Author(s)Church Society
Date 21 November 2023

This year’s St Antholin Lecture on Puritan Divinity will be delivered live on the Church Society Facebook page by Dr Christy Wang, a church historian from Singapore Bible College. Dr Wang studied and taught undergraduate papers at the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford, where she earned her DPhil on ‘Puritan Conformity, Church Polity, and Anglican Identity, 1628–88’, having previously also studied at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and National Taiwan University.

The lecture will focus on the diary of Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705), whose poem “The Day of Doom” was a bestseller in early New England. There is a great deal to learn from Wigglesworth’s record of how he experienced the love and mercy of God in the midst of despair and confusion about his homoerotic desires and affections towards other men. He experienced a sense of spiritual crisis that led to self-loathing, condemnation of his own hypocrisy, and strong sense of inadequacy before God, and yet at the same time there are glimpses of hope recorded in his diary that reveal an unceasing trust in God’s mercy and goodness. Dr Wang will explore how this struggle, which seemed unique to those who experienced ‘same-sex love’ like Wigglesworth, in fact reflected a much more common internal turmoil many English Protestants experienced when they battled against  sexual thoughts and actions.

Please join us on the Church Society Facebook page for the livestream of this lecture — and a chance to ask questions afterwards — on Wednesday 6th December at 6pm (UK time).

Previous St Antholin Lectures that have been hosted by Church Society can be watched on our YouTube channel here.

Previous St Antholin Lectures have also been published by Latimer Trust and can be purchased here.