A Very Brief History of The Bible League
By John Hooper
Given at the 130th Anniversary of the League thanksgiving service on 07 May 2022 at Providence Baptist Chapel, Cheltenham.
The mortal remains of C. H. Spurgeon were laid to rest in West Norwood Cemetery on Thursday 11th February 1892. The very next day a short article appeared in a Christian periodical called Word and Work. It was published under the title “What is to be Done?” and it is most likely that the author was the editor of Word and Work, Rev. John Urquhart. He wrote:
Disbelief in the inspiration, and even in the accuracy, of the Word of God has apparently firmly established itself in the seats of learning, and is spreading daily, as it is bound to do, among ministers and people … The authority of Jesus is calmly surrendered … If the pastors proclaim that we can no longer appeal to the authority of the Word of God, of our Lord, and of His apostles, but that they and it have themselves come rightfully into question, what will become of the flock? If simple faith is swept from the Rock and cast upon a raging sea of speculation, will it survive?… Are we to sit idly by, and shall we content ourselves bewailing the mischief that is being daily wrought by speech and pen?
The article then goes on to suggest the formation of a “Bible Defence League.” The writer says, “In our judgment the time has come for action.”
The published responses to that article in subsequent issues of Word and Work make for fascinating reading, the majority being overwhelmingly in favour of such a development. There was some discussion over the word “defence” in the name of the proposed organisation, and it was eventually dropped.
Council
On 22nd April, Word and Work published a list of twenty-four men who were willing to serve on the council of a Bible League, and on 3rd May the Bible League was formally constituted in Exeter Hall, London, with the following resolution being passed:
Believing that the hour has come, when all who know the value of the great gift which God has given us in His Word, should band themselves together to witness for it, and to defeat the attempts now made to disparage its claims, and to mislead the Christian church and the world as to the dependence that should be placed upon it, we now resolve to form ourselves into a Bible League and to invite the co-operation of all who believe in the verbal inspiration and infallibility of the entire Bible as originally given.
Later that same month the first Bible League Conference was held in Sunderland, where Pastor F. E. Marsh of Bethesda Free Church was a council member. And before the year was out, a conference was held in Salisbury!
So, the 130-year history of the Bible League had begun. Public meetings, conferences, conventions and lantern lectures were organised, and publications written.
Busy
The early years were particularly busy with many conferences held around the country. In 1899 a Bible League meeting was held in the Imperial Rooms, Cheltenham! Minutes for the Council meeting on 27th February 1903 speak of preparations for conferences in Bournemouth and Edinburgh, and meetings in Cardiff and Greenwich, with proposals for conferences in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Plymouth, Gloucester and Brighton. By April, conferences in Worthing, Stratford-on-Avon and Southport were also pending. By July, the list had grown to include Inverness, Tain and Dingwall in the north, and Paignton and Bideford in the south. Support for the Bible League was growing apace. Overseas branches were organised in the USA, Scandinavia, India, and elsewhere, though as far as I am aware none of these lasted for many years.
Publications
Among the Bible League’s early publications was what it called the “Occasional Paper.” Having looked through the early Minutes I have not been able to find any mention of Issues 1 and 2, but Issue 3 was published in September 1900 and was probably just a single sheet of paper. As far as I can tell, a total of 9 of these papers were published until the Council Meeting held on September 8th, 1903, when the minutes record the following:
The Council took into consideration the advisability of turning the ‘Occasional Paper’ into a Quarterly magazine containing in each issue an address by one of the Bible League speakers and helpful notes for Bible Students on Scripture difficulties, etc. Referred to the next meeting for fuller discussion.
So, it was at the following Council Meeting, on 22nd October 1903, that the decision was made to increase the size of the Occasional Paper and to issue it on a quarterly basis. The Bible League Quarterly had been born. In December 1904 it was increased to 8 pages, and in March 1906 the Council “decided to issue an improved edition.” As far as I am aware no copies of those very early issues still exist, with the earliest edition that we know of still in existence dating from 1911.
