Michael Morgan | William Wilberforce: Faith, Friendship, and Cultural Transformation

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Michael Morgan. Michael is a friend of mine. We've actually met now a couple times, but he's also president at William Tennyson Seminary. And William Tennyson is a really interesting model for a seminary. We're going to talk a little bit about that, but we're also going to talk about William Wilberforce. And so, Michael, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being on, bro. Yeah, James, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be with you. Yeah, absolutely. So talk a little bit about, before we get into William Wilberforce, talk a little bit about William Tennyson because I really do like the model you guys are implementing. And so just tell us where you're at as an institution, what you do, you know, give us the lay of the land at William Tennyson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Tennyson is a startup seminary. We use a low residency cohort-based model of education. So guys and gals come out and they're in a cohort. They begin together, Lord willing, progress and then graduate together. And we bring them out to the mountains in Colorado for one to two weeks at a time for residencies. And then they're doing most of their academic work back home prior to the residencies and then afterwards, there's a lot of follow-up and reading and writing, that sort of thing. But kind of the heart of our modality is this, are these residencies, these one to two week long residencies at a retreat center in the mountains. And we're able to fly people in from all over to teach classes in Old Testament, New Testament, applied theology, historical theology. And it's just a really rich way to do theological education and reflection. Just a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks back, we had a cohort out. We had 14 students from 12 different states that are flying in and coming in and we're retreating up to the mountains and then doing some rigorous academic reflection together. And so it's really, it's just a sweet way to engage in theological reflection. It's incarnational, it's embodied and enfleshed, and yet it's flexible enough to allow people to stay in their ministry context and continue to minister faithfully there, wherever God's called them to serve. That's awesome, man. Yeah, I never taught like that in a sort of a retreat setting, but I taught study abroad with Moody Bible Institute when I was there. And so we'd take a number of undergraduate students from MBI over and we'd be with them in Germany and I was in Germany and Ireland. And part of what I loved about that was just being able to share meals with the students and hang out with the students and, you know, hop on the train on the weekends and, you know, when we were in Germany, we'd go over to Austria or we'd, you know, visit various sites in Ireland and just kind of get to know one another outside the classroom setting. It was fun just to be sort of, most of the time, another tourist, you know, obviously in the classroom, I'm the professor, but outside the classroom, I was just having fun like everybody else. And so it's really a model, I think that fosters the building of relationships in a way that you really don't necessarily get in that 16 week long semester where you're just, you know, you have people coming in and out or, you know, the professors commuting and so they're not there all the time. Whenever you're staying in the same place, eating the same meals, you know, it's a different vibe. It really is. Yeah, it's a unique environment. And in a lot of ways, I think it's a greenhouse for relationships. You know, by the time our students are graduating, I mean, they're bumping up against 150 meals that they've now shared with other faculty, staff, and other students. And that's something I don't even know if most students experience in the brick and mortar, you know, kind of classical educational delivery model. So yeah, I have a feeling it's hit or miss, man. I mean, I think back on my MDiv, I had a mentor, but I know I had a unique experience with him where I would go over to his house and have meals and my family and his family got to know one another, but I know not everybody was having that. And when I went on for my additional master's work and then my PhD, I didn't have that. I was commuting. I just had kids. And so, you know, I was kind of the guy who was in and off campus as quickly as possible because I'm like, I got life to live. And so it is a unique experience and I think it's fantastic. You're kind of designing the school around that very specific sort of retreat strategy, I suppose you could say. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we've tried to do two things at once and we feel like the low residency retreat model works well to facilitate both of these things. One, we want to keep people in their ministry context. You know, studies show a lot of people that move away for seminary don't return necessarily. And so we don't want to be siphoning off leaders from rural communities that don't have a brick and mortar school that they could attend. On the other hand, we really wanna be relational and we want it to be incarnational. We think that that's where real transformation happens. And so by doing it in this, in these retreat type residencies, that that provides a space for that to happen where, yeah, these relationships are being built. People are getting to know each other. And in fact, they're bringing their families along. And so in the classroom, you know, the enrolled students might be the ones that are, you know, doing the academic, you know, all the rigor, the reading, the writing and so on. But outside of class, your spouse and your children might be meeting another student's spouse or child or a professor's spouse and their children. And that creates a really unique dynamic. And I think it, I think there's integrity to that. So it's hard to just come in and put on the face, you know, that I'm the expert here and you need to listen to me when you just saw me have a squabble with, you know, my kids or whatever over lunch. And so I think it keeps us all humble and it