HOME

Basil Atkinson

In June 1989 the doctrine of everlasting punishment became an issue of debate on the Bedford Way to Life crusade committee. This subsequently led to considerable study locally, the most influential book in favour of a changed stance being Basil Atkinson's 'Conditional Immortality'.

A further book passed around at the time was Froom's 'The Conditionalist Faith of our Fathers', Review & Herald Publishing Association 1965. This was a historical tour-de-force, quoting Christians throughout history that had held a 'Conditional Immortality' view. Although inaccurate in some of its claims, one of the things that forcibly struck me was the number of evangelicals in the twentieth century, holding this view that had studied at Cambridge.

Froom has extensively researched people who held conditional immortality and annihilationist views, and his comments are quoted extensively below.

• Archdeacon Guillebaud 1888-1941, who after studying at Pembroke Cambridge went to Africa in 1925 under the Church Missionary Society. Returning to England between 1933-1936 when he became curate at St Paul's, Cambridge, before resuming his translation work in Ruanda. In his book 'The Righteous Judge' published posthumously, Mrs Guillebaud states they were both troubled over the 'traditional views' of 'everlasting torment in the fires of hell'. At this time Mrs Guillebaud was deeply impressed by a sermon preached in Holy Trinity church, Cambridge, setting forth the 'eventual annihilation of the lost'. Soon after her husband learned that the well-known evangelical scholar, Basil Atkinson held the 'ultimate destruction' view, leading him to put aside preconceived ideas and to restudy the whole question again from the Scriptures. His book was written before he returned to Ruanda.

• Dr Martyn Cundy, The Faith of a Christian, IVF 1945.

• Basil Atkinson, 1895-, studied at Magdalene, Cambridge. He was under Librarian of university library from 1925 to 1960.

• Keith de Berry, St John's, Cambridge, and Rector of St Aldate's Oxford from 1956. 'The Making of a Christian', 1959.

• John Stuart Holden 1874-1934, Corpus Christi, Cambridge became chairman of the Christian Missionary Society and six times chairman of the Keswick Convention. He was also editor of The Christian 1915-1920.

• B L Bateson, ? (who now distributes Atkinson's book).

I already knew about the great evangelical and evangelistic influence Basil Atkinson had within CICCU from reading Douglas Johnson's, Contending for the Faith (A history of the Evangelical Movement in the Universities and Colleges), IVP 1979 and Oliver Barclay, Whatever Happened to the Jesus Lane Lot?, IVP 1977, an account of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). Basil Atkinson joined CICCU in 1919 and subsequently spent a lifetime as one of the most loyal supporters and influential teachers of CICCU ¹.

Froom had mentioned Atkinson influencing Guillebaud. Wenham clearly was familiar with Atkinson's views. John Wenham (Goodness of God, 1974) said that Atkinson's book on conditional immortality was the fruit of a lifetimes study on the subject. Could the spread of annihilationist views be due to Basil Atkinson?

'Goodness of God' by Wenham seems to have been one of the first evangelical books in the second half of the 20 century that discussed the doctrine of hell with sympathy to alternative views to the orthodox doctrine. I remember picking it up off the shelf in the library at University College Cardiff around that time; I don’t think any orthodox writers were responding to the issues at the time, at least in popular format. Wenham listed the following as conditionalist books: Guillebaud 1964, Atkinson, Froom 1965 and Beet 1901,1905.

Further evidence for the view that Basil Atkinson was the main source of this doctrinal change could be found in Roger Forster and Paul Marston's book 'That’s a good question', Coverdale/Kingsway 1977. Roger Forster² attended St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in Mathematics and Theology. After a period in the Royal Air Force, he worked as an itinerant evangelist until 1974 when he established the Ichthus Christian Fellowship. Among his many responsibilities, he is honorary vice-president of both the Evangelical Alliance and TEAR Fund, and one of the founders and directors of March for Jesus. He is also on the board of the AD2000 Movement and he was on the council of the Evangelical Missionary Alliance for many years.

In Forster's 'That’s a good question' chapter 23 ‘what is the point of torturing unbelievers for ever?’ the authors discuss the ‘destructionist’ view sympathetically and go on to say "The destructionist view presented above is, it must be said, much less common among Christians, although we know leading evangelicals who hold it without publishing the fact." They state "two well known evangelicals, Mr Motyer and Dr Atkinson, have written from the two different positions on eternal punishment" and list for further reading 'Life and Immortality', Basil Atkinson, Phoenix Press. 'That’s a good question' was a completely revised and enlarged edition of the author’s book, 'Yes But' which was first published in 1971. Could Forster's book of 1971 have been the first evangelical book to state support for annihilationist position?

