Maxwell was surrounded by Christianity from childhood. Growing up in Edinburgh he attended both St Andrew’s Church of Scotland on George Street and St John’s Episcopal Church on Princes Street, as befitted a boy with a Presbyterian father and an Episcopal aunt. As a child, he could recite Psalm 119, the longest, and most intricate psalm in the Psalter, and his minister in Cambridge claimed that by the end of his life, he knew the Bible ‘well nigh by heart’.[1]
A feel for the depth of his Christian faith can be gained from the letters to his wife, Katherine, as they maintained a regular study of the Bible together by post. For example, on the 16th May 1858 (while they were engaged) he wrote,
‘I think the more we enter together into Christ's work He will have the more room to work His work in us. For He always desires us to be one that He may be one with us. Our worship is social, and Christ will be wherever two or three are gathered together in his name. I have been vexed that I could not speak better to . I had a long walk with him, talking of what people have believed, and what was necessary to be believed. I hope we may come to understand each other, but more that he may come to the clear light. I wish I could speak to him wise words. He is so anxious to hear, and I to speak, and then the words are all wind after all.’[2]
Maxwell’s Christianity was an active matter, a faith to be engaged with and to be discussed.
Katherine Clerk Maxwell, photo courtesy of Peterhouse College, Cambridge
His first biographers, Lewis Campbell and William Garnett state that ‘it is not to be supposed that Maxwell was ever to be completely identified with any particular school of religious opinion. He was too much the “heir of all the ages”, and, as he himself expressed it, “his faith was too deep to be in bondage to any set of opinions.” Scottish Calvinism was the theological system which had most historical interest to him, and most claim on his hereditary piety. He was learned in the writings of [John] Owen and Jonathan Edwards. But that which his latest pastor has called “his deep though simple faith,” was not enclosed by any system.’[3]
Against this reluctance to place Maxwell in ‘any particular school of religious opinion’ modern authors such as Bruce Ritchie[4] and Matthew Stanley[5]have set Maxwell within Victorian evangelicalism (where his slightly older contemporary G.G. Stokes (1819-1903) also sits). While it is a term that can cause surprise in some twenty-first-century ears, it is an accurate description.
Evangelicals share four important themes: They see the Bible as the authoritative revelation of God’s character and actions; They believe that redemption from sin is achieved through the death of Jesus on the cross; They believe that conversion is a matter of individual decision. And finally, they believe that this need for conversion should be proclaimed by evangelism. [6]
Thus, for instance, the first and last of these are suggested in the quote from the letter above. The theme of the letter is the interpretation and application of the Bible, and in the second paragraph Maxwell intimates to Katherine his concern to communicate to his friend ‘what is necessary to be believed’. The examples of Maxwell’s theological reading, as given by Campbell and Garnett, are also clear pointers to an evangelical disposition. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was an American theologian in the Puritan tradition who was a key figure in evangelical revival in America. John Owen (1616- 1683) was an English Puritan and major theologian whose voluminous and detailed writings are still valued (and in print) within modern conservative theological circles today. Finally, there were some of the churches Maxwell attended. The Edinburgh churches of his youth were of evangelical bent, and when living in London, Maxwell frequently attended Palace Gardens Baptist Chapel. According to Maxwell the pastor, John Offord, ‘knows his Bible, and preaches as near it as he can, and does what he can to let the statements in the Bible be understood by his hearers.’[7]
Maxwell’s Christian faith found practical outworking in several ways. As a student at Cambridge he was influenced by the Christian Socialism of F. D. Maurice (1805-1872) and went on to teach in Working Men’s Colleges in Cambridge, London, and Aberdeen. As Laird of Glenlair, he contributed significantly to the funding of both the minister and manse of Corsock Parish Church and became an Elder in the congregation in 1863. Further, when a local school closed in the 1870s, he set about plans to open another at his own expense on the Glenlair estate but ill health prevented him from completing the task.
His faith followed him into the classroom at Aberdeen. In his introductory lecture to third-year students at Marischal College, Maxwell told his students that the purpose of education was ‘the special cultivation of some one or more of those faculties which are given us to win our livelihood to help our fellow man to do our duty, and to worship God, in short to equip us completely for the business of life.’[8] As he stated later in the same lecture, the ‘Author of the Universe’ has appointed laws, and for Maxwell, these were both natural and moral.
His faith also followed him to his oversight of the construction of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. A final Maxwellian touch was to have inscribed on the main doors the words of Psalm 111 v2, Magna opera Domini exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus (Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them). For Maxwell, these were not merely grand words. He believed that the universe had been created by God for us both to delight in and comprehend.
Maxwell’s science, life, and Christian faith were all of a piece. But he was circumspect and cautious as to the details of how science and Christian faith might influence each other. An example of this circumspection can be seen in his interaction with the Bishop of Gloucester & Bristol, Rev. C.J. Ellicott (1819-1905). On being asked by the bishop in 1876 whether modern science aligned with Genesis chapter 1’s statement that light was created before the sun, Maxwell gave some thoughts ‘in accordance with the science of 1876 (which may not agree with that of 1896).’ But he then went on to warn that, ‘The rate of change of scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such a hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long before it ought to be buried and forgotten.’[9] Thus Ellicott’s concern to integrate the latest science with scripture was likely to simply lead to poor exegesis.
His circumspection was also evident when he was asked to join the Victoria Institute, a society formed in 1865 to reconcile ‘any apparent discrepancies between Christianity and Science’[10]. Maxwell declined stating, ‘I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonise his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.’
It would be a mistake to suppose from the above two quotes that Maxwell may have felt that there were genuine irreconcilable tensions between the Christian faith and science lurking below the surface. I expect he would have viewed such an idea as being as inconceivable as believing there were genuine irreconcilable differences between physics and geology. Rather, his faith and science were based on the ‘Author of the Universe’ having written a single great work, to be pondered and delighted in. But that pondering was not to be rushed, nor was it to be assumed that it would be concluded within a single lifetime.
Note: The Campbell and Garnet hyperlinks above are to the appropriate pages in the 1999 Digital Preservation made by James Rautio of Sonnet Software, Inc.
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