creates, yeah, there's an authenticity, I think, to the relationship that doesn't necessarily always happen in other contexts. Yeah. It's interesting when you look, so I've gotten to, I, part of what I do on the side is consult with other seminaries. And one of the seminaries I got to consult with was the Lutherans, Missouri Synod Lutheran Seminary in Fort Wayne. And they probably have the closest that I can think of of the sort of model that you're discussing, but it's residential. I mean, you're sort of, if you want to go to Lutheran Seminary, you're sort of all in, you know, you relocate. There's only two seminaries in the country to be a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor and you got to go to one of those two. There's one in St. Louis, there's one in Fort Wayne. But they have that very similar, when I was there, they had that sort of vibe that you're talking about where you'd see their families and their children on the campus. You'd see them interacting with the families and children of faculty members and all of those kinds of things. And it really was like a, it was sort of off the beaten path back in the, you know, more secluded spot. And, you know, when you think of a seminary, that idealized version of a seminary, it was like, oh, this is what I anticipated going to. Now I've never actually went to that, but it was similar to that. So I think it's great. I love the model. I love what you guys are doing there. And where did the name William Tennant come from? Just out of curiosity. Yeah, yeah. So William Tennant, I believe he was Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister in New Jersey in the 18th century. And he had four sons, all of whom were interested in entering into the ministry. And this is 18th century, the Eastern seaboard, you know, New Jersey is still the frontier. It's not what we think of today. And so, you know, there aren't a lot of options for theological education. You know, you could go to New England, maybe Harvard, Yale, or old England, Oxford, Cambridge. But, you know, in New Jersey, there weren't a lot of options on the table. And so he ended up building a log cabin and started educating his sons. And then other people started saying, hey, can we, you know, get trained for ministry here as well? And it grew over time. And then this thing broke out all along the Eastern seaboard that we now call the Great Awakening. And a lot of graduates from Tennant's college, that was mocked. It was called the, people called it the Log College in kind of a mocking way. But these Log College graduates ended up being some of the key leaders in the Great Awakening. After his death, then that school became the seedbed for a number of other schools, including the College of New Jersey, which we now know as Princeton. And then, of course

In the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up, and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. I love it, man. That's cool. Yeah, I didn't know that history. That's interesting. It seems like there was a lot of that going on very early in America's history where, number one, I mean, it seems like being a minister was, I don't know, maybe we could say it's a pathway into education. You know, that so much of that, the higher education that was happening at the time was ministerial or theological to some degree. Is that, am I making that up or is that relatively true? No, I think it's, I think it's relatively true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, think about Oxford and Cambridge. I mean, these were schools where you're going to be trained for, you know, to be a minister in the established church. And so, yeah, that's, in fact, I was just doing some research earlier today. There's a, there was this little clerical society in Yorkshire called the Elland Society, and they came up with a fund in the 1770s, I believe, to, there were these promising young leaders that needed to be educated. So they started this fund in order to send them off to Oxford or Cambridge because they couldn't afford education otherwise. And that was kind of the gateway for ordination and then service into the Church of England at the time. So, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I've studied most of this through the life of D.L. Moody. And so, you know, he did very similar things, although he had more boarding schools in western Massachusetts and then obviously started the Bible Institute there in Chicago. But I think his concern was very similar, that these people, you know, before public education was really funded and expanded and everybody could have access to it, you had a lot of poor rural kids who just weren't going to have the opportunity to study and learn and be educated in any way, shape, or form. And he took that opportunity to start these boarding schools, which were very much biblically based, which is sort of fascinating to think about, you know, now it seems like we're a little bit more in competition with public schools. You know, Christian schools are still being founded and people are still doing it, but it is an alternative to public education versus what they had back then, which was no alternative. You either, you know, started one or you didn't have any. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and Harvard, I think, if you look in some of the old records from, it might be the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or I believe it was, I believe that's where it was, where they're writing about the whole purpose of Harvard is to, you know, educate people to know Christ, you know, and so on. It's really fascinating. Yeah, so there is a Christian, I think, tradition in education. These two things are, yeah, very much, you know, there's this Christian impulse to educate people so that people can read the Word of Life and so that they can accurately handle the Word of Truth. Yeah, yeah. Well, we kind of on trade into a little bit of this history, but where does William Wilberforce, we're going to talk about William Wilberforce, where does William Wilberforce fit within the historical sort of space that we're talking about? What century was he in? Where was he? You know, those kind of questions. Yeah, yeah. Well, I just