Posted on by David Steers

Faith and Freedom Issue 201

The latest issue of Faith and Freedom (Volume 79 Part 1, Issue 201, Autumn and Winter 2025) is now on its way to subscribers. Having been in print since 1947 we have now reached issue 201.

Rev Sidney Spencer by John Stanton Ward, Harris Manchester College, Oxford.

Sidney Spencer is a much neglected figure in twentieth-century Unitarian history and Jo James gives a comprehensive examination of his theological ideas. A Unitarian minister noted for his strongly pacifist witness both before and during the Second World War, with only limited formal academic credentials to his name he nevertheless became Principal of Manchester College, Oxford as well as one of the acknowledged world experts on mysticism. His interest in this subject resulted in a number of publications culminating in the Pelican Mysticism in World Religion in 1963, an influential work and something of a best seller in its day. Jo illuminates Spencer’s theology, sets it in its context and seeks out its relevance to the present day.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’, the famous trial which took place in Dayton, Tennessee when local teacher John Scopes was taken to court for teaching Darwin’s theories in his classes, contrary to the law of the state of Tennessee. John Midgley gives a timely account of this key event, forever made famous by the movie Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracey.

One hundred years is a long time yet the whole case has many uncomfortable resonances in the present age and these perhaps feed into the current situation in the United States. Dan C. West, who has ‘lived through 15 presidents since the beginning of the Second World War’, gives a very insightful analysis of the current political, theological and cultural trends which mark America today.

How do we understand our place in the universe, how do we understand the universe itself in theological terms? Feargus O’Connor provides an excellent examination of Our Mysterious Universe: Accident or Design? looking at the philosophical notions that underpin the argument from design.

Following on from Barrie Needham’s article considering the Koran/Quran from Western, liberal Christian eyes in our last issue, we are pleased to include a response from Imran Usmani who brings considerable insight to the topic through his extensive researches on Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

We are delighted to once again include a number of reviews, including Peter B. Godfrey’s review of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity; Peter’s review of the late Rev Art Lester’s  Thank God I’m an Agnostic: Trusting your Hunch about God, the Universe and All That and the editor’s review article on A Short History of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland. Including Sketches of Individual Congregations and a Fasti of Ministers who served in them by John Nelson.

You can take out a subscription via Nigel Clarke, our Business Manager, or online via PayPal. The details of how to subscribe can be found on our website here: https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers

Faith and Freedom 200th Issue

Having been founded in 1947 we have now reached the significant milestone of our 200th issue. Still proudly flying the flag for a thoughtful, liberal approach to religion our journal goes all round the world and has readers on every continent.

200th Issue Cover

Our Cover includes pictures of a selection of some of our 200 issues. We’ve had some splendid images in the last few years with photographs taken by some notable photographers as well some historic pictures or artworks that have really stood out.

With this being such a special issue we have selected three articles from our back catalogue that shed some light on our development over the last 78 years..

The first is from our very first issue. A Declaration of Faith by Dr Albert Schweitzer set the tone at the very genesis of this journal. It is hard to over estimate the importance of Albert Schweitzer within liberal circles at that time. A polymath thinker, theologian, humanitarian, philosopher, physician, he epitomised the cutting edge of a liberal, questioning approach to religion in the mid-twentieth century. Written for a meeting of the International Association for Religious Freedom, the world’s oldest interfaith organisation, a body which we have often had close interactions with, it was a considerable coup to have his contribution in the very first issue.

The second article is God is Necessary by H. Lismer Short published in Autumn 1958. At the time he was a future Principal of Manchester College, and his article displays the depth and breadth of his scholarship. Essentially an answer to the humanism of that age and the development of a scientific thinking that had unsettled the traditional Unitarian approach to the divine. The article declares that we ‘have been satisfied with cosmic explanations or enquiring agnosticisms, and have not sufficiently tackled religion from the end of human anxiety and dread.’ The traditional proofs of God no longer hold but ‘all the burden of living’ still required a place for faith in a personal God.