Issues
It is not possible to do justice to 130 years of history in the time remaining, but I will say something about the many issues that the Bible League has faced over these years. Just now I quoted the original resolution bringing the League into existence and that makes clear that there were, and remain, two aspects to its work. These are 1) To witness for the Word of God, and 2) To defeat the attacks made against the Word of God.
Throughout its history these positive and negative aspects have been clearly evident. The Bible League stands for the Bible’s plenary, verbal inspiration, its authority, its infallibility and sole sufficiency. To this we can add its providential preservation. For years on the masthead of the Quarterly there appeared these words from First Peter 1:25, “The Word of the Lord endureth for ever.” Also, doctrines that are central to the Christian faith concerning the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, including His deity, His virgin birth and His substitutionary atonement, appear often in Bible League publications. As one looks over the Quarterlies of the past one hundred or so years, it is striking that the League has consistently and vigorously defended these fundamental truths, and for this we give the Lord thanks and all the glory.
Opposition
But the witness of the Bible League is not only a positive one. For 130 years it has stood in faithful opposition to a growing list of doctrinal and practical errors that have embedded themselves in the churches. These errors fall into two camps: First, there are those that have never gone away. By this I mean the liberal theology that prompted the establishment of the Bible League in the first place. It is still very much with us and its influence continues to grow. Then there is evolutionary propaganda, which has become established fact in the world’s eyes, and theistic versions of it are received readily in the churches. And then, of course, there is Higher Criticism of the Scriptures. These errors are not only still with us, but are ever more firmly entrenched.
New issues
But then, as one looks through the Quarterlies, it is noticeable that new issues arise. In a sense these are not new but are the children of those three basic errors I have just described. For example, in the early days of the Bible League, Bible versions were not really a concern. In 1904 the Council sent congratulations to the British and Foreign Bible Society on their centenary, but I can find no mention in those early days of the Trinitarian Bible Society, which by that time had been in existence for over 70 years.
In 1947 articles appeared critiquing the American Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, but while praise of the new translation was muted, so was the criticism. By 1968, however, under the joint editorship of Bishop D.A. Thompson and Mr. S.M. Houghton, there is clear support for the Received Text and criticism of the Westcott and Hort revised Greek text. No longer are there references to the British and Foreign Bible Society. Now it is the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Authorised Version that have the League’s unqualified support.
Under the editorship of Bishop Thompson and Mr. Houghton there is a reaffirmation of the fundamental doctrines for which the Bible League stands, and a strengthening of its position.
As time goes by, other issues are given space in the Quarterly, such as Lord’s Day observance, ecumenism, worldliness, modesty, cremation, the charismatic movement, and contemporary worship. From the 1980s, under the chairmanship of Pastor Malcolm Watts, there is a more Reformed slant to the Quarterly, with articles on Reformed doctrines to feed the mind, but also an increase in devotional material to nourish the soul.
Controversial
The Bible League has always sought to face up to the spiritual issues of the day, and one of the inevitable consequences of this is that it has always been controversial and drawn enemy fire. Even before it had been formally organised someone wrote to Word and Work complaining that the League would have “a flavour of the Vatican” about it! I understand from our current editor of the Quarterly that the latest comparison is with the Taliban, so little has changed.
In 1923 those who found the Bible League a little too controversial for their liking broke away and founded a separate organisation, which became the Bible Testimony Fellowship. In closing, allow me to quote the words of one of the Bible League’s early Council Members, William Fuller Gooch, the minister of Lansdowne Hall in West Norwood, London. He wrote,
It has not been given to every generation, or even every century, to see a Spurgeon. It may indeed be questioned whether another has been seen since the days of the great Apostle of the Gentiles who has had so world-wide and all-round an influence as he wielded. But Mr. Spurgeon’s God still lives, his Master and ours still abides, and the omnipotent Spirit of Grace, by whom alone he was made mighty, is still with us. The truth he loved is still ‘the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever.’