Tuesday, April 28, 2026

It is the 28th of April 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I can’t emphasize enough how wild the year 1848 was. Take your 1960’s, or 1770’s, or 1640s, or 1520s… the turbulent 1840s and their apex in 1848 are as revolutionary as the modern western world has seen.

This is the Age of Detocqueville’s book on Democracy in America, it is the year of Marx’s Communist Manifesto, John Stuart Mill was propagating these ideas on liberty, and Charles Darwin was dissecting barnacles.

Revolutions would break out in over 50 countries that year! And so imagine the surprise when the Church of England decided to fill the vacancy in its top spot (err, second to top?), the Archbishopric of Canterbury, with an unlikely figure: John Bird Sumner- a conservative evangelical to the top spot amidst political, theological, and social turmoil. Sumner was installed, to the surprise of many, as the Archbishop of Canterbury on this, the 28th of April in that decisive year of 1848.

John Bird Sumner was born in 1780, the eldest son of the reverend Robert Sumner and Hannah Bird, a cousin of William Wilberforce. He studied at Eton and Cambridge before being ordained, installed at Durham, made Bishop of Chester, and ultimately Archbishop of Canterbury. So, what made him peculiar enough to stand out in his context?

He and his brother, Charles, also ordained, belonged to the Evangelical wing of the Anglican party. That is, they saw a connection as Anglicans back through the Wesleys, as well as Calvin and Luther. This was the era that saw the rise of the “tracatarians” or “Oxford movement”- think of names like Pusey and John Henry Neumann. John Bird Sumner was able to win the support of the evangelicals with works like 1815’s Apostolic Preaching, which laid an emphasis on the sacrifice of Jesus and the sufficiency of Scripture to come to that knowledge. He did, however, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, vote in favor of repealing anti-Catholic statutes.

The biggest controversy of his time in office surrounded the case of Philpott vs Gorham, or the so-called “Gorham Case”- Henry Philpotts, the high church Anglican, took issue with George Gorham, the low church Anglican with a Calvinist bent.

In being vetted for a new position, Gorham made clear that he did not believe in unconditional baptismal regeneration- that is, one’s baptism doesn’t necessarily save. It is a symbol of salvation when faith is joined to the act, but not salvific on its own. It’s an interesting debate- the Reformers, trying to separate themselves from the doctrine of “ex opere operato”- or sacraments that work regardless of the faith of the recipient (someone should ask about this for the mailbag)- the short of the story is that Philpotts argued for Baptismal regeneration while Gorham argued that an Anglican need not hold that position. The case went to an ecclesiastical court that sided with Philpotts. But then Gorham asked the state to take up his case- and so it went to the Privy Council of the Crown, which included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sumner, who sided with Gorham and the evangelical side. This would be a key incident in the Anglican schism between high and low church factions.

But Sumner surprised in other ways- he did not oppose those in the high church party who wanted to co-exist within the Anglican Church. He supported the creation of the St Augustine College, Canterbury- a training center for high church missionaries.

He is also worth noting for his work, early in his career- Treatise on the Records of Creation in the text he suggests a kind of early “gap” theory in Genesis 1 that allows for a reading of the text as historical, but also able to git with the emerging geological records. Charles Lyell, a prominent Scottish geologist in the 19th century, cited Sumner’s work to emphasize that science and revelation need not be in conflict.

John Bird Sumner was a man built for his time- an evangelical in the Anglican Church, but an impartial and steadying force in the church in its Victorian age- and especially the turbulent year of 1848, which saw him elevated to the Archbishop of Canterbury on this day, the 28th of April in that year.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Ezekiel 34:

25 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. 26 I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. 27 The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. 28 They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. 29 I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. 30 Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. 31 You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 28th of April 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Birds include John Sumner, Larry, Woodstock, and Zazu- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who should tell you that Sumner’s great-grandnephew was in the original Star Wars as one of the Imperial leaders… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.