T. E. Ruth (1875–1956)
Preacher and Controversialist
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Published: 2021
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Publisher's Description
T. E. Ruth (1875-1956) was one of the most controversial Baptist ministers ever to serve in Australia. After a successful career in England as preacher, pastor, and writer, Ruth came to the significant Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne in 1914. During the tumultuous years of the World War, Ruth cared for the bereaved and bewildered people in his congregation and in the city. He also led public debates about conscription, engaging in intense platform clashes with his Catholic opponent, Archbishop Daniel Mannix. He later moved to the Pitt Street Congregational Church in Sydney where he was soon involved in public opposition to the Labor premier J. T. Lang as well as becoming a popular columnist in the secular press. To his critics he was a "sectarian bigot" and was mocked as "Ruthless Ruth"; to others, he was an ardent Empire loyalist, an admired and successful Protestant defender. Some critics accused him of being a Christian spiritualist and others have suggested that he formulated a theology for fascism. Ruth denounced millennial Adventism and hellfire eschatology as he affirmed universalism and a continuing spiritual development after death. This fascinating study of a progressive thinker, public theologian, and controversialist illuminates one of the more divisive and formative periods in Australian religious and political life.
Endorsements (5)
“Ken Manley’s biography of T. E. Ruth adds considerably to our understanding of Ruth’s place in Australian religious and secular life in the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, it challenges previous interpretations of this sometimes-controversial figure. A fascinating read.”
“Ken Manley has done it again. This time the subject of his meticulous scholarship . . . is a biography of T. E. Ruth, revered and reviled Protestant preacher, anti-Catholic ecumenist, platform agitator, progressive and (very) liberal evangelical, independent thinker, Empire loyalist, discomforting controversialist, stylish dogmatist. . . . Based on the study of Ruth’s sermons and his more than eight hundred contributions to the press, Manley’s analysis is a major resource for the development of that much-needed public theology.”
“Angular and often strident, Ruth, not the normal subject of biography, is admirably presented by Manley in this ‘warts-and-all’ assessment, demonstrating that some defects were not as reprehensible as might at first appear. With theological daring, Ruth disdained traditional shibboleths without betraying evangelical conviction or Baptist principles. . . . Connecting church with everyday life, he made church relevant in contrast to the rather arcane Adventist speculations of some of his contemporaries.”
“Ruth, a rising Baptist minister in England before the First World War, was carried by his eloquence to the pulpit of Collins Street Baptist Church, Melbourne, where he challenged the Roman Catholic Church and championed the British Empire. Subsequently, Ruth moved to the leading Congregational church in Sydney, adopting a self-professed modernist theology. Ken Manley has written a superbly contextualized biography, providing a vivid portrait of an extraordinary man.”
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