E J Poole-Connor: Contending for the Faith

What lay behind the dramatic collapse into modernism of the main Nonconformist denominations of England in the space of less than seventy years? This unique book presents the remarkable life of E. J. Poole-Connor, a major preacher whose ministry spanned this most turbulent period in British church life, from the time of Spurgeon to the 1960s, and who brilliantly recorded its events. Interwoven with biography, David Fountain provides in these pages a fast-moving overview of what happened and why, supplying lessons for today that will be eagerly received by Christians zealous for the defence of the Gospel.

David Guy Fountain (1929 - 2004) was, from 1995 to 1992, the widely influential minister of Spring Road Evangelical Church, Southampton. An historian by training (MA, St Peter's Hall, Oxford), he authored a number of books about Christian historical figures. He was himself an outstanding contender for the faith, and specially valued as a mentor by other pastors. Well read in Puritan literature, he was a founder and early Secretary of the Puritan Studies Conference, and he contributed many addresses and articles to different conferences and periodicals. His knowledge of the period of evangelical history covered by this book was unsurpassed.

LRBS assigned reading for February 2026.