mentioned a moment ago the Ellen Society in Yorkshire, so Wilberforce is actually connected to that. He was born in 1759. He was born in a little, well, it's actually wasn't a little town at the time. It was Kingston upon Hull or Hull in England in Yorkshire. Eventually moves to London and serves in parliament there for many years as a parliamentarian. But, so yeah, he's an 18th century figure. He was a politician, not a pastor, but he was very intertwined with the kind of the rising evangelical movement, you know, so he's, if you think about the Great Awakening that I mentioned a moment ago, and if that's at its peak, you know, if the fervor of the Great Awakening is peaking around 1740 to 1742 under the ministries of like George Whitefield and John Wesley, one generation removed from them might be a John Newton, the author of the song Amazing Grace. So Wesley's born 1703. Newton's born 1725. And Newton is a mentor to Wilberforce, who's born 1759. So you could almost think of Wilberforce as like a third generation Great Awakening leader, or, you know, some people would categorize him as, you know, his era as like the second Great Awakening, although I think what's happening in the second Great Awakening in America is very, it looks very different than what's happening in England, which is where Wilberforce spent his entire life and, you know, the movement that he was a part of. Either way, he's sort of downstream from that first Great Awakening. And now he's over in London. And London had an interesting, I mean, they're having their own sort of what we could call spiritual renaissance at that time as well, correct? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So again, with the Wesleys and Whitefield, George Whitefield, the kind of the great preacher of the first Great Awakening. I mean, they're going out to the fields and preaching outdoors to miners. And I mean, there are accounts of miners whose faces are dark from all the coal and whatnot. And then there's streaks down their face because of the tears from, they're crying as they're listening to these first Great Awakening preachers. But Whitefield and the Wesleys were really kind of reaching the laborer, you know, the, quote, lower sorts or middling sorts. And a generation or two later, what starts to happen with Wilberforce and his circle is that that Christian influence starts to work its way into some of the upper echelons of society, a little more refined, more polished kind of group of people. And he's rubbing shoulders with a whole different set of people than these earlier evangelists were. And he's also concerned not just about like evangelistic proclamation, but he's also concerned about the transformation of society. He's concerned about the implications of the gospel. How do the implications of the gospel work themselves out in culture and in a community? So that he's definitely, you know, a beneficiary of some of the work that's been done, some of the groundwork that's been laid, but they're also taking it in some new directions and expanding upon this, the rise of evangelicalism that we see with those early revivalists. Now I've, so I've looked at some of the early American history on religion, and there is a relative diversity within the, at least the Protestant denominations. My understanding is there's a relatively small, though probably growing, especially with, at various times with immigration and the industrial revolution of Catholics in America. But largely, am I, in my understanding is that there's all these different Protestant denominations, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, you know, maybe even various species of Baptists at that time. But you've got these different Protestant denominations. My impression of Europe, which is largely underinformed, right, is that it has a more centralized religious sort of hub, which is the Church of England or the, you know, what might be phrased the Anglican Church. And then do you still have Catholicism influence in England as well? And how does Wilberforce kind of fit within that, that more, maybe more centralized, less diverse structure within Europe? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, those are great questions. So you're right. There's this established church in England, of which Wilberforce is, he's a lightning rod of activity within Anglicanism. And in his circle becomes a hub in many ways of a lot of things that are taking place within and beyond the bounds of Anglicanism. But if you think about, you know, France and England, I mean, there's a book out even, I can't remember, it's a thousand years of annoying the French. It's a history of England. And so France,

This, of course, is Roman Catholic. And so in a lot of ways, the English, the way that they self-identify is by their other than what's what's happening in France. And so they are Protestant. So that Protestant identity is in some ways part and parcel with being British for many Englishmen anyway. And so and so there is a Catholic influence. But it's not until the 1830s when there's Catholic emancipation that happens in England where people who are Catholic can legally, you know, serve in in like civil roles and these sorts of things. And so there's a there's a lot of there's parliamentary reform in the 1830s and there's Catholic emancipation and other things like this right around the time that William Wilberforce dies. And so if you actually look at his diaries and some of his relationships over time, he's he's adapting in his views toward he's softening in some ways in his views towards Roman Catholicism. Another another thing that's happening that happens in the 1830s, and this is really more of Wilberforce's sons than Wilberforce himself. But there was a movement within the Church of England called the Oxford Movement or Tractarianism. It grew out of Oxford. And maybe you've heard of John Henry Newman before or others. Sure. So they were they were Anglicans studying at Oxford and started to say, we're seeing things that that we don't we're not sure if we agree with that are going on within the Anglican Church. And so there's this there's this Anglo-Catholic kind of movement within the Church of England. Some of those people