Clifford Hill: The Reshaping of Britain

I've just read The Reshaping of Britain: Church and State since the 1960s, a Reflection by Clifford Hill. It’s not brief at 345 pages, but I devoured it across 3 days. Although I don’t agree with all his points and sentiments (see below) he is a discerning Christian leader who is able to talk about Christianity in Britain from 1975 until last year. I was also interested to see in our archive a record of his having preached at Salem back in 1977, the diary stating:

Saturday Evening Rally, 24th September 1977 SCC MT Harvest Thanksgiving Weekend

Chair: Rev J Don Cullingford, Minister

Prayer Leader: Mrs Molly Cullingford

Speaker: Rev. Clifford Hill, MA, BD, PhD, London,

He spoke about his life and work in the tough East End of London.

Soloist: Mrs Rosemary Lancaster, Clitheroe, accompanied herself on guitar.

Sunday Afternoon Service, 25th September (2pm)

Harvest Family Service led by Guest Preacher: Dr Clifford Hill. His theme: 'Bread and Water'. Large congregation.

He was also President that year of the Congregational Federation of which our chapel is part, as well as founder and editor of the magazine Prophecy Today. Although some of the book reads like a resume, listing his achievements and the shoulders with which he rubbed, he was able to discuss the origins of today’s Britain: aggressive secular humanism and a weakened, voiceless Church.

He talked of the missed opportunity arising from Archbishop Donald Coggan’s 1975 Call to the Nation. Anglican bureaucracy and liberal bishops hampered the good prelate’s desire to re-evangelise Britain. He is particularly damning of Robert Runcie, his successor at Canterbury whom he describes a polytheist, having made comments about Hinduism and eastern religions being paths to God. Bizarrely, Dr Hill struck a close friendship with Archbishop Rowan Williams, an avowed liberal, whom Hill admitted never expressed a basic understanding of why Jesus died on the cross. 

He offers insight into the charismatic renewal of the 1970s and 80s. Although charismatic himself, he details the false prophecies and lies peddled by John Wimber, Paul Cain et al, and promoted by Holy Trinity, Brompton and others. They came prophesying that a world-wide revival would take place in London by October 1990. It never came of course, but the false prophets continued to prophesy. He exposes the delusional Toronto Blessing and how alien spirits infiltrated the Church. He recounts a conversation with Bob Jones, one of the ‘Kansas City Prophets’ whose words British 1990s’ charismatics gobbled up, in which he actually admitted to him the demonic activity going on in his house.

He also offers wise comment regarding the aggressive and successful LGBT movement and its intention of redefining family life, the building block of human society. Unlike many leaders interested in the state of Israel and end-times prophecy, Hill has a strong record of social action and campaigning for righteous causes. He assisted the Parliamentary Inquiry which resulted in the classification of video nasties in 1984. As a former lecturer in sociology, he has a good understanding of the social shifts occurring in Britain and throughout the western world. 

Although he is forthright in his denouncement of liberal theology, New Age religious practices and charismatic excess, he is rather quiet on ecumenism. He notes, but fails to object, to every single Archbishop with whom he worked hoping for closer unity with Rome, and on one occasion described a charismatic Catholic priest as born-again and Spirit-filled. Liberalism was the great opponent for evangelical church leaders in the mid-twentieth century; Rome’s conservatism must have painted it as a potential ally, its many errors and faults to be quietly over-looked.

My other difficulty is that he successfully demonstrates that there will be no great ‘end-times revival’, or ‘Latter Rain’ as the charlatans predicted. Yet he does offer instruction regarding how to bring transformational revival to our nation, starting with repentance in the Church. I’ve often noticed this paradox in premillennialists who see the inevitability of evil’s temporary dominion ahead of Christ’s return, while at the same time hoping for moral reformation.

This is a good book. I folded over page-corners when he made points to which I anticipated returning; I turned over so many that the object of such an action is almost certainly defeated.

The Reshaping of Britain: Church and State since the 1960s, a Reflection (2018) is published by Wilberforce Publications.

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