I was struck by a conversation with an acquaintance recently. She had lost her father some years before and was seeking to support her mother. She struggled with mental health issues too. Not unusual but challenging.

I suggested that she spend some time with goods friends who would simply be alongside. Her response was immediate, that she preferred to sort out life alone.

One huge weakness in western culture is individualism. We try living alone. The consequences in our broken society are all too obvious.

No person is meant to be alone.

In creation, God created man AND woman. “It is not good for the man to be alone,” He said. Humans are designed for community. And that is true whether or not someone has faith in God. In fact, in the world of business I am seeing more evidence of community support, either face-to-face or online.

Another friend, part of our Church small group, faced a work trial. He put a simple request on our WhatsApp group. Immediately he received words of encouragement and support, with promises to pray.

At the start of the Church, in Acts 2.42, we read that the early Christians devoted themselves to fellowship. Indeed, they would not have learned the apostles’ doctrine, nor prayed, nor broke bread, unless they were together. We might say that, of the four elements of their corporate life, fellowship was the one which was essential to the other three.

This book tells the story of Abingdon Baptist Church, one of the oldest Baptist Churches in the world.

• practice of the Church (page 25)

This section describes an early controversy which resulted in the pamphlet called “The Pastor turned Pope.” It is helpful in understanding the doctrines and practices of the Church in the seventeenth century. That the pamphlet was written by John Atherton, who opposed those doctrines and practices, makes at all the more significant.

The pamphlet describes a Church keen to follow New Testament practices with a distinctive flavour. There is reference to baptism and breaking bread (communion). There is a Pastor and Teachers. There is some hint of miracles (raising the dead, cleansing lepers, casting out demons) and anointed the sick with oil.

• freedom in worship (page 51)

The Church was established at a time when it was illegal to follow ‘any religion apart from the Church of England.’ The penalty for the third offence was transportation.

It was not until the Toleration Act of 1689 when ‘Dissenters’ were allowed to meet. The author suggests that this was the origin of the phrase we still often hear in prayer that we enjoy freedom to worship.

• Church planting (page 43)

As early as 1656, the Church at Abingdon released 99 men and women to plant a new Church at Langworth. The Church at Langworth later released some members to start a Church at Faringdon. (I once attended a friend’s bapstim at Faringdon Baptist Church.)

It would seem that Church planting is a natural activity of a New Testament Church.

• Matters of Unity (page 91)

There is a tension to be found in pursuing Christian unity and doctrinal distinctiveness. In ‘The Pastor turned Pope,’ the Church frequently broke bread, but would not do so with Christians who had been baptised in a different tradition. This matter was addressed directly about a century later by Pastor Daniel Turner in his ‘A Modest Plea for Free Communion at the Lord’s Table between Baptists and Paedobaptists.’

Phrases such as ‘transient communion’ and ‘open communion’ seem foreign to many today, but the issues were important for very many years. The comment is made that Daniel Turner’s intervention represents ‘arguably the greatest contribution that the Abingdon Church … has made to the Church universal.’

An interesting read, seeking to address a significant issue within our world. The book considers a number of historical statements, such as the Magna Carta and helpfully comments upon each. Its conclusion is helpful, looking to God alone for our ‘human rights.’
But I found the book unsatisfying. Too often the author seems to confuse mankind with the Church, as if Scripture applies equally to both. This results in repetitive criticism of the various human declarations related to rights. Several of his arguments are non sequitur. And, at points he seems to lean towards salvation by works, e.g: page 172, “there are specific rights that we all now have through the key right of being God’s children, provided that we walk in obedience to the boundaries set by the Giver of those rights.”
The Christian reader will benefit from a thorough and grace-filled consideration of the issue of human rights. This book is not it.