What do John Newton, the writer of the song Amazing Grace, William Wilberforce the central political force in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain, William Cowper the hymn writer and Charles Simeon, one of the most effective pastors in the 18th century have in common? They were part of a group of Christians who rose up in a time of social and spiritual apostasy in England. They were known as the Clapham Sect. They worshiped together on Sundays at Holy Trinity Church on Clapham Common. It was not a sect, or an organization. It was a group of friends who had turned to God, who lived near one another, went to church together and banded together to make a difference in England.
They got their name from an English critic who used the term, “Clapham Sect” in order to belittle them. The same thing happens today, when you want to belittle a group, all you have to do is to call them a sect or a cult. He used the term to discredit. As poor as it was, the name stuck, in the same way, that the slanderous name, “Christians,” or “little christs,” stuck on the early Christians.
A family saga
One of the fascinating aspects of the “Clapham Sect,’ is that they were people who knew one another intimately for three generations. Stephen Tomkins describes it this way,
“The story of the Clapham sect is one of the very public achievements, reaching across continents and far beyond their own lifetimes. But it is also a family saga. These were people for whom family and friendship were of the utmost importance: they lived in each other’s spare rooms, married each other’s brothers and sisters, prayed together, worked together, dreamed and schemed together, consoled each other, and criticized each other with ruthless honesty.” P12, The Clapham Sect, by Stephen Tomkins
Tomkins’ book, documents three generations of the Clapham Sect. He notes that they were fellow worshipers and friends for three generations with parents giving their children Christian names and named their children after one another.
Abolition of the slave trade
Their best known and crowning achievement was the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself, through the work of William Wilberforce. Born in 1759, Wilberforce was elected to Parliament at age 21 and after his conversion, he felt he should leave Parliament and enter the ministry, but his friend John Newton advised him not to. He introduced many bills over many years to end the slave trade but always lost. Finally, near the end of his life, slavery finally was abolished in England through the Slavery Abolition Act, just three days before his death on July 29, 1833.
Reformation of Manners
The Clapham Sect was part of a reformation movement that was characterized by the reformation of practices on various levels of society. Wilberforce was dedicated to what was called at that time, the ‘reformation of manners,” which led to his establishing “Society for the Reformation of Manners.” He called the people of England to support the king's edict in 1787, to obey authority and live exemplary lives and “discount and punish all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality, in all persons, of whatsoever degree or quality, within this our realm,"
It was part of a movement among English churches which saw the decline of biblical morality and spirituality as a force to be contended with. They sought to reform churches and families and all of their activities according to scripture. The means of these reformations were to be accomplished through preaching in churches, pastoral care, church discipline, family discipleship and through enforcement of the civil government. They worked on a number of fronts including reforming prisons, easing poverty, criminalizing sodomy, providing Christian education and restraining various forms of entertainment by bringing lawsuits against those that compromised morality.
The pastors connected to the Clapham Sect insisted in the building of Christian culture. Henry Venn, one of the key preachers insisted on biblical morality and keeping the Ten Commandments – including the fourth commandment, to keep the Sabbath. “On Sundays “Venn people” patrolled the streets of the town to keep people quiet and send them to church.” P33, The Clapham Sect, by Stephen Tomkins They were appealing to Exodus 20:8-11, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work…” It is reported that Wilberforce began to keep the Sabbath after he was converted, and his whole disposition changed. He was finally, happy.
Henry Venn’s daughter was active in their culture transforming lifestyle, “Venn’s daughter Jane, visits all the sick in the parish, makes up their medicines, delights in the work, and would make a good parsons wife.” p34, The Clapham Sect, by Stephen Tomkins
Beliefs:
They were convinced that the majority of people in the churches were unconverted - Christians in name only. Therefore, the Clapham Sect distinguished between the truly regenerate and false professors of the faith.
They believed the results of the new birth caused lives to change. As a result, they understood that genuine Christianity would infuse a desire for holiness and a radical countercultural life.
