Church History - Steve Alliston

How the gospel came to Britain

There were probably Christian Roman soldiers who were posted to the UK and yet it was probably traders who first brought the gospel to the UK, immigration and the free movement of people was the means by which people could travel and took the gospel to the UK.

It was possible to travel from Carlisle all the way down through Europe to Iraq safely on Roman roads. Roman Britain was very multi-cultural much like it is today. There is an inscription on Hadrian's wall of a Syrian trader declaring his love for his Celtic wife.

There was a Bishop of Gaul in 177AD (Irenaus) who learned the local dialect to send missionaries across the sea to Britain.

When the Romans pulled out of Britain in 407AD they left it in a state open to plunder and pickings from Saxons. The Saxons pushed back the Celtic and Christian believers in the land. Within a couple of centuries there was very little Christian reference within England, confined as they became to the North and the West.

St. Patrick is probably the most famous of missionaries to Britain. Patrick escaped from Ireland where he was living as a slave. Then, as a young man, came to a monastery where he got an education and then felt God speak to him about returning to Ireland. Patrick was then sent in 431 as a missionary to Ireland. Patrick was a Elijah figure who confronted the spiritual powers of his day. He confronted the pagan druids of the day and was recognised as being a better druid than the druids. Legend has it that the reason there are no snakes in Ireland today is because Patrick banished them. The turning point for Patrick was when he confronted the druids by establishing a pascal (easter) fire of his own agains the druids pagan fires.

Patrick founded a church in every place he settled. After 30 years he put in place 350 Bishops to lead the churches he'd put it in place (around 1000 churches). He died in around 460AD.

Pope Gregory (590-604) took young men from their countries of origin and trained them up and sent them back to their countries to plant churches. England's first missionary was Augustine who was commissioned as Bishop of England. He came to Canterbury where he met with King Ethelbert in the open air who responded to the gospel and gave Augustine an old Roman church to use. That building is today's Canterbury Cathedral. In 607 Augustine went to London and took over an old Roman church building.

Missionaries went out from England. In 732 AD the last missionary from England went out from us Boniface who went to Germany. The Vikings then come and raid the land. The Normans then came in 1066 and settled England.

Wycliff: it isn't the popes or monks or kings who should decide our faith, but the word of God.

Wycliff chose to ignore the rule that he was forbidden to translate the Bible into the vulgar tongue. Once he completed his translation he enlisted hundreds of volunteers to copy the Bible into English. The new Bibles fuelled the lollard groups enthusiasms. The lollards went all over England 'seducing the nobles, great lords and the poor'. Their number increased until they filled the land. They were called lollards derived from the German word meaning 'to mutter or murmur' due to their speaking under the breath, muttering the gospel to people murmuring it from house to house.

The Reformation in Europe

The invention of the printing press had a huge impact through the world. Suddenly ideas could be copied and recopied throughout the empire quickly. The spreading of ideas is dangerous to the establishment, it unsettles the status quo and threatens to overthrow the regime. For this reason Luther's anti-establishment ideas made waves, and the recent invention of the printing press made their waves even bigger.

Luther was a Colossus. He was a monk in a small town who went on to lead the reformation. Luther was a rural country dweller rather than a city slicker.

He was due to become a lawyer and after surviving a thunderstorm he followed through on his bargain with St. Anne and became a monk. He wasn't a believer but he was a religious man who tried his hardest to keep all the rules and impress God. He also suffered from severe constipation. Then one day when he was on the toilet reading Romans 1:17 he got converted and found emotional and spiritual release.