The English Reformation

Henry VIII

 

Henry VIII was one of the most fervent Catholic rulers of his day, honoured by the pope as ‘Defender of Faith’ for denouncing Lutheranism (he even wrote a book on that).

 

However, the friendly relations between monarch and papacy did not last. Henry’s primary concern was to safeguard the succession by producing a legitimate male heir but his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had failed to yield the desired son. A deeply religious man, the king concluded that God was withholding his blessing because his wife was his brother’s widow, a union forbidden in the book of Leviticus. He appealed to the pope to annul a marriage which God so clearly disapproved, implying that Julius II, an earlier pope, had been wrong to authorise it. Clement VII refused, because it would weaken papal authority, and antagonise Queen Catherine’s nephew, Charles V, the most powerful ruler in Europe.

 

Henry’s case was heard in London by a sympathetic archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who freed him to marry Anne Boleyn, and the first Act of Supremacy (1534) was passed, which was a piece of legislation that granted King Henry VIII of England Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. Henry abandoned Rome completely. He thereby asserted the independence of the Ecclesia Anglicana. He appointed himself and his successors as the supreme rulers of the English church. The 1534 Act is often taken to mark the beginning of the English Reformation. The Ten Articles were first published in 1536 by Thomas Cranmer. They were the first guidelines of the Church of England as it became independent of Rome and contains three sacraments. In 1537, ‘Institution of a Christian Man’ was published, which contains the other four ‘lesser sacraments’.

 

Although Henry had rejected the authority of the pope, this did not mean he had rejected traditional Catholic teaching. On the contrary he was a doctrinal Catholic and remained deeply antagonistic to Luther. He was more sympathetic to the ideas of humanist scholars and when he took charge of the English church, he concern was not to make it ‘Protestant’, but to implement humanist-inspired reforms. The influence of Thomas Cromwell, a leading politician, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was critical to the reshaping of the English church.

 

The break with Rome unleashed a torrent of speculation and debate. Young apprentices roamed the streets smashing up images and gave vent to anti-authoritarian feelings by jeering at priests, who, they claimed, had kept people in ignorance of the true faith revealed in the scriptures. In 1538 three German theologians were sent to London and held conferences with the Anglican bishops and clergy. The king, unwilling to break with Catholic practices, dissolved the conference. Henry drew back from reform, fearful that he had unleashed forces that were getting out of control. The Six Articles of 1539 reaffirmed traditional Catholic doctrine on six key issues, including condemning clerical marriage. It was a return to Catholic orthodoxy, except for papal supremacy. He executed Thomas Cromwell in 1540.

 

So in conclusion, Henry VIII had been a very fervent Catholic who denounced Lutheranism but rejected papal authority out of political motivations, for the sake of producing a legitimate heir, which made the picture a lot more complicated than a simple struggle between Roman Catholics and Lutheran influenced Protestants.

 

http://youtu.be/1xW7BhEBeEA

http://youtu.be/aO_Ezs7YGM8

http://youtu.be/s0t7jytTphM

 

Edward VI

 

Edward was a sickly young man who lived only six years after his father’s death. When Edward ascended to the throne at nine years of age, Cranmer and like-minded officials who were reformist in thinking held the reins of power, and the scene was set for more radical change. The cup in communion was restored to the laity, members of the clergy were allowed to marry, and images were withdrawn from the churches. The Book of Common Prayer (1549), whose main author was Cranmer, gave the English people a liturgy in their own language for the first time. The revised version appeared three years later which has an even more apparent Zwinglian tendency. So there is definitely a swing towards Protestantism, though with a Zwinglian tendency. Cranmer also wrote the Forty-Two Articles in 1553, which intended to summarise Anglican doctrine. However, Edward did not live long enough for the reforms introduced in his name to be fully implemented, so these articles were never enforced, but later became the basis of the Thirty-Nine Articles in Elizabeth I’s reign. When it became clear that he was in a terminal condition, he and his Council drew up a “Devise for the Succession,” attempting to prevent the country's return to Catholicism. Edward named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as his heir and excluded his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. However, this decision was disputed following Edward's death, and Jane was deposed by Mary within 13 days.