Harry Lismer Short. Portrait in Harris Manchester College

The final article from our back catalogue in this issue is A Rational Basis for Religious Belief by Arthur J. Long dating from Summer 1974. Another Unitarian Principal (this time of the Unitarian College, Manchester) this is another article which displays the writer’s considerable erudition as well, in Arthur’s case, of his irrepressible sense of humour. What is particularly interesting about this paper is that it was prepared for a long-forgotten meeting between Unitarian and Roman Catholic theologians which took place in 1973. The papers for this encounter still exist and it might be profitable at some stage to revisit them. The basis of this article is not to ask ‘Does God exist?’ but rather ‘What sort of God?’, he rejects the argument from revelation and the argument from experience and roots religious belief in a rational theism, ‘underpinned by a rational empirical theology’, and uses Peter Berger’s A Rumour of Angels to frame his apologia.

Rev Arthur Long (from the cover of his 1978 Essex Hall Lecture)

New pieces for this issue include On Reading the Koran by Barrie Needham, a timely, fair and objective assessment of this crucial text which is so frequently mentioned but very seldom examined. The other is Frank Walker’s The Sybil’s Request. Death and Our Human Imagination which explores how we understand death, Heaven and eternity and ranges over the thinking contained in the poetry and literature of such figures as T.S. Eliot, T.F. Powys and Julian Barnes, and ends, appropriately enough, with a quotation from Harry Lismer Short.

The articles are followed by a great selection of reviews:

Reviewed by Graham Murphy

Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson, ‘Forgotten, Searching for Palestine’s Hidden Places and Lost Memorials’, Profile Books, 2025 reviewed by Graham Murphy

Michael Allured and Kate Dean, ‘Soul Deep: Exploring Spirituality, Together’, Lindsey Press, 2024, reviewed by Laura Dobson

Jade C. Angelica, ‘Where two worlds touch’, Skinner House Books, 2024, reviewed by Peter Hewis

Patrick Riordan SJ, ‘Human Dignity and Liberal Politics: Catholic possibilities for the common good’, Georgetown University Press, Washington DC, 2023, reviewed by Helena Fyfe Thonemann.

Reviewed by Laura Dobson

An annual subscription to Faith and Freedom (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

Nigel Clarke,
Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
16 Fairfields,
Kirton in Lindsey,
Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

Overseas subscriptions are also available.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website:

https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers

The Latest issue of Faith and Freedom

The latest issue – Volume 77, Part 2, Autumn and Winter 2024, Number 199 – is now available and will be with subscribers shortly. Details on how to subscribe (including a link to our website if you would like to pay via PayPal) can be found at the foot of this page.

This issue is special for a number of reasons. First of all we are pleased to announce the magnificent vote of approval given to us by the Merseyside and District Missionary Association who have given us very generous financial support. This is a tremendous help and together with the valued grant we already receive from the Daniel Jones Fund this means that Faith and Freedom can continue to serve our readers, maintaining the original vision set out by the Ministerial Old Students Association of Manchester College, Oxford for the promotion of liberal religious discussion and the free exchange of ideas.

Secondly we are also delighted to be able to launch our brand new Faith and Freedom Logo with this issue. Our Logo was previewed on this site a couple of weeks ago and it now takes its place atop our masthead. Specially designed for us, it is a striking representation of what we stand for as a journal and will let the world know who we are. We have already had requests for this to be produced as a badge which is something we are keen to look into.

It is very pleasing also that the journal continues to attract top quality articles from Unitarians and non-Unitarians alike from Britain and around the world. In this issue Elizabeth Kingston-Harrison, who is the Congregational Connections Lead for the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christians and has a PhD in Intellectual History, having studied the theology of Joseph Priestley and other eighteenth-century rational dissenters, contributes A Comet in the System: Joseph Priestley and the emergence of rational dissent in the eighteenth century. Elizabeth writes of Priestley’s role in the emergence of rational dissent and shows how, far from being a distant, dry historical study, this is something that is energising and alive today and helps us connect with our present-day religious identity. Joseph Priestley ‘was a courageous, “big picture” person’ whose scientific discoveries went hand in hand with his theological reflections. The discoverer of oxygen applied reason to scripture and developed a new way of understanding the universe.

