The document summarizes two Christian movements in 19th century England: the Clapham Sect and the Oxford Movement. 1) The Clapham Sect was a group of evangelical Christians led by William Wilberforce who were deeply engaged in social reform causes, such as abolishing slavery in the British Empire. 2) The Oxford Movement was a group at Oxford University led by John Henry Newman who wanted to strengthen the authority of bishops and traditional rituals in the Church of England in response to social reforms weakening the Church's power. They moved the Church of England closer to Catholicism.

1. A NEW SOCIAL FRONTIER
THE CLAPHAM SECT/OXFORD
MOVEMENT
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2. TWO CHRISTIANS MOVEMENTS
• No one in the nineteenth century England could
ignore the pace of change. But two outstanding
Christians movements helped literally millions of
the fellow believers adjust to life’s little day and in
the process won for themselves a respected place
in Christian memory.
• The Clapham Sect of evangelicals, and the Oxford
movement of Anglican high churchmen. The
Clapham Sect was a model of Christian social
concern. The Oxford Movement was a wellspring
of devout churchmanship.
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3. EVANGELICALS IN THE WORLD
• The church is under a twofold commission: 1.
God has sent His people into the world to
proclaim the Gospel. 2. Believers are called from
the world to worship and learn of Christ. Mission
without worship can produce empty service, just
as worship without mission can lead to careless
religion.
• The dawning of the Age of Progress found English
Protestants either in the established Church,
Anglicanism, or in the Nonconforming
denominations, Methodist, Baptists,
Congregationalist. But a new movement was
coming on the seen.
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4. THE NEW MOVEMENT
• The greatest power in the English religion was the
evangelical movement, sparked and spread by
John Wesley and George Whitefield. The chief
marks of the movement were its intense personal
piety, usually springing from a conversion
experience, and its aggressive concern for
Christian service in the world.
• Impelled by the enthusiasm of the Methodist
revival, the Evangelicals viewed the social ills of
British society as a call to dedicated service. They
threw themselves into reform causes for the
neglected and the oppressed.
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5. THE CLAPHAM COMMUNITY
• A group of wealthy and ardent Evangelicals who
knew what it was to practice saintliness in daily
life, and to live with eternity in view.
• The groups spiritual leader was a minister named
John Venn, a man of culture and sanctified good
sense. The unquestioned leader of the sect was
William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
• They held “Cabinet Councils” in which they
discussed the wrongs and injustices of their
country, and the battles they would need to fight
to establish righteousness. They all moved as one
body, delegating to each man the work he could
do best to accomplish their common purpose.
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6. EVANGELICALS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
• Causes the Clapham Movement championed:
• 1. The Church Missionary Society (1799).
• 2. The British and Foreign Bible Society (1804).
• 3. Society for bettering the Condition of the Poor
(1796).
• 4. Society for Reformation of Prison Discipline.
• The greatest labor of the group centered on a
campaign against slavery. Their first battle was for
abolition of the slave trade, that is the capturing
of Negroes in Africa, and shipping them for sale
to the West Indies.
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7. THE SLAVE TRADE IN HISTORY
• In 1562 the English entered this trade when Sir
John Hawkins took a cargo of slaves from Sierra
Leone and sold them in St. Domingo.
• In 1770 out of a total of 100,000 slaves a year
from West Africa, British ships transported more
than half.
• In 1789 Wilberforce made his first speech to the
House of Commons on the traffic of slaves. Stage
by stage the Clapham Sect learned two basics of
politics in a democracy: first how to create public
opinion; and second; how to bring pressure of
that opinion on the government.
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8. THE END OF THE SLAVE TRADE
• On February 23, 1807 the back of the opposition
was broken. Enthusiasm in the House mounted
with the impassioned speeches of supporters of
abolition.
• That halted the legal traffic in human lives, but
slaves were still in chains. Wilberforce continued
the battle for complete emancipation until age
and poor health forced him from Parliament.
• Thomas Fowell Buxton continued the enterprise,
and on July 25, 1833 the Emancipation Act was
passed freeing the slaves in the British Empire
four days before Wilberforce died.
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9. OXFORD MOVEMENT
• The Oxford Movement represents a contrasting
response to the social crisis of the nineteenth
century. The Oxford men were deeply troubled by
the direction of English society.
• Reforms in the government to them were attacks
upon the sanctity of the Church of England.
• The Reform Act of 1832 shifted the balance of
power from the landed gentry to the middle
class, and that meant non members of the
Church of England wielded significant power over
the Church.
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10. A SIGNIFICANT CRY
• Some deeply religious men at Oxford University
raised a cry against the thought. John Keble, a
nation stands convicted of God’s sovereignty he
said, “ when it shows disrespect for the
successors of the apostles, the bishops of the
Church, and appeals only to reasons based on
popularity or expediency.
• John Henry Newman (1801-1890) staunch
supporter of Keble. Edward Pusey also joined the
fight. By their preaching and writing these
influential men turned their protest into a
movement.
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11. TRACTARIANS
• To spread their views the Oxford men launched in
1833 a series of “Tracts for the Times” which
were labeled “Tractarians”.
• They emphasized the apostolic succession of
bishops through history and the Church’s God
given authority to teach the truth and rule men’s
lives.
• They called themselves Catholic, on the grounds
that they believed in early catholic Christianity,
and they shunned the name Protestant, because
it referred to a division in the church.
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12. PUBLIC WORSHIP
• Public worship was vital to the Oxford men. They
believed strongly in the religious value of symbolic
actions in worship, such as turning toward the alter,
bending the knee and elevating the cross.
• Step by step the Oxford men moved toward the Church
of Rome. Then in 1841 John Henry Newman wrote
Tract 90 and asserted that the Thirty Nine Articles of
the Church of England were not necessarily Protestant.
They could be interpreted in the spirit of the Catholic
church. He converted to Roman Catholic in 1845, and
hundreds of clergyman of the Anglican Church
followed him.
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