Real Change

September 24, 1:43 PMFaith & Culture ExaminerDr. Bob Beltz

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World Changers by Walt and Bob

“Change” - Are you getting sick of hearing the word?  I guess we all better get used to it, since it is bound to continue to be part of the election discourse for the next five or six weeks.  You might be a Republican, or you might be a Democrat.  You might be an Independent, or you might be a Libertarian.  Whatever your political persuasion, you are probably hoping for Change, and hope your candidate will be the one chosen to bring it about.

Who can change things?  Or perhaps a better question is, “How can I change things?”  On February 23, 2007, Bristol Bay Productions released the film Amazing Grace. The film is the story of the great British reformer, William Wilberforce.  Wilberforce is best known for the role he played in leading the twenty-year battle to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire.  Students of history will also point out that Wilberforce took on what he called his “two great objects.” Along with the abolition movement, he also set out to reform virtually every social evil that existed in England at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth.  He fought for child labor laws, education for all, health care for the poor, protection against child abuse and child prostitution, and even started the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.  The names of some of these societies seem a bit humorous in our days.  My favorite is, “The Friendly Female Society for the Relief of Poor, Infirm, Aged Widows and Single Women, of Good Character, Who Have Seen Better Days.” Seriously!  Wilberforce was a politician who actually CHANGED things!  Most serious historians will refer to him as a man who changed the world.

I had the privilege of being part of the team that developed and produced Amazing Grace.  During the time I worked on the project, I studied the life of Wilberforce to discover the dynamics that were at work in his life that made him the kind of person that made a difference.  In conjunction with the release of the film, I even updated his book from 1797 that was titled, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.  To accommodate a more modern audience, I abbreviated the title to Real Christianity.  With the release of the DVD, my good friend Walt Kallestad, the Pastor of Community Church of Joy, in Phoenix, and I wrote the book, World Changers: Live to Serve.  This book was designed to be a study guide to go with the DVD and to help people who want to make a real change understand what enabled Wilberforce to be so effective.  In the book, Walt and I explore five characteristics that shaped Wilberforce’s ability to make a difference.  Out theory is that when present and active in our lives, these qualities will help us be men and women who can change our world.  Let me share a few brief remarks about the five characteristics:

1.     PARDON: The first dynamic of Wilberforce that we identified was his faith.  We named it “pardon” since, in Wilberforce’s case, it was his experience of the grace and forgiveness he found in Jesus Christ that became the foundation for all he did.  There has been much discussion of the faith of the candidates in the current election.  From where I sit, most of it seems like rhetoric, designed to appeal to the faith constituency that put George Bush in office.  In Wilberforce’s case, faith was not rhetoric – it was reality.  All that he did was rooted in his deep commitment to Jesus.  He called it his “Great Change.”  It was this faith commitment that led to the second dynamic that made Wilberforce a world-changer.

2.     PURPOSE:  After a recommitment of his life to the faith of his youth, Wilberforce wrestled with whether or not he should leave politics.  He sought the counsel of his childhood mentor, John Newton.  Newton is best known today as the writer of what is arguably the best-known hymn in the world: Amazing Grace.  He was a former slave ship captain who left the slave trade and eventually became a minister.  Along with Newton, Wilberforce also sought the counsel of his best friend, William Pitt the Younger.  Both encouraged him to stay in politics and seek to serve God in the political arena.  His decision to do so led to what he referred to for the rest of his life as his “two great objects.”  Wilber was led to the conviction that he was to stay in politics and fight for the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of British society.  He was a man with a clear sense of purpose in life.

3.     PARTNERS:  Someone has observed that Wilberforce changed the world; but he didn’t do it by himself.  He was surrounded by a group of like-minded people who shared his sense of purpose, and in most cases his faith in God.  This group became known in England as either the Clapham circle, or the Clapham sect.  They received this name because many of them, Wilberforce included, moved to the village of Clapham on the outskirts of London.  They lived together, worked together, played together, and prayed together.  And together, they changed the world.  People that make a significant impact on the world rarely do it without a band of brothers, or a band of sisters, that share a common passion that ignites and drives their efforts.

4.     POWER:   This was the word Walt and I chose to speak of the practice of spiritual disciplines that Wilberforce relied upon to keep him engaged with a power source that enabled him to do things he did not have the ability to do on his own.  Wilberforce was God-dependent.  He understood the work of the Holy Spirit in his life.  He was a disciplined student of the Bible and engaged in a regular practice of prayer.  For Wilber, these were the means that kept him tapped into a power greater than his own.  If you have had any exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous, you probably know the first step of overcoming addictions and seeing change in your own life is articulated as coming to terms with your own powerlessness, and learning to radically depend upon a “Higher Power” to help you live your life.  Wilber knew he needed Jesus Christ and the enabling of the Spirit to accomplish the purposes to which God had called him.

5.     PERSISTENCE:  Life can be tough.  It is hard to change things.  It is easy to give up.  To a certain extent, that is probably why those of us who have lived through numerous election campaigns are cynical about either candidate actually making significant changes.  We have heard it before.  Most of the issues are the same: the economy, education, energy, poverty, war and peace, the environment.  These issues are not new, nor are the promises made regarding them.  I don’t pretend to be able to tell you why year after year the problems remain the same, but I will suggest that for many of us, the reason nothing changes is that we give up.  Wilberforce refused to give up.  He certainly became discouraged.  He even got knocked down - repeatedly.  He felt like quitting.  We all do.  But the difference in being a world changer is that you get back up and keep pounding away at that which needs to be changed.  You are persistent!  It took Wilberforce twenty years to see the slave trade finally abolished throughout the British Empire.  The final scene in the film Amazing Grace reproduces what took place in the British Parliament on February 23, 1807 – two hundred years to the day from when the film opened in theaters across America.  What the film doesn’t show is that Wilberforce worked another twenty-five years on the abolition of slavery itself, until finally, in 1833,  Parliament abolished slavery throughout the Empire.  William Wilberforce died three days later.

These were the qualities that enabled Wilberforce to change the world.  When the five come together they create a kind of spiritual “perfect storm.”  If you want to see what that looks like, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the film and view it through the grid of these principles.  We can only hope and pray that when the polls close this November, and the votes are counted,  the man who wins possesses these qualities.