A blog about church history and related matters, particularly unitarian and non-subscribing history, as well as matters of faith, theology, liberal christianity, non-creedal religion and related topics. By the editor of 'Faith and Freedom' and the 'Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society'.
I’ve blogged before about Mountpottinger – most notably here and here where more details about its history can be seen – it is an interesting building on a prominent site in that part of Belfast and the congregation has a very distinctive history. Today the building is leased to the Bright Umbrella Drama Company who are turning the old school hall into the Studio Theatre and the church itself into the Sanctuary Theatre. But the congregation still has a place on the premises and the exact date of the anniversary of the opening of the building – 3rd January 2025 – was the occasion for this remarkable celebration of the 150 years of Mountpottinger.
Adrian Moir introduces the evening
A lot of credit must go to Adrian Moir, the church secretary and former ‘Warden of the Fabrique’, as the Very Rev Charlie Kelly once termed him, who wrote and narrated this excellent celebration of the life of the congregation. It was a very positive collaboration between the church and the Drama Company which brought the history of the church to life covering three themes:
Foundation and Hope
Tragedy and Remembrance
Adapting to the times and a glimpse of the future
Trevor Gill delivers the Rev David Maginnis’s speech at the opening of the building in 1875. David Maginnis was a controversial but effective minister at York Street who came back to Belfast from Stourbridge to participate in the opening ceremony
The evening was interesting, engaging and witty and also very moving as it looked at the story of Ellen Mary Davies, the wife of the Rev William Jenkin Davies, who died tragically young and in whose memory the school room was built.
Memorial in the School Room
Lindsay Charrington playing the role of Ellen Mary Davies
There was further tragedy with the loss of members of the church in the First World War, including Captain James Samuel Davidson in 1916, on the first day of the battle of the Somme. Also remembered on the evening was church member Sydney Agnew who was killed during the ‘Troubles’ in 1971 to prevent him giving evidence at a trial. It was both fitting and touching that members of Sydney’s family were there to lay a wreath in his memory.
Glenn McGivern writing home from the front as Captain J.S. Davidson
But the whole evening was very impressive, a fitting tribute to 150 years of work and witness which now has the opportunity to be part of a brave new venture as a community hub working in the arts and in drama in the Mountpottinger area.
In celebration of Christmas we have this short video which looks at Charles Dickens and Christmas. The work of Charles Dickens has become deeply entwined in the way we celebrate and enjoy Christmas, most notably through his work A Christmas Carol but it runs through all his writing. A lot of the Victorian imagery that accompanies so much Christmas celebration probably harks back to DIckens as much as anything else.
This short video makes some use of words by Chales Dickens with images from the Continental Market in Belfast and trumpet playing by Jack Steers:
Click on the video
Botticelli Nativity (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Christmas Prayer
Let us pray that strength and courage abundant be given to all who work for a world of reason and understanding; that the good that lies in every one’s heart may day by day be magnified; that we will come to see more clearly not that which divides us, but that which unites us; that each hour may bring us closer to a final victory, not of nation over nation, but of humans over their evils and weaknesses; that the true spririt of this Christmas Season – its joy, its beauty, its hope, and above all its abiding faith – may live among us; that the blessings of peace be ours – the peace to build and grow, to live in harmony and sympathy with others, and to plan for the future with confidence.
(from Celebrating Christmas An Anthology, ed. Carl Seaburg)
Click on the video for an audio recording of our carol service with pictures from the day
We held our Congregational Carol Service at Dunmurry on Sunday, 22nd December. This was a wonderful occasion that was hugely enjoyable with contributions by the Youth Group and Sunday School. With thanks to Allen Yarr for playing the organ and Jack Steers on the trumpet.
Belfast-born Rowel Friers (1920-1998) was perhaps the most famous cartoonist in Ulster, especially for his work during the ‘Troubles’. He began his working life in the art department of the Belfast printing firm of S. C. Allen and Co and studied at the Belfast College of Art. A keen watercolourist and oil painter he nevertheless was best known for his cartoons, which gently but effectively satirised the political situation in Northern Ireland. Our latest video looks at two cartoons by Rowel Friers, although they illustrate his versatility as a cartoonist and relate to life in the eighteenth century.
We have two fine examples of his work hanging on the walls of the Very Rev William McMillan Library in the First Presbyterian Church, Dunmurry. They were commissioned by the Rev William McMillan for an exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Presbytery of Antrim in 1975.
They are both immediately recognisable as his work. The faces of the figures convey exactly what is going on. One (above) is an imagined gathering of clergy around a blacksmith and relates to the practice of communion and the use of communion tokens. The other (below) relates to a specific incident in the history of the Comber congregation at the time of creation of the Presbytery of Antrim at the end of the First Subscription controversy when all the Non-Subscribers were separated from the Synod of Ulster and placed together in the Presbytery of Antrim.
It is good to give them special consideration now, as we prepare for the 300th anniversary of the creation of the Presbytery of Antrim. The full story of both pictures can be seen in the short video above.
I was very pleased to be asked to contribute to this book which has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan:
Antitrinitarianism and Unitarianism in the Early Modern World
The publishers describe the volume in these terms:
This collection offers an innovative and fresh interpretation of Antitrinitarian and rational dissent in the early modern world. The central themes focus on the fierce debates surrounding Antitrinitarianism and Unitarianism that emerged from the Reformation and the lived cultures of these dissenting movements. The chapters take an interdisciplinary approach addressing ideas in context, their reception and appropriation, and the diverse and often conflicting visions of Christianity. Drawing on previously unused sources, many from Eastern Europe and often in inaccessible languages, this book challenges our understanding of dissent as marginal and eccentric and places it at the center of contesting convictions about the nature of religious reform.