that get caught up in that Tractarian movement end up converting to Roman Catholicism in the 1840s and 50s. Others stay within the Anglican fold, as it were. But if we kind of rewind a little bit and that, like I said, that's more Wilberforce's sons than Wilberforce himself. Sure. Wilberforce was, he was an evangelical. And, you know, his primary interest was soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. And so he's, you know, and the new birth is a big deal. Of course, this is part of that revivalistic heritage that he's inheriting and that he's he's swimming in those waters. And so if if you've experienced conversion and you're Baptist and I've experienced conversion and I'm Anglican or I'm of the established church, Church of England, then we have more in common because of our common conversion experience than someone else within Anglicanism who hasn't experienced the new, quote, new birth, new life. And so so you see all of these like shifting ecclesiastical coalitions and some are formal and some are informal, you know, but all these kind of shifting relationships happening throughout Wilberforce's lifetime. And he personally is, he's very much rooted in the Church of England, but he has all kinds of connections beyond the Church of England with Baptists, independents, nonconformists, dissenters and so on. You know, these other people that he feels have that, you know, they've experienced this, Wilberforce would call it that great change. And so this is the commonality now that we've both experienced the new birth. And so let's link arms around that. And does that sort of inform or I'm wondering, it's probably sort of a chicken and the egg question, but because Wilberforce is also interested in changing the culture and sort of making these sweeping changes, how does that serve his desire to change and transform the world, not just change individual hearts? And maybe as a follow-up question, I'll throw it out here and I'll try to remember it after you answer. But this sort of goes along with a lot of the work I've done on D.L. Moody, which is he really believed that the initial step to getting people to do good more often, we'll say, was salvation. And so if he was going to default to an action, if he had to only do one thing, he would share the gospel with people. Now, if he didn't have to do just one thing, so he also involved himself in social work, but there wasn't a sense in which it seems like he was trying to change the culture. He was really trying to save souls and along the way help people. But that's different than saying he had an impetus to go out and transform the world into God's kingdom or something like that. And so I'm wondering what the inner relationship between his interest in soteriology was and whether or not that, how that was linked then to this desire to see the culture change. Yeah, yeah. So I think there are maybe two questions there. So the culture change one, and then the first one, again, in one sentence, James. Yeah, how did his willingness to look across denominational boundaries and say, if we've both gone through the great change, how did that serve his impetus to go out and change the culture? Yep, yep. So to that question, the kind of inter-denominational relationships and alliances and so on to change the world, I think that there was quite a lot of that, actually. And it did, I think, foster some of the things that he was trying to lead out on, like abolition, for instance, to have other people. You know, there's a lot of like populist kind of political maneuvering that was that he was utilizing, which wasn't really all that normal prior to this time. You know, there, there are people in the kind of the upper, you know, strata of society that they're pulling strings in a particular way. And now all of a sudden Wilberforce is coming along and, and, you know, common people are are signing petitions and whatnot to get the, the ear of parliament to think about abolition and slavery and how how the slave trade needs to be, you know, at least regulated, if not entirely stopped and abolished. Yeah. And so, so I think that these, there are inter-denominational kind of partnerships that are helping to facilitate things like that. But, but really where we see Wilberforce, I think interacting with people of other denominational backgrounds has to do with global mission. And so in, in a lot of ways, Wilberforce becomes like, he becomes like the protector and hero of nonconforming evangelicalism. So, you know, in a place where there's an established church, there are regulations and so on about who can go where and do what and, and so on. So, I mean, if you think about William Carey, for instance, that, you know, the quote, father of modern missions who goes to India, well, going to India at the time, that's a, that's a misdemeanor just to, just to go in there and be a missionary because of the relationship that England has and there's the East India company. And they don't want religious sensibilities to overturn the commercial interests. And so they have commercial interests there. And they're concerned that Christianity might, you know, shake the boat a little too much. And so, and so Wilberforce is involved in, you know, the, the, the charter comes up once every 20 years for the East India company to, to the floor of parliament. So 18, or excuse me, 1793, he's arguing to get that, that changed and they want to insert a quote pious clause into the charter that allows missionaries to go over. Well, you know, they lose the battle in 1793. They eventually get it overturned 20 years later, 1813, but William Carey goes over on a Danish ship. That's how he ends up in India, not on an English vessel, you know? So, so there are things like this that are, that are going on. But I do think this, that Wilberforce was looking out for other denominations and there were things like a toleration act and other acts that, you know, people were proposing to parliament and Wilberforce would oftentimes speak out in ways that would, that was, he was protecting the religious liberty of some of these other, other denominational, you know, entities that weren't the established church. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold.

