Isn’t politics the worst? 

The fighting, the lying, the hypocrisy. Some take a dark pleasure in it, how I imagine Romans watched the gladiator games. Brutal … but you can’t look away.

In politics, the stakes are high, and you feel a certain civic duty to do your part. Men died for your right to vote, to protect your freedoms, all the rest. But when you learn Anthony Fauci likely knew the COVID vaccine could cause miscarriages and kept mum, or when you realize we still don’t have a border wall after all the hullaballoo, or when both parties criticize the spending of the other but our national debt tops $40 trillion, it’s easy to get jaded, to throw your hands up and walk away. 

Even worse, the people who care deeply about politics are often not the cool kids, to say the least. Their tone is aggressive. They don’t seem to have a sense of moderation or take the other side’s perspective into account. They either rehearse tired talking points or launch into a 45-minute explanation for which you have neither the time, nor interest, to spare. Maybe it’s the Baby Boomer who mocks the struggles of young people. Let them eat avocado toast! But isn’t compassion a Christian value? Or it could be the young person spouting socialist economic theory, condescending and entitled, as those who have no money but teach others about it so often are.

Who wants to argue with either of these political archetypes? How about the pink-haired lady with three trans daughters calling you a bigot? No thanks. And even if I do get involved, can I really defend my beliefs? Will talking politics hurt my Christian witness? Somebody else can handle it. 

This all raises the question: what is a modern Christian to do? And what does this have to do with William Wilberforce?

Wilberforce, an Inspiration for the Modern Believer

Besides having a great name, Wilberforce left a great legacy, as you may be familiar. Wilberforce (1759-1833) had a promising career in Parliament, where he handily lambasted his opponents, working alongside his good friend, William Pitt, who would become a young prime minister of the U.K. The French writer, Madame de Staël, called Wilberforce “the wittiest man in England.” An unforced nod from a Frenchman says a lot about his political skill and stature. But then Wilberforce converted to the Christian faith and immediately fell into a crisis. Should he leave political life for a “religious” life? 

For the “Outstanding” podcast, I interviewed Eric Metaxas, who wrote an outstanding biography of Wilberforce’s life, the very book that inspired me in high school to emulate him. Metaxas documents Wilberforce’s crisis. Can a freshly baptized Christian get in the muddy waters of politics?

Faith, Politics, or Both?

In fact, we know from copies of his correspondence that Wilberforce was leaning toward abdicating his influential position to retire to contemplative religious life. His friend William Pitt is alarmed by the prospect of losing his politically gifted friend to a life of prayer. Pitt presses Wilberforce to reconsider and puts a question before his friend that we would do well to consider:

“… [F]orgive me if I cannot help expressing my fear that you are nevertheless deluding yourself into principles which have but too much tendency to counteract your own object, and to render your virtues and your talents useless both to yourself and mankind… why then this preparation of solitude, which can hardly avoid tincturing the mind either with melancholy or superstition? If a Christian may act in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself from them all to become so? Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple, and lead not to meditation only but to action.”

Not only meditation, but action.

Maybe it was Pitt’s urging, or the Lord’s leading. Maybe it was a combination of both, but Wilberforce returned to his political career, which we now know was a political calling. However, Wilberforce returned to politics with two conditions. Committing to work for God, not men, Wilberforce famously devoted himself to two great objects:

1. The abolition of the slave trade.
2. The reformation of manners.

In his second goal’s language, “the reformation of manners,” our favorite English abolitionist meant a reformation of the morals and reduction of the vices that had gripped English society. Sound familiar? Wilberforce’s first goal is straightforward, and after a lifetime devoted to it, Wilberforce succeed. In a historical fact that seems drawn up by Hollywood but must actually be a flashy sign of God’s providence, Wilberforce died on July 29, 1833, just three days after hearing that the Slavery Abolition Bill passed its third reading in parliament, essentially guaranteeing its passage, after decades of advocacy. 

Wilberforce, the great abolitionist, is a model of Christian reformation of society. I don’t want to pretend he was perfect or all his politics map perfectly onto a biblical worldview, let alone one that corresponds to our modern issues. However, for our purposes, it’s worth noting that Wilberforce felt the same hesitancy about engaging the political system — yet his faith called him to push into the fray, not withdraw from it. 

I recommend the 2006 movie about Wilberforce’s life, “Amazing Grace.” The film includes a scene that conveys his struggle well: 

“Dear God, I know this is utterly absurd but I have to meet you in secret,” Wilberforce says as he lays in the grass a stone’s throw from his stately home. 

Suddenly, he is interrupted by one of his servants, which creates a bit of awkwardness. Men of his position aren’t typically found lying on the ground like this. 

“It’s God,” he explains to the unsure servant. “I have ten thousand engagements of state today, but I would prefer to spend the day out here… studying dandelions and marveling at… spiders’ webs.” 

“You found God sir?” the servant replies.

“I think He found me. Do you have any idea how inconvenient that is, how idiotic it will sound? I have a political career glittering ahead of me, and in my heart I want … spiders’ webs?”

There are of course some artistic liberties taken in the movie, but Wilberforce’s crisis was real. He was no botanist. The simple beauties of nature become a wind of prayer that carries away the heart intent on communing with God. To most, even many Christians, this is foolishness. Spider webs? But I can relate. I prefer the prayer walk to strolling the halls of power. It reminds me of the 1856 poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

 And every common bush afire with God, 

 But only he who sees takes off his shoes; 

The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” 

Wilberforce’s birthday is Monday, August 24. This beloved Brit would have been 267 years old, just a few years older than our nation. If he could blow out all those candles (I doubt it) and make a wish, what would he wish for? No one knows for certain, but I like to think at the top of his list, even in the great cloud of witnesses now, is that other believers, like him, would take up the grimy, unglamorous, unpopular work of engaging in politics, in political reformation, not for man’s purposes but for the Kingdom of God. 

Or as my new friend Eric Metaxas, with his characteristic wit, put it on our podcast when discussing Wilberforce:

“You can’t know those stories and then live like a cowardly bum for your self-interest. If you encounter these stories honestly, most people are changed [by] these lives. These people who gave the last full measure of devotion. People say, ‘I want to be like that.’ Wow. That’s beautiful.”

“What a hero.”