Reflections on Prayer

I added this short video to our YouTube channel featuring the church and some of the grounds at Dunmurry built around a short passage on prayer written by Valentine David Davis. V.D. Davis trained for the ministry at Manchester College when it was still in London and James Martineau was Principal. He was one of the last links between that generation of ministers and the mid-twentieth century. His little book The Lord’s Prayer An Interpretation. Together with an Address on The Offering of Prayer was published by the Lindsey Press in 1938.

Click on the video to see ‘Reflections on Prayer’ from Dunmurry

His book on prayer is full of insight. He is perhaps someone who is rather overlooked in our history. On leaving Manchester College he went to Christ Church, Nottingham as minister for a few years before moving on to the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth for eleven years. This was followed by a further ministry at Wallasey. In Merseyside he was greatly influenced by John Hamilton Thom whose devotional Services and Prayers he later edited along with a selection of J.H. Thom’s writings in a A Minister of God. Ministry in Liverpool and Wallasey was followed by eleven years as editor of The Inquirer before returning to the ministry in Bournemouth where he served for twenty years up to retirement. He made some more important contributions to devotional publishing and to history, producing A Book of Daily Strength as well as A History of Manchester College and a history of the London Domestic Mission Society. He was editor also of Hymns of Worship, first published in 1927, reprinted a number of times, then republished with a Supplement (1951), and later still republished in a revised format in 1962. Even Hymns of Faith and Freedom, published in 1991, described itself as a radical revision of Hymns of Worship. So as one of the first fruits of the collaboration that led to the new General Assembly and ‘offered, in the interest of unity and comprehension, with the prayer that it may be blessed in its ministry to the fellowship of our churches’ it proved remarkably successful.

We also uploaded to YouTube our full Easter Day service at Dunmurry recently. The full service, including hymns, prayers and readings can be seen here:

Easter Sunday Service, Dunmurry

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches 2024

I was very pleased to be able to attend this year’s General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches held in Daventry. There were many stand out moments. One was the Unitarian Christian Association meeting at which Dr Lizzie Kingston Harrison gave an excellent talk entitled Joseph Priestley: radical roots and new beginnings. A wonderful presentation which showed how professional historical research can be alive with reflections for our present age in the hands of an expert. We look forward to publishing Lizzie’s paper in a future issue of Faith and Freedom.

The meetings were notable also for the large contingent of seven Non-Subscribing Presbyterians from Northern Ireland who were also able to be there for the welcoming onto the GA Roll of the Rev Lynda Kane. Now the minister of Ballyclare, Cairncastle and Ballymoney, Lynda was one of three new ministers recognised at the General Assembly Service.

Rev Lynda Kane with some of the ministers from Northern Ireland present at the GA (Photo: Sue Steers)

Rev Rory Castle Jones, Rev Lynda Kane, Rev Ant Howe, new ministers Rev Arek Malecki and Rev Jennifer Sanders, Liz Slade, Rev Melda Grantham and GA President Vince McCully, after the GA Service. (Photo: Sue Steers).

The Rev Ant Howe delivered a most inspiring sermon at the GA Service, and at the meetings Dot Hewerdine and the Rev John Midgley and the Rev Celia Midgely were all made honorary members of the GA.

We also held the annual meeting of the Unitarian Historical Society. There was a good turnout of people for the AGM and to hear Professor Grayson Ditchfield’s paper Essex Street Chapel in the Later Eighteenth Century. Unfortunately, because of disruption to the train services, Professor Ditchfield couldn’t be with us in person, and so his excellent paper was read for us by Rev Daniel Costley. There was a great deal of new information and new insight in the paper which will feature in next year’s Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society.

Derek McAuley (President), Howard Hague (Secretary) with Rev Daniel Costley (left), who read Professor Ditchfield’s paper, at the meeting of the Unitarian Historical Society in Daventry. Saturday, 6th April.

Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society April 2024

The latest issue of the Transactions (Volume 28 Number 3) will soon be on its way to members. Details of how to join the Society can be found below.

