SHAFTESBURY, THE GREAT REFORMER
By Richard Turnbull
Lion Hudson. 255 pages. £10.99
ISBN 978 0 7459 5348 9
Wycliffe Hall Principal Dr. Richard Turnbull’s biography of the Anglican evangelical statesman, the Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885), is a tremendous education.
It is erudite and lucid not only about its subject, whom Foreign Secretary William Hague has described as ‘one of our most effective and successful politicians’, but also about the political and religious ferments of Victorian Britain.
It is far from being a hagiography — Dr. Turnbull believes some of Shaftesbury’s campaigning for national Protestantism was ill judged. But it does show why Shaftesbury was such an effective campaigner for the improvement of working conditions in factories, mines and mills; for mental health reform; for better sanitation and housing conditions in Britain’s cities; for the education of the poor; and famously on behalf of child chimney sweeps. He worked tirelessly in pursuit of his philanthropy, communicated effectively both in Parliament and beyond and was a master of the details of the legislation he championed.
Shaftesbury’s evangelical motivation in combining evangelism and social action is neatly summarised: ‘The unity of body and soul was a linchpin of Shaftesbury’s social and evangelistic attitudes, a guiding and motivating principle in his work. It related to his beliefs about the end of time when body and soul would again be reunited in the final resurrection’ (p.218).
Dr. Turnbull also subtly unpicks the elements of High Toryism in Shaftesbury’s outlook, manifesting itself in his opposition to the secret ballot (p.226)!
The chapter on Shaftesbury’s involvement in the London City Mission is particularly fascinating. LCM missioners were expected by their governing committee to concentrate exclusively on spoken and written evangelism. But confronted by the appalling poverty of those they evangelised, many LCM missioners were drawn towards social action. Shaftesbury ‘acknowledged none of the tensions that the City Mission committee saw between evangelistic mission and social welfare. He unashamedly stated that the operations of the London City Mission had social, religious and political aspects’ (p.137).
The greatest benefit of the book, though, is not in historical education but in spiritual edification. It elucidates how a Bible-believing, wholehearted servant of Christ combined passion for the salvation of eternal souls with effective action for his neighbours’ temporal welfare.
Julian Mann,
vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire
