Ernest Kevan

I have just finished reading the new Banner of Truth biography of the London Bible College principal Ernest Kevan by Paul Brown. It is very well written and is both a challenge in that Kevan was clearly a dedicated and godly man and informative about a period which is really just before my time (Kevan died a little prematurely in 1965) but part of the whole renaissance of Calvinism in the UK in the forties and fifties.

Far from looking for controversy, Paul Brown nevertheless doesn't duck issues such as Lloyd-Jones perceived attack on LBC in 1958 (see the chapter headed BD or not BD). He has done his best too to trace the development of the Strict Baptist Kevan's thinking over the years as he passed from Walthamstow to New Cross to Tooting to LBC in an ever changing situation. A very balanced portrait, it includes not only Kevan's leading of the college but his children's works, social involvement and, perhaps unexpectedly, his sense of fun. An appendix usefully summarises his PhD on the Law.  We really are in Paul Brown's debt.