They did not believe that their works saved them or their holiness justified them, or that they could satisfy God’s righteous demands by any of their good deeds. They understood that only Christ and his righteousness could satisfy God’s wrath. “Any hope of heaven through merely being good is damnable nonsense, they said: we are saved by faith alone.” Tomkins, p 18
As a result, of their conviction that true faith would bring forth tangible works in this world, spurred them on to labor for a reformation of practices. They gave away extraordinary amounts of money in order to accomplish it.
The key personalities in the movement, Henry Venn, Henry Thornton, John Newton, and George Whitfield. In spite of their personal imperfections and external pressures, they maintained remarkable unanimity of doctrine and purpose.
How they were financed
John Thornton was one of the key financiers of the Clapham Sect. He was the richest businessman in England at the time, and he deployed his wealth for the reformation of society.
He was very active with the poor by distributing food and blankets in time of winter. He bought debtors out of prison and argued for prison reform. He supported struggling missionaries and gave away tens of thousands of bibles.
One of the most remarkable actions he engaged in focused on the establishment of gospel preaching churches. He bought rights to parishes, located faithful preachers of sound doctrine, and supported them – like John Newton and George Whitfield. Thornton financed John Newton’s ministry and the publishing of his books including the Olney Hymns. Thornton and others helped finance the Sunday School Movement, spearheaded by Robert Raikes, which transformed England’s poor children.
The Clapham Sect is a worthy historical example to help us see our way through the present crises of morality in our day. They affirm our impulse to see how the gospel transforms society. They give us a case study of Christianity.
Modern day examples:
Over the years, we have been connected with people who think like the Clapham Sect. They believe that society is in desperate need of transformation and that scripture alone is the only rule for that transformation.
We have known many who see the trends of our society and have taken up the Word of God in one hand and the communication tools of the day in the other in order to lay down markers for biblical morality. In the midst of a society that has come to despise children and tries to minimize their number and even murder them, Scott Dix made The Birth Control Movie. Colin Gunn, disturbed by the rising homosexual agenda made a film called, Shakey Town, and then a film about education – Indoctrination. He addressed the demise of womanhood in modern times and turned our attention to the days of John Knox in his film, The Monstrous Regiment of Women. Now he is focusing on our health care system in his film, “Wait Till It’s Free.” Curtis Bowers, a former representative in the Idaho state Legislature, took aim at the philosophical agenda of the left to dumb down our children and take away our freedoms in his film, “Agenda, The Grinding Down of America.” Geoff Botkin made a film called, “Return of the Daughters,” which sought to recover a semblance of womanhood in the home. Other films that sought to recover biblical foundations were Divided, The Mysterious Islands, The Resistance Movement, The Return of the Hiding Place, Drop Box, Blue…
Tompkins summarizes the significance of the Clapham sect with these words,
“There was, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a network of friends and families in England, with William Wilberforce as its center of gravity, powerfully bound together by shared moral and spiritual values, by religions mission and social activism, by love for each other, and by marriage. Their greatest and most celebrated achievement was the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British empire and beyond. … “a number were MP’s and used their influence in Parliament to promote causes from prison reform to the protection of Sunday and from peace to censorship. They tried to reform the church of England and achieved the moral transformation of Britain…. They privately gave away extraordinary amounts of money to people in need.” P12, The Clapham Sect, by Stephen Tomkins
They were a very practical people…” they wanted to see poverty and suffering alleviated, moral life improved, and religion reformed and revived. Like him, they would give vast amounts of their own money, and support individual ministers, schools, and societies. But, they could also hope to mobilize the political nation” p50, The Clapham Sect, by Stephen Tomkins
I feel that the people who have established family integrated churches are people who are very much like the Clapham Sect. They see the theological and moral slippage of the society the church and the family and they desire to see them reformed according to scripture.
The Clapham Sect