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On a bright April day in 1743, John Wesley stood preaching to an open-air crowd the great truths of salvation. The rag-tag congregation, who had come out into the countryside to hear this famous preacher, listened enraptured to his message of regeneration and new life. Just then, an old drunk rode his horse into the middle of the crowd, rearing the beast up and shouting all manner of curses and bitter words at the preacher. Wesley, who by this time was used to such displays, tried to ignore the man and continue his sermon. That course, however, quickly proved impossible when the fool drew his horse up and, still spewing venom at Wesley and his gospel, tried to run down some of the crowd. People scattered, no one was trampled, and in a few minutes the situation was brought under control. Speaking later to some local residents, Wesley was shocked to learn who the old wobbly drunk was: a clergyman from a neighboring parish church!1

After months of open air preaching, Wesley had learned to expect such opposition. Anglican rectors early on refused to allow him to preach from their pulpits, so Wesley finally forsook the beautiful established churches altogether and took his message first to the church cemeteries and then to the countryside. Thousands of hearers followed him, but even there in the remote regions, he could not avoid trouble. Hecklers and other troublemakers hounded him wherever he went, running through the crowds screaming, banging pots and pans together, or even throwing rotten eggs and over-ripe fruit at him to silence his preaching.

Wesley’s message evoked such a vehement response because he called on Christians to do more than merely recite their creeds once a week. He expected the gospel of Christ to change their hearts and, from there, to reform their lives and ultimately their entire society. “Christianity is essentially a social religion,” he said, and “to turn it into a solitary religion is indeed to destroy it.”2

With that conviction, Wesley publicly addressed at one time or another nearly every social and cultural issue of his day. He took aim, for example, at Britain’s thriving slave trade, calling it the “execrable sum of all the villainies” and insisting on the “equal and priceless value” before God of “every immortal soul,” including Blacks.3 He also abhorred war and worked tirelessly to urge a peaceful solution to the conflict with the American Colonies in the 1770s. He rejected the common notion that religion could be kept separate from business, for unless it was permeated with Christian values and dedicated to Christian goals, Wesley thought, business could not help but be turned to diabolical ends. Wesley railed against the social and cultural degradation of his day, championing the poor, castigating Britain’s aristocracy for wasting and hoarding their goods, condemning the liquor traffic which had reduced the nation’s labor force to a drunken stupor, and rebuking lawyers and politicians for using the law to gratify their own greedy desires. Secular or religious, sacred or profane, no department of human affairs was exempt from the word and command of God.4

Wesley preached over 40,000 sermons during his life and traveled more than 200,000 miles, mostly on horseback. When he died at the age of 88, his tireless efforts had made Wesley an internationally revered figure. His Methodist movement had won official recognition by the government, and its influence had spread far beyond the shores of Great Britain.5 To be sure, Wesley suffered scorn for his down-to-earth, practical Christianity, but the Lord used his faithful, persevering labors to build a worldwide Christian movement.

Footnotes:

1 J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and After Wesley: The Evangelical Revival and Social Reform (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers), 206.

2 Ibid., 202.

3 Ibid., 337.

4 Ibid., chapters 12-13.

5 Besides the 294 preachers and 71,668 members on the Isle, there were 198 preachers and 43,265 members in America, as well as some 5,300 new Christians brought to Christ by 19 missionaries spread throughout the world. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., s.v. “Wesley, John.”

They met every two weeks in a pub in London. Their mission was the transformation of the world through biblical preaching and faithful pastoral care. They adopted the inauspicious title: The Eclectic Society.1 Their founder was the man who wrote the most famous hymn in the history of the world, Amazing Grace.

John Newton founded the Eclectic Society in 1783, three years after becoming rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London. Newton and his colleagues2 first met at the Castle-and-Falcon Pub, just across the street from the Moravian meeting hall where the Wesleys were converted.

They began each meeting with tea and a short prayer, then for three hours discussed a subject that had been proposed at a previous meeting. They held each other accountable to the meetings, even levying a fine (two shillings and six pence) on those who were absent.

According to one historian, “Most of the questions concerned Biblical exposition, the personal life of the clergy, preaching and pastoral care: ‘How may we suppose St. Paul would preach if he were now in London? How far public protest against sin from the pulpit will excuse silence in the parlor?’ In fact many of their sessions were concerned with social, moral, and political questions of the day, the French Revolution, the attitude of members to the war and the question of whether a minister should bear arms, Roman Catholic Emancipation, the Slave Trade and the Lottery; others were given to discussing the Christian family and the bringing up of children both in the home and in the Church.”3 While obviously interested in politics, Newton wrote to a new member, “The Society . . . espouses no party.”4

As Aaron Belz has put it recently: “Instead of a synod, Newton hosted a salon—the kind of intellectual club that had been so effective in focusing philosophical ideas in France during the previous hundred years.”5

The impact of the society was enormous, the reverberations still being felt. In 1786, the society considered the question, “What is the best method for planting and propagating the Gospel in Botany Bay?” The answer to the question: send a minister to plant a church in Australia. A few years later, in 1799, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) was established and a CMS auxiliary was set up in Sydney in 1825.6 Interestingly, William Wilberforce was the first vice president of the CMS.