 

Mary Tudor

 

Mary had always been a Catholic, and furthermore, if Henry had been correct in proclaiming himself head of the church and his marriage to Catherine null and void, Mary was an illegitimate child and her succession would be cast into doubt. Therefore, for reasons both of conviction and political necessity, Mary was committed to the goal of restoring Roman Catholicism in England. Just as political pluralism is regarded as socially destructive in some eastern and third-world countries today, so sixteenth-century people of all beliefs accepted that states were endangered by religious pluralism. In this respect, Mary was no different from other rulers of her day. As soon as she felt herself secure on the throne, she began a series of increasingly repressive measures against Protestants. About three hundred Protestant leaders were burned, therefore she was known as Bloody Mary. Five years after Mary’s death, the suffering of Protestants under her reign was highlighted in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. The most illustrious of the martyrs during her reign was Cranmer in 1556. Protestants considered Cranmer the great hero of their cause and insists on spreading Protestant teachings instead.

 

Elizabeth I

 

Elizabeth was a Protestant out of conviction and out of political necessity. If the head of the church in England was the pope, then she would’ve been an illegitimate child.

 

Within a few days of Elizabeth I’s accession, Protestants pinned their hopes on her and were heralding her as ‘Deborah’. So the Act of Supremacy, which was repealed by Mary, was reinstated again in 1559, with a slight change in wordings, to “Supreme Governor”. This changed wording avoided the charge that the monarchy was claiming divinity or usurping Christ, whom the Bible explicitly identifies as Head of the Church.

 

Elizabeth's reign saw the emergence of Puritanism, which encompassed those Protestants who, whilst they agreed that there should be one national church, felt that the church had been but partially reformed. Puritanism ranged from hostility to the content of the Prayer Book and "popish" ceremony, to a desire for church governance to be radically reformed.

 

Elizabeth was a protestant, but not radical. It was her political instinct which caused her to respond. She wanted to unite the nation. The basis of the Church of England is a middle way between the extremes of Catholicism and radical Protestantism. She wanted to include as many people as possible in the Church of England, as ideally everyone in England should be a part of Church of England to enable better unity in the nation.

 

The strength of conservative religious feeling, the tense international situation, and the rival claim of Mary Queen of Scots might well have made Elizabeth refrain from provoking papal hostility.Elizabeth was endeavouring to build bridges to the religious conservatives, and to woo them away from papal allegiance into conformity. The policy was largely successful because, although the appeal of Protestantism was limited, strong attachment to Rome was even more so.

 

In 1559 the Book of Common Prayer used a double formula to accommodate the divergent opinions on communion (of that communion was simply an act of remembrance versus those who insisted that in it one really partook of the body of Christ) so to increase inclusiveness. The same policy was seen in the Thirty-nine Articles, promulgated in 1562 in order to serve as doctrinal foundation for the Church of England. In them, several Catholic doctrines and practices are explicitly rejected, but there is no attempt to choose among the various Protestant views. The articles seek to achieve a via media in which all but Roman Catholics and the most radical Protestants could participate.

 

In 1570, the pope sent out the Bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicated the queen and absolved her subjects from their allegiance. Thereafter, any refusal to accept the royal supremacy was potentially treasonable, as it had been in the reign of Henry VIII.

 

Adherence to the Articles was made a legal requirement by the English Parliament in 1571, and the law established was fully, and indeed aggressively protestant. The patriotic union between Church and state had become full and explicit. Those outside that union were regarded as public enemies.

 

It was Elizabeth’s longevity that ensured England eventually became a Protestant country as old beliefs and practices were not easily wiped out. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s life, Catholics were indicating that they were ready to distinguish between their religious obedience to the pope and their political and civil loyalty to the queen. On the basis of this distinction, they would eventually be allowed to practice their religion openly.

 

By the time of Elizabeth's death a third party had emerged, "perfectly hostile" to Puritans but not adherent to Rome. It preferred the revised Book of Common Prayer of 1559, which was without some of the matters offensive to Catholics. The new dispute was now between the Puritans (who wished to see an end of the prayer book and episcopacy), and this third party (the considerable body of people who looked kindly on the Elizabethan Settlement, who rejected prophesyings, whose spirituality had been nourished by the Prayer Book and who preferred the governance of bishops).It was between these two groups that, after Elizabeth's death in 1603, a new, more savage episode of the Reformation was in the process of gestation, leading ultimately to the English Civil War.

 

http://youtu.be/pV2GKPtnlTo

http://youtu.be/-pVWeyqMTQ4

http://youtu.be/05wAO-1XBLc

 

References:

 

González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Volume II: TheReformation to the Present Day, New York: Harper Collins, 2010.

 

Loades, David. Revolution in religion: the English Reformation, 1530-1570, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992.

