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Contemporary Welsh preachers

Volume One: Where is faith?

Considerable figures

CONTEMPORARY WELSH PREACHERS
Volume One: Where is faith?
Ed. Llewellyn Jenkins
Leaping Cat Press. 212 pages. £8.99
ISBN 0 9543336 1 6

Llewellyn Jenkins (LJ) has edited transcriptions of interviews with four ministers in Aberystwyth: Stuart Bell (Anglican), J.E. Wynne Davies (Presbyterian), Andrew Lenny (Congregationalist) and Geoff Thomas (Baptist).

LJ describes them all as being ‘Bible-based in their theology’ and ‘considerable figures, well known within their community for the independence of their views and for their preaching and pastoral gifts’. Each man is questioned on his early Christian experience, doctrine, churchmanship, pastoral work, preaching and his views on the spiritual state of Wales.

LJ maintains the ‘chatty’ style of his interviews even to noting when one man laughed! This style lacks discipline in both interviewing and editing. Although two men are clear in their answers, the other two go off on tangents or fail to answer the question asked, but they are not pressed by LJ. He could learn much from the written interviews in EN.

Denominational structures take up too much space and LJ fails to question them on more important issues such as the place of the cross of Christ in their doctrinal beliefs and preaching. In two interviews, far too much is assumed under the word ‘gospel’. The editor’s conclusion is: ‘The necessity for change in lives of men and women is one of the factors which finally unites the four men interviewed’, but this is, surely, very inadequate and disheartening of men who all claim to be ‘Bible-based’. This is the first book in a series, but I am not looking forward to the next one.

Selwyn Morgan,
pastor of Bethel Baptist Church,
Barry, South Wales