CHRISTMAS EVANS — no ordinary preacher
The story of the ‘John Bunyan’ of Wales
By Tim Shenton. Day One. 154 pages. £8.00
ISBN 978-84625-130-6
This biography is an abridgement of the author’s larger work on Christmas Evans, published in 2001, but with many more illustrations. Little is lost by the shortening process, but much is gained by securing a wider appeal.
Christmas Evans was the most popular preacher in Wales in the period of the second evangelical awakening in Britain, extending from the early 1790s into the 1840s. Most of his regular ministry was in Anglesey where he had an amazing influence over 35 years. In almost every year he embarked upon preaching tours which took him throughout Wales when he preached at many Association meetings.
He was a highly imaginative preacher and used vivid allegories, parables and metaphors to convey the truth of the gospel. Bunyan wrote allegories but never preached in this way; so it was misleading of Paxton Hood to describe Evans as ‘the Bunyan of Wales’.
The loss of spiritual power, which Evans experienced in common with the Baptists of North Wales in the years 1795-1802 due to the error of Sandemanianism, is a cautionary tale for our own day. Saving faith came to be represented as a mere notional assent to the gospel, just a question of understanding and a mental acceptance of the truth. Consequently, the work of the Holy Spirit was neglected, and the involvement of the heart and the emotions ignored. A similar blight is affecting our evangelical churches today and we need to be aware of it. Christmas Evans was delivered from this condition by a visitation of the Spirit and he knew again power in his preaching.
Tim Shenton has served us well in providing a carefully researched and well-written account of the life of this great Welsh preacher.
