Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Evangelicalism, cultural influences and theological change: considered with special reference to the thought of Thomas Rawson Birks (1810-1883) Thesis How to cite: Brown, Ralph Stuart (1997). Evangelicalism, cultural influences and theological change: considered with special reference to the thought of Thomas Rawson Birks (1810-1883). PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 1997 The Author Version: Version of Record Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk 1 (AN C1( C7 Evangelicalism, cultural influences and theological change; considered with special reference to the thought of Thomas Rawson Birks (1810 - 1883). Ralph Stuart Brown B. A. (Hons.) Department of Religious Studies, The Open University. Submitted for examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 9 September 1996. J'128221c' QcMzr (C,ctf 2 Abstract This thesis presents a detailed analysis of the thought of the leading nineteenth century Anglican Evangelical theologian Thomas Rawson BirkS (18 10-1883). It is organised on a broadly chronological basis and discusses Birks's dogmatic and philosophical theology, sermons, and journalism. It also takes full account of his contributions to contemporary debates on social, political and scientific issues, considering them in relation to their cultural and ideological context. The study presents an assessment of the nature and importance of B irks's theological output. It also considers Birks's thought in relation to the changing character of nineteenth-century Evangelicalism itself and to the wider question of the relationship between cultural influences and theological change. The thesis will argue that B irks's distinctive interpretations of central Evangelical doctrines represented an original and important contribution to the Evangelical tradition. B irks's career also reflects some prominent ideological tendencies and concerns through which the religious character of the Evangelical movement as a whole can be better understood. Finally, this thesis aims to demonstrate that Birks's intellectual and scientific interests, philosophical outlook and religious sensibility reveal him to have been a representative product of mainstream Victorian culture. 3 CONTENTS I. Introduction 4 Part One: 1810 - 1860 II. Evangelical theology and its cultural context: the early career of T. R. B irks 20 III. Prophecy and eschatology 38 IV. Politics and society 64 V. Pan-evangelicalism and Protestant defence 87 VI. Philosophy, science and Scripture 103 Part Two: 1860- 1883 VII. Evangelicals and the 'crisis of faith' 129 VIII. Disestablishment and Ritualism 144 IX. Christology, salvation and the future life 157 X. The Bible: inspiration and revelation 185 XI. Theology and natural science 203 XII. Conclusion 229 Appendices 237 Bibliography 243 4 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Claude Welch has observed that 'the theological situation of the twentieth century is peculiarly dependent on the developments of the nineteenth century'.' He might equally have argued that our understanding of the history of nineteenth-century religious thought is particularly dependent upon contemporary theological preoccupations and concerns. Recent historians have, for example, largely concentrated their attention on praising what, from the perspective of the late twentieth century, appear to have been the vital creative innovations in nineteenth-century Anglican thought, often neglecting the work of those Churchmen regarded as representatives of an outmoded religious orthodoxy.2 As a result, the Evangelical contribution to Victorian intellectual life is 1Welch, C., 'The Problem of a History of Nineteenth-Century Theology', Journal of Religion, 1972, 52, p. 1. 2E. g. Reardon, B. M. G., From Coleridge to Gore: A Century of Religious Thought in Britain (London, 1971). As the title of this book implies, Reardon sets his discussion of the period within a framework dictated by a consideration of the work of the leading innovators from the liberal and Anglo-Catholic parties. assumed to have been negligible. 3 Evangelicals have been presented as ignorant, reactionary and 'profoundly anti-intellectual'. 4 Their alleged veneration of emotion over reason, it is argued, prevented Evangelicals from mounting an effective intellectual response to the critical approaches to Scripture typified by Essays and Reviews (1860) and the work of Bishop Colenso.5 However, important recent scholarship has sought to reappraise the development of Evangelical thought. Boyd Hilton has presented a reconsideration of the intellectual and social influence of Evangelical religion, discussing the importance of Evangelical theology in shaping public policy during the first half of the nineteenth century.6 David Bebbington, in the first major modern academic history of British Evangelicalism, has interpreted Evangelical theology and spirituality within its broader cultural context.7 E. M. Culbertson, writing from an Anglican Evangelical perspective, has also sought to defend the intellectual sophistication and scholarly achievements of some leading nineteenth-century Evangelical Churchmen. 8 He has provided a valuable survey of this neglected field of study but has focused on a rather narrow range of printed sources, which are largely discussed in isolation from their wider cultural context, and he consequently presents a simplified and somewhat distorted view of nineteenth-century Evangelical thought. 3The capitalized form of this noun will be used in this study to refer to the Evangelical Protestant 'movement' as a whole. While the focus of the thesis is primarily upon the development of Anglican Evangelicalism, this is to be set firmly within the context of traditions and influences that crossed denominational boundaries. For the implications of alternative usages see Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, A Histo.'y from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989), P. 278. 4Prickett, S., Romanticism and Religion, The Tradition of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the Victorian Church (Cambridge, 1976), p. 253. 5Altholz, J. L., 'The Mind of Victorian Orthodoxy: Anglican Responses to 'Essays and Reviews', 1860-1864' in Parsons, G. (ed.), Religion in Victorian Britain: Volume IV Interpretations (Manchester, 1988), pp. 28-40. 6Hilton, B., The Age ofAtonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-1865 (Oxford, 1988). 7Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, A History from the 1 730s to the 1980s (London, 1989). 8Culbertson, E. M., 'Evangelical Theology, 1857-1900', PhD. thesis, King's College London, 1991. 6 This thesis presents a reappraisal of the thought of the 'leading dogmatic Evangelical theologian'9 T. R. Birks (1810-1883) and aims, through the detailed analysis of his work, to present a more rounded picture of the complexities of nineteenth-century Evangelicalism. It will, in particular, seek to analyse and to interpret the role of premillennial adventism in the development of Evangelical theology. It will also study Birks's output in order to investigate some of the wider dimensions of Evangelical thought, including political and social attitudes, and addresses the debate concerning the relationship between Evangelicalism and its social and cultural context stimulated by the work of Hilton and Bebbington. The thesis takes the form of a chronological account of Birks's career. Within this overall structure, there are three major themes that will also be explored: 1. The historical significance of B irks's career B irks has been chosen for the purposes of this study as he was a respected leader of the Anglican Evangelical party and, by the mid-nineteenth century, its foremost academic theologian.' 0 He was also active in the major Evangelical societies and campaigning organizations and was a prolific polemicist, speaking for the Evangelical clergy on many of the controversial issues of his day. Birks's active church career, from the 1 830s to the I 870s, conveniently spans the period usually characterized as the 'Victorian era' 11 and his publications thus provide a useful perspective from which to assess the Evangelical role in some of the major intellectual controversies of that period. 9Thid., p. 293. 101n a disparaging survey of anti-ritualist literature, Gerard Manley Hopkins observed that, 'At Hampstead lives almost the only learned Evangelical going, Mr. Birks.' Letter to Rev. E. W. Urquhart, 1865, in Abbott, C. C., Further Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins (second edition, London, 1956), p. 18. 11E. g. Houghton, W. E., The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-70 (New Haven, 1957). Birks was, for example, one of the most prominent clerical opponents of the evolutionary ideas of Darwin and Spencer. B irks was also one of the leading Anglican prophetic scholars and the pattern of his early published output is representative of the way in which adventism had been assimilated into Evangelical theology and spirituality. Birks's involvement in anti-Catholic agitation and pan-Evangelicalism further reflects the broader influence of adventism upon the Evangelical mentality. In the mid-nineteenth century, B irks was one of the few 'conservative' religious thinkers who felt impelled to articulate serious philosophical