ABSTRACT
A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (1908) by G. R. Balleine is the classic narrative history of the Anglican evangelical movement, and this chapter demonstrates how the author’s personal theological priorities shaped his historical analysis. In particular, it highlights Balleine’s concerns in his parish ministry in Bermondsey, south London, for innovative evangelism, political activism and loyal Anglican churchmanship; his disinterest in doctrinal definitions and his abhorrence of ecclesiastical controversy. The chapter argues that Balleine’s lively account of Anglican evangelicalism’s past in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was also an apologia and mandate for the future direction of the movement as it entered the twentieth century.