 

Rosman, Doreen. The evolution of the English churches, 1500-2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Nine_Articles#Ten_Articles_.281536.29

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_Religious_Settlement

 

 

Inspirational people: William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln in the Abolition of Slavery

Virtually the whole of Europe was involved in the slave trade in the 1700s.  British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands. In the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade. Between 1793 and 1815, cotton exports from the U.S. grew from 500,000 tons to more than 80 million tons. Cotton from the U.S. was the fuel for the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the development of capitalism - and slavery was the key to producing cotton. As Karl Marx wrote from his vantage point in Britain, "Without slavery, there would be no cotton, without cotton, there would be no modern industry."

Some of the first public support for the abolition of slavery came from American Quakers, but it was in Britain that the decisive developments, which would ultimately lead to abolition throughout the Atlantic, took place. William Wilberforce, a well-connected young politician, became the spokesman and leader of the abolitionists in the British Parliament in 1787, taking advantage of his friendship with the Prime Minister, William Pitt, to promote their cause. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. http://abolition.e2bn.org/people.html

 http://youtu.be/Q6Cv5P9H9qU

Wilberforce’s conversion and how he became involved in the abolition of slavery:

In October 1784, Wilberforce embarked upon a tour of Europe which would ultimately change his life and determine his future career. Wilberforce's spiritual journey is thought to have begun at this time. He started to rise early to read the Bible and pray and kept a private journal. Wilberforce underwent an evangelical conversion, regretting his past life and resolving to commit his future life and work to the service of God. Wilberforce's conversion led him to question whether he should remain in public life. Wilberforce sought guidance from John Newton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton), a leading Evangelical Anglican clergyman of the day and Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in the City of London, who used to captain a slave ship but had a dramatic conversion during a storm on the ship. Both Newton and Pitt counselled Wilberforce to remain in politics, and he resolved to do so "with increased diligence and conscientiousness". Thereafter, his political views were informed by his faith and by his desire to promote Christianity and Christian ethics in private and public life. In 1783, Wilberforce, while dining with his old Cambridge friend Gerard Edwards, met Rev. James Ramsay, a ship's surgeon who had become a clergyman on the island of St Christopher (later St Kitts) in the Leeward Islands, and a medical supervisor of the plantations there. What Ramsay had witnessed of the conditions endured by the slaves, both at sea and on the plantations, horrified him. Wilberforce apparently did not follow up on his meeting with Ramsay. However, three years later, and inspired by his new faith, Wilberforce was growing interested in humanitarian reform. In early 1787, Thomas Clarkson, a fellow graduate of St John's, Cambridge, who had become convinced of the need to end the slave trade after writing a prize-winning essay on the subject while at Cambridge, called upon Wilberforce at Old Palace Yard with a published copy of the work. This was the first time the two men had met; their collaboration would last nearly fifty years.

There was strong opposition from those profiting from the trade, who used political pressure and delaying tactics to maintain the status quo.

The two sides of the argument:

