City Temple, London
| City Temple | |
|
London, Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Photo of the City Temple | |
| United Reformed Church | |
| Location | |
| Location: | 51°31’2"N, 0°6’22"W |
| Address: | Holborn Viaduct |
| History | |
| Built 1873–1874. Reconstructed 1958 | |
| Information | |
| Website: | www.city-temple.com |
The City Temple is a Nonconformist church on Holborn Viaduct in the City of London, Middlesex. It is the only Free Church still worshipping in its own building every Sunday in the City of London. The church is part of the Thames North Synod of the United Reformed Church and is a member of the Evangelical Alliance.
The City Temple is most famous as the preaching place of the 20th century liberal theologian Leslie Weatherhead. Other notable preachers have included R. J. Campbell, Joseph Fort Newton, Thomas Goodwin and Joseph Parker.
The first church building on the present site was built in 1874. The congregation was founded much earlier; the traditional date is 1640 but some evidence suggests it was founded as early as the 1560s by the Puritans. Destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1958.
Early history
The City Temple is widely believed to have been founded by Thomas Goodwin. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, but it is believed to have been around 1640.[1] It is the oldest Nonconformist congregation in the City of London. Its first meeting-house was located in Anchor Lane. The second minister of the Church was Thomas Harrison, who succeeded Goodwin in 1650,[2] at which time the Church moved to a meeting-house in Lime Street.[3] Harrison's ministry only lasted until 1655. A successor was not appointed until 1658, when Rev. Thomas Mallory was called to pastor the Church.[4] Mallory led the Church during the difficult period that followed the Restoration of the Monarchy]] in 1660. The Church moved several times but after a number of moves it found a more permanent home in the Poultry, Cheapside[5] in 1819.[4]
Following the resignation of Dr James Spence from the pastorate in 1867, the office-bearers of the Poultry Chapel approached Joseph Parker, then pastor at Cavendish Street Chapel, Manchester, with a view to calling him to the pastorate. The first call, in March 1868, he declined but in June 1869 he accepted.[6] At the same time the Church was looking to relocate from its site in Poultry. The site was sold for 50,000GBP.[7] The Church was then faced with the question of a new site. Parker insisted that the new site would have to be within the City of London, and ultimately the present site on Holborn Viaduct was secured.[8] The Poultry Chapel was closed on 16 June 1872, and until the new church was ready, the congregation met in the great hall of Cannon Street Hotel in the morning, in Exeter Hall in the evening, and in the Presbyterian Church, London Wall, for mid-day services on Thursdays.[9]
The Memorial Stone of the new building, to be called the City Temple, was laid by Dr Thomas Binney on 19 May 1873.[10] The Corporation of London presented a spectacular marble pulpit to the Church.[11] The building was dedicated on 19 May 1874.[12] The building, from its location and size, began to assume the character of a Nonconformist cathedral, and became the most important Congregational pulpit in Britain. Much of this was due to Joseph Parker.
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As age began to tell on Parker, Rev. Reginald John Campbell, a Congregational minister in Brighton, was called in 1902 to act as his assistant.[13] Shortly after his agreeing to this arrangement, Dr Parker died suddenly.[14] Parker had made it clear that it was his wish for Campbell to be his successor, and so Campbell was called.[15]
While Parker was theologically conservative, publishing an anonymous reply to John Robert Seeley's Ecce Homo under the truculent title Ecce Deus,[16] Campbell was emphatically not. A socialist politically,[17] his theology proved as radical as his politics. Campbell's pastorate began in May 1903 and ended in October 1915.[18] Questions began to be raised about the way that Campbell introduced Biblical criticism into his preaching,[19] questioning the traditional ascription of books, and the origins of the text. As his sermons were published, this brought them to the notice of readers throughout the nation, and beyond.[20]
The theology held by Campbell and a number of his friends came to be known as 'The New Theology'. Campbell decided to answer his critics by issuing a volume entitled simply The New Theology, which laid out his position.[21] Looking back on it, he felt that he had gone too far. "It was much too hastily written, was crude and uncompromising in statement, polemical in spirit, and gave a totally wrong impression of the sermons delivered week by week in the City Temple Pulpit".[22] Campbell himself came to a crisis of faith when several New Theologians began to question the doctrine of the deity, and even the historicity, of Christ.[23]
In October 1915 Campbell preached his last sermon at the City Temple and resigned from the Congregational church; a few days later he was received into the Church of England by Bishop Gore[24] and in October 1916 he was ordained as an Anglican priest.[25] On rejoining the Church of England, and at the request of some old Congregational friends, with whom he remained on good terms, he wrote an account of the development of his thought in A Spiritual Pilgrimage (1916).
Later years
During The Blitz, the City Temple was "gutted by fire from incendiary bombs dropped from enemy aeroplanes". Weatherhead was able to continue his ministry thanks to the nearby St Sepulchre-without-Newgate church. After the war the minister raised the funds to rebuild the City Temple, largely from John D. Rockefeller, Jr.. The re-built City Temple was opened in the presence of the Queen Mother in 1958. Weatherhead retired in 1960.
Outside links
References
- ↑ Albert Clare: The City Temple (London, Independent Press, 1940) P. 1
- ↑ Hammond, Dewey and Weatherhead: The City Temple: Past, Present and Future, (London, the City Temple, 1958) P. 4
- ↑ Clare, P. 13
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hammond, Dewey and Weatherhead, P. 52
- ↑ William Adamson: The Life of the Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D. (London, Cassell and Co., 1902) P. 87
- ↑ Joseph Parker: A Preacher's Life (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1903), P. 156
- ↑ Adamson P. 95
- ↑ Adamson, P. 96
- ↑ Adamson P. 99
- ↑ Preacher's Life, P. 159
- ↑ Adamson, P. 103
- ↑ Adamson, P. 116
- ↑ R. J. Campbell, 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage' (London, Williams and Norgate, 1917) Pp. 83–4
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 85
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', Pp. 85–6
- ↑ American Edition Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1879
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 131
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 137
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 167
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 172
- ↑ Campbell, The New Theology (London, Chapman and Hall, 1907). Though he later withdrew the book, copies remained in circulation.
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', P. 188
- ↑ Campbell: 'A Spiritual Pilgrimage', Pp. 204–211
- ↑ Robbins, Keith 'The Spiritual Pilgrimage of the Rev. R. J. Campbell' – The Journal of Ecclesiastical History April 1979 30 : pp 261–276
- ↑ 'Death of Dr Reginald J. Campbell' – The Glasgow Herald – March 2, 1956
- William Adamson: The Life of the Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D. (London, Cassell and Co., 1902)
- R. J. Campbell, A Spiritual Pilgrimage (London, Williams and Norgate, 1917)
- Campbell, The New Theology (London, Chapman and Hall, 1907)
- Joseph Fort Newton: River of Years (Philadelphia and New York, J.B. Lippincott, 1946)
- Joseph Parker: A Preacher's Life (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1903)
- John Travell: Doctor of Souls (Cambridge, Lutterworth, 1999)