The Programme of Christianity

The Programme of Christianity is a short devotional address by Henry Drummond, the Scottish evangelical biologist and popular speaker who lived from 1851 to 1897. The address belongs to his substantial body of short Christian writings that were enormously popular in the late Victorian period.

The address takes its central premise from the passage in Luke chapter four in which Jesus, after his return to Nazareth from the wilderness temptation, reads from the prophet Isaiah a passage proclaiming good news to the poor, freedom to captives, sight to the blind, and liberation for the oppressed. Drummond reads this passage as the programmatic statement of what Christianity was originally meant to accomplish in the world, and the address works through what each of these elements might mean if taken seriously by contemporary Christians.

Drummond’s characteristic method is on display throughout. He combines biblical exposition with practical example, with attention to natural science where it illuminates the spiritual point, and with the kind of direct address that made his speaking so effective with university audiences. He is interested in Christianity as a practical programme for actual human improvement rather than as a system of doctrinal propositions, and the address consistently pulls the discussion back from theological abstraction to the question of what should actually be done.

The book is short and can be read in an hour. For readers who already love Drummond’s better known short works like Pax Vobiscum and The Greatest Thing in the World, this is a natural further reading.