Doctor Sangster (1962)

I was given a copy of Paul Sangster’s 1962 biography of his father, Doctor Sangster, for Christmas. I have enjoyed reading it and was rather hoping it would answer a certain question which has bugged me for years. Mid-twentieth-century Methodism seems to have been dominated by the triumvirate of Doctors Sansgter, Weatherhead and Soper, each serving as President of the Conference and occupying prominent pulpits and publishing numerous books. Ian Paisley, the so-called ‘fundamentalist’ of the period, called Leslie Weatherhead ‘Dr Leatherhead’ and Donald Soper ‘Dr Soaphead’, and for good reason. The former denied the deity of Christ and turned the gospel into smooth-talking psychology, while the latter obsessed over pacifism and socialist politics. Sangster, on the other hand, remained evangelical. Contemporary writers observed:

‘Sangster loves God; Weatherhead loves people and Soper loves politics.’

While another version, attributed to Herbert Lewis, states:

‘Weatherhead loves people, Sangster loves the Lord and Soper loves an argument’.

I have always wondered how two patently apostate leaders coexisted and cooperated with one whom I always took to be biblical and faithful to orthodoxy. Sadly, Doctor Sangster only deepened the mystery, with such claims as:

‘Dr Soper’s views and my father’s coincided only in the essentials of their beliefs’.

I find this hard to believe, for it is the essentials on which they surely differed. Sangster would seek the odd sermon illustration from Weatherhead with whom a close friendship seems to have been enjoyed, while he goes on to say:

‘Arguments there certainly were at their monthly meetings…waves of controversy…thundered from each side’, but here, Weatherhead is the referee between the other two.

The biography was published while the two arch-apostates were still riding high, and the author may not have wished to defame these Methodist celebrities in his father’s name. Much as I admire William Sangster and appreciate him more for having read his biography (and pleasantly noting our shared membership of the Cromwell Association), I do question his judgement about the company he kept and platforms he shared. It is paramount to remain faithful oneself, and this he did, but it is almost as important to repudiate and expose the erroneous and heretical, for truth is more important than unity.

Curiously, portraits and busts of the liberal two I saw at London’s Wesley’s Chapel, though I do not recall seeing Sangster. I guess modern Methodism is the heir of Weatherhead and Soper rather than Wesley and Sangster.

A. D