Frank Walker considers Sir Lloyd Geering: Trinitarian-Unitarian, Humanistic Presbyterian, Centenarian and asks Can You Love the Human Race? Sir Lloyd Geering, a New Zealand Presbyterian Professor, who was once charged with heresy, may not be a name immediately familiar to most of our readers but I have no doubt that everyone will find Frank’s thoughtful examination of his theology and ideas incredibly life affirming and uplifting.

Peter Hewis addressed the Old Students Association at Harris Manchester College back in June and this paper is based on his sermon – Keep alive the dream in the heart – a quotation from Howard Thurman and an exploration of dreams in religious history and their continuing power to inspire us and drive us towards making a difference in the world,

As always we have a number of really interesting and informative reviews of a wide range of publications contributed by our readers. This issue includes:

Right Relationship in the Real World

Commissioning Editor: Jane Blackall, Right Relationship in the Real World, Learning to Live by our Unitarian Values, The Lindsey Press, London, 2024, pp 132, ISBN 978-0-8519-099-8, £7, pbk. The book can be ordered online at https://www.unitarian.org.uk/shop/

Reviewed by Peter B. Godfrey

Fideology

Richard F. Boeke, Fideology – Building Trust through the Shared Experience of Faith at the Root of the World’s Religions, 2024, pp 248, ISBN 97988844906686, £11.08 plus postage from Amazon.

Reviewed by Peter B. Godfrey

From the heights of politics via a spiritual journey to the ministry

From the heights of politics via a spiritual journey to the ministry Gordon R. Oliver, Overcoming Life’s Challenges: A Personal Memoir of a Cape Town Mayor, Austin Macauley Publishers, 2024, pp.166, ISBN: 979-8891554146, £8.99, pbk.

Reviewed by John Midgley

An honest and liberal analysis of the Church

Martin Camroux, A Serious House, Why if Churches Fall Completely Out of Use We May Miss Them, Wipf and Stock, 2024, pp. 188, ISBN-13: 979-8385207824, £21 pbk, (also available direct fromthe author for £16, including postage, Martin Camroux, 4 Sorrel Close, Colchester, CO4 5UL).

Reviewed by Francis Elliot-Wright

Prayers of Many Faiths

Marcus Braybrooke, 1,000 Prayers from Around the World. Prayers of Many Faiths for Many Situations, independently published, 2024, pp.390, ISBN: 9798321565889, £39.99 hbk; ISBN: 97983439561609, £9.99 pbk black and white; ISBN: 798321565889, £19.99 pbk colour; also available on Kindle £4.99. Available to order on Amazon.

Reviewed by David Steers

An annual subscription to Faith and Freedom (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

Nigel Clarke,
Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
16 Fairfields,
Kirton in Lindsey,
Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

Overseas subscriptions are also available.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website:

https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers

John Wesley and Belfast

In the latest of our videos exploring the Very Rev William McMillan Library at Dunmurry we take a (brief) look at the eight volumes of the Journal of John Wesley. In particular we look at his visits to Belfast and his relationship with the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian churches in Belfast.

Exploring the Library at Dunmurry, episode 4. Click on the video above

John Wesley visited Belfast 11 times in the course of his career, always preaching in the town, sometimes in the market-house, sometimes in the open air. Often it seems he visited at times of cold, windy or wet weather. Only once did he preach in a church and the only church to ever be open to him was First Presbyterian Church, Rosemary Street. But this visit was mired in controversy and was not repeated. I am grateful to Des McKeown of First Church who recently gave me a copy of a letter to The Northern Whig dated 3 December 1873 written by the minister of First Church, the Rev John Scott Porter. This features in the video and it is interesting to see his opinion of Wesley’s visit almost one hundred years previously.

