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Reverend E W Bullinger AKC DD (Hon) was a Church of England clergyman, biblical scholar, prolific writer, clerical secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society for 43 years, and ultradispensationalist theologian.
Ethelbert William 'EW' Bullinger was born on 15th December 1837 in Fordwich, a Canterbury market town just west of the Westbere Marshes on the River Stour in East Kent, England, United Kingdom. [1][2] He was the youngest of five children and younger son of William Bullinger (1795-1873) and Mary Bent (1903-58), [3] and a direct descendent of Heinrich Bullinger, the protestant theologian who succeeded Huldrych Zwingli as head of the Church of Zürich, Switzerland in December 1531 at the height of the Reformation. [4] EW was educated at King's College, London (one of the two founding colleges of the University of London), graduating in 1861 with the Associateship of King's College (AKC) and, subsequently, being ordained a Church of England clergyman. The family was living at Westgate Without Kent in 1851 [5] and Bridge, Kent in 1858. His siblings were:
Upon graduation, and having a means of supporting her, EW married Emma Dodson, seven years his senior, on 15th October 1861 in St Mary le Strand, at the eastern end of the Strand in the City of Westminster, London. [6][7][8] EW and Emma had two sons:
Being a clergyman, EW and Emma moved from parish to parish frequently, namely: Bermondsey, Southwark 1861, Tittleshall, Norfolk 1863–66, Notting Hill, West London 1866–69, Leytonstone, East London 1869–70, Walthamstow, East London 1871–74 and St Stephen's 1874 until he resigned his vicarage in 1888.
In the great Anglican debate of the Victorian era, he belonged to the Low Church, the evangelical Anglican wing that gives relatively little emphasis to ritual and sacraments, rather than the High Church, the Anglo-Catholic tradition.
Living in the late Dickensian era, EW spent much of his time working in the orphanages of London.
He was also a musician of some note. As part of his support for the Breton Mission, he collected and harmonised several previously-untranscribed Breton hymns on his visits to Trémel, Brittany. He also published Fifty original hymn-tunes in 1874 which reached a third edition in 1897. The first, Bullinger, is the only still in use today, often sung to the words I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus.
From a very early age, EW was a recognised scholar in the field of biblical languages. In 1881, at just 44 years of age, the Archbishop of Canterbury granted him an honorary Doctor of Divinity (DD) degree in recognition of his biblical scholarship. [9]
His views were often unique and sometimes controversial; so closely tied to what is now called 'ultradispensationalism' that it is sometimes referred to as Bullingerism. Bullingerism differs from mainstream dispensationalism on the beginning of the Church, the Body of Christ. Mainstream dispensationalism holds that the Church began at Pentecost, early in the Acts of the Apostles. In stark contrast, Bullinger held that the Church, which the Apostle Paul revealed as the Body of Christ, began after the end of Acts, and was not revealed until the Prison Epistles of the Apostle Paul. Other dispensationalists (often described as 'mid-Acts dispensationalists', Acts 9 or 13) hold that the Church began at or shortly after Saul's conversion. EW argued for mortality of the soul, that is, the cessation of the soul between death and resurrection. He was a supporter of the theory of the Gospel in the Stars, which states the constellations to be pre-Christian expressions of Christian doctrine. Whilst strongly opposed to the theory of Darwinian evolution and holding that Adam was created in 4004 BC, EW staunchly held to the 'flat-Earth' theory. He was a member of the Universal Zetetic Society.
Amongst many great books, EW Bullinger wrote three major works:
Those works and many others remain in print, as of 2007: [10]
EW was clerical secretary of the Trinitarian Bible Society for 43 years, from 1867 until his death. During his secretariat the Society completed a Hebrew version of the New Testament (1885) with with Christian David Ginsburg; published Ginsburg's first edition of the Tanakh (Old Testament) along with his Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (1897); formed the Brittany Evangelical Mission Society and translated the Bible into the Breton language; published the first Protestant Portuguese Reference Bible; and distributed Spanish language Bibles in Spain after the Spanish Revolution of 1868.
The couple lost their older son, Ethelbert, in 1900, aged about 37 years. They were living in Paddington, London in 1901. [11]
Living in relative retirement in Hendon, EW lost his wife in 1911 in Wandsworth, London [12] and younger son, Bernard, aged 43 years, about the same time. Aged 75 years, EW passed away on 6th June 1913 in Hendon, [13] and was buried at Hampstead Cemetery, Hampstead, London Borough of Camden, Greater London, England. [14] He also outlived all his siblings. He was survived by grandson, Ethelbert Bernard Bullinger (1907-).
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Categories: Doctor of Divinity Degree | St Mary le Strand Church, Westminster, London | Hampstead Cemetery, Hampstead, Middlesex | Hendon, Middlesex (London) | Bridge, Kent | King's College, London | England, Religious Figures | Anglican Priests | Biblical Scholars | British Authors | England, Notables | Notables