In 1879, Bishop J.C. Ryle, that doughty champion of evangelical orthodoxy, (whose commentaries continue to be so helpful), cited various articles from the media of his day about the state of evangelicalism in the Church of England.
He quoted an article in The Times which declared evangelicalism to be ‘worn out, decaying and passing away…’ And apparently the Church Times was ‘continually telling the public that there is not a single real theologian in the Evangelical School – nobody, of course, being a theologian who does not agree with the Church Times!’ Plus ça change, indeed…
Ryle, however, could scarcely have begun to imagine the nature of the threat facing Anglican evangelicals today. The idea that marriage might be deemed to be between two men or two women, and that the Church of England might even start to discuss accepting this idea, would be incomprehensible and anathema to him.
