THE INTEGRITY FIX: The simple yet surprising path to spiritual and societal renewal
By Jago Wynne
IVP. 188 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978 1 789 746 259
Looking around today’s world, we can see we have something of an issue with integrity. As we polish our public persona – carefully curating what gets presented in person or online – the gap between what we proffer to others and what lies in our hearts seems bigger than ever.
And it’s not something we can tell ourselves that the church is any better at – scandals and leadership failures have beset church communities too. In a world where those with public personas often get idolised, we can sometimes even spot narcissistic tendencies in those in church leadership – pulled inexorably towards the cult of self that we see in society.
Jago Wynne, Rector of Holy Trinity Clapham, home of the Clapham Sect, has some ideas about how we can fix this problem. Starting with self-reflection, he highlights that the biggest risk to his own church is the risk of his own moral failings, in a position where his role is to watch over “oneself and one’s flock”, not produce a slick, strategic church-planting plan. Like the rest of the book, it’s a simple truth that lands.
He draws on the example of William Wilberforce, arguing that Wilberforce provides a model for us all with his integrity – in how he lived according to his own principles. Together with the rest of the Clapham circle, he lived with integrity and in community, and their focus on Word, worship and prayer resulted, Wynne argues, in them changing the world. Wilberforce quotes, alongside Bible verses, start every chapter.
From the management consultancy world that Wynne used to work in, to 10 Downing Street during COVID – he has seen how problematic it is when leaders say one thing and do another. This is a practical, readable book complete with a smattering of diagrams for those who like a visual. Wynne himself is unusual in having spent time serving on the staff of both All Souls Langham Place and Holy Trinity Brompton, before becoming Rector in Clapham. This book calls for an integrated life; not just public and private coming together, but thinking, feeling and doing connecting, social action and evangelism together, and the present and the future as part of the same whole. It draws on insights not only from Wilberforce, and his biographers, but from theologians and thinkers like N.T. Wright, Justin Brierley, Tim Keller, Augustine, and J.I. Packer.
There is plenty of history here, focusing on the Clapham Sect, but this is a book that chimes with our contemporary context. If you’re looking at the mess in the world around us and wondering what difference you can make, how you can make it less bad, this is an encouragement to find out what your sphere of influence is, and how to take steps towards being the change you want to see. And a reminder that none of this can be possible without Jesus, “the One who is your Ruler, Redeemer, Resident and Restorer”.
