PLEADING FOR A REFORMATION VISION
By David B. Calhoun
Banner of Truth. 309 pages. £15.50
ISBN 978 1 848 713 567
This book gives an account of the life and writings of William Childs Robinson (1897–1982).
He had life-long connections with the Columbia Theological Seminary where he was a Professor of Church History. Throughout his career he laboured to arrest the Southern Presbyterian churches in the USA slide towards a liberal theological position. He sought to preserve the Old Calvinism that had marked the church from its beginning, based on faithfulness to Scripture.
The author is Professor Emeritus of Church History at Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis. Though the references to the theological scene in the USA may be unfamiliar to us, the vital affirmations of the Protestant Reformation are relevant today. They are based on the authority of the Word of God, the Lordship of Christ, the sovereignty of God and justification by faith.
The book will be helpful to all those seeking a deeper study of theology and particularly for those who have the privilege and responsibility of ministering the Word. For ministers, the chapter ‘Preacher of the Gospel’ has much valuable advice for the pulpit. More than one has testified that they came to faith in his class.
He was not disturbed when people criticized him as narrow-minded conservative. He quoted G.K. Chesterton: ‘The church of the second century almost died of broad-mindedness – our age is gravely menaced in the same malady’. He was a great scholar, more conversant with Greek NT than most preachers are with their English Bibles! He kept abreast with current developments in theology at home and abroad.
To sum up, we may agree with the note on the cover: ‘William Robinson was a teacher who preached in the classroom and a preacher who taught in the pulpit – a Calvinist and a churchman.’