In H M Carson's, The Biblical Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, duplicated notes from Carey Conference Liverpool January 1978, there was further evidence of Atkinson's influence. Carson says (page 10) "Two recent exponents of the theory [conditional immortality] were very influential in student circles and especially among Anglicans. One was the late Archdeacon Guillebaud whose books 'Why the Cross' and 'Some Moral Difficulties of the Bible' were among early IVF titles. His posthumously published book 'The Righteous Judge' is presented as the answer to the one moral difficulty which he had found himself unable to meet in his earlier book. The other exponent was the late Basil Atkinson whose warm hearted concern for Christian students and whose evangelistic zeal were a bye word in Cambridge. His book 'Life and Immortality' follows a similar line to that of Guillebaud ..." In discussing the history of this doctrine Carson, would of course know about Basil Atkinson, as Carson was Rector of St Pauls[?] Cambridge, before leaving the Anglican church.

John Stott went on record with the annihilationist view in 'Essentials' - A Liberal Evangelical Dialogue, Hodder 1988. Stott joined Cambridge as a student in 1939.

The 'Resurrection Fellowship' put out a list of people who take the annihilationist position. In 1990 this was made up of modernists, liberals and some prominent evangelical anglicans (Wenham, Stott and some senior staff at St John's College Nottingham).

One of the most significant books looking at the recent history of the doctrine of hell (apart that of Atkinson's) is John Wenham's, 'Facing Hell' (An autobiography 1913-1996), Paternoster Press 1998. John Wenham entered Cambridge university in 1932, was theological student’s representative on the IVF Executive Committee about 1935, was one of the founders of the Theological Students Fellowship and Biblical Research Committee, which he kept close links with all his life and later Vice-Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol and Warden of Latimer House. Writing in the preface of his autobiography he says "I believe that endless torment is a hideous and unscriptural doctrine which has been a terrible burden on the mind of the church for many centuries and a terrible blot on her presentation of the gospel. I should indeed be happy if, before I die, I could help in sweeping it away." Wenham's motive is quite remarkable, as is this snapshot of evangelical Anglicanism. It is in this book that Wenham says "I had learnt the doctrine from Basil Atkinson (as recounted in Chapter 8) [of his autobiography] in about 1934". The role of Basil Atkinson, conditional immortality and other evangelicals is discussed extensively in Wenham's autobiography. Wenham states that Stafford Wright, Robert Clark and Norman Anderson and Michael Green also shared conditional immortality views. It is worth noting that they also all studied at Cambridge.

It was while Atkinson was at Cambridge that the UCCF statement of faith was drawn up, in 1925. CICCU was one of the leading CUs, together with the London Medical Schools CUs, the London College of Divinity (now St John's College Nottingham). The IVF as it was then called, was formed in 1928.

From the evidence, it seems likely that the debate on the doctrine of 'everlasting punishment' and the drift to an annihilationist position within conservative evangelical circles in the later half of the 20^th century stemmed from the influence of Basil Atkinson within the CICCU (Cambridge Inter Collegiate Christian Union) and UCCF circles.

What is also significant is that in the obituary on Basil Atkinson in Grace magazine, by the Pastor of Eden, there was not a single mention of this doctrinal controversy.

Alan Pibworth
Alan.pibworth@ntlworld.com
10/03/01

Notes

1. In Alister McGrath's 'J.I. Packer: A Biography' he describes Packer hearing Basil Atkinson:
   Six weeks later [after his conversion] he heard Basil Atkinson teach from Revelation and was astonished by the reverence with which the teacher handled the biblical text-a departure from the liberal view of Scripture he had been "stuffed up with" in the Anglicanism of his childhood. These two contradictory notions collided in that moment, he says, and his "skepticism collapsed." "I can still remember the feeling of surprise-and gladness-as I left the meeting because I knew that I knew that the Bible is the Word of God."  [Return to text]

2. Source http://www.ichthus.org.uk/History%20&%20Vision.htm  [Return to text]

Bibliography

• Basil F. C. Atkinson, Life and Immortality. An Examination of the Nature and Meaning of Life and Death as They Are Revealed in the Scriptures (Taunton, England, no date).

• L E Froom, 'The Conditionalist Faith of our Fathers', Review & Herald Publishing Association 1965.

• John Wenham , The Goodness of God (renamed in 1985 as The Enigma of Evil), IVP 1974.

• Roger Forster, Paul Marston , That’s a good question, Coverdale/Kingsway 1977.

• Oliver Barclay, Whatever Happened to the Jesus Lane Lot?, IVP 1977 An account of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU).

• H M Carson, The Biblical Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, duplicated notes from Carey Conference Liverpool January 1978.

• Douglas Johnson, Contending for the Faith (A history of the Evangelical Movement in the Universities and Colleges), IVP 1979. A tour-de-force by the central mover in the founding of the IVF/UCCF.

• John Stott and David L. Edwards, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue, Hodder 1988.

• John Wenham, Facing Hell (An autobiography 1913-1996), Paternoster Press 1998.

• Review of the second volume on the life of John Stott written by Timothy Dudley-Smith in Evangelical Times http://www.evangelical-times.org/Articles/Mar02/mar02a01.htm

• http://www.churchsociety.org/chmanidx.html Issue: 1997 111/3 Peterson, Robert A, Basil Atkinson : A Key Figure for Twentieth Century Evangelical.