Novelty or Antiquity?

One of the questions frequently raised with regard to Christian preaching by some of its earliest hearers in the Roman Empire is one that is rarely heard today: why has this new way of thinking or mode of living just appeared now if it is really true? It was axiomatic among the ancients—both Greeks and Romans—that what was true was old and that what was new was questionable and probably false. Our culture, it should be noted, has the opposite problem with regard to the Faith. It regards what is old as useless and ready for the garbage heap. That which is the latest is regarded as the best and most desirable. Christianity—with its antiquity—seems far too antiquated for far too many in our world. But to the ancient world, Christianity’s big problem was its novelty. Since Christianity appeared to take its rise from the appearance of Christ, this was a major question that had to be answered. Theophilus of Antioch (fl. c.180 A.D.), an early Christian apologist, noted that pagans responded to his testimony about Christ with the assertion that the Christian “Scriptures are new and modern” and are therefore utter nonsense. He quoted some pagans as saying that the Christian “message has been made public only recently, and that we have nothing to say in proof of our truth and our teaching; they call our message foolishness.” [To Autolycus 3.1, 4, trans. Robert M. Grant, Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 101, 105].

The standard answer among Christian apologists was Christianity was rooted in the Old Testament era. Seen in this light, Christian truth had a much better claim to antiquity than either Greek or Roman thought, neither of which were over a millennium old.

The Letter to Diognetus

One early defence of Christianity against the pagan charge of novelty, though, takes a somewhat different approach to this question. The Letter to Diognetus, an anonymous tract written in defence of Christianity some time in the late second century, argues that although God conceived the design of sending his Son to redeem humanity, at first he told it to nobody but the Son. Then, when men and women had shown by their “unruly instincts and…sensuality and lust” that they were both “unworthy to achieve life” and “unable to enter into the kingdom of God by [their] own power,” God sent forth his Son Letter to Diognetus 8.9-9.2 [trans. Maxwell Staniforth, Early Christian Writings (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), 147, altered].

The unknown author does not say a word about the Old Testament period of preparation for the coming of Christ. One possible reason may be that while Christianity is indeed the Ancient Faith, it does partake of a quality of newness that the author does wish to emphasize, as we shall see.

“O sweet exchange!” Something new

The author has argued that God revealed his plan of salvation to none but his “beloved Son” until men realized their utter and complete inability to gain heaven by their own strength. But then, when men were conscious of their sin and God’s impending judgment, God,

“instead of hating us and rejecting us and remembering our wickednesses against us, he showed how long-suffering he is. He bore with us, and in pity he took our sins upon himself and gave his own Son as a ransom for us—the Holy for the wicked, the Sinless for sinners, the Just for the unjust, the Incourruptible for the corruptible, the Immortal for the mortal. For was there, indeed, anything except his righteousness that could have availed to cover our sins? In whom could we, in our lawlessness and ungodliness, have been made holy, but in the Son of God alone? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable working! O benefits unhoped for!—that the wickedness of multitudes should thus be hidden in the One righteous, and the righteousness of One should justify the countless wicked!” [Letter to Diognetus 9.2-5 (trans. Staniforth, Early Christian Writings, 147-148, altered)].

This is a truly marvellous text, as the author, overwhelmed by what took place at the cross, is lost in rapture, awe, and praise. Here, as so often happens in the writings of Paul, theological reflection leads to praise and worship and doxology.

Yet, the doxological nature of this passage should not lead us to overlook the way that it also contributed to the author’s defence of the Christian worldview. Why should the truth claims of Christianity be weighed seriously? Because, unlike other religions, it deals decisively with the ever-perennial problem of human sin. A renowned historian of this era, Henry Chadwick, puts this point well when he states that one of the major reasons for the growth of the church was the fact that the gospel it preached “spoke of divine grace in Christ, the remission of sins and the conquest of evil powers for the sick soul, tired of living and scared of dying, seeking for an assurance of immortality” [The Early Church (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1967), 55].

And this was something truly new for the pagan world and something that that world truly needed to hear.

“At once so ancient and so new”

But that message—“at once so ancient and so new” (Augustine, Confessions 10.27)—is equally needed in our world that seems capable of only being fired up by what is modern and up to date. The ancient message of the new birth and the new covenant is still good news to modern—or should I say post-modern?—men and women and children grappling with the ever-present problems of sin and death and meaning and hope.

