The Faith Once Delivered: Nanlais Williams. Three. Hold a goodly Confession

As we saw in our series on Tom Nefyn, the theology of the Calvinistic Methodist Church had slid from the orthodoxy of the 1823 Aberystwyth Confession of Faith. While men like Nefyn had gone far beyond the Confession, by the 1920s, most ministers in the Calvinistic Methodist Church were frankly embarrassed by their Confession. In 1870, Thomas Charles Edwards announced that 'High Calvinism' was dead in Wales, while we have already seen that the Calvinistic Methodist leaders, interrogated before the Disestablishment Commission, were unable to give full assent to the teachings of Calvinism. In 1914, one reviewer had observed that 'Calvin and Calvinism are familliar words in Wales. But the man himself is a stranger and his doctrine is almost unknown.'

In the latter part of 1923 and 1924, the North and South Wales Associations of the Calvinistic Methodist Church (which will from now on be referred to as the Presbyterian Church of Wales) saw calls for a new doctrinal standard. A 'Reconstruction Committee' was set up, its principal secretary being E. O. Davies, minister of Shilo Church, Llandudno, former Professor of Christian Doctrine at Bala College. Davies was a mild liberal. The question before the Committee was whether the Confession should be changed, but it was generally assumed that they would recommend a new confession.

And many evangelicals felt that any revision of the Confession of Faith would have the effect of loosening the denomination's standards, allowing liberalism a free rein.