This is the first book to attempt a theological portrait of a pivotal
generation in the history of the English Free Churches. It does so
through a dual strategy: firstly, studying the theological development
of key leaders over several decades; and secondly, capturing the state
of the Unions -- Congregational and Baptist -- through the freeze frames
provided by their biggest denominational controversies in the 1870s and
1880s respectively. Archetypal Victorians whose working lives stretched
through most of that long reign, in the 1860s this generation inherited
leadership from a predecessor that had eked out the dying momentum of
the Evangelical Revival. Bathed in the formidable energy of a newly
discovered Romanticism, they wrestled strenuously with the fresh
challenges it exposed them to while engaged in lengthy ministries in
thriving city churches. They variously tried rejecting and embracing the
liberal transformation of their evangelical heritage, or even, in the
case of R.W. Dale, somehow achieving their synthesis. Yet in the end
neither he nor C.H. Spurgeon, nor anyone else, really found an
expression of Christian faith that the next generation could take up and
build with, and their successors were to preside over the first obvious
stages of a long, deep, and traumatic decline. At a time when this
period is again being scrutinized for that elusive 'answer', the author
will not claim to have tracked it down there; but the conclusion
nonetheless indicates that this study surprisingly helped open up vistas
much broader than those of the nineteenth-century debates. The changes
in Evangelical Nonconformist theology during the Victorian period, in a
conservative as well as in a liberal direction, are thoroughly analyzed
here by Mark Hopkins. The 'Downgrade Controversy, ' in which C. H.
Spurgeon challenged the liberal tendency, is illuminated as never
before. - David Bebbington, Department of History, University of
Stirling, Scotland, UK Mark Hopkins is a careful and sympathetic scholar
who gets behind the headline thinking that so easily translated
theological differences into divisive controversies. Thus his monograph
will be essential reading for all who wish to understand the polarities
of late nineteenth-century Nonconformity. - John Briggs, Senior Research
Fellow in Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Centre for Baptist
History and Heritage, Regent's Park College, University of Oxford Dr
Mark Hopkins' book touches on events which in certain circles continue
to have a life and a legacy of considerable weight. His careful and
painstaking research particularly into the 'Downgrade Controversy'
offers new insights and fresh perspectives in a way which illuminates
the present as well as the past. - Nigel G. Wright, Principal,
Spurgeon's College and Ex-President, Baptist Union of Great Britain Mark
Hopkins was born in Surrey and read modern history at Christ Church,
Oxford. After three years working with Christian students in Belgium he
returned to Christ Church to work on a doctoral thesis published here in
revised form. Since 1990 he has been a lecturer at the Theological
College of Northern Nigeria in Bukuru.