and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Now, as far as changing the world goes and soteriology, I think that some of this is also informed by his eschatology, and this is probably where there's a difference between like a Moody and a Wilberforce, you know. And so there's this eschatological hope that, you know, Christ is going to return and that, you know, the gospel is going out, conquering and to conquer, right? And they're gonna take over the world as the world is Christianized, as people are responding. And you got to remember, I mean, they're like a lot of things that these guys are touching is turning to gold, you know. The Wesleys and the Whitefield, they're preaching to crowds of 20,000 people, you know. Churches have been growing and multiplying. Wilberforce comes along a couple generations downstream, but you know, they started the British and Foreign Bible Society, for instance, and the budget for the British and Foreign Bible Society, and that, by the way, is an inter-denominational kind of collaborative work. And their budget is multiplying. I mean, I don't remember the, I think it's something like 125 times or something over the first X number of years. I mean, it's just, the growth is exponential. And so there's this sense of, oh, it's happening, you know. The gospel is going forth. There's an excitement around some of this, almost as though we're about to enter into the millennial reign of Christ. And of course, we want to see his reign over all facets of society. And so I think that that lends itself to a bit more of a holistic view of transformation. And, you know, in terms of that inter-denominational work for transforming society, yeah, it certainly was happening. But I think that the real place where we see Wilberforce and people outside of the Church of England really collaborating closely is in specific, like, missional kind of, you know, outreach, you know, kinds of work or mission work. Yeah. Do you think that, and just as you're describing, you know, some of that eschatological fervor, and I know, you know, it's almost like every generation thinks they're going to be the generation in which Christ comes back, right? You can look at all the different signs and go, yep, he's coming, and he hasn't yet. So the time is near, but it's not now. But as you're talking through that eschatology, one thing that sort of piqued my interest is Anglican church structure combined with British ruling class. And so, you know, unlike the United States colonies where you had religious liberty that was now detached from governing power, like there was supposed to be a separation of church and state, and there's nuances to that, and I get that. But in other words, the government wasn't going to tell the church what to do, right? The church was largely an autonomous entity, and that emerged over time, even in the United States. But the goal was really that the church would be autonomous from the state and that the state would not be sponsoring churches or telling churches what to do, that kind of thing. But that was different in Europe. And so, or in England, excuse me, it was different in England. And so I'm wondering how that informed even some of the efforts that it wouldn't have been that odd. When we hear that, I guess is what I'm saying is, you know, colonization has become the, you know, sort of one of those buzzwords, right? Where it's, oh yeah, the missionaries came, they're trying to colonize, and what they're trying to do is they're trying to Christianize the world. And here they come and they're gonna set up a, you know, a government and a church all at the same time. But when you think about the context of England, that's exactly what they had. It wouldn't have been that odd to reproduce it as they took over places. Is that factoring in or is that reading it too far? Yeah. You know, I think that for Wilberforce and his associates, they thought that the established church was kind of a protective measure for, you know, real Christianity. And so that alignment between church and state wasn't, that wasn't bothersome. And they, you know, so, so for instance, when Unitarian teachings start to spread or whatever, well, now there's a mechanism by which they can try and stop some of that spread or things along these lines. You know, when there's the French Revolution happened, 1789, and, and so, you know, after this point in France, I mean, they, well, Notre Dame is converted to, it's a temple to the goddess of reason, you know, and so enlightenment thinking has really permeated France. And then all of these Catholic priests are having to flee, you know, in the early 1790s. Many of them are arriving on English shores. And the English are looking at what's happening and saying, this is what happens when there's, you know, when there's revolution. This is, this is bad. And so the English are looking at France and saying, we don't want any part, we don't want any part of that. If that's what, if this is what that means, where priests are being persecuted, reason is being worshiped, you know, and we're literally, literally worshiping reason. Things have gone completely sideways. And so the, the establishment itself, they saw as this, like I said, kind of protective bark, you know, that, that was allowing the lifeblood to flow. Now, obviously there are different attachments to the establishment. And so there are people that are, you know, there was kind of this quote, high church movement or high churchmen or Orthodox movement within the Church of England. There were later what's known as broad church during Wilberforce's time. They were called the Latitudinarians. They, they wanted kind of a big tent ecclesiastical organization. They wanted a lot of latitude in terms of, you know, where you fell theologically. And then, and then there are the evangelicals who later start to be called low church, you know, all within the church of England. And so Wilberforce, there's been some debate about this, but you know, in some of my research, I argue that he is, he's doggedly evangelical to the end of his days. And, and he's excited to collaborate with other people that are not part of the Church of England. So he's not as dogmatic about that structure as some others of his day might have been. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. I mean, even though it's a protective measure, it sounds like what he's seeing is the flaws in that system. As good as it is, there's all, there's these different flaws and perhaps opting to, if I'm not reading into what you're saying, perhaps opting to advance the gospel beyond the structural limitations is really where he ends up. Is that a fair way to put it? He absolutely does. And, and I, we see it in, you know, a couple of ways. One, evangelicals are creating their own infrastructure within the Church of England, which is really interesting. So they already have a structure and it's kind of the new wine, old wineskins type of idea. You know, I mean, there are these things that are happening and, you know, the, the Anglicans are looking at, I mentioned William Carey a moment ago, 1792, the Baptists established the Baptist Missionary Society. 1796, the London Missionary Society is born. The Anglicans are thinking, man, we need our own mission society, but it needs to be founded. Yeah, we need it. It needs to be founded on the, the church principle, not the quote high church principle. And so they form in 1799, the Church Missionary Society, even though the Anglican church has at least two other, you know, mechanisms for that, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. And yet here they are creating their own infrastructure within the church. And so these kinds of societies, and then we see, I mean, honestly.

