Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

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The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK; Society of spreading of Christian Education ) is one of the earliest European missionary societies. This Anglican organization was founded in London in 1698 and is still active today in the production and distribution of Christian literature worldwide.

history

In 1698, Humphrey Mackworth , Colonel Maynard Colchester, Lord Guilford, John Hooke and the Anglican clergyman Thomas Bray founded the SPCK in London. Since the SPCK was not active in Scotland, the independent Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was established in 1709 . The aim of the SPCK was to establish schools in English cities and libraries in the American colonies and prisons, to distribute Christian books with Anglican doctrine, to support widows and orphans of clergy and to instruct young people in India in the Christian faith. With its European charisma it was a central institution for Pietism , because it connected the facilities of August Hermann Francke in Halle with the mission fields in North America ( Georgia , California ) and in India ( Tranquebar ). The clergymen Anton Wilhelm Böhme and Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen (1694–1776) achieved great importance as leaders .

After the Salzburg Protestants were expelled (1731), the SPCK got involved in their care during the escape and set up a settlement in Ebenezer , which is northwest of Savannah in Georgia.

In 2012 the SPCK gave up its last bookstores. In 2015, SPCK took over Intervarsity Press and became the largest Christian publishing house in England, printing 500,000 books in 88 different languages ​​per year. These were sold in 200 countries. While the home market has been declining in the past year, activities in the developing world have increased. African theologians are also supported so that they can publish their works. The most famous books so far came from the authors CS Lewis , John Stott and Nicholas Thomas Wright . She wants to take over all rights from Wright.

literature

  • William Osborn Bird Allen and Edmund McClure: Two hundred years - The history of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898 , SPCK, London 1898.
  • William Kemp Lowther Clarke: A history of the SPCK , London 1959
  • Daniel L. Brunner: Halle pietists in England: Anthony William Boehm and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge . (Works on the history of Pietism, Volume 29). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 1993. ISBN 3-525-55813-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://spckpublishing.co.uk/about-us
  2. ↑ https://spckpublishing.co.uk/mission-and-vision
  3. ^ Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in Cambridge University Library
  4. ↑ https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/16-february/news/uk/christian-publishers-spck-adopt-new-image-as-sales-grow Christian publishers SPCK adopt new image as sales grow , Feb. 16, 2018, Church Times