Crumbs from the Table

Today, at our church coffee morning, I gave a brief presentation about two cousins from the late 1600s, and early 1700s born in a small town called Heptonstall, and who were instrumental in the spread of Baptist Christianity in our "neck of the woods": William Mitchell (b.1663) and David Crossley (b. 1669).  The first ever Baptist churches on English soil were started in 1611 and 1638 respectively, and spread out from London with offshoots in places such as Coventry, Kent and Wales.  The earliest Baptist churches in the North West (historic Lancashire and Cheshire) began around 1650: one in Manchester and one in Warrington.  However, William Mitchell and David Crossley started out as itinerant preachers from about 1685, and were not initially Baptists by conviction. Before becoming Baptist, they bravely preached and set up "preaching stations" throughout the area bordering Yorkshire and Lancashire in places such as Barnoldswick, Bacup and Rawdon. Eventually these be...

Today Friday 13 March 2026, myself and a number of other Christians locally are devoting to prayer for our Muslim neighbours. I hope to attend "iftar" tonight - the daily breaking of the fast, a community meal at the mosque.  As far as I know, there are currently five mosques operating in Bury, Lancs, where I live. These are: 1. Khizra mosque , Walmersley Road (begun in the 1960s) 2. Jamia Khizra  mosque near Asda  3. Qadria Jillania mosque on Church Street (near what used to be St Paul's church) 4. Noor ul Islam mosque on Yarwood Street  5. The Shia Community (Al Mahdi Foundation) on Hornby Street - the Shia Muslims are a different branch of Islam to the majority "Sunni" Muslims.  The main weekly service of prayer at the Mosque is Friday lunchtime, and in Bury this is attended by hundreds of men and boys - at the biggest mosque there might be as many as a thousand in attendance. Women have a parallel meeting in another room. I have observed this in-pers...

It is simply a fact. Believers in the God of the Bible - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - represent a religious minority in our country and in our world. Revivals - quiet or otherwise - at home and abroad do not alter that fact. There are no countries in the world which could be called Christian in the sense in which that may have been the case in the Middle Ages.  And yet I also believe that God's law is for everyone. By that I mean that as well as being for believers, God's law is also relevant and applicable to all people. In some cases that is obvious: there is clearly no one who is allowed to steal or murder or commit perjury. But it is also true that there is no one who is free to covet (desire) what is not theirs. Nor is there anyone who, morally, is free to refuse to recognise the One true God and give him the worship he alone deserves.  Now, I need to be clear what I mean and what I *don't* mean by the above paragraph. I *don't* mean that I believe in the idea of ...

The first half of the 1700s in England was a tumultuous time.  In the wake of the religious toleration proclaimed in 1689, many once strong churches drifted from their doctrinal moorings and began to question the deity of Christ, aspects of his atoning work, and the veracity of his Word. This was true, for example, of the General Baptists, and of the Presbyterian Church. This happened against a wider backdrop of national disdain towards the Christian faith, especially under the rule of George I. Many were addicted to gin. Of the higher classes in England the French Enlightenment man, Montesquieu, observed, "Whenever anyone refers to religion, everybody starts laughing." It was into this dark decline that the light of the gospel shone through the ministry of a cohort of fine men in the Church of England, including Howell Harris (in Wales), George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, Ingham, and others. The Evangelical Revival began around 1735, and continued until about 1750.  The...

The following post is a response to an article by John Stevens published in "Foundations" in 2015, and currently featured on the Affinity website. This is not intended as a personal attack on John Stevens, who is National Director of the FIEC, and a lovely Christian man and brother. The purpose of the blog post below is to stand for the historic Reformation teaching on the Lord's Supper in response to what I consider to be a novel view which is not supported by the Bible.  The Lord's Supper, the monthly or weekly celebration of the bread and the cup, has always been at the heart of the Christian faith and church life. Instituted by Christ himself, the Lord's Supper has been practised by Christians across the world and by all traditions (with very few exceptions) for over twenty centuries.   Today, for the first time, I came across a theological/Biblical articulation of what I will call the "communal meal" view of the Lord's Supper. My source for this...

Anselm of Canterbury, also known as Anselm of Bec, was born in the Val D'Aosta in northern Italy in 1033. After the death of his mother, his relationship with his father was strained, and he spent many years wandering around what is now France until he settled at the abbey of Bec in Normandy, where he became a Benedictine monk at the age of 27 (1060). The monastery had only been in existence for 25 years and its original abbot, Herluin, was still there. Anselm was taught by Lanfranc (1005-1089). When Lanfranc moved on, Anselm became the main teacher at the abbey, and later, in 1078, abbot.  Anselm was involved in controversies with Gaunilo (over arguments used by Anselm in his work Proslogion), and with Roscelin (over Trinitarian heresy) The Bec monastery was in Normandy, which at the time had strong connections with England, which had been conquered by the Normans in 1066. Anselm was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. Anselm stood up for the rights of the church against t...