This whole era is marked by one after another of these voluntary societies that Wilberforce himself was involved in. Something, 59 or 69 different societies. I mean, his hand and his fingers are in everything. And there are hundreds of these that are being born during this period. Many of them have evangelistic aims. And so there are societies, like I said, the Bible Society, there's the Church Missionary Society, but then there are also things like societies to look out for chimney sweeps. Little boys are getting stuck in these chimneys. Horrible things are happening. Or prevention of cruelty to animals, or societies for educating poor, pious sons of clergy, or whatever. There are societies for every imaginable cause. And they're just multiplying during this period. And so, yeah, they're in the structure in some ways. They're using the levers of power to their advantage to then create systems that in many ways are undermining those very power structures that they're beneficiaries of. It is, in a lot of ways, I mean, you said it earlier, and I'll be honest, I don't think of the Anglican Church as Protestant. I know it is Protestant. Like, I get it. But you wouldn't think that that sort of rough and tumble reformer attitude would really fall within Anglicanism. But when you look at what's going on under the hood and what you just described, that's Protestantism to a T. It's sort of like, well, we're going to do our own thing because we believe this is what needs to be done. And it doesn't really matter. We're not going to wait for the established church to figure this out. We'll just do it ourselves. It has a real democratic sort of flair to it and a populist sort of flair to it. But still under the auspices of the Anglican Church, which, again, sort of speaks to this idea that it wasn't the sort of top-heavy picture that I think I at least had in my head of the Anglican Church with the more hierarchical structure be similar in that hierarchy to, let's say, the Catholic Church where you have the pope where things are a little bit more centralized authority and control. It's almost like this medium—you can almost say it sits between that and sort of the more radical independent churches that we kind of have now. Absolutely. And to be clear, I mean, what Wilberforce and his associates were doing was maddening to a lot of other people in the established church. Yeah, yeah. They couldn't believe what was happening. There's books being written, pamphlets going out in these meetings. People are storming in and reading letters and interrupting, you know, because there's this sense, what are you doing? You are undermining the establishment. And any society, whether it was meant to be a commentary on the state of the established church or not, many people read into the existence of any of these voluntary societies must mean that the status quo in the established church is not okay. There's something wrong. It's an indictment on how we're currently doing things. And so some people saw that and it was offensive. Yeah, which wouldn't necessarily be the case that that's true. I mean it could just be birds of a feather flocking together to do something that the centralized church would have countenanced and been great with. But you can certainly see why they saw it that way, especially the proliferation of it. I think that's the interesting part is when you talk about all these different societies, it sort of then makes intuitive sense how Wilberforce would have been shaped and was shaping the application of the gospel into more social contexts and really trying to make material changes to the world around him in addition to obviously doing the gospel work that is more, let's share the gospel, let's get people saved, let's do those kind of more spiritually oriented activities. Yeah, yeah. I don't think in their mind there's a distinction between doing good and helping the poor, fighting for abolition, and gospel proclamation. Now, Wilberforce and his associates, I mean, they would say something like, you know, the benefit of abolition was ultimately in its eternal, you know, it's the eternal impact, you know. And they wanted to see people meet Jesus. And so they would say, you know, things like, well, one person essentially receiving salvation is more important than this massive social thing. That being said, they generally didn't pit those things against it. Social justice or caring for the poor or mercy ministries or these sorts of things weren't, there's not the dichotomy that we see now, I think, in the church between, you know, am I going to be a quote, gospeler, or am I a quote, you know, social justiceer kind of person, you know. And we don't really see that division in Wilberforce or, you know, the others that he's collaborating with. This is all like, hey, God has called us to, to shine his light in our, you know, in our world. And so we're going to do this in every possible way we can imagine. And so however we can leverage, leverage our influence to that end, we're going to do it. And I think, I think that he saw these voluntary societies, like these are, in my estimation, it's the same thing that Wesley and Whitefield were doing, but now it's in a more respectable garb. It's a more respectable way to, to get the gospel out and, and hopefully pull in people of a more polished or refined kind of you know, I don't know, disposition than those that, those earlier evangelists were reaching. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. 