An "appalling" truth

"One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself – creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over.”

Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis

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Bury, Greater Manchester - Timeline of churches

979? First Church on the site of the present Parish Church (the picture below is an artist's impression of Bury parish church in 1485). This was the only church in the town of Bury until 1719 (see below). 1585 Parish church (re)built in the gothic style . 1650 During the Commonwealth, Henry Pendlebury was ordained for Holcombe Chapelry. 1662 Having been ejected from the Church of England, Henry Pendlebury of Holcombe (1626-1695) held services at a Chapel on Bass Lane by Richard Kay, and others ejected from the C of E (replaced in 1712 by Dundee Chapel, Holcombe) 1669 The vicar of Bury parish reported to the Bishop of Chester that he heard several conventicles were "constantly kept at private houses of Independents, Presbyterians, Dippers and other such like jointly, of the bset rank of the yeomanry and other inferiors." 1689 ...

William Tyndale & the translation of the Bible into English

This year (2025) marks the 500 anniversary of the translation of the Bible into English by William Tyndale. There were translations of the Bible from Hebrew/Greek into other languages from the earliest centuries of the Christian church. The first languages to "get" translations were Syriac (the area stretching eastwards from Antioch), Latin (Rome and western Europe) and Coptic (Egypt). Later, in the centuries from the 300s to 500s, translations were also made into Gothic, Armenian, Georgian and Ge'ez (Ethiopia) languages. There had been translations of the Bible into English before Tyndale. The Venerable Bede, a leading monk living at Jarrow from the late 600s, undertook a translation of John's gospel into English. Also, King Alfred (849-899) translated the first five books of the Old Testament into English. Later, in 1384, Reformer John Wycliffe and his followers completed a translation into English from the Latin (Vulgate). However, the institutional church durin...

Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bury (now, Bury Baptist Church)

The beginnings of what became Ebenezer Baptist Church in Bury go back to Andrew Nuttall (1784-1846) from Haslingden who came to live in Bury and started the "cause" as a branch of West Street Church in Rochdale, and later taken on by the "County Home Mission". In 1844, the Home Mission appointed Joseph Harvey as its missioner, and this led to the church being constituted in 1845 with fifteen members including Joseph Harvey (the founding pastor) and Andrew Nuttall. During Harvey's pastorate, in 1853, the church moved into a permanent building on Knowsley Street (on the site of the present Art Picture House opposite the travel interchange). There may have been another Baptist church building on Spring Street completed in 1852. Later, sometime between 1853 and 1860, Joseph Harvey would baptise as a believer Franklin Howorth, former minister of Bank Street Unitarian Chapel in Bury. By the time Howorth was baptised as a believer, he had already resigned the ministr...

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