Some Words of John Gill at the Opening of the Carter Lane Meeting-House

The words of C. H. Spurgeon at the opening of the Metropolitan tabernacle in 1861 are well-known. Below are some of the words spoken by his distinguished predecessor John Gill (1697-1771) when the Carter Lane meeting-house opened in Southwark, London, on October 9, 1757. Gill was preaching from Exodus 20:24, in the course of which he stated: “As we have now opened a new place of worship, we enter upon it recording the Name of the Lord by preaching the doctrines of the grace of God, and free and full salvation alone by Jesus Christ; and by the administration of gospel ordinances, as they have been delivered to us. What doctrines may be taught in the place after I am gone is not for me to know; but as for my own part, I am at a point; I am determined, and have been long ago, what to make the subject of my ministry. It is upwards of forty years since I entered into the arduous work; and [the] first sermon I ever preached was from these words of the apostle, “For I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”: and through the grace of God I have been enabled, in some good measure, to abide by the same resolution hitherto, as many of you here are my witness; and, I hope, through divine assistance, I ever shall, as long as I am in this tabernacle, and engaged in such a work.”

Over the course of the past 250 years there have been especially four distinguished ministries in this congregation—those of John Rippon, C.H. Spurgeon, Tydeman Chilvers, and currently that of Peter Masters. Like that of Gill, they have faithfully upheld “the doctrines of the grace of God, and free and full salvation alone by Jesus Christ” and we trust that Gill, if he could have seen the future, would have rejoiced in this remarkable succession of biblical preaching.

Andrew Fuller Works on Cd

The one-volume 1845 Bohn edition of Andrew Fuller’s works, The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, has just been released on CD. K. David Oldfield, who is the pastor of Calvary Independent Baptist Church in Post Falls, Idaho, and who has done the scanning of this work via OCR, rightly notes in the “Preface to this Electronic Edition” that “modern Baptists may have heard about this man and his theology, but very few have ever directly read any of his material. In many cases, based upon hearsay, people have formed negative conclusions about him and in the process dismissed the wealth of wisdom and instruction that he has left us.” Oldfield also believes that a hard copy of Fuller’s works that is available may be too prohibitive cost-wise for wide circulation. Is he referring to the three-volume edition that Sprinkle Publications issued a number of years ago: The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (1845 ed.; repr. Harrisonburg, Virginia: 1988)? If so, it should be mentioned that this three-volume work has certain other inadequacies, including its incompleteness, the small font size of the text, and the lack of both critical annotation and adequate indices.

This electronic edition by Oldfield also suffers from not being complete, for there are two volumes of additional writings of Fuller that it does not contain. These are not included in any of the standard hard-copy editions of his works and neither of them is readily available today: J. W. Morris, collected, Miscellaneous Pieces on Various Religious Subjects, being the last remains of the Rev. Andrew Fuller and Joseph Belcher, ed., The Last Remains of the Re. Andrew Fuller (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, [1856]). Nevertheless, having Fuller’s works in electronic form is fabulous, both in terms of research possibilities and usability.

Oldfield rightly notes that although “most of us would quarrel with Fuller in some areas of theology, in the main, most sovereign grace Baptists would not only agree with him, but would be blessed by reading his expositions and closely thought-out arguments against the heretics of his day.” And as he further notes, modern-day Baptists are deeply indebted to Fuller, for “along with a few others,” Fuller “was instrumental in bringing Baptists back to their “evangelical” and New Testament roots, helping to send William Carey as a missionary to India and imploring the lost of Great Britain to come to Christ.”