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And that fit the sensibilities that he was working with at the time. Absolutely. One of his best friends, Henry Thornton once, I believe it was Henry Thornton quipped to Wilberforce, if we were a little more respectable, we could be a lot more dangerous. And I think that captures the attitude of Wilberforce and his circle. Interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating how that just sort of those class distinctions, the way that the gospel hits a class of people, and then the different mechanisms that they used to work out the gospel, how different it can actually look simply because they have different orientations. They maybe have different resources. They have different sensibilities, and so it changes how that all looks. Very interesting. Yeah, absolutely. What do you see? I mean, I don't mean to distinguish between the material and the gospel. I know those two kind of go together. They all flow together. But I'm wondering back in that time, it seems to me, again, this is just my impression of it. It seems to me that there was less social service intervention that would have been derived from the government at that time. So, you know, in America today, we have a lot of different governmental systems that come in and can sort of bandaid over problems or even fix certain problems, care for things, that kind of stuff. And so I think it's easier for us to distinguish, actually, between

Social action, which we've largely, and I don't want to say, maybe this is an unfair statement, but hopefully people will get it. We have in some ways outsourced that to entities beyond the church and gospel proclamation, which remains in the church. But, you know, it's like we could participate in humanitarian efforts with a lot of different organizations, Christian or no. It seems to me back then you didn't have that proliferation of non-Christian infrastructure that was going to go out and actually help the chimney sweeps or help the sick and the poor. And is that a wrong impression? No, I don't think that's wrong. And, you know, I don't want to speak out of turn. I mean, this isn't necessarily my wheelhouse. But I mean, there's debates or there are things going on during this period about the poor laws. Thomas Chalmers, who was a Scottish clergyman, friend of Wilberforce, was one of the thinkers around, you know, how should the state interact with the poor? There was another clergyman, a guy named Malthus, that had a lot of reflection on this, and it was controversial. But Wilberforce and company, I think you're right. There aren't all of these state structures for, I mean, there are poor houses and whatnot, but that's not a great, it's not a great solution. And so, yeah, the church is owning this, or at least, let me say, Christians are owning this, owning this responsibility in different ways. And so, and the parish system too was meant to be a mechanism by which if you live in this little area and we know you, then the church, you know, can help meet those needs. But as people get more transient and start to move and it becomes more difficult to, you know, for that parish system to work in the same sort of way. So, yes, I think Wilberforce and his circle, they're all, they're saying, this is our, we are responsible in some way for this, and how are we going to be a part of this? Whether it's, and I mean, in their case, specifically, they're giving out of their own pockets to various people directly. They're also setting up organizations and societies and other things that they're giving leadership to and they're funding. And then they're also, you know, raising up others and deploying them to go serve in different ways. And so they're working at this in multiple different levels and they're hitting the problem in lots of different ways. Interesting. Well, what do you think? I mean, I didn't know much about Wilberforce. I mean, this is probably the longest conversation I've had about Wilberforce. And so really cool character. I mean, I'm always interested in history, but what do you think is probably the most, a couple of the most relevant things you'd say that Wilberforce, we can learn from him as the contemporary church? Yeah. Well, one of the things we've just been touching on, I think, is this, this false dichotomy I think sometimes we make between, you know, we're only going to do gospel proclamation. We're only going to care for the poor and needy. I think that Wilberforce and his crew, boy, they held both of those things high and they didn't, in order to hold one high, they weren't pulling down the other. And I think oftentimes we, we do that, and the church often today. We want to emphasize one. How do we emphasize it? Well, let's de-emphasize, de-emphasize the other. And I just don't see that. I don't see that in him. And then another thing that I think is really relevant is the, the radical collaboration that we see not only between Wilberforce, and we see this in multiple levels, I guess. Like, first off, you know, he, he ended up moving to this. I mentioned Henry Thornton a moment ago. Henry Thornton was a, he was a wealthy banker, lived south of London around this, this common, this park called Clapham Commons. And so he, he had the idea, well, what if, what if some of my friends started moving to Clapham and we kind of did life together and we collaborated together in ministry and all kinds of other things. And so Wilberforce moved to Clapham. Soon this other guy, Elliot, moves to Clapham. Another friend of theirs, Charles Grant, ends up moving to Clapham. And before you know it, you have this whole network of friends who've all moved to Clapham and historians, you know, they're referred to now as the Clapham sect. They weren't a sect. They were a group of friends who moved to