The contents are as follows:
Introduction
The Porous Boundaries of Dissent
Bruce Gordon
Antitrinitarianism and Its Influence in Italy and Poland
Italian Antitrinitarianism and the Legitimacy of Dissent
Odile Panetta
Scripture, Piety, and Christian Community in the Thought of the Polish Brethren
Sarah Mortimer
Religiosity in the Ethos of Polish Brethren in Light of Funeral and Wedding Speeches from the Seventeenth Century
Maria Barłowska
True Heirs of Jan Łaski: Polish Brethren Church Discipline in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and During Their Exile in Transylvania
Kazimierz Bem
Transylvanian Unitarianism
The Late Confessionalization of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church and the Polish Brethren
Gizella Keserű
Introduction to the Transylvanian Unitarian Disciplina Ecclesiastica
Lehel Molnár
De Disciplina Ecclesiastica: On Ecclesiastical Discipline (1626)
Alexander Batson
The Term, Development, Purpose, and Practice of Church or Canonical Visitation: Unitarians in Háromszék in the Seventeenth Century Between Conventional Rhetoric and Reality
Lehel Molnár
Some Aspects of the Hungarian Unitarian Liturgy in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Sándor Kovács
Engagement and Divorce Cases Before the Unitarian Consistory in Seventeenth-Century Transylvania. Frameworks in Church Law and the Doctrine of Marriage
David Szigeti Molnar
England, Ireland, and New England
The Historical Critique of Heresiology in the Seventeenth Century and the Origins of John Milton’s Arianism
R. Bradley Holden, Samuel J. Loncar
Authority, Reason, and Anti-trinitarianism: John Abernethy and the Competing Pressures Within Irish Presbyterianism in the Early Eighteenth Century
A. D. G. Steers
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Its Adaptation in Eighteenth-Century Rational Dissent
Bryan Spinks
New England Congregationalists and Unitarianism in Late Eighteenth Century/Early Nineteenth Century
Peter Field
The editors are:
Kazimierz Bem, Pastor of First Church in Marlborough (UCC), USA and a senior lecturer in Church History at the Evangelical School of Theology in Wrocław, Poland.
Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School, USA.
Hardcover ISBN978-3-031-69657-2
Softcover ISBN978-3-031-69660-2
eBook ISBN978-3-031-69658-9
You can find out more about this book via this link.
Our latest video (Number 7) exploring the collection of the Very Rev William McMillan Library at First Dunmurry looks at some Christmas readings. We also have O Come all ye faithful played by Jack Steers on the trumpet.
The video also includes some of the Christmas decoration in the Church including the excellent frieze created by the children of the Youth Group along the rail behind the pulpit, which can be seen in more detail below:
Despite the presence of Storm Darragh on Friday, 6th December we still were able to hold our well-attended service of Carols by Candlelight featuring Harmonic Sounds Concert Band under the direction of Paul Hamilton. It was a great evening and the whole service was livestreamed. You can watch the service here:
Click on the video
The service was conducted by the minister, Rev Dr David Steers, and our readers came from our own Church and our sister churches. They were David Kerr (First Church, Belfast), Kathy Yuille, Sylvia McBride, Adele Johnston, Diana Taggart, Erin Black, Rev Chris Hudson (All Souls’ Church, Belfast), Gilbert Cameron, Rev Chris Carson (Church of Ireland).
Band about to play
The Church was beatifully decorated both outside and in.
And many of those present were able to come over to the Hall for refreshments after the service.
We were delighted to welcome the Choir of Malone College to our Warm Space Coffee Morning at Dunmurry on Thursday morning, 5th December under the direction of their musical director, Mrs Caroline Mitchell.
Click on the video to see Malone College Choir performing at First Dunmurry
The Choir sang a varied programme and were with us for two hours. The video above contains some of their repertoire. We are so glad that Mrs Mitchell, her staff and the Choir are able to take the time out to visit us at the start of the Christmas season, its an occasion that everyone looks forward to and fills us all with a strong sense of the Christmas spirit.
Malone Integrated College Choir at First Dunmurry (NS) Presbyterian Church
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
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Episode 6 of our explorations of the Very Rev William McMillan Library at Dunmurry looks at the writings of the Rev John Abernethy (1680-1740). Without doubt the most prominent Presbyterian minister in Ireland in the early eighteenth century and the foremost exponent of Non-Subscription, he was minister at Antrim (see picture above) and later Wood Street, Dublin.
Click on the video to see John Abernethy’s books
Some of his books were the best sellers of their day and some of his publications were seen as either controversial theological statements or the key to opening up a new way to understand faith, depending on your point of view. Ironically at the time of the first subscription controversy the minister of Dunmurry, the Rev John Malcome, was a vocal opponent of the Non-Subscribers and was the first to use the term ‘New-Light’ about them. But Dunmurry Library has a good selection of his published works, most of them published after Abernethy’s death.
The founder of the Belfast Society in 1705, an outspoken advocate of the rights of the dissenting minority in Ireland and an established philosopher of some importance, John Abernethy’s books had considerable influence and this video looks at his publications held by our Library in Dunmurry.
The next issue (Volume 77 Part 2, Number 199, Autumn and Winter 2024) is due out very soon, so this is a chance to preview our brilliant new Logo:
Faith and Freedom was founded in Oxford at the instance of the Ministerial Old Students’ Association of Manchester College, Oxford in 1947 and has been published continuously since. For the first time we have our own logo. Bold and attractive it expresses our identity and our long tradition of freedom of thought in matters of religion.
velvethummingbee 