As ever the journal is full of interesting articles and contains:

The National Conference 1882-1928 – a Unitarian Talking Shop

by Alan Ruston

James Martineau’s carte de visite

One year before the bi-centenary of the British & Foreign Unitarian Association Alan Ruston looks at the other less well-known institution which came together with the B&FUA to form the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in 1928. Although not founded by James Martineau, The National Conference of Unitarian, Liberal Christian, Free Christian. Presbyterian, and Other Non-Subscribing or Kindred Congregations, to give it its full title, was always under the influence of the great man. Even if the body was essentially ‘a Unitarian Talking Shop’ it was nevertheless an institution that made an important contribution to the development of national Unitarian organization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

‘Holding Space Sacred’: Struggles for Land and Home in Great Britain and Ireland, and Beyond

by Derek McAuley

The site of Croft Unitarian Chapel today featuring the new signage erected through the efforts of Cheyvonne Bower who has done so much to restore and protect the site.

Based on a talk delivered as part of a webinar presented by the Reckoning International Unitarian/Universalist Histories Project on 15 November 2022 on ‘Global Struggles for Land and Home in Unitarian/Universalist Communities’, this paper explores the themes of ‘land and home’ within nineteenth-century Unitarianism. It looks particularly at events in Wales, Ireland, the British overseas Dominions plus the legal challenges that led to the Dissenters’ Chapels Act of 1844, and the role of women. One woman who is particularly highlighted is Ellen Yates who helped to establish the Unitarian cause at Croft after they were dispossessed of their chapel at Risley.

Training for the ministry, 1903-1910: Ernest Pickering at Manchester College Oxford

by Oliver Pickering

From ‘The Non-Subscribing Presbyterian’ 1921

Oliver Pickering examines the rich training for the ministry received by his grandfather at Manchester College, Oxford between the years 1907 and 1910 which were preceded by four years as an external exhibitioner at the College while also studying Classics at Exeter College. This seems to have been something of a golden age for ministerial training at Oxford, and his seven years at Manchester College were the prelude to a remarkable career as a minister (at Hyde; All Souls’ Church, Belfast; Southport and Oldham), a Member of Parliament and a professor of English Literature in Tokyo.

This issue also includes Reviews and a Supplement: Obituaries of Ministers of Unitarian
and Free Christian Congregations. Index and synopsis of references including new entries, additions and corrections from 1st February 2021 compiled by Alan Ruston.

An annual subscription costs just £10.

Visit the Unitarian Historical Society website to join: https://unitarianhistory.org.uk/

Click here to find out more about the work Cheyvonne Bower is doing at Croft.

A rare view of Croft Chapel from the field at the rear of the building. With thanks to Cheyvonne Bower for providing the image.

Rev John Johns (1801-1847)

John Johns, the first Minister to the Poor in Liverpool – the first minister of the Liverpool Domestic Mission – died more than half a century before Ullet Road Church was built. Yet his memorial can be found there. In fact it is one of many memorials. When Ullet Road Church was built in 1899, purpose-built cloisters were added to house the many memorials which had covered the walls of their former Chapel on Renshaw Street.

Renshaw Street Chapel, Liverpool

But John John’s memorial wasn’t added with those from Renshaw Street. His memorial originally was placed in the Domestic Mission, and it was only after it was demolished in the 1970s that it was it removed to Ullet Road and kept in store for some years before being fixed in one of the entrances to the church.

Portrait of John Johns aged 18, held in Ullet Road Church and taken from ‘Liverpool Unitarians’

Using some of the memorials, including that of the Rev John Hamilton Thom, one of the founders of the Domestic Mission, this video tells the story of John Johns and his work as the first ‘minister to the poor’: ‘a medium of kind and Christian connection’, as Joseph Tuckerman put it. In this case a connection between the wealthy congregation of Renshaw Street/Ullet Road and the growing numbers of poor living in the same city.

Click on the video below to see the story of Rev John Johns, first minister to the poor in Liverpool:

Rev John Johns (1801-1847). First minister to the poor in Liverpool

Liverpool Unitarians: Faith and Action

This book (first published, I now realise, back in 2014!) has just been reprinted and, the original print run having sold out, is once again available. The publishers and printers have done an excellent job, it’s an attractive book, this time published in memory of Bernard Cliffe, Len Mooney and Rev Daphne Roberts, three contributors who have died since the original publication.

