John Owen is becoming a well-known name in Reformed and evangelical circles for his penetrating theological and exegetical writings, and Craw-ford Gribben has done the world a favor in providing the first in-depth and detailed account of his life. For readers and fans of Owen, this will be a resource of inestimable value to help understand the culture, context, and personal experiences that motivated Owen in his ministry and especially in his writings. This is a clear, insightful, and well-ordered telling of Owen’s life and the events that shaped the world in which he labored.
Most readers of this magazine know Owen as a powerfully gifted theologian and commentator on Scripture. His writing corpus is massive, and his commentary on Hebrews alone spans eight volumes. In his own time, however, Owen had much more difficulty in achieving the theological renown he currently enjoys. Gribben’s work is enlightening in the way it highlights the frustrations, setbacks, and failures that marked much of Owen’s career. His world was one of continual change, and political upheaval was a constant factor. He labored during Archbishop William Laud’s suppression of Reformed theology under the reign of Charles I, during the English Civil War of the 1640s, during the Interregnum or Cromwelli-an period, and during the Restoration when the monarchy was reinstated and Charles II had many reasons to go after theologians who had sup-ported Parliament’s opposition to his father, men such as Owen. There likely was no truly peaceful interval during his life or work, and yet he managed to produce some of the most enduring writings of the period.
The focus on “experiences of defeat” was an interesting approach for Gribben to take in explaining Owen’s life, because there did seem to be some high points in his career. He was a favored preacher in Parliament during the English Civil War, and he served prestigiously in Oliver Cromwell’s regime. He was also appointed as vice-chancellor to the University of Oxford. Yet, it is true that most of these high points either came with accompanying difficulties or ended in disappointment. For example, his tenure as vice-chancellor of Oxford ended with no acknowl-edgement of the reforms he had achieved, which was indicative of his waning influence and the decline of the ecclesiological Independents in the Church of England. The ups and downs of Owen’s life remind us that he did not work in a vacuum, and there was a swirling storm of turmoil that almost always threatened to overturn his projects. This book is difficult to criticize. The most valuable aspect of Gribben’s biography is that he arranges the narrative around Owen’s publica-tions. This gives serious readers of Owen’s works access to the context in which each work was produced. This background information will help Owen’s readers understand external factors and likely internal motivations that influenced the writing of each work. This will only make Owen clearer to us as we seek to understand his theology through his books.
The next strength of this book is its realism. Gribben makes excellent use of private papers and unpublished manuscripts to stitch together details of Owen’s life previously lost to us. Although he has respect for Owen, he does not slip into hagiography and points out the moments in which Owen had clear agendas and worked hard to promote his own cause. This is an important reminder that even the best theologians should not become our untouchable heroes. He gives great attention to the proximate British context and the important events of Owen’s own setting that would have shaped his life and decisions. Gribben follows the historical evidence where it points him and presents a believable Owen: a real person with real-world concerns and frustrations, but one who cared deeply about his work and who left a massive literary output best understood as it relates to the life of the man who wrote it. Gribben’s work is a significant contribution to the continuing discussion about Owen, and we can be glad he has brought new clarity to this important theologian.
Harrison Perkins is a postgraduate research student in the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast.
SELECT WORKS BY JOHN OWEN
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (The Banner of Truth)
The Glory of Christ (The Banner of Truth)
Communion with God (The Banner of Truth)
