Dear Editor,
Julia Cameron (whose wise words I always appreciate) writes of what amounts to a revival in the evangelical wing of the Cof E during the late 1960s and early ’70s (Timothy Dudley-Smith: A life in three the scenes, en September 2024). With greatest of respect I have to ask: ‘Really?’
I attended two of the leading evangelical Anglican churches at that time, and knew the key men whose names Julia mentions, and others too.
What astonished me, as a new arrival from nonconformity, was the shallowness and flippancy which seemed to be widespread: as someone said, ‘a hundred miles wide and half-an-inch deep’. There seemed to be little awareness of the majesty of God, the horror of sin, the atonement of Christ, and the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit. I’m afraid this deficiency was apparent in some of the texts which were produced: Crusade Magazine, Youth Praise and Psalm Praise included; and in some of the work of CPAS.
The ‘Jesus Revolution’ which emerged at the same time (and which was the subject of my doctoral research) seemed to me to be closer to the real thing. But many evangelical Anglicans were suspicious of it because of the background of its members in the drug culture; its pentecostalism; and its experiments in communal living.
Yours sincerely,
The Revd Dr Roger W. Curl, Weybourne