The full list of contributors and subjects is as follows:

Introduction, David Steers; Memorials of the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth Park, Bernard Cliffe; Jeremiah Horrocks 1618 – 1641, Bernard Cliffe; William Roscoe 1753 – 1831, David Steers; A Short History of the Rathbone Family, Annette Butler; The Unitarian Family of George Holt, Bernard Cliffe; Noah Jones 1801 – 1861, Philip Waldron; James Martineau 1805 – 1900, Len W. Mooney; Joseph Blanco White 1775 – 1841, David Steers; Kitty Wilkinson 1786 – 1860, Daphne Roberts; John Johns 1801 – 1847, David Steers; William Henry Channing 1810 – 1884, Richard Merritt; Charles Pierre Melly 1829 – 1888, John Keggen; Sir Henry Tate 1819 – 1899, Richard Merritt; Sir John Brunner 1842 – 1919, Len W. Mooney; Lawrence Redfern 1888 – 1967, Elizabeth Alley; Sir Adrian Boult 1889 – 1983, Richard Merritt; The Visitors’ Book of the Ancient Chapel, Bernard Cliffe.

Published by the Merseyside District Missionary Association the cover design is by Alison Steers and the book contains over 50 illustrations, many published here for the first time.

To accompany the republication we have produced a short video which incorporates a trip around Ullet Road Church which can be seen here:

Click on the video for a tour of Ullet Road Church and details of the book

The cover of the book

Liverpool Unitarians: Faith and Action Essays exploring the lives and contributions to society of notable figures in Liverpool Unitarian history

Edited by Daphne Roberts and David Steers

Published by Merseyside and District Missionary Association

ISBN: 978-0-9929031-0-7

Brand new edition for 2024

Price £10 (plus £2 post and packing). Available from Rev Phil Waldron, Ullet Road Church, 57 Ullet Road, Sefton Park, Liverpool. L17 2AA.

In the Introduction I say:

This book is not intended to be hagiography but it does try to outline how one group of people – members of a particular faith community with deep historical roots but with an aversion to fixed creeds – were inspired to serve their fellows in different ways. Their legacy can be seen all over the city – in its parks, in its monuments, in the university, in hospitals, in education, in art galleries and museums – and it exists in the long and continuing struggle to create a society that gives equality and opportunity to all its citizens. It is not meant to be an exhaustive account of all the eminent members of the churches and chapels in the region. Readers will notice that the names mentioned are part of wider connections of family and business which includes many others who could be included. There are other figures who could be the subject of such biographical accounts. But this is a selection of some of those who have followed the call of faith to be of service to wider society.

Christmas Morning

On Christmas Eve, 2023, we held an excellent congregational Carol Service in Dunmurry. Below you can join the service via this video:

Excerpt from Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by John Milton (1629):

No war or battle sound

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high uphung;

The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,

And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:

The winds with wonder whist

Smoothly the waters kissed,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

And here is a short video of a heron in Derriaghy Glen, not far from Dunmurry. Filmed recently by Louise Steers:

Carols by Candlelight at Dunmurry

Harmonic Sounds Concert Band performing at Dunmurry

On Friday, 15th December we were delighted to welcome to Dunmurry Harmonic Sounds Concert Band under their Musical Director, Paul Hamilton to lead us in our service of Carols by Candlelight. The Church was beautifully decorated, there was a great attendance and readings were given by members and friends of the congregation.

Click on the video above to share in the service.

Order of Service

Another recent video which is available to view online is the sermon delivered in Church on Sunday, 10th December 2023, the second Sunday in Advent:

Carols at Dunmurry

Every Christmas Carol has its own backstory but there is none more intricate and unusual than O Come, all ye faithful, which is also one of the most universally popular of all Carols.

Adeste Fidelis

Click on the video above to see the Reflections on ‘O Come, all ye faithful‘

Carols by Candlelight

At Dunmurry we are really looking forward to our Carols by Candlelight service on Friday, 15th December at 7.30 pm when we will welcome Harmonic Sounds Concert Band with their Director of Music, Paul Hamilton. We will tell the story of Christmas through traditional carols and the traditional Christmas readings given by church members and friends from other churches. Everyone is welcome.

At the start of Advent

Just as we approach the start of Advent we were delighted to welcome to Dunmurry the Choir of Malone Integrated College who, guided by their Head of Music, Mrs Mitchell, and teacher, Mr Lennox, sang a wonderfully varied programme of pieces in the McCleery Hall for our regular Thursday Warm Space Coffee Morning on 30th November.

