Ryle promoted evangelical faith, which is experiential, personal, and emotionally engaged, set against Christian formalism, legalism, and barren orthodoxy. His parish church, in the Suffolk village of Helmingham, is dominated by impressive seventeenth-century memorial statues, all portrayed in formal pose, kneeling or lying down, with a fixed gaze. “They never show any feeling”, Ryle quipped. “Not a muscle of their marble faces ever shrinks or moves.” He argued that the same is true, spiritually, of every human heart until animated by God’s Spirit.

This article is part of the 10 Things You Should Know series.

1. Ryle Is Enjoying a Huge Resurgence in Popularity

John Charles Ryle (1816–1900), the first Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, was one of the most popular Christian authors and preachers of the nineteenth century. His vigorous Reformed evangelicalism and passionate Christ-centered preaching drew large crowds. But after Ryle died, as theological trends changed, he was soon dismissed as a relic of a bygone age. At the dawn of a new century, many opinion-formers turned instead to modern theology and contemporary scientific theory for answers to life’s big questions. Ryle was largely forgotten and rejected. But by the 1950s, it was apparent that, in fact, modern theology was outdated, not classic evangelicalism. Martyn Lloyd-Jones rejoiced in the rediscovery of Ryle as “one of the most encouraging and hopeful signs I have observed for many a long day.” That resurgence has continued into the 2020s, with Ryle read more widely across the world today than at any time since the 1890s.

2. Ryle Wanted to Be a Politician, Not a Preacher

As a young man, Ryle was a gifted orator from a wealthy and well-connected Cheshire family in the north of England. His grandfather made a fortune as a silk manufacturer and was involved in local politics as the Mayor of Macclesfield. Ryle’s father was a rich banker and was immersed in national politics as a Member of Parliament. Ryle was sent to Eton College, England’s elite school, where he was elected in 1833 to the Eton Society, an exclusive debating and social club for aspiring politicians. There he cut his teeth as a debater, leading debates on topics such as British naval supremacy, bull fighting, great prime ministers, and duelling. But when the family bank collapsed and the family estate was sold, Ryle’s hopes of entering Parliament were shattered. Instead, he put his speaking gifts to use as a Christian preacher.

3. Ryle Was Converted to Christ at Oxford University

In his youth, Ryle always attended church but seldom read his Bible or prayed. He was happy to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (the Reformation doctrinal basis of the Church of England) as a condition of his entry to Oxford University, but this gospel made little impact on his life. He later wrote: “I really was altogether without God in the world, and though many thought me a very proper, moral, respectable young man, I was totally unfit to die.” The precise circumstances of Ryle’s conversion in 1837 are contested, but he often told the story of entering a parish church in Oxford one afternoon, where he heard Ephesians 2 read with deliberate pauses in verse 8: “By grace are ye saved—through faith—and that not of yourselves—it is the gift of God.” It was a decisive moment in Ryle’s spiritual awakening, and that Bible text was later carved on his gravestone. He celebrated Christian conversion as radical, supernatural, and life-transforming.

4. Ryle Wrote Hundreds of Tracts

Most readers today know Ryle through his books, such as Knots Untied (1874), Old Paths (1877), Practical Religion (1878), and his best-seller, Holiness (1879). But almost all Ryle’s books are compilations—the chapters originally began as individual tracts, later brought together in combined volumes by his enterprising publisher, William Hunt of Ipswich. Tracts were a powerful form of literature. Ryle’s were usually short (sometimes only a few pages), cheaply manufactured, and sold in bulk for mass circulation. Many began as sermons and were designed to grab his readers’ attention. They had pithy titles, often in the form of direct questions: Are You Forgiven?, Are You Happy?, Are You Free?, Do You Love Christ?, Repent or Perish! In Ryle’s own lifetime, 12 million copies of his tracts were in circulation, often in translation, and distributed worldwide.

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