For slavery	Against slavery
The trade was necessary to the success and wealth of Britain. The merchants and planters warned that abolition would mean ruin for Britain, as the whole economy would collapse.	There were alternatives to the trade. Clarkson’s Box: Much of the evidence that Thomas Clarkson collected during his travels to many ports and trading vessels illustrated the potential for practical alternatives. One of the first African trading ships Clarkson visited was called the ‘Lively'. The ship was full of beautiful and exotic goods: carved ivory and woven cloth, along with produce such as beeswax, palm oil and peppers. Clarkson could see the craftsmanship and skill that would have been required to produce many of the items. The idea that their creators could be enslaved was horrifying. He used the contents to demonstrate the skill of Africans and the possibilities that existed for an alternative humane trading system.
If Britain did not engage in the trade then others would. If Britain ceased to trade in slaves with Africa, their commercial rivals, the French and the Dutch, would soon fill the gap and the Africans would be in a much worse situation. This was an argument used in a speech to parliament in 1777.	If something is wrong, it is wrong whether others do it or not. The anti-slavery supporters argued that just because other countries engaged in the trade this did not provide a valid reason for Britain to also participate, even if it was profitable.
Africa was already involved in slavery. They stated that Africans enslaved each other. Indeed, Britain was engaged in a moral trade because they were helping people, captured in African wars, who may otherwise be executed.	The slavery that existed in Africa was very different from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.  Those enslaved in Africa were usually prisoners of war or victims of political or judicial punishment. The enslaved people could keep their name and identity and slavery did not extend to future generations.
Taking Africans from their homeland actually benefited them.  They argued that African societies and cultures were unskilled, uneducated and savage.	The African people were in no way inferior and should be treated as equals. The Quaker teacher, Anthony Benezet, was always horrified at the suggestion that the Africans were in anyway inferior. His claimed his experiences, gained during 20 years teaching black pupils, proved this was not the case. However, it was the books and speeches of African writers of the time, such as Olaudah Equiano, that had the greatest impact in dispelling such misconceptions. Even some of those involved in the slave trade were willing to admit that raciest views were wrong, as illustrated by the writings of Captain Thomas Philips
The enslaved people were unfit for other work. Many people were very prejudiced in their beliefs. Many ordinary people in Britain were uneducated and travelled little further than their own village, making it easier for those involved in the trade to influence public opinion.	The trade was damaging to Africa. William Wilberforce summed this up in his speech of 1789: "...Does anyone suppose a slave trade would help their civilization? Is it not plain, that she must suffer from it?  ....Does not everyone see that a slave trade, carried on around her coasts, must carry violence and desolation to her very centre?
The enslaved people were not ill-treated unless rebellious. Conditions on the slave ships were acceptable.  Several of those involved in the trade, merchants, ships captains and plantation owners, provided evidence to parliament regarding this.	The Africans suffered greatly from being removed from their homeland.  They collected evidence to show that many resisted or preferred death to transportation. Many more died on the voyage to the Caribbean. Conditions on the ships were terrible, as illustrated and the speech made by William Wilberforce to parliament in 1789 and by testimony from people like ship's doctor James Ramsay.
Slavery was accepted in the bible. The pro-slavery supporters used the bible to suggest that the Slave Trade was tolerated and approved of by God in the days of Abraham.	It was morally wrong and, as a Christian country, Britain should not be involved. The anti-slavery society also used the bible to back up their arguments. They pointed to biblical text like Luke 16:13: "No man can serve two masters". In answer to the claims of the pro-slavery lobby, Granville Sharp, for example, wrote in his pamphlet 'The just limitation of slavery in the Laws of God': "... If we carefully examine the scriptures we shall find that slavery and oppression were ever abominable in the sight of God..."

However, the enthusiasm and organisational skills of the abolitionists saw the first ever campaign, in which people became angry about the treatment and rights of people they did not know and were prepared to support them in their struggle for freedom. To successfully end slavery, the abolitionists needed to do two things: make people aware of what was going on and put pressure on those with the power to change the law. They did this by introducing many of the ways of campaigning that we take for granted today. http://abolition.e2bn.org/campaign.html

The campaign to abolish slavery

·         Organising action groups: By the late 1700's, a number of people had stated their opposition to slavery. The Quakers had put the first petition to Parliament in 1783. The Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed on 22 May, 1787, to be the driving force behind the movement in Britain. It consisted of 12 men, nine of them Quakers. However Quakers were religious dissenters (disagreed with the doctrines of the Church of England) and banned from public life. To ensure a wider appeal and greater political influence, three Anglicans, Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and Philip Sansom, were chosen to represent the committee. William Wilberforce was later recruited by Thomas Clarkson to be the voice of the movement in Parliament.

·         Obtaining support from influential people: For example, the Clapham sect is "a network of friends and families in England, with William Wilberforce as its centre of gravity, who were powerfully bound together by their shared moral and spiritual values, by their religious mission and social activism, by their love for each other, and by marriage".

·         Investigation and research: For example, Clarkson’s Box. The abolitionists also published eye witness accounts of the cruelty inflicted upon the slaves. Moving accounts by former slaves, such as Phyllis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. These personal testimonies were very powerful, as the people reading them saw the events through the eyes of a person they could relate to.

·         Giving the Campaign an identity: The approved design was the image of an African man, kneeling and in chains with the motto (or slogan) 'Am I not a Man and a Brother?'

·         Using a variety of media (the written word, the spoken word and images)

·         Petitioning and lobbying Parliament: William Wilberforce’s 1789 Abolition Speech to the House of Commons, in which he reasoned that the trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice. Drawing on Thomas Clarkson's mass of evidence, he described in detail the appalling conditions in which slaves travelled from Africa in the middle passage, and argued that abolishing the trade would also bring an improvement to the conditions of existing slaves in the West Indies. He putting forward twelve propositions for abolishing the trade, but made no reference to the abolition of slavery itself. However, supporters of the Slave Trade used delaying tactics. The first time a bill was introduced in 1791, Wilberforce lost the debate by 163 votes to 88. After the bill was rejected, the abolitionists flooded Parliament with petitions. A bill to cease the Slave Trade was passed in the House of Commons in 1792 - but with the amendment that the ban should be 'gradual', which effectively meant 'never'. A change in political tactics led to the first breakthrough in 1806, when James Stephens advised Wilberforce to propose a ban on British subjects participating in the Slave Trade with France and its allies. Britain was at war with France and this made it difficult to oppose the proposal, without seeming unpatriotic. The bill was passed, limiting the Slave Trade by about a third and paving the way for the Abolition Act, which was finally passed on 25th March 1807, abolishing the Slave Trade in the British colonies.