The CD can be ordered from kdoidaho@earthlink.net at a very reasonable price. The Works on the CD come in WordPerfect, MS Word and Adobe PDF.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Comfort of Irresistible Grace

It is interesting that the full details about the current rioting in Paris and its suburbs are not being given in most of the media. Here is the opening line of a report from today on AOL: “Bands of youths torched more than 750 cars and burned warehouses and a nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from the restive Paris suburbs to towns around France.” You have to read most of the article to find out that the rioting is taking place in areas that are “home to large populations of African Muslim immigrants and their children living in low-income housing projects marked by high unemployment, crime and despair.” The riots are being done by Muslims. Similar riots have also been taking place in Denmark, which are clearly religiously motivated. See this post at Southern Appeal. What will it take for the western media to realize that Islam is not a religion of peace, as so many blithely claim, but one that clearly espouses violence and that in its holy book? “Holy” violence is at the heart of Islam from its earliest history and is central to its current reality. Of course, this is not to deny that the poverty and despair of the housing estates play a significant factor in the cause of the riots. But the western media, and especially that in France, have been reluctant to admit that what is going on here is really a clash of civilizations, to use a well-worn phrase made popular by Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard political scientist.  

Huntington used this phrase in his Summer 1993 Foreign Affairs essay “The Clash of Civilizations?” and he later expanded the idea into a book. In essence, he argued that Islam has bloody borders and wherever it is currently advancing in the world there is violence. Huntington’s hypothesis has not been without significant critique (see the items listed @ Clash of Civilizations?), but it does seem to have substantial evidence to back it up. The rioting in France seems to offer further support for Huntington’s hypothesis.

How then do we, who are believers, need to live in such a day as this? We need to pray passionately for the invincible advance of the gospel (see the model for this in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2). And we need to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers amidst the harvest fields of Islam, ever confident that God will save his people. Is the salvation of a spiritually dead western secularist easier than that of a fervent, yet also spiritually dead, Muslim? Of course not! The power needed to bring about salvation of both is alike to the Spirit. Oh the comfort of irresistible grace!

Loving the Church

What a precious text is Ephesians 5:25b: “Christ … loved the church and gave himself for her.” Before time began or space was formed, the One we know as the Lord Jesus Christ had set his heart on dying for those human sinners who would one day make up the church, the Bride of the Lord Jesus. Not out of necessity or from need, not by constraint or grudgingly, but from a heart of love, out of mercy and kindness, freely and willingly, Christ came into this world to die for the church. It is unfortunate that our word “church” is commonly used as a description of the building in which God’s people meet to worship. We thus talk about “going to church.” Early Christians, of course, were spared such confusion, for until the late third century believers did not have distinct buildings set apart for worship. Instead they would meet in Christian homes and for them the church easily had the quality of a family. And it was in the intimacy of this setting that they learned to truly love one another. So the Apostle refers to fellow-believers in the church at Rome as “my beloved Epaenetus” (Rom 16:5), Amplias, “my beloved in the Lord” (Rom 16:8), and “Stachys, my beloved” (Rom 16:9).

And earlier in the chapter, Paul shows us true love in action. Aquila and Priscilla, husband and wife, loved Paul so much that they were willing to risk their very lives for the Apostle. Literally, they put their necks on the line for Paul (Rom 16:4). When this happened we do not know. But that it happened spoke volumes for Paul about what it means to be in Christ. He never forgot what could have been a very costly display of love. He treasured the memory of the incident and the love that lay behind it. The love of Aquila and Priscilla powerfully illustrated genuine Christlikeness.

If we love Christ we cannot but love what he loves and be filled with the sweet love he has for his church.

Antoine Court & Francophone Evangelicalism

A close friend of mine, Stéphane Gagné, a Baptist pastor in Québec, went on a missions trip this past summer to Europe. A passionate student of history, Stéphane took time to visit key places associated with Francophone Evangelicalism. He was deeply moved by  being in Lausanne where the great French Calvinist Antoine Court—born March 17, 1695, at Villeneuve-de-Berg in France, and died June 12, 1760, in Lausanne, Switzerland—founded a seminary. By God’s grace, Court played a central role in the restoration of the Reformed churches in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) and after the devastation caused by the disorderliness of the French Prophets. The story of the French Reformed community is a both a thrilling one and one of profound sadness—the missionary zeal during the Reformation, the steadfastness under persecution, the destruction of Reformed communities under the French sovereigns of the 17th century, the recovery of many of these communities under Court, the falling away of many into liberalism in the late 18th century, and then Le réveil of the 19th century—all areas of rich instruction. Yet, much of it is terra incognita to the Evangelical worlds of Anglophones and even Francophones. How much there is for us to read in the story of the Church!

