By Tom Campisi

What does it take to change the world? Author Eric Metaxas says Christians can radically impact culture when they understand how to be insiders and outsiders.

The Yale alumnus recently had a platform to influence an entire country when he addressed Albania’s parliament and appeared on national television in the former communist state. He spoke to the Albanians about William Wilberforce, the courageous 18^th century politician who was responsible for helping to end the slave trade in Great Britain.

“I was able to talk about Jesus and about Wilberforce on national television for forty-five minutes, which is a staggering thing to consider,” he said. “This was a nation that was proudly and defiantly atheist up until a few years ago.”

Members of parliament will also receive a translated version of Metaxas’ 2007 book, Amazing Grace, which chronicles the life of Wilberforce. In addition to telling the story of the 20-year battle to end slavery, Amazing Grace examines the role Wilberforce had on making England a more civil society.

“Far beyond abolition, Wilberforce and his friends had a monumental impact on the wider British culture, and on the world beyond Britain, because they succeeded not only in ending the slave trade and slavery, but in changing the entire mindset of the culture,” writes Metaxas in his essay, Does God Want Us to Change the World? “The idea that one should love one’s neighbor was brought into the cultural mainstream for the first time in history, and the world has never been the same.”

THE CLAPHAM CIRCLE

The group of friends to which Metaxas refers is the Clapham Circle, cultural insiders “who would do their best to change things from within.”

“They knew how to move in their high circles of influence; knew the unspoken language of those circles; and knew when to push and when not to push and whom to ask about this or that, and whom not to ask. They looked and behaved like everyone else, except for their deep faith, so they were simultaneously insiders and outsiders,” Metaxas writes.

Members of The Clapham Circle were inspired by the preaching of the Reverend John Venn, rector of Holy Trinity Church in London.  

According to ChristianLeadershipAlliance.com, “Holy Trinity was the spiritual center of the Clapham Circle’s life and sense of purpose. Under Venn’s ministry, parishioners were grounded in a biblical worldview and guided in the study of Scripture and the practice of prayer…Holy Trinity was a vibrant, vital center of ministry that flowed into myriad streams of philanthropy.”

“The Clapham Circle fought hard to win souls to Christ, and just as hard to fight suffering and poverty and injustice in Christ’s name,” says Metaxas. “And they realized that to be successful in either of these, they needed to be deeply devoted to Christ, as well as fully engaged in the culture around them. In a way we’ve not seen since, they were remarkably successful in striking the balance that is meant by the phrase ‘in the world, but not of it.’”

Subsequently, Metaxas states, “Wilberforce and his network of friends are a model of how Christians can and should engage culture.”

In Does God Want Us to Change the World? Metaxas exhorts Christians to affect change from the top down by engaging people who wield influence in all spheres of society.

“For good or for ill, it is the cultural elites who determine much of what goes on in the rest of the culture, who can set the tone and content of the cultural conversation,” he writes. “They can determine what we sneer at and what we ooh at and ahh at. Not that they are trying to do this. It’s just the way things are. They tend to have the television pulpits and the Conde Nast photo spreads. And the folks in Topeka who watch them… don’t. You’ve heard of trickle-down economics? Let me introduce you to trickle-down culture.”

In his new book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, University of Virginia Professor James Davison Hunter says culture is comprised of ideas that are “manufactured not by lone individuals but rather by institutions and the elites who lead them.”

“Ideas are important, of course, but without understanding the nature, workings, and power of the institutions in which those ideas are generated and managed, one only understands half of what is going on in culture.”

Metaxas said it is pertinent that we rethink our perception of those in positions of influence, and consider them as an “unreached people group.”

“Our history of anti-elitism explains much of why we’ve had little difficulty ministering to down-and-outers—or our own social equals—via evangelism, but have sneered at the elites who sneer at us, and at engaging the culture over which they have so much sway,” says Metaxas. “But we should stop and ask ourselves what the world would be like if Wilberforce had done that.”

 “We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that, simply because they live in America and speak English, these cultural elites have heard the Gospel already, and have rejected it. If the Gospel has not been translated into a language that they understand, and if it has not been brought to them by people with whom they have some cultural affinity, they have not heard it. These people do not speak the same language as thatched-haired evangelists on television, nor do they know anyone who knows anyone who speaks that language. It is a foreign tongue, and they are deaf to it.”

 A SOUP KITCHEN FOR THE MIND

In that spirit, Metaxas founded Socrates in the City (SITC), a speakers’ series that “engages Manhattan elites on the ‘big questions.’” He points out that Socrates said the “unexamined life is not worth living,” thus SITC strives to create events where New Yorkers can engage in “Conversations on the Examined Life.”

SITC speakers have included physicist Sir John Polkinghorne, discussing, “Can a Scientist Pray?” and Peter Kreeft, asking, “How Can a Good God Allow Suffering?” While most speakers have a biblical worldview, Metaxas says SITC honors differing views as well.

“We don’t push Christianity,” says Metaxas. “I’ve called Socrates in the City a ‘soup kitchen for the mind,’ because soup kitchens aren’t a means to an end. Loving and serving others is itself the Gospel and we are commanded to do it. I hope that by bringing a higher level of cultural conversation to New York City, in a small but significant way, we are blessing the city and the culture and those within it – these elites who have education and wealth and power and influence, but many of whom have never seen or heard this wonderful Gospel that some of us have had the infinite privilege to have seen and heard and accepted.”

Along those lines, Metaxas also help found the New Canaan Society, a movement birthed in a Connecticut living room by men who wanted to go deeper in the Scriptures and with each other. New Canaan Society chapters—where men meet early in the morning for breakfast, fellowship, and to hear relevant speakers—are now prevalent in Metro New York and in various other cities across the United States, including a vibrant group in Bergen County, NJ.

“We believe that by speaking the language of the culture – which includes not being ‘religious’ in a way that is off-putting, but being honest and transparent; and by having a lot of fun and laughs – we have struck a nerve,” says Metaxas

In his college days, Metaxas was the editor of the Yale Record, the nation’s oldest college humor magazine. Communicating with humor and wit are gifts he shares in various ways—as the emcee of the New Canaan Society’s national retreat, or in books like the recently-released Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about God But Were Afraid to Ask: The Jesus Edition. The book, which also has a serious tone, is designed to answer questions people have about God in a language they can understand.

In a recent CBN interview about the book, Metaxas said, “A lot of times, as Christians, we sort of hope that what we believe is true or we say that we believe it to be true. Forget about that. It really is true. It is factual…Americans don’t really know what they believe. You don’t need to be a theologian to understand this.”

Like Amazing Grace, Metaxas’ latest book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,  tells the story of a believer who could not stay silent in a culture swayed by evil. In recounting the life of pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas eloquently examines the story of a man who joined the plot to assassinate Hitler, and was hanged in a concentration camp at age 39.

“Eric Metaxas tells Bonhoeffer’s story with passion and theological sophistication…,” writes Joseph Loconte in the Wall Street Journal. “In Bonhoeffer we meet a complex, provocative figure: an orthodox Christian who, at a grave historical moment, rejected what he called ‘cheap grace’—belief without bold and sacrificial action.”

Therefore, by helping society to understand the Gospel and what it means to be a Christian in this world, Metaxas, like the men about whom he writes, is also helping to transform society.

For Christians to do otherwise and remain passively silent in the face of a fallen culture harkens the poignant words from Bonhoeffer himself: “We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds…Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough for us to find our way back?”

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the Ivy League Christian Observer, a publication of Christian Union. Used with permission. Christian Union is a leadership development ministry based in Princeton, N.J. For more information, visit http//:www.Christian-Union.org.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Tom Campisi