A youthful John Scott Porter

But another feature of Wesley’s Journal is his identification of followers of Dr John Taylor in the crowds that came to hear him in Belfast. John Taylor was minister of the Octagon Chapel in Norwich and the author of the The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin. What are the implications of this in Belfast in the 1760s? We try to unpack the meaning of this for John Wesley’s reception in Belfast in the video.

John Taylor (Source: Wikipedia)

Posted on by David Steers

Ministerial Old Students’ Association Harris Manchester College, Oxford

Faith and Freedom was founded by the Ministerial Old Students’ Assocation of Manchester (now Harris Manchester) College, Oxford in 1947. It is always good to attend the annual meetings along with the meeting of the Friends and Honorary Governors of the College.

Attending both meetings gives the chance to see many contributors and supporters of Faith and Freedom. Amongst the attenders were three contributors to the latest issue (Ann Peart, Mária Pap and Lehel Molnár) as well as some whose writings will appear in the next issue.

Rev Mária Pap and Rev Dr Lehel Molnár
Rev Dr Ann Peart

Amongst the attenders there was also some cross-over with those associated with the Unitarian Historical Society and the concluding Old Students’ Association annual service on Friday, 21st June conducted by Rev Robin Hanford included an address, ‘Keep alive a dream in the heart’ by Rev Peter Hewis, which will appear in the next issue of the journal.

Rev Jim Corrigall and Dr David Wykes
Alan Ruston in the College Chapel

Having been founded by MOSA, Faith and Freedom gives an annual report to the Association and it is also a good opportunity to keep that connection active.

Rev Frank Walker (a contributor to the forthcoming issue) with NIgel Clarke (‘Faith and Freedom’ Business Manager)
The Two Peters. Rev Peter Hewis and Rev Dr Peter Godfrey (Editor Emeritus)
Rev Robin Hanford of Hinckley who conducted the annual service in the College Chapel

To read more about the latest issue click here.

Posted on by David Steers · 1 Comment

Faith and Freedom Spring and Summer 2024

The latest issue of Faith and Freedom is now available. In this issue we are pleased to publish the entire transcript of the most recent Reckoning International Unitarian and Universalist Histories Project webinar. Entitled Uncovering the Hidden Power of Women in Unitarian and Universalist History the discussion comprises an international panel with an introduction by Lehel Molnár, Unitarian archivist at Koloszvár, Transylvania, and with Rosemary Bray McNatt, President of the Starr King School for Ministry, Berkeley, California, as the moderator and concluding responder. The main papers are ‘The Story of Pharienbon Rani and Unitarianism in the Khasi Hills, India’ by Alisha Rani, professor of sociology at Shillong, India, and ‘Profiling Black Women’s Ministries in Unitarian Universalism’ by Qiyamah A. Rahman, a UU minister and activist in the United States. Responses are given by Olga Flores (Bolivia), Ann Peart (UK), and Mária Pap (UK and Transylvania), with closing remarks by Mark W. Harris, one of the main planners for the Reckoning Histories Project. The journal also includes some photographs (including the cover – see above and top) by John Hewerdine taken at the Annie Margaret Barr Memorial Orphanage in Meghalaya which help illustrate the theme of both Alisha Rani’s paper and a review by Derek McAuley also found in this issue.

Margaret Barr in her office in the Khasi Hills (Photo: John Hewerdine)

Other papers include Wayne Facer’s Mr Jellie’s Romance, an account of the pioneering days of Unitarianism in New Zealand and how amidst his work to establish the cause he fell in love with and eventually married Ella Macky. She was a member of an active Unitarian family but her own commitments frequently took her to the other side of the world to attend University and to participate in the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers in Amsterdam in 1903, while Jellie carried out his work establishing the congregation in Auckland and supporting Unitarians elsewhere in New Zealand.

