John Owen a Poster Boy... for Suffering Failure

by Darren Moore

I have been enjoying these GR:UK articles on John Owen. Quite possibly the greatest English theological mind, who, to my shame, I am really not familiar enough with to pass meaningful comment on his work. However, I thought it worth making a few comments about him as a man whom we can learn from. Notwithstanding Crawford’s comments, that he was a man of his time with his own failings, a few things stand out for me.

He could make priorities. We know Owen primarily as a prolific writer. Much of his work was when he was vice-dean of Oxford university. That seems fitting. But he was not just a writing machine, we know that he cared deeply for the well being of his students. He was also for a time a Pastor (two places he pastored were Fordham and Coggeshall, Essex, just down the road from me, here in Chelmsford). During that time he wrote very little, instead focusing on his pastoral ministry.

He showed pastoral sensitivity. He applied his great mind to preaching, but he was sensitive to what his congregation could cope with. In 1673 Owen’s congregation merged with Joseph Caryl’s. Caryl is famous for his epic 20+ year series on Job. After the merge Owen never preached a long series. Why not? Presumably out of love for the flock who he thought had had enough of interminably long sermon series!

He felt his limitations. As a Minister he often felt inadequate and would have traded his academic gifts for the preaching gifts of his contemporary John Bunyan. Life’s knocks took their toll on him (not least outliving all of his children, only one living beyond childhood and being widowed) and he suffered with depression, often frustrated by the spiritual lethargy of those he preached to. At the end of his life he felt that the Reformation and Puritanism was over and had failed.

He didn’t have rock star fame. It was his opinion that the optimal congregation size be between 100-500 and that large churches being inadequately and impersonally pastored had caused the demise of the Apostolic church. When Owen’s and Caryl’s congregations merged, Owen’s was only 35, Caryl’s 136. It seems to be an assumption that brilliance is directly proportional to popularity. For quite some time Owen’s works fell out of favour until, of all people, Wesley. True, he was held in high esteem by those in power, but locally he was not always flavour of the month. Some of our heroes today were nobodies in their own day.

He was a man of integrity. At the restoration he was offered a bishopric, which he turned down. Over time his understanding on church governance had developed and he was a settled Congregationalist. It would be easy for him to argue that he could have more influence as a Bishop, but he was convinced this was the wrong way to organise the church and that such issues are beyond pure pragmatics.

I find all of this an odd encouragement. I will never be able to write like John Owen. Whenever I have read anything by him I need a little lie down. But his life and struggles tell me that even on my hardest days (which are far lighter than his) I stand in very good company.