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The Revd Dr Denis Duncan writes:
STILL preaching this year, age 95, still adding yet further books to the 60 he had already written, and still associate minister at Heath Street Baptist Church in Hampstead, London, the Revd Dr Edwin Robertson, one of this country’s most remarkable Christian ministers, died on 3 November.
Although he was one of the most notable of contemporary Baptist ministers, Dr Robertson’s ministry was largely spent in ecumenical appointments. After serving as assistant minister in Regent’s Park Church, Luton, from 1938 to 1941, and as the minister of Dagnell Street Church in St Albans (1942-47), he was appointed to the Religious Affairs branch in the Control Commission in immediately post-war Germany. His fluency in German, enhanced in that period, was put to good use in his many translations of, and books about, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had died in a concentration camp.
In 1949, Robertson joined the staff of the Religious Broadcasting Department of the BBC, and in 1956 he became Study Secretary of the United Bible Societies. His world-wide travel in this post gave him material for many of his books.
Dr Robertson returned to a pastorate in Yeovil in 1962 before, in 1964, becoming director of the World Association for Christian Communication. He held that office from 1968 until he returned to a pastorate in Westbourne Park, London, in 1971. In 1983, he moved across London to Heath Street Church in Hampstead. In 2001, in his late 80s, he changed places with his associate minister, Dr Marie Isaacs.
Bible study was Dr Robertson’s speciality, and he gave much time and energy to leading groups in his own and other churches. Among the wide range of his books, many — such as Take and Read, and The Biblical Bases of Healing — were Bible-study books; but he also wrote the biography of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas, and did much work on the life and works of J. B. Phillips.
Even in so busy a life, he had room for leisure interests, including regular visits to Lord’s to enjoy the cricket. He was also an authority on wines. This interest led to his presiding over the wine committee at his London club, the Arts.
Very late in life, he was awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a deserved recognition of his ecumenical work.
He is survived by his wife, Ida, five children, 14 grandchildren, and at least 14 great-grandchildren.
Canon Paul Oestreicher adds: Even before the war, Robertson developed a deep interest in the struggle of the Confessing Church in Germany against Hitler’s regime. He befriended refugees, Jewish and Christian, and also German prisoners of war. All this made him a close ally of Bishop Bell of Chichester, who alone among the English bishops really understood the German situation.
With Bell, he deplored the deliberate bombing of German civilians. When he discovered that the only serious Bell biography left out most of the German story, he immediately wrote Unshakeable Friend: George Bell and the German Churches (CCBI, 1995).
Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote of him: “He was one of those landmark figures sculpted by the 20th century in ways that seem remote from the awful domestic anxiety that characterises so much of this Christian generation. I had the greatest personal admiration for him, and his book on Bell is a solid inspiration.”
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