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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted Today 5:35 PM (GMT -6) |   | FROM CHRISTIAN HISTORY MAG's WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTER
An "Ordinary Saint" in Wartime
William Wilberforce saw two long charitable campaigns through, even in war's distracting shadow.
by Chris Armstrong
Some see the GOP's strong showing in this week's national
election as evidence of public support for a wartime
president. Which begs the question: Is this truly wartime?
In some externals it may not seem so. No ground war rages. No
biological or nuclear weapons have been unleashed. But a sense
of foreboding looms. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the stock market
has been unsteady, as uncertainty has palled our long-term
plans. Many have struggled personally, facing dark fears,
finding it hard to focus on the task at hand.
Focus. Persistence. Perseverance. Even at the best of times,
as Oswald Chambers once said, "it does require the
supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every
day as a saint." We need grace daily "to be exceptional in the
ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets,
among ordinary people." (My Utmost for His Highest, Oct. 21)
In a time that at least feels like wartime, such persistent
holiness seems somehow more difficult. This, not only in daily
life, but also in such ordinary charities as helping the poor,
being salt in our schools and neighborhoods, and giving to
ministries. The "causes" that are always with us seem now to
require even more grace than before.
One place such grace may always be found is in the stories of
the "ordinary saints" of the past. Some of these folks showed
supernatural bravery in the face of extraordinary crises. But
most were simply, by the grace of God, "exceptional in the
ordinary things of life."
Such an ordinary saint whose life deserves to be reclaimed
today is William Wilberforce.
You may recognize the name. He was the British Christian who,
in the late 1700s and early 1800s, persisted in Parliament for
several long decades, against every kind of opposition, to see
the slave trade ended.
Ordinary? Contemporaries agreed that Wilberforce, a wealthy
man renowned for his rhetorical skill and social graces, could
have succeeded his friend William Pitt as Britain's prime
minister. In fact, by the tender age of 21 he was well along
that road, enjoying a Parliamentary seat and dreams of future
greatness.
But then a harder, holier calling intervened. At 25, he heard
the message of the Christian gospel and converted. And at 27,
he made up his mind to spend his life serving his Lord -- by
serving the lowest and most ill treated among humans.
Most famously, this resolve led him into a life-long
legislative struggle against the slave trade. Also, just as
tenaciously and sacrificially, he joined his friends of the
"Clapham sect" in a multitude of reforming efforts to uplift
those crushed under the machinery of the Industrial Age.
Despite his extraordinary gifts, after his conversion
Wilberforce was in most respects an ordinary career
politician -- sitting through many an interminable debate and
shaking many a hand on the campaign trail. He also had
ordinary failings; among them, an overindulgence in the
pleasures of the table and of trivial socializing. Repeatedly
he had to bring these to his Lord, asking for forgiveness and
strength under temptation.
Nor did he fly easily to the pinnacle of success, like some
sanctified superhero. On the contrary, his twin campaigns were
continually frustrated by brutal political opposition and by
his own precarious health. A diminutive man (James Boswell
once called him a "shrimp"), Wilberforce suffered all his life
from poor eyesight, digestive problems, and a weak spine. A
doctor once announced that this "little fellow with the calico
guts" wouldn't last out the following year. He recovered, only
to draw near death on two other occasions.
But through it all, Wilberforce persisted. The Abolition of
the Slave Trade Act, passed March 25, 1807, is a vivid
fulfillment of Paul's promise to the Galatians, "And let us
not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap,
if we faint not" (Gal. 6:9; KJV).
No less impressive -- though less easy to quantify -- were the
results of Wilberforce's efforts on behalf of the working
classes and the destitute. Some historians believe that these
efforts helped avert the kind of revolutionary uprising in
England that ravaged France. Many also see the voluntary
charitable societies he and his circle pioneered, which soon
numbered in the hundreds, as lifting Britain from the moral
decay of the Regency era (the time of Wilberforce's youth) to
the public-spiritedness of the Victorian era (beginning just
after his death).
Kevin Belmonte, author of the recently released Hero for
Humanity: A Biography of William Wilberforce (Navpress,
2002), draws a parallel between today's world and the world in
which Wilberforce slogged through his long campaigns for the
slaves and the poor. In a recent letter to Christian
History, Belmonte said,
"Wilberforce's most productive years as a reformer were those
in which Britain was fighting for her national survival in the
world war against Napoleon's France that endured from 1793-
1815 (save for a brief peace in 1801). The abolition of the
slave trade, educational and prison reforms, public health
initiatives, legislation to better the lives of the poor and
efforts to improve working conditions in factories -- all
these and more were pursued against the backdrop of war.
"The reforms pursued by Wilberforce and his colleagues among
the Clapham circle provide the most sterling of models for us
as we find ourselves living in the midst of a new and
frightening kind of war. Yet amidst the uncertainty of such a
scenario is the wonderful reality that we can serve God, honor
him through our callings and be blessed of him -- this though
the way may be hard and at times deeply discouraging. I find
this tremendously heartening, and I suspect that your readers
may as well."
Injustices such as those Wilberforce fought are always with us
-- in wartime as in peacetime. They are, in this fallen word,
sadly ordinary. But as we seek to play our own parts against
them, the grace of the "ordinary saints" is always available
to us, too -- if we will take the time to get to know them.
*For more on Wilberforce, see issue 53, William Wilberforce
and the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Kevin Belmonte,
Hero for Humanity. For more on Oswald Chambers's wisdom about
life in wartime, see J. I. Packer's excellent article.
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