the same neighborhood and they intertwined their lives together in all kinds of ways. I mean, their kids are marrying one another. And when the, when the children are little, they're in and out of each other's homes. You know, Wilberforce is on the green running races against the kids of the other, you know, families. And they're, they're living life in real community. And they're, and they're saying, we're going to, we're going to worship together. We're going to live together and we're going to serve together. And it's out of the Clapham sect. That's, that's the center of so much of this, both evangelistic work that happens and, you know, kind of bettering of society type work that they're involved in. That it's that collective and then it kind of ripples out and they're, they're working with larger organizations from there. But I just, I just love the friendships that they enjoyed and how they said, let's, let's do life. One of them said, it's, I'm going to butcher it, but it's something along the lines of better, you know, choose basically your friendships and a church before you choose like your vocation or, or whatever and, and go be there. And I think that was kind of the attitude of, of a lot of, a lot of those people that were involved. That is really cool. I mean, yeah, sort of fascinating. It gives me a sort of a sanctuarian community of vibes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the early seminaries. You know what I mean? Like that was, that's really interesting. Well, man, we're, we're kind of running up on time. I want to respect your, your time here too, but I usually ask my podcast guests one last question. And so the question is this, what do you think the church needs to be paying attention to that's not paying attention to that would help it help all of us be and make more faithful disciples? Yeah, well, I mean, I said one of the things I think, I think radical collaboration, I think friendship, I think that being in, in real relationship with other people matters. And, and I think if, if formation, spiritual formation includes being known, I don't know how that can happen outside of real friendship, real relationship with other people. We see this, like I said, in, in Wilberforce and so many others. But I love how they said, we're, we're friends, but we're not just hanging out having coffee or whatever it might be, but we're together in this for the long haul. And, and whatever that, that looks like, we're committed to one another to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth, whatever it takes. And, and I think there's something so sweet about that. And it's also, I don't, it's something I don't see as much as I wish I would see when I look around the landscape today of people in real relationship with other people where they are, there's authenticity, you know, there's, there's people truly know one another. I'm not talking about Facebook friends. I'm talking about, right. Actual friends, a real friend. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we're in each other's lives and, and we're committed to one another while also committed to the call that God has on us. And we're together going to link arms in whatever way that might look in our, in our community. And we see that all through history. We see it in Wilberforce and his circle. You mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his circle. We, we see it, you know, I've been doing some readings just recently on CS Lewis and Tolkien and their sort of, I mean, we see it again and again and again where people are, are doing life together. And all three of those examples look very different. You know, how they, how they served, what, how that took shape. But the commonality is a radical commitment to Christ and to one another. Yeah. No, I love that answer, man. I mean, friendship is such an interesting, like I told you kind of before the interview, I always get a lot of different answers to this question. And I've never gotten friendship before. So I love that answer. I think that's fantastic. And

It is something I think the church is in many ways sorely lacking today. And so, yeah, it's a good word. Well, Michael, thanks for being here, man. I really appreciate the insights on William Wilberforce and just an understanding of how these different histories, I mean, having studied American history for a while, you know, that's sort of one track, but then English history is a whole separate track, and they've got different dynamics going on, but it's awesome to look across and see the work of God happening in both places just in different sort of iterations and different mechanisms coming into place. It's just fascinating to look kind of, I guess, across the pond and see the Spirit working there as well. So really appreciated you talking with us today about William Wilberforce, and yeah, just thanks for being here. James, it's an absolute joy, man, to get to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Yep, no problem. All right, well, we will catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Thanks for being here and take care, everybody. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and... What if your next chapter is your best one yet? Hi, I'm Monica, host of Hope for the Journey, the podcast for women over 40 who are ready to rise, rebuild, and reclaim their story. Each week, you'll hear powerful comeback stories from women who've walked through the fire and come out stronger. If you're navigating change or dreaming about what's next, you're not alone. Follow Hope for the Journey on your favorite podcast app and find the hope that you've been looking for.