^“For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:3-5)

Dear Saints,

Not many days before writing this, I went with Beth and some friends to Reel Pizza to watch the movie, “Amazing Grace.” The main character, William Wilberforce (1759-1833), has been something of a hero to me since the time I first heard of him. I enjoyed the movie, but I wish it had told “the rest of the story.”

Wilberforce is an interesting case study in Christian vocation. Smart, eloquent, charming, and something of a “party animal,” he was first elected to Parliament at the age of 21. He was re-elected 4 years later and served for a while without attaching his name to any particular causes. In 1785, after undergoing a radical Christian conversion, he decided to serve Christ in the political arena. For his remaining 48 years in Parliament he contended, sometimes against overwhelming odds, for the emancipation of the slaves.

Voters in the United States have a bias against electing atheists to high public office. At the same time it makes us nervous when evangelical Christians take their religion out of the private sphere of home, individual morality, emotions, and values, and into the public sphere of politics and economics. We have learned to be wary of people who announce their aim is “the reform of public manners,” as Wilberforce said. And politics might not be high on the list of vocational choices that we encourage young Christians to consider. Aside from the fact that Wilberforce regarded politics to be his baptismal ministry, there are some other things we can learn from him about participating as a Christian in political life.

In our debates about church and state, concern is voiced that religious people might impose their religiously-motivated morality on others who don’t share those religious views. In a sermon last April marking the 200^th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade, the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out a distinction that we often miss. On one hand, Archbishop Williams said, the Christian citizen is “morally involved in what the state actively enables or supports in terms of common life” and “cannot simply accept in all cases without question that what the state determines through political majorities is right, because he or she shares an accountability for the corporate moral standing of the state.” So when the state legislates or encourages something that violates the Christian understanding of God’s will, “the Christian is bound to protest and argue in the public sphere for change.”

Britain’s economy in the 18^th century was enmeshed with the slave trade. Directly or indirectly all British citizens were involved in its cruelty and inhumanity. The movie captured the transformation that took place when the consciences of well-intentioned Christian people awoke to their share in the nation’s corporate guilt.

Now consider a slightly different case, where the state grants to people the right to make certain personal choices that Christians might find questionable. Christians themselves aren’t being personally compromised by the free choices those other people make, and the state imposes no restriction on Christians’ freedom to choose according to their own beliefs. This differentiation does not eliminate all the possible gray areas. But if somehow we could grasp the distinction, it might help Christians dealing with the day’s “hot button” issues to discern which ones call for them to take some kind of unified stand, including legislative action, and which might be more effectively addressed by creative engagement with the culture to persuade and inspire, practicing tolerance and making concessions.

In today’s “take no prisoners” political climate, it is instructive to see how Wilberforce compromised and accepted limited victory in the short term, on his way to achieving his eventual goals. The movie ends with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. It wasn’t until 1833 that Parliament passed the act to abolish slavery altogether. We might be disappointed that, for the 26 years in between, masses of human beings remained in slavery. But as a result of Wilberforce’s tactics, Britain emancipated her slaves more than three decades before we did the same in the Sweet Land of Liberty, and without killing off half a million of her own citizens in a civil war. And Wilberforce wasn’t too “pure” to collaborate with people who didn’t share his religious views. Thomas Clarkson, who shows up in the movie as Wilberforce’s ally, was not a Christian, but had been convinced by his study of philosophy that slavery was evil.

Unfortunately the movie minimized the role that Christian community played in Wilberforce’s private and public life. There is a scene where a party of grim-looking, black-clad people shows up at Wilberforce’s house for supper - Hannah Moore and some clergymen. Hannah Moore belonged to a group of evangelical Christians, many of whom lived in Clapham, a village south of London. A sarcastic editor, hoping to discredit them, tagged them with the name “Clapham Sect,” implying that they were extremists and schismatics.

They accepted the title, though in fact they were loyal members of the Church of England and worshipped together at Holy Trinity, Clapham. They submitted to a common Rule of Life that prescribed the time they got up in the morning; daily times of prayer, Bible study, and work; generous stewardship of their wealth, including giving for the relief of need; and weekly observance of the Sabbath. The others, besides Wilberforce and Moore, were leaders in the worlds of business and finance, law, and government. Some who didn’t actually live in Clapham were nevertheless counted as members of the “sect,” including the Rev. John Newton of Olney and Woolnoth, London (he shows up in the movie), and the Rev. Charles Simeon of Cambridge, whose preaching and mentoring produced a generation of committed overseas missionaries.

At one point in the movie, Thomas Clarkson advocates class warfare along the model of the French Revolution. Wilberforce forbids Clarkson ever to mention revolution again in his hearing. Plodding and corrupt as the political system might be, it was the system they had to work with, and Wilberforce believed that with patience he could work with it to persuade the nation that his cause was right. But naiveté is not one of the Christian virtues. “Wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16) might summarize Wilberforce’s principles. In the movie, Wilberforce and his allies employ a legislative tactic that seems to push the line between serpent and dove, or at least shows them to be thinking like chess players.

In Wilberforce’s time the establishment of the Church of England was a subtle reminder that the state is responsible for more than “managing profit and security” (as Archbishop Williams puts it). Political and economic systems can’t be trusted to critique themselves, but must ultimately answer to a Higher Authority. An established church is an alien idea to us Americans. I am unconvinced by arguments that the founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation. It would be more accurate to say our unofficial state religion is autonomous individualism; plus the mostly materialistic “pursuit of happiness”; plus a faith in basic human goodness. It is more Unitarian than Christian. But Trinitarian Christians can find at least some common ground with Unitarianism’s belief in a god and a morality rooted in the Bible.

The words “volatile” and “controversial” come to mind whenever politics and religion are mentioned in the same breath. But how is our claim, “Jesus is Lord,” not political? This doesn’t mean we only depend on the power of the state to compel everyone to do God’s will. As the community of those who have received the Holy Spirit and have God’s law written on their hearts, the Church exists to serve as Exhibit A, illustrating to the world that the Gospel is true, that the Lord’s promised Kingdom is real and worth setting our hearts on.

Faithfully,