Author’s Note: I am by no means a Thomas Chalmers scholar, only a fan. Most of the information in this article came from the work and many lectures of George Grant on which I highly recommend to the reader. This article seeks to condense the life and work of Thomas Chalmers into a size more easily accessible.
We are living in the midst of a societal collapse. The fruit of secular Darwinism, government-controlled education, and social liberalism is being harvested. We don’t know exactly how it’s going to end, but we know a culture and society built upon such loose sand cannot stand.
The solution to our problem is not simple, not one-dimensional, and will not be quick. Many want to believe we just have to elect the “right” politician and all our problems will simply blow away. We did not get here under one politician’s policies, and we will not leave under one.
Generational Manipulation
What we see around us is rooted, in many ways, in the 1830s when the push for government-controlled schools gained steam. By the turn of the century, socialists had infiltrated the school system and began working long-term to change not just curriculum, but families, society, and the character of our nation as a whole.
The pivotal era of 1930s Prohibition resulted from a government experiment aimed at demonstrating the dangers of alcohol to a previous generation. It was there we learned society’s ideas and perspectives, and an entire culture could be shaped and changed within a generation through the education system. This is a lesson for the Church.
Education is a powerful tool for both good and evil.
As we look to the future and consider one aspect of the reform that is needed to reverse our culture’s rot, I lay before you Thomas Chalmers and his “Vision of the Parish.”
Background
Thomas Chalmers was a pastor born in the small seaside town of Anstruther, Scotland on March 17, 1780. He grew up in a blessed, wealthy, middle-class family. His father was well-educated and an elder in the local church. His father would lead discussions around the dinner table of world affairs, philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion each day. Learning was a way of life.
His father also deeply impressed upon his 14 children the importance of practical faith, one that did not reside merely in the pew on Sunday mornings. He promoted a faith that was carried as they walked by the way, laid down, got up, sat at the dinner table or by the fireplace, in the workplace, and in the common square. A faith that infiltrated every aspect of their lives and education.
Child Prodigy
At the young age of 3, Chalmers showed signs of genius when his parents were forced to enroll him into the local parish school, having no more resources left to teach him despite knowing English, French, and Greek. While in the parish school, he studied the great trivium of classical education: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This is the sort of education that produced world-changing men such as Theodore Beza, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and the US Founders.
At age 10, Thomas Chalmers was held back, not because of intellect but because he was too young to move forward. In 1792, at the age of 12, he enrolled at the University of St. Andrews, making him the second youngest student ever admitted to that school. By the age of 15, he was given the opportunity to be a teacher’s assistant at the University. He began to feel a call to the ministry, and at the age of 18 graduated from Divinity school. Due to his young age and being unable to go into the labor force, he began teaching graduate-level courses at St. Andrews in theoretical mathematics, history, chemistry, and moral philosophy.
During this time of being stuck between university and career, he taught himself German, which started a pursuit of Nordic languages that would continue for the rest of his life. He would eventually invent his own Nordic language for personal pleasure and to write his journal entries.
Many things could be said about his accomplishments and intellect, but it was clear to everyone around him that God had great plans for such a mind.
Be Humble or Get Humbled
After he was ordained to the ministry, he quickly rose to fame as a passionate and powerful preacher, a transformative university professor, and had what seemed to be the perfect parish full of godly, obedient believers, who loved and supported their pastor and thirsted after God and His word. Thomas Chalmers was successful, and he knew it.
However, in 1809, at the age of 29, the Lord chose to humble this blessed and passionate man with back-to-back tragedies and an illness that nearly killed him. He would be changed forever as he watched and ministered to his oldest sister and brother as they slowly and painfully, yet gloriously, died of tuberculosis. These testimonies of Christian death and his own near-death experience deeply impressed upon him the nearness of eternity.
He also became burdened by the massive accountability of his capacity in his life before God. It was with this realization that he began to mourn with his brother on his deathbed that he was a gifted man, knowing that “to whom much is given much is required.” From then on he would seek to use his gifts not for his own pleasure, but for the benefit of others and the Kingdom of God.
The Parish
Since Thomas Chalmers was a Scotsman, he was naturally affected by his own cultural background. A society whose past was made up of close-knit tribes, unique in their own right yet united in language and culture, became known as “the parish.” It is important to remember that this idea came from his Scottish background and did not refer to the French idea of social structure. For the Scottish Parish, the church and the school were the center of community life. Family worship was likewise indispensable.
Chalmers had a parish of his own and, under his leadership, became a model in Scotland. Having ignored the pastoral advice of not becoming friends with his parishioners, he made his congregation his friends. This produced a close and binding relationship between shepherd and sheep and much fruit.
Rather than rest upon his blessings and enjoy a quiet ministry for the rest of his life, he began to wonder how he could expand what he had and give it to others. The great change he saw in his town, he wished to spread all over Scotland and England. So he eyed the greatest city in Scotland, Glasgow.
Dreaming Big
When he arrived in Glasgow he came to the Tron Church. This was a large evangelical church parish with 12,000 homes, amid the slums, yet not far from the richest neighborhoods. He loathed the state of the evangelical movement in Glasgow describing it as “dead,” “bloated,” “full of home heathenism,” and “moderatism”. Despite the poor state of the area, it only fueled the flames of ambition and he got to work.
Within two years he visited every home in the parish. Every Thursday he would hold in the church packed-out lectures on astronomy. He instructed the deacons of the church to visit