Barrie Needham examines the life and poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Catholic convert and Jesuit priest, whose poetry remained unpublished in his own lifetime but which has gained a great following from the early twentieth century onwards. A Victorian poet but one whose style is as bold and striking as anything written at any point since. Barrie Needham shows how Hopkins wrestled with his poetry to express his faith in God and his understanding of God in nature, and shows the philosophical understanding that underscored his writing. If you have ever read any Hopkins or heard his poems being read you will find this article immensely helpful.

In addition we have four excellent reviews of notable recent books.

Avi Shlaim, aged two, with his parents and sister in Baghdad, 1947. From the cover of his book.

Graham Murphy reviews Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds, Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, (Oneworld Publications, 2023). The book of the year for both the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman, Avi Shlaim tells his own story as someone who was born into the prosperous and significant Jewish community of Iraq following the Second World War and who was forced, with most of the Jewish population, to emigrate to Israel in 1950. At the age of 15 his life changed when he managed to come to the UK, ending up at Cambridge and ultimately as Professor of International Relations at St Antony’s College, Oxford. As a young man he served in the Israel Defense Force but is not afraid to criticise Israel or Zionism. His most recent research has gone back to Iraq and his own origins as part of ‘a Diaspora that had been the living embodiment of Muslim-Jewish co-existence [which] was no more’. In Shlaim’s view ‘As Israel expanded, the Palestinians, Arab natives of historic Palestine, not the Germans or the Russians, would take the burden of punishment for the European pogroms of modern history and the Final Solution.’ His reflections on his Jewish past in Iraq and on Arab-Israeli relations ever since are well worth reading, especially at the present time.

Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey (eds.), Animal Theologians (Oxford Academic, Oxford University Press, 2023) is reviewed by Feargus O’Connor who takes us through the theological contributions to the consideration of animal rights, vivisection and animal cruelty. A number of the subjects of the book are Unitarians – most notably Frances Power Cobbe and Charles Hartshorne – and many would find agreement with Gandhi who Feargus quotes:

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way animals are treated. Vivisection is the blackest of all the black crimes that man is at present committing against God and His fair creation. It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practise elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.

Professor David Williams reviews Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Astrotopia: the Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (University of Chicago Press, 2022) a book which raises the issue of humankind’s increasingly exploitative attitude to space exemplified in the attitudes of such figures as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, described by the reviewer as ‘both so grotesquely wealthy that they can have dreams of both colonising space and the funds to achieve those aims’. It is clear too that the United States no longer views ‘outer space as the common heritage of all humanity.’ In the light of this how should we progress human interaction with space?

Inside the former NSP meeting-house Ballymoney (Photo: David Steers)

Liz McManus is a former Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal in the Republic of Ireland. Since leaving politics she has become a writer and in When Things Come To Light (Arlen House, 2023) she has drawn on her own family experiences to ‘craft an insightful and compelling novel’ in the words of Derek McAuley, our reviewer. Liz McManus’s grandparents were Unitarians/Non-Subscribers from County Antrim. Remarkably life took them to the Khasi Hills where (in the novel at least) they encounter the Rev Margaret Barr and Kissor Singh, the founder of the Unitarian Church in North India. In a strange piece of synchronicity Kissor Singh quotes St Paul ‘Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind’, words which Liz McManus’s grandfather recognises as inscribed on the wall of his home church back in Ballymoney in Ulster. A fascinating novel incorporating Unitarians, family history, Ireland and India.

An annual subscription to Faith and Freedom (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

Nigel Clarke,
Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
16 Fairfields,
Kirton in Lindsey,
Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

Overseas subscriptions are also available.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website:

https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers

Faith and Freedom 197 (2023)

The latest issue of our journal is out now and will be with subscribers shortly. Anyone can subscribe and an annual subscription costs only £16 in the UK ($32 in the USA), details of how to subscribe can be found below.