In 1789, the society took up the question: “What is the best way of propagating the Gospel in the East Indies?” and in 1792, the slave trade arose for discussion. “Twelve years later there were two full-time missionaries in West Africa. In 1787 a colony for freed slaves had been started by Granville Sharpe . . .”7 In 1834, Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act.

Belz observes that “in 1799, a young clergyman who had been recently recruited to the Eclectic Society, Josiah Pratt, proposed the following question: ‘How far may a periodical Publication be made subservient to the interest of Religion?’ In 1801 Pratt founded the Christian Observer, which throughout the nineteenth century served as a valuable organ for evangelical ideas.”8 Missions, magazines, and manners were reformed through the work of that small group of men—the precursor to and inspiration for the later Clapham Sect.

God is able to accomplish great things through the faithful obedience of courageous, reflective, and innovative pastors and Christian leaders whose minds and hearts are tethered to Scripture. Blessed is the pastor who can find kindred spirits in his area with whom he can pray, discuss, learn, and strategize about how best to transform their neighborhood, city, state, and world for the glory of God and the good of their neighbors. Do not underestimate small beginnings—especially when pastors are willing to move beyond discussion to strategizing.

Footnotes:

1 Much of the content of this account of the Eclectic Society comes from Michael Hennell’s account in John Venn and the Clapham Sect (London: Lutterworth Press, 1958), 219-224.

2 Other founding members included, Richard Cecil, minister of St. John’s Chapel, Bedford Row; Henry Foster, who was William Romaine’s curate at St. Andrew Wardrobe; and the layman, Eli Bates. Later, in 1786, they were joined by Thomas Scott the commentator and chaplain at Lock Hospital.

3 Hennell, 221.

4 Ibid., 219-224.

5 Aaron Belz, “Not a Synod but a Salon,” Christian History, 23:1 (Winter 2004); 40, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2004/001/14.40.html.

6 See the online history of the Church Missionary Society of Australia, “Our History,” Church Missionary Society of Australia Website, (2004), http://www.cms.org.au/about/history (accessed July 10, 2004).

7 Hennell, 223-234.

8 Belz, 40.

When Paul engaged the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill in Acts 17, he quoted from their own writers (notably Aratus) and mentioned their idols (particularly, one to an “unknown god”) to build a bridge for communication. Clement of Alexandria did much the same thing when he began his early work, Hortatory Discourse to the Greeks. Drawing a comparison with the legendary musicians Amphion and Arion,1 he taught that, “Christ is the noblest minstrel. His harp and lyre are men. He draws music from their hearts by the Holy Spirit: nay, Christ is Himself the New [Song], whose melody subdues the fiercest and hardest natures”2 (Exhort. I.I).

In those days, around 200 AD, Alexandria was the intellectual center in the world. It had a museum with an adjacent library, both of which functioned somewhat like modern universities. Scholars from various fields would meet there to exchange ideas and debate. As a trade center, Alexandria also attracted an interesting collection of adventurers and scoundrels. Not surprisingly, syncretism was prominent in the city.

Clement entered this marketplace of ideas and fought for the truth and supremacy of Christianity. He was not a pastor but an apologist who sought to demonstrate that Christianity was not the absurd superstition that many intellectuals claimed it was. Though he maintained that certain things should be accepted by faith, he insisted that Greek philosophy ultimately supported the truth of Scripture.4

Clement leaned heavily on the contemporary allegorical interpretation, claiming that Scripture is written “in parables.”5 His importance is not found in how he approached particular Bible passages, but in his reverence for God’s Word, which he declared thoughtfully and persistently in the midst of a spiritually and doctrinally confused society. By his effort, the intellectual atmosphere was changed and Christianity gained a place of honor.6

Today, the Amphions and Arions of culture are playing their seductive melodies in many keys, but the music of Christ, played out in the lives of his followers, is far too scarce in the land. Certainly, there are Clements at work for the Lord in the world, but there is certainly a need for more Christian interpreters and apologists, men and women who are literate, zealous, and persistent for the truth.

Footnotes:

1 Eric Lewin Altschuler and William Jansen, “Thomas Weelkes’s Text Authors,” Musical Times, Summer, 2002, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3870/is_200207/ai_n9139091/pg_3 (accessed January 6, 2008). “Amphion is a twin son of Zeus (Zethus is his twin), and went on to become a great musician and singer; Arion is a semi-legendary poet and musician.”

2 Francis P. Havey, “Clement of Alexandria,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04045a.htm (accessed January 6, 2008).

3 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1 (San Francisco: Harper, 1984), 71.

4 Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 89.

5 Quoted in Gonzalez, 73.

6 Ibid.