Old and New Hymns

I have long lamented the current craze that rejects classical hymnody. The singing of the classical hymns of the past is possibly one of the few places, if not the only place, that many modern evangelicals have contact with our evangelical forebears. The rejection of these hymns, and by extension much of our past, is utter folly and will be devastating. May God wake us up and enable us to save our hymns. Alongside this, though, we need new hymn writers, writers of lyrics that share all of the features of classical hymnody. Praise God there seems to be a revival of genuine hymnody. Dr. Al Mohler draws attention to the work of Keith and Kristyn Getty in his most recent piece on his blog: “Oh, to See the Dawn”—A New Hymn Worth Singing… Over and Over Again” (http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=357). Keith Getty co-wrote the well-known “In Christ Alone” with Stuart Townend. Check out Getty Music at http://www.gettydirect.com/index.asp and hear excerpts from their new album, “Hymns for the Life of the Church” (New Irish Hymns 4, Kingsway Music), released in October.

May our glorious Triune God continue to empower this brother and sister and others like them, and raise up even more new hymnists to pen songs for his people to sing his praise!

The Altar Call: Resources

Here is an exellent bibliography on “Decisional Regeneration (Altar Calls)” at the provocations and pantings blog. The first item on the list is David Bennett, The Altar Call: It’s Origins and Present Usage (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2000), which is the definitive examination of this evangelical phenomenon. When I read it a few years ago, I thought, finally someone has detailed the history of this unbiblical practice. Find it and read it.

Remembering Lady Jane Grey

An important Reformation hero to be remembered on the upcoming anniversary of Reformation Day (October 31) is Jane Grey (1537-1554). Her faith and witness, which shone out so strongly in the days before her execution on February 12, 1554, is a good reminder that the heroes of the Reformation are not simply the remarkable cadre of theologians that emerged at that time, men like Martin Luther, Huldreich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Thomas Cranmer, and John Calvin. But the faith that these Reformers sought to explicate and promote gripped the hearts of many who were not vocational theologians. Jane Grey was such a one. Only a day or so before her death, Jane wrote in her Greek New Testament a letter for her younger sister Katherine, who was fourteen. She was seeking to encourage Katherine to turn from the fleeting pleasures of this world to embrace Christ and find a treasure that is eternal. She wrote: “I have sent you, good sister Katherine, a book, which although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the laws of the lord: It is His Testament and Last Will, which He bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy, and if you, with a good mind read it, and with an earnest desire, follow it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. …as touching my death, rejoice as I do and consider that I shall be delivered of this corruption and put on incorruption, for as I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal life, find an immortal felicity.”

Here we see the typical Reformation love of the Scriptures: “it is more worth than precious stones.” And central to this love of the Scriptures is Jane’s clear understanding as to why they were given: to lead sinners—those whom Jane calls “us wretches”—“to the path of eternal joy” and “immortal and everlasting life.” Finally, she has an assurance of salvation, a basic datum of New Testament Christian experience that had been recovered by the Reformers.

If we ask why she had such an assurance, a final document that she wrote, also on the eve of her execution, tells us. She wrote the following three sentences in her prayer book, the first in Latin, then one in Greek and the final one in English: “If justice be done with my body, my soul will find mercy with God. Death will give pain to my body for its sins, but the soul will be justified before God. If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least, and my imprudence, were worthy of excuse; God and posterity will show me favour.” She has assurance of salvation because she stands justified before God, she has been made right with God, and thus is now confident of his favour.

Robert Haldane & the British Navy

Robert Haldane (1764-1842) was an important 19th-century Scottish Baptist leader whose ministry via the spoken word and written text deeply impacted Baptists in what was then British North America—now Canada—and Francophone Evangelicals on the European continent. Here is a fine little study of his naval days and links with Lord Nelson, whom I have been blogging about recently. A dear friend and colleague wrote it, Clint Humfrey @ Cowboyology: 'An Ornament to His Country'. Clint ends it by saying: “Was Robert Haldane ‘an ornament to his country’ in the way that Horatio Nelson was? Certainly not. But in Immanuel’s land, Haldane’s name will be written in the greatest of books (Rev. 20:12), while Nelson may not even rank a mention.”

David Brainerd & Today’s Teenage Boys

Browsing through some blogs I came across a humorous reference to Ranelda Hunsicker’s David Brainerd (Bethany House Publishers, 1999) in Kim’s The Upward Call. See her post “Through the eyes of 21st Century Boys.” Her thirteen-year-old son is reading the book, which depicts Brainerd on the front cover with a pony tail. She notes that his first remarks about the book were: “Hey! Sweet! He has a ponytail! Why can’t I have a ponytail?”

Kim later showed the book to his eleven- year-old brother, who is also going to read the book. His comment was: “He has the word nerd in his name.”

Kim’s comment to all of this typical young adolescent male talk (how well I know this because of one in my household!) was “I don’t know if I should laugh or bang my head against the wall.” I can sympathize!

The Eternality of the Body

Among the Ancients it was the Greeks who were most fascinated with the human body—witness their sculpture and passion for sports. Yet it was these very men and women who scorned the idea of a physical resurrection when they heard it from the lips of the Apostle (Acts 17:32). Similarly our culture in North America is passionate about the human body and its various expressions—witness our sports, faddish diets, and the use of sex to promote everything from beer to cars. Yet, the preaching of the resurrection—“We believe in the resurrection of the body”—is rejected as nonsense or scorned as utterly naïve.

But such hope is what binds us to the community of saints throughout time. God’s people in the past had the conviction that with their bodily eyes they would see the King of glory. And with such a hope could they face down the complete disintegration of their physical frame.

Not for nothing has death sometimes been termed “the King of Terrors.” It seemingly destroys all that we are. The Christian, though, has a hope stronger than death: “sown in dishonour;…raised in glory;…sown in weakness;…raised in power;… sown a natural body;…raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:43-44).

Though this body, so essential to my sense of identity, crumble into dust, the living God knows every molecule and every atom. And He will, in time, refashion all of them into a body totally controlled by the Spirit of His Son and covered with His glory.

“But lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day; The saints triumphant rise in bright array…”

(William Walsham How, 1823-1897)

St. Crispin’s Day and “Bands of Brothers”

We have been thinking of the Battle of Trafalgar in recent days (by the way, I hope to post something more on this in the next week) in which Napoleon’s fantasy of invading Great Britain was scotched once and for all. One of the elements in the British victory was the sense of personal loyalty that Nelson’s men felt towards him and Nelson to them. In Nelson’s words, “I had the happiness to command a band of brothers.” The phrase “band of brothers” is drawn from William Shakespeare’s Henry V, a play from which Nelson frequently quoted. On this, see Adam Nicolson’s brilliant study, Men of Honour. Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero (London: Harper Collins, 2005), 125-127. The phrase occurs in the speech of Henry V, as Shakespeare imagined it, on that day that he defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415.

“…Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered— We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” (Henry V, Act IV, Scene III, lines 58-68).

Reading George Grant’s blog— Grantian Florilegium—for today alerted me to the fact that today is St. Crispin’s Day, on which Henry V won his notable victory at Agincourt. Henry V did make a speech that day, though, of course Shakespeare’s words are not what he actually said. But there is no doubt that the speech is stirring stuff—the stuff on which young men feed mind and heart—and which Nelson knew could foster valour and heroism.

Now, if it be true that Nelson’s band of brothers were critical to his victory, how much more so is it in the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus. Did not Paul have such a band on his missionary travels? And the Cappadocian Fathers when they sought to beat back Arianism? And William Carey in India? Far more has been accomplished for the Kingdom of God by such “bands of brothers” than by isolated stellar figures!

Being Episcopal or Congregational?

I have always considered it a great privilege that I did both my master’s and doctoral levels of theological studies at the evangelical Anglican seminary Wycliffe College, here in Toronto. There I was exposed to the scholarship and piety of such men as R. K. Harrison, Richard Longenecker, Jakob Jocz, Oliver O’Donovan, and Alan Hayes, and profoundly shaped by the Reformed worship of the Book of Common Prayer. For a while in the 1970s, a fellow-student and I—he coming from a non-denominational charismatic background and I from a Fellowship Baptist context—considered becoming Anglicans, for there was much that we found attractive in evangelical Anglicanism. But I stumbled over two issues in particular, though I suspect there would be further issues today. First, I could not be reconciled to the idea of infant baptism. I could not—and still cannot— see any place for such a rite in the life of a church seeking to be in harmony with the New Testament. Then, there was one of the Six Principles of the College that well summed up the doctrinal orientation of the school. I could fully subscribe to five of the six, which encapsulated the Reformed piety of the Church of England when it was founded in the sixteenth century—for these principles, see “Six Principles” (http://www.wycliffecollege.ca/subsection.php?aid=4&sid=8&ssid=6). But I wrestled with the fifth one, which entailed subscription to “The historic episcopate, a primitive and effective instrument for maintaining the unity and continuity of the Church.”

As a student of Patristics, I knew something of the early roots of episcopacy. Ignatius of Antioch (died c.107) was clearly an early advocate of a threefold form of church government (bishop, elders, and deacons). But, as with baptism, I had to test episcopacy against the New Testament. And in that foundation document for the church, there are only two ongoing offices distinctly delineated—elders, sometimes called bishops or overseers, and deacons. Other ministries, like that of the Apostles, were foundational in the structure of the Church, but never intended to be ongoing. Moreover, studying the New Testament I was convinced that the congregation played a vital role in the governance of the Church. I thus embraced what John Owen (1616-1683), the “Calvin of England,” has called “the old, glorious, beautiful face of Christianity.” For an historical study of this, see my “ ‘The old, glorious, beautiful face of Christianity’: Congregationalism and Baptist life”, The Gospel Witness, 84, No. 5 (October 2005).

So I did not become an Anglican but stayed a Baptist, more firmly and consciously committed to our Congregational heritage. But I am so glad I went through the struggle of determining what church polity best reflected that of the New Testament church. It deepened my love for and commitment to our Baptist heritage.

Lady Jane Grey–New Bio by Faith Cook

The story of Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554)—reluctant Queen of England for a few days in the month of July 1553 and executed the following year—is one that has long intrigued historians of the Tudor era, particularly because of her role in the nefarious nexus of the politics of that day and also because of her remarkable faith. Faith Cook also owns that she has long been fascinated by Jane’s “pitiful and heroic story” (p.9). And in this book her fascination has produced a biography worthy of her subject: Lady Jane Grey: Nine Day Queen of England (Darlington, Durham: Evangelical Press, 2004). From a historiographical point of view, Jane’s story is a difficult one since it cannot be understood without due consideration of the politics surrounding her life. Jane was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s youngest and favourite sister, and thus was that wily monarch’s great niece. During her life she stood fourth in line to the English throne after Henry’s three children—Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth—and was elevated to the crown after the death of her cousin Edward VI. Cook does an excellent job of making the political backdrop to Jane’s life come alive, no easy task given the utter complexity of this background.

Much of the sadness of Jane’s life came from the way that many of those around her—in particular, her parents, Henry and Frances Grey, who were despicable social climbers—used her for their own selfish ambitions (see, e.g., p.36, 59-60, 147-148). In the midst of all this muck and murkiness, Jane, who was “highly articulate, strong-minded and determined—even stubborn” like many of her Tudor relatives (p.93) and who had a “fearless disposition” (p.100), shone as only a true Christian can.

Her final days, summed up Cook under the chapter headings “I Have Kept the Faith” and “A Crown of Righteousness,” indicate how, from a biblical perspective, the closing days of Jane’s life are to be understood. Cook is right: “her unswerving courage, even when the alternatives of life and death were set before her and depended upon the answers she gave, should not be forgotten” (p.10).

Saint Nelson?

Today is the 200th anniversary of the victory of the British fleet under Horatio Nelson over the French at Trafalgar. I would have first heard of Nelson when I was growing up as a young child in England in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There is no doubt that he was one of my childhood heroes. Reading some of what has been written this past year on Nelson and this important battle has helped me revisit the story of this English hero. And it has prompted me to ask how we who are evangelicals are to remember this battle. Specifically, “should evangelical Christians praise God for Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar?” Stan Evers, pastor of a Calvinistic Baptist work in Potton, Bedfordshire, England, has sought to answer this question in an extremely thoughtful article entitled “Saint Nelson?” [Grace Magazine (October 2005), 5]. DV, I hope to find some time in the near future to reflect on his important answer to this question. For Stan’s article, read it on the Banner of Truth website: Saint Nelson?