Our cover picture contains a cartoon from the Manchester Evening Chronicle of 26 January 1911 and features Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of the founders of the National Trust, shown here trying to save some oaks on the bank of Thirlmere Reservoir in the Lake District. It links to Graham Murphy’s Review Article of a new biography by Michael Allen and Rosalind Rawnsley – Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, An Extraordinary Life, 1851-1920, (The New Beaver Press, 2023, pp 476. ISBN 978-1-7392194-1-3, £20 pbk.) The cartoon is strangely appropriate for today because it is also being used by campaigners trying to keep the public road along Thirlmere Reservoir open to walkers, cyclists and motorists. The Canon was not successful in his attempts in 1911 and the conifers which replaced the oaks now regularly blow down and block the road. You can read about the current campaign to keep the road open by clicking here.

Our journal opens with Sandra Gilpin’s pen portrait on the Rev William Hugh Doherty (c.1810-1890). His career began as the first minister of the Unitarian/Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Comber county Down. He moved to the United States and embarked upon an unusual career firstly as a Unitarian minister in Rochester NY then moving to a denomination known as the ‘Christian Church’ where he became quite a prominent educator. But the suggestion of some scandal was never far away in his life and he managed to serve on both sides of the Civil War as well as hold views, at different times, that were both pro and anti slavery! His career ended with him becoming an assistant in the US Patent Office.

Other articles include Imran Usmani’s fascinating discussion of ‘The Crucifixion of Jesus in Islam’. Looking afresh at the traditional Muslim view of the Crucifixion the author presents ‘novel textual and contextual analysis of the Crucifixion Verse based on the Quran and traditional Muslim sources’ and concludes that the traditional view is actually a misunderstanding of the original intention. He concludes that the Quran does not deny the historical fact of the Crucifixion of Jesus, rather it denies that the Crucifixion was rightful. The author believes that ‘Crucifixion denial in the Muslim tradition created a chasm between Muslims and Christians because it made both parties sceptical of the other’s scriptures.’ His aim is to help bridge this chasm dividing the two religions.

Other articles include Dan C. West’s encouragement to Christians to turn from ‘preoccupation with the past to focus instead on the future is a courageous act of faith and hope’, in ‘With Courage and With Hope’; and a sermon by the editor, ‘Telling Our Stories’, which asks whether those of us in a liberal theological tradition fully understand and articulate our identities.

There is also a good number of reviews including:

Maria Curtis (ed.), Cherishing the Earth – Nourishing the Spirit, Lindsey Press, 2023, pp 264. ISBN: 978-0-85319-098-1, £12.00 pbk. Reviewed by Oscar Sinclair.

Stephen Hart, James Chuter Ede: Humane Reformer and Politician, Pen and Sword History, 2021, pp 352. ISBN 978-1-52678-372-1, £25.00, hbk. Reviewed by Derek McAuley.

George D. Chryssides and Dan Cohn-Sherbok (eds.), The Covid Pandemic and the World’s Religions. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, pp 256. ISBN 978-1-3503-4963-6, £19.95 pbk, £65.00 hbk. Reviewed by Marcus Braybrooke.

Marcus Braybrooke, Interfaith Pioneers 1893-1939. The Legacy of the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 118. ISBN 9798392406180, £9.95 pbk.
Marcus Braybrooke, Jewish Friends and Neighbours. An Introduction for Christians, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 367. ISBN 979-8397750776, £19.95, pbk. Both reviewed by the Editor.

An annual subscription for each volume (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

Nigel Clarke,
Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
16 Fairfields,
Kirton in Lindsey,
Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website: https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers

The History of the Bible

Three illustrated talks on the History of the Bible given at First Dunmurry (NS) Presbyterian Church in October and November 2022. Available to view in three parts on video.

The History of the Bible Part 1

The Formation of the Bible

Click on the video above to see Part One

Title page of the first edition of the American Revised Edition of 1901, once owned by Rev Alexander Gordon

The History of the Bible Part 2

The Translation of the Bible

Click on the video above to see Part Two

God speaks to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Medieval carving in the Chapter House, Salisbury Cathedral

The History of the Bible Part 3

The Interpretation of the Bible

Click on the video above to see Part Three

Revised Version of 1885

Medieval Biblical Interpretation. The Last Judgement, St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury

Posted on by David Steers

Faith and Freedom – latest issue

Faith and Freedom

Volume 75, Part 1, Spring and Summer 2022, Number 194

The latest issue is now ready.

