Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

esented as an example. The Executive Council of the Alliance was involved in seeking religious freedom in many countries and this commitment would prove important in Eastern Europe. The Council stated: The Council...place on record their deep sense of obli- gation to his Majesty the King of Prussia for the personal interest which he has manifested in the wrongs endured by his subjects who have suffered from the operation of intol- erant laws, and the enlightened and liberal views by which he has guided the recent measures of his government in relation ’ “Statement Laid on the Table by Sir Culling Eardley Respecting the Continent, Septem- ber 29" 1847”, in Evangelical Alliance Executive Council Minutes, 29 September 1847. The Evangelical Alliance Executive Council Minutes are held at the Evangelical Alliance offices, Whitefield House, 186 Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4BT, UK. The minutes are referred to hereafter as Executive Council Minutes. 8 EC, vol. 4 (1850), p. 364. ° J.W. Ewing, Goodly Fellowship: A Centenary Tribute to the Life and Work of the World’s Evangelical Alliance, 1846-1946 (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1946), p. 63. '0 J.H. Rushbrooke, The Baptist Movement in the Continent of Europe, p. 39; J.H.Y. Briggs, The English Baptists of the Nineteenth Century (Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 1994), pp. 227-34 for Steane, other English Baptists and the Alliance. 16 to this subject. They offer their Christian congratulations to their brethren of the Baptist denomination on the new liberty they have acquired in that kingdom." There was, however, a reaction. In 1854, a year later, August von Beth- mann-Hollweg, who was Vice-President of the Second Chamber of the Prussian Parliament and President of the Lutheran Churchs Kirchentag, wrote to the Swiss evangelical leader, Jean Henri Merle d‘Aubigné, to complain that the German Baptists were “turning away from the great Church [the Lutheran Church], for the most part, persons who are already awakened...to unite them into little sectarian flocks”. Taking Old Testa- ment strictures against religious plurality as his guide, Bethmann- Hollweg argued against religious freedom. Sir Culling Eardley, for the British Alli- ance, publicly opposed this restriction of religious liberty. Eardley’s infor- mation was that most converts to Baptist churches were drawn “not from the Church, but from the world”.'* Eardley was convinced that his posi- tion should be the Evangelical Alliance's official position. Given the strong opposition they faced in Germany, however, Baptists there needed British evangelical support. Eventually, after months of negotiation and with help from Eardley and from Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher, the court preacher in Berlin, German Baptist representatives secured an interview in 1855 with the King of Prussia. The interview was reported in detail in Evangelical Chris- tendom. The Baptist representatives were Oncken, G