Malone College Choir singing at Dunmurry

It was great having the Choir with us, they had also walked all the way from their school to the church on a very cold day. But everyone was really impressed by their achievements as a Choir and the evident joy and enthusiasm they brought to their music. You can see some of their performance in the McCleery Hall on the following video:

Click on the video to see the Choir perform at Dunmurry

We wish the Choir every success in the future. It was a real pleasure to be able to start our Christmas celebrations in the company of the Choir.

Another video recorded at Dunmurry recently features a prayer from Orders of Worship. You can see this short video by clicking on the image below:

A short Act of Prayer at Dunmurry

Faith and Freedom 197 (2023)

The latest issue of our journal is out now and will be with subscribers shortly. Anyone can subscribe and an annual subscription costs only £16 in the UK ($32 in the USA), details of how to subscribe can be found below.

Our cover picture contains a cartoon from the Manchester Evening Chronicle of 26 January 1911 and features Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of the founders of the National Trust, shown here trying to save some oaks on the bank of Thirlmere Reservoir in the Lake District. It links to Graham Murphy’s Review Article of a new biography by Michael Allen and Rosalind Rawnsley – Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, An Extraordinary Life, 1851-1920, (The New Beaver Press, 2023, pp 476. ISBN 978-1-7392194-1-3, £20 pbk.) The cartoon is strangely appropriate for today because it is also being used by campaigners trying to keep the public road along Thirlmere Reservoir open to walkers, cyclists and motorists. The Canon was not successful in his attempts in 1911 and the conifers which replaced the oaks now regularly blow down and block the road. You can read about the current campaign to keep the road open by clicking here.

Our journal opens with Sandra Gilpin’s pen portrait on the Rev William Hugh Doherty (c.1810-1890). His career began as the first minister of the Unitarian/Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Comber county Down. He moved to the United States and embarked upon an unusual career firstly as a Unitarian minister in Rochester NY then moving to a denomination known as the ‘Christian Church’ where he became quite a prominent educator. But the suggestion of some scandal was never far away in his life and he managed to serve on both sides of the Civil War as well as hold views, at different times, that were both pro and anti slavery! His career ended with him becoming an assistant in the US Patent Office.

Other articles include Imran Usmani’s fascinating discussion of ‘The Crucifixion of Jesus in Islam’. Looking afresh at the traditional Muslim view of the Crucifixion the author presents ‘novel textual and contextual analysis of the Crucifixion Verse based on the Quran and traditional Muslim sources’ and concludes that the traditional view is actually a misunderstanding of the original intention. He concludes that the Quran does not deny the historical fact of the Crucifixion of Jesus, rather it denies that the Crucifixion was rightful. The author believes that ‘Crucifixion denial in the Muslim tradition created a chasm between Muslims and Christians because it made both parties sceptical of the other’s scriptures.’ His aim is to help bridge this chasm dividing the two religions.

Other articles include Dan C. West’s encouragement to Christians to turn from ‘preoccupation with the past to focus instead on the future is a courageous act of faith and hope’, in ‘With Courage and With Hope’; and a sermon by the editor, ‘Telling Our Stories’, which asks whether those of us in a liberal theological tradition fully understand and articulate our identities.

There is also a good number of reviews including:

Maria Curtis (ed.), Cherishing the Earth – Nourishing the Spirit, Lindsey Press, 2023, pp 264. ISBN: 978-0-85319-098-1, £12.00 pbk. Reviewed by Oscar Sinclair.

Stephen Hart, James Chuter Ede: Humane Reformer and Politician, Pen and Sword History, 2021, pp 352. ISBN 978-1-52678-372-1, £25.00, hbk. Reviewed by Derek McAuley.

George D. Chryssides and Dan Cohn-Sherbok (eds.), The Covid Pandemic and the World’s Religions. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, pp 256. ISBN 978-1-3503-4963-6, £19.95 pbk, £65.00 hbk. Reviewed by Marcus Braybrooke.

Marcus Braybrooke, Interfaith Pioneers 1893-1939. The Legacy of the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 118. ISBN 9798392406180, £9.95 pbk.
Marcus Braybrooke, Jewish Friends and Neighbours. An Introduction for Christians, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 367. ISBN 979-8397750776, £19.95, pbk. Both reviewed by the Editor.

An annual subscription for each volume (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:

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Business Manager, Faith and Freedom,
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Gainsborough,
Lincolnshire.
DN21 4GA.

It is also possible to pay online. For more details see our website: https://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm