Westminster Conference 2014

We had an enjoyable couple of days in Regent Hall, Oxford Street, on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

The theme was 'Authentic Calvinism' and one of the great games at the Westminster Conference is trying to see the link between the talks and the conference title, and indeed why one title is chosen one year rather than another.

Stephen Clark began with a good overview of Whitefield and Howell Harris, asking the question why such godly men seemed to be so unrealistic and out of touch with their humanity when it came to marriage. There is an ancient tradition of suspicion of sex and marriage in the Christian world, but the lack of self-awareness Harris and Whitefield showed and their insensitivity to the womenfolk in their lives spoke more of a super-spirituality in trying to reconcile their preaching ministries with the idea of marriage, than any deep rooted dualism or depreciation of marriage in general.

The discussion raised a number of interesting issues about whether there was a creation/redemption dualism in the 18th century. It certainly seems as if there was. The rationalism of the late 17th and the 18th century led to a reaction by the pietists, and ever since evangelicals have been prone to denigrate the mind, the body and culture in relation to the spirit. But the pendulum can swing in the other direction. We rarely seem to have recovered the harmony that the Reformers and Puritans generally seem to have displayed, better than their successors in the 18th Century.

The subject deserves to be discussed but perhaps a firmer historical or theological basis than the marriages of two unique figures (one of whom at least was probably mentally imbalanced at times) would be needed to ground the discussion.

Adrian Brake gave an excellent presentation on the life and legacy of Thomas Charles of Bala. Geoff Thomas chaired the discussion beautifully, asking a number men to give personal views on how we may in practice combine the life of the mind with a devotional heart. This changed the ethos of the day - we became more serious, and more practical.

Andrew Davies closed the day with a warm-hearted and erudite overview of the international nature of Calvinistic Methodism.

Wednesday began with Canadian Mark Jones speaking on antinomianism. His knowledge of the 17th century debates is vast and he has written a well regarded book on the subject. But his presentation was rather piecemeal and even very intelligent men who spoke to me afterwards had found him hard to follow. It would have been more satisfying to have had a cogent presentation of the subject; as someone said to me, his style would have been great for a seminar, but not the best for a conference like this.

But the discussion was helpful, and we managed to get it onto modern day problems.

Robert Strivens helpfully outlined the life and legacy of Richard Baxter, and we had a lively discussion as to what this legacy was. Robert made the point that his dodgy theology particularly on justification (and one might say the atonement too) did not seem to be very evident in his best known pastoral and evangelistic works -Call to the Unconverted and Saints Everlasting Rest.

Finally Andrew Young gave a good overview of the international ministry of John Knox - matching up with the international nature of Calvinistic Methodism (there, see, I got the connection).

The discussions as always contained many good points and some good questions, but rarely if ever soared to the level of a debate. But it was all heartwarming and edifying, and good to see old friends (and boy, are we all getting old together - not only grey heads, but the same grey heads, come to the Westminster Conference, which is even more worrying).

Thanks to the committee for putting the programme together - an enjoyable two days near lots of good coffee shops.