·         Consumer Action (boycotts of sugar and rum): An anti-sugar pamphlet by William Fox was published in 1791. Spurred on by pamphlets and posters, by 1792, about 400,000 people in Britain were boycotting slave-grown sugar. Some people managed without, others used sugar from the East Indies, where it was produced by free labour.

·         Election Campaigning and Supporting Parliamentary Reform: The abolitionists campaigned to get those who supported abolition, elected. The December elections of 1832 swept more than half of those who had supported slavery out of Parliament, paving the way for the 1833 act.

The 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was a major achievement for the anti-slavery movement but the law did not go far enough:

• It did not outlaw slavery completely. Enslaved Africans on British owned plantations would not be set free. Only the trade had been abolished.

• The slave trade continued. Some traders risked being captured because profits were so high. Slave ships that were in danger of being captured threw slaves overboard before reaching British controlled waters.

• Other countries such as France, Portugal and Spain still traded in slaves.

The end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, however, did not see the end of slavery and abolitionists continued to lobby Parliament for a total ban, which was not achieved until 1833. In July 1833, a Bill to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire passed in the House of Commons, followed by the House of Lords on 1st August. Factors that contributed to the final success of the bill:

·         A change in economic interests.  After 1776, when America became independent, Britain's sugar colonies, such as Jamaica and Barbados, declined as America could trade directly with the French and Dutch in the West Indies. Furthermore, as the industrial revolution took hold in the 18th century, Britain no longer needed slave-based goods. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the West Indies were becoming less important to Britain, which could get cheaper sugar from Cuba and Brazil. Also, Britain was becoming less dependent on the sugar trade for profits, as other important industries, such as iron, cotton and coal, had grown. Cotton, rather than sugar, became the main produce of the British economy and English towns, such as Manchester and Salford, became industrial centres of world importance.

·         Resistance by enslaved people. Enslaved people had resisted the trade since it began. However, the French Revolution brought ideas of liberty and equality, which inspired those seeking an end to slavery. Major slave revolts followed: they gave a strong indication that, regardless of political opinion, the enslaved people were not going to tolerate enslavement. The revolts shocked the British government and made them see that the costs and dangers of keeping slavery in the West Indies were too high. In places like Jamaica, many terrified plantation owners were finally ready to accept abolition rather than risk a widespread war.

·         Parliamentary reform. When parliament was finally reformed in 1832, more than half of those who supported slavery were swept from power. The once powerful West India Lobby had lost its political strength.

·         Abolition campaigns and religious groups. The demand for freedom for enslaved people had become almost universal. It was now driven forward, not only by the formal abolition campaign but by a coalition of non-conformist churches as well as Evangelicals in the Church of England.

·         The act, however, did not free enslaved people immediately; they were to become "apprentices" for 6 years. Compensation of 20 million was to be paid to the planters. Protests finally forced the government to abolish the apprenticeship system on 1st August, 1838.

·         Economists, such as Adam Smith, argued that slavery was less profitable than paying workers. He argued that slaves who were forced to work for no money would not work anywhere near as hard as those people who were paid to work. Smith also argued that slaves who were paid would buy goods from Britain and this would create more jobs in the country. Smith’s ideas had a big impact on how politicians thought about trade. Some plantation owners even began to believe that it was cheaper to employ ex-slaves as paid labourers than to house and feed enslaved Africans.

·         Some historians argue that abolishing slavery also gave Britain ‘an excuse’ to interfere with the trading of their two big rivals, France and America. For example, the British Royal Navy could stop French and American ships, claim that they were looking for slaves to trade.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833, where William Lloyed Garrison was the most prominent activist. At first antislavery sentiments were equally strong in both the North and South. Then the abolitionist movement gained strength in the North, where slavery was of less economic importance. In the South, the economic and social system was based on slave labor and took the opposite tack. Soon, many in the South were preaching that slavery was an institution sanctioned by God, and that conversion, not emancipation, is what the slaves need. By 1843, over a thousand Methodist ministers and preachers owned slaves. Other denominations were equally ambivalent.