Professor John Tyndall lecturing at the Royal Institution, 1870

Our lead article is Howard Oliver’s examination of the remarkable career of John Tyndall and his influence on the relationship between science and religion. An outstanding physicist and an excellent lecturer he was also a glaciologist and an experienced mountaineer. Howard Oliver shows that by the 1840s he was a religious freethinker who had explored the role of faith in society in some depth. In 1847 his address in Belfast as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science caused a furore and opened up the debate about the relationship between religion and science, especially in the light of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Our cover picture depicts his portrait from the cover of Vanity Fair in 1872.

We are delighted too to be able include articles by:

Paul Richards, on the spiritual dimension of the works of Richard Wagner which looks at Wagner and anti-Semitism, myth and religious symbolism, Tristran & Isolde, the Ring Cycle, and Parsifal.

Ann Peart, on the response of Unitarians to ministering during the pandemic, an examination of the imaginative and creative ways in which Unitarian ministers have developed new forms of worship and activity during the Covid-19 crisis.

Feargus O’Connor, on the Unitarian contribution to Animal Welfare, by a well-known advocate for human rights who leads the only annual interfaith celebration of animals in the UK.

And Robert Oulton, on the theology and works of Cynthia Bourgeault, an intriguing Episcopalian theologian and priest who is also an expert in mysticism.

We continue to carry some fine reviews including:

Religious Experience – its nature, validity, forms and problems by Principal J. Ernest Davey MA DD, with a Foreword by John, Lord Alderdice

Author and playwright Philip Orr on a new book of writings by Principal J. Ernest Davey (the leading Irish Presbyterian scholar of the twentieth century, Principal of the main Irish Presbyterian theological college, who was accused of heresy) edited by Lord Alderdice, now Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College.

Mona Siddiqui, Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives

Rev Dr Marcus Braybrooke, one of the leaders of the inter-faith movement in Britain, on Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, the 2016 Gifford Lectures by Mona Siddiqui published last year.

Steven Pinker, Rationality: what it is, why it seems scarce, why it matters

Professor David Williams on the place of rationality in human life according to Steven Pinker’s new book.

Daniel Costley, Life’s Journey Creating Unitarian Rites of Passage

The editor’s discussion of Daniel Costley’s Lindsey Press book on constructing special services.

Cover of the issue

Subscription Details

An annual subscription for each volume (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

Nigel Clarke,
Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
16 Fairfields,
Kirton in Lindsey,
Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website: https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on by David Steers · 5 Comments

Rev John Scott Porter (1801-1880)

In an overgrown corner of Belfast’s City Cemetery stands a bold and intricately carved Celtic cross which marks the grave of the Rev John Scott Porter.

Son of a prominent Presbyterian minister and brother to two more he was part of a significant dynasty. This week’s Reflection looks at the life and work of John Scott Porter.

Rev John Scott Porter (1801-1880) – click on the video above (available from 8.00 am on Sunday, 8th May).

Educated at the Belfast Academical Institution he commenced his ministry at Carter Lane Chapel, London (which became Unity Chapel, Islington), where he became a prominent proponent of the Arian group within English Presbyterianism, editing the Christian Moderator. He returned to Belfast, to the First Presbyterian Church, in 1831.

John Scott Porter c.1845 by Richard Rothwell (Ulster Museum/National Musuems Northern Ireland)

In the video we reflect on his career as a theologian, controversialist, Biblical scholar and Unitarian. Other members of his family are buried with him including his brother William, one time attorney general at the Cape Colony, who brought in a franchise that was inclusive of all races.

What can we learn from reflecting on the impressive Celtic cross that marks his grave? An eloquent Victorian statement of piety and memory, for decades long forgotten, yet still making a statement about his beliefs and his ministry.