pretty much out of time. A really, really interesting to hear. I know you’ve had to compress it. It must be very frustrating for you. But it’s been really helpful. I’m so glad that God has worked in England And we’ve got a long history of the church, I’m grateful for that And how it’s affected lots of people Including myself and my family And hopefully this little podcast Has got people’s interest And they’re going to go away and do more research And read your books, Gerald They will find your book, Gerald Bray.

[45:40] Google that and you’ll find them And we may well come back And pick up on one of the threads But for now thank you very much for your time. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.