Studies in Evangelical History & Thought
2 total works
F. B. Meyer (1847-1929) was one of the most prominent Free Church ministers of his period. He had a number of successful local church ministries, in which he gave priority to work as an evangelist, an emphasis which owed much to the decisive influence of the American revivalist, D.L. Moody. Meyer's theology was essentially devotional in character and he was also able to relate to different doctrinal perspectives within evangelicalism. Comparatively little scholarly work has been done on the contribution of F. B. Meyer. This study gives insights into the crucial developments which took place from the 1870s to the 1920s in British evangelicalism.
This book uses considerable primary material to examine movements of spirituality found within evangelical Protestantism between the First and Second World Wars. It analyses the way in which different patterns of devotion led to tensions and divisions between those holding a common commitment to the Bible, the cross of Christ, conversion and active Christian service. The chapters provide contrast between conservative views of spiritual experience, orientated to the past, and progressive forces, which were forward looking. It looks at evangelical Anglicanism, Wesleyan holiness streams of spirituality, those looking principally to the Reformed tradition, and Pentecostal-charismatic types of spirituality. Bifurcation bred evangelical weakness at a time when Anglo-Catholicism was growing strongly in its influence on English Christianity. This book seeks to illuminate this process and to provide a fresh interpretation of the period. It offers new insights, not only into a time of evangelical divergence, but also into the later twentieth-century story of the resurgence of evangelicalism .