The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 (also known as The Great Debates of 1858) were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois, and Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery. After losing the election for Senator in Illinois, Lincoln edited the texts of all the debates and had them published in a book. The widespread coverage of the original debates and the subsequent popularity of the book led eventually to Lincoln's nomination for President of the United States by the 1860. Lincoln said that the American Declaration of Independence apply to blacks as well as whites. With very little support in the slave states, Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860. No compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery. The slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America, thus the American Civil War commenced. Lincoln’s primary goal was to reunite the nation.

The Emancipation Proclamation: Abraham Lincoln signed this on January 1, 1863. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." However, it applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. The proclamation used the Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the border states to outlaw slavery, and helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.  (Because prior to the Thirteenth Amendment, the United States Constitution (adopted in 1789) did not expressly use the words slave or slavery but included several provisions about unfree persons.)

His Gettysburg Address of November 1863 became an iconic statement of America's dedication to the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. In just over two minutes, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union sundered by the secession crisis, with "a new birth of freedom", that would bring true equality to all of its citizens. Lincoln also redefined the Civil War as a struggle not just for the Union, but also for the principle of human equality.

References:

http://abolition.e2bn.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

Clarke, Duncan. History of American Slavery, JG Press, 1998.

Inspirational people: John Wesley

Wesley was not a conceptual theologian. He did not organise his belief into topics. Rather, he developed theology in relation to life. It is theology for living: “practical divinity,” Wesley liked to call it. We discover from his journal writings a pilgrimage motif: theology interpreted in relation to the story of God’s grace and in relation to our experience of this grace as we move through the days of our lives. Wesley’s theology flows from his own life and experience of God. When we read his journal, you can see that he faced struggles similar to ours. He made his share of mistakes, and asked questions during times of doubt and depression. He was in search of a “scriptural Christianity” that was confirmed by human experience.

Although the first entry of Wesley’s Journal was that of Oct 14, 1735, when he sailed to America, he did publish a letter with the journal describing earlier incidents which lead to the formation of the Holy Club.

On Wesley’s own life, he was born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley in 1703. When he was six, he was rescued from the burning rectory in such a remarkable fashion that his mother called him “a brand plucked from the burning”and believed God special plans for his life. Wesley went to Oxford in 1720 and received the Bachelor of Arts. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1728. His early Oxford years saw the beginnings of his spiritual pilgrimage.

In his younger days, John Wesley was already living the life of a model Christian. In 1729, he led the Holy Club at Oxford (which was started by his brother Charles in 1927), which visited the prisoners, the ill, and the poor. He was so passionate about ministry that he sailed to America wanting to preach to the American Indians! But this journey led him to discover his lack in faith, and he came to realise that it was fear (of death and going to hell) that drove him to do the good works he was doing earlier.

On the ship to Georgia in 1735, he met the Moravians.There was a storm so severe that he thought he was going to die and there was a terrible screaming among the English, but he was amazed by the Moravians sang hymns calmly. That was when he realised how fearful he was of death, and when he asked the Moravians if they were fearful, they replied they were not afraid to die. When they arrived in Georgia, Wesley spoke further with the Moravians, and was asked if he knew that Jesus has saved him, he replied “I do” but felt they were vain words. Furthermore, he was commanded to minister the colony, not the American Indians as he had initially wished. This experience served as was a true test of faith for him.

In Georgia he courted a young woman who married another. After one year and nine months he left Georgia because he refused communion to this lady and was sued for defamation. On his trip back to England, he was still fearful of dying and asked himself, “why, that I went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God?” He complained to the Moravian Peter Boehler whether he should stop preaching but he said “Preach faith til you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

Things changed during John's famous “Aldersgate experience” of 24 May 1738, at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, in which he heard a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and penned the now famous lines “I felt my heart strangely warmed”, revolutionised the character and method of his ministry, as he had an emotional response to the gospel and a strong social concern. He no longer doubted his own salvation. It was no longer his own salvation that consumed all his interest. Being assured of it, he could devote all his concern to the salvation of others.

As a first step, Wesley visited a Moravian community in Germany. Although the visit was greatly inspiring, it convinced him that Moravian spirituality was ill-suited to his own temperament and involvement in social issues. Therefore, in spite of his gratitude, he decided not to become a Moravian.

It was George Whitefield who introduced Wesley to field preaching in 1739. When Wesley initially started field preaching, he was reluctant and felt preaching outside of a church building is almost a sin as he had always been a very orderly man and at that time was convinced that God wished everything to be done in order. Slowly, in the view of the results, he reconciled himself to that sort of preaching in the view of the results, andwith a vision that God’s plan was for the whole world, he announced “the world is my parish”. Wesley also described himself as one who “spoke plain words to plain folks”, avoiding complex theological terminology.

From that point onward, Wesley became England’s greatest preacher and organiser. When God planted the love for the people in Wesley’s heart, he became a mass evangelist, preaching passionately to the poor and bringing on the Evangelical revival movement in England, which rapidly spread across the world. Wesley and Whitefield worked together for some time, although Wesley became the main leader of the movement and eventually they parted because of theological differences on the doctrine of predestination.

In the earlier years, there were frequent acts of violence against Methodists, as some of the clergy and nobility resented the authority the new movement gave to people from the lower classes. Meetings were frequently interrupted by paid ruffians, and Wesley’s life was occasionally in danger.

The last sixty years of his life were a constant motion of travelling and preaching that took him over 250,000 miles (mostly on horseback) and gave him the opportunity of preaching more than 44,000 times. He died saying, “The best of all is, God is with us!”

In terms of how Wesley organised his ministry, we first need to understand that Wesley was brought up in a much disciplined fashion, so he was also a man of intense and meaningful discipline: for over sixty years he faithfully engaged in devotional living daily! We also see from his journals that he organised the church in a very orderly fashion. The‘classes’ and ‘societies’ were all organised on explicit disciplinary principles, and ‘annual conferences’ were held. “The soul and the body make the man; and the spirit and discipline makes a Christian”, he said.

In this young movement, Wesley needed more people to share in the task of preaching. A few Anglican priests had joined the movement, but there was not enough ordained clergy, so these circumstances led to the use of lay preachers, or as Wesley documented, ‘plain men’. Initially Wesley was against the idea but changed his mind after hearing layman Thomas Maxfield’s preaching. Soon, a number of women became lay preachers.

It’s important to also note that Wesley lived and died an Anglican. He did not inaugurate a new denomination, and he discouraged his followers in doing so. Throughout his lifetime, Methodism was a renewal movement within the larger Anglican Church. It is equally important to stress that Wesley’s ultimate loyalty was to God. Where he felt the church had strayed, he stood against it. His disagreements with the Church of England were scriptural. He felt that eighteenth-century Anglicanism had drifted from important scriptural normal, and as he puts it, the Methodist movement was simply describing “the plain, old religion of the Church of England.” His goal was not defection, but rather renewal. However, according to English law, non-Anglican worship services and church buildings were to be allowed, but they must be officially registered as such. This put the Methodists in a difficult situation, for the Church of England did not acknowledge their meetings and buildings. If they registered, this would be a tactic declaration that they were not Anglicans. If they did not, they would be breaking the law. In 1787, after great hesitation, Wesley instructed his preachers to register, and thus the first legal step toward the formation of a separate church.

Wesley had some disagreeable aspects to his personality. He was a highly motivated, determined and sometimes domineering person, who generally had a clear idea of what needed to be done, and how to do it. When he was convinced that he or the Methodists were on ‘the right course’ (as he believed God had given him to see the ‘right’) John Wesley was very difficult to divert.

Wesley’s theological views:

Wesley’s order of salvation:

You don’t have to be a Christian to realise that something is wrong with the human race. Our most brilliant social analysts stand amazed in the presence of radical, often unpredictable experiences of man’s humanity to man. Everyone seems to be asking, “What is wrong?”  When John Wesley looked at his century, he asked the same question. He concluded that the fundamental problem was human sinfulness. Wesley spoke of sin in relational terms. His classic definition is that sin is “every voluntary breach of the law of love.” At its base, sin is broken relationship, whether that brokenness is expressed toward others or toward God. The breach is conscious and wilful: For Wesley, sin is not something that sneaks up on you; it arises out of you. The result of sin is sickness. Wesley uses the term ‘corruption’ for this, and it affects the whole of humanity. The Bible does not say we are sinners because we commit acts of sin; it says we commit acts of sin because we are sinners. Wesley believed that Adam was in a perfect state before the Fall and bore the image of God completely. But in the fall, the image was extensively marred but not completely destroyed. Intimacy between God and humans was gone, and we are dead toward God. Another effect of sin is self-captivity: if one is truly dead to God, the only alternative is to turn inward and make self a god. Wesley saw humanity doing just that, in the name of freedom. As someone puts it, “I may be the captain of my soul, but I keep driving myself around in circles”. A third effect is helplessness to change. As Wesley describes, “Now he truly desires to break loose from sin and begins to struggle with it. But though he strive with all his might, he cannot conquer; sin is mightier than he.”

Wesley also spoke of ‘prevenient grace’, meaning the grace of God is active before we give conscious thought to God or to our need of him. Like all other aspects of grace, prevenient grace is a gift: grace for all (no one is excluded) and grace in all (the life we now live is due to the grace of God). The Law brings knowledge of God’s will, but knowledge alone is not enough as bare knowledge does not contain the power to change.

The next step in the activity of grace is ‘saving grace’, where we’re saved by grace alone. For Wesley, the faith response was characterised by two movements: repentance and belief. This brings about change: first we change in the knowledge of ourselves, where we realise that apart from God, we are not ok. The second experience is conviction, where when we realise the true condition of our lives apart from God, we are pricked in our hearts. Third, repentance includes a thorough change of our minds, and that marks the true end of repentance. The second major part of saving grace is faith: it is not sufficient to turn from something; we must turn toward Someone. Another words, belief in God. There several elements to this: love (God is love), assurance (a note of certainty), reliance (switch the control centre of our lives from ourselves to Christ), obedience (belief is ultimately expressed in this. Whether we know Christ is whether we obey him). 

Transformation occur in several steps. First, we are justified: God has pardoned us for the sins of the past. Then we have new birth: God’s activity of “renewing our fallen nature” as Wesley called it. Then the third process is initial sanctification, where real righteousness begins andenable us to mature in the Christian life.

Growth in grace occur, as per the Wesleyan equation “Grace plus response equals growth.” First we grow out of a sense of assurance, knowing that we are the children of God, and not with a “maybe”. ‘The means of grace’ describe the specific channels through which God conveys grace to his people. This include prayer, searching the Scriptures, taking the Lord’s Supper, fasting, and group fellowship.

Wesley advocates Christian perfection, which is not spiritual infallibility, but rather the fixation of motive, the surrender of self-will. Glorification marks the end of the journey.

Wesley’s view on the church:

In the early eighteenth century, institutional religion was largely in eclipse. Spirituality was often promoted by independent and separatist groups. When the Evangelical Revival began, Wesley could easily have formed his followers into another denomination, but he didn’t. Instead, he remained consciously in the Church of England and sought to revive it from within. Wesley defined the church as “a body of people united together in the service of God.” His intention was to say that the church is personal. At the same time, he knew people would naturally group themselves into particular denominations and didn’t judge this to be wrong. The unity he saw and worked for was more a unity of spirit than a unity of structure. Consequently, he could move easily among groups as diverse as Roman Catholics and independents, which was due, in the end, to his fundamental understanding of the church as people. Sadly, many churches lack the personal dimension, and institutionalism sometimes takes precedence over individuals. Buildings and budgets can seem to be more important than ultimate concerns and these emphases create a psychology that views the church more as an organisation than an organism. Even when the Methodist movement gained momentum, Wesley continued to maintain that his followers were nothing more than Bible Christians. He stated that they did not divide themselves at all from the living body of Christ, or even from the Church of England. At the same time, he did not lose the priority of God’s will over the opinions and organisations of men. He wrote, “We will obey the rules and governors of the Church whenever we can, consistently with our duty of God. Whenever we cannot, we will quietly obey God rather than men.”

Other theologies:

It is important to note that Wesley did not advocate any particular manifestation of the Spirit as necessary proof that one was Spirit-filled. His journal documents many extraordinary (even unusual) manifestations. Interestingly, Wesley did not seek to promote or prohibit such occurrences.

Wesley’s understanding of the gospel is that God’s offer of salvation was extended to anyone (he rejected the Calvinistic doctrine of election as double predestination). His vision was also missiological, that God’s plan was for the whole world. “The world is my parish” (1739). Wesley’s theology of the priesthood of all believers was clearly expressed in the early Methodist movement, where he allowed leadership by devoted laity.

Wesley was a true son of the Reformation. He envisioned a threefold mission for Methodism: regeneration, renewal, and reform. The key actions in his strategy for renewal are as follows: He urges all people to personally experience Christ, to greater degrees of discipline (because of humanity’s bent to sinning), to get together in groups, to a renewed appreciation for the sacraments, and that Christ be offered to everyone. For Wesley, the gospel life was nothing other than fulfilling the two great commandments: love God and love neighbour. 

References:

González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity Volume II: The Reformation to the Present Day, New York: Harper Collins, 2010.

Wesley, John. John Wesley's journal, edited by Robert Backhouse, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1993.

Harper, Steve.The way to heaven: the gospel according to John Wesley,Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.toc.html

“A generation which forgets those who came before it deserves to be forgotten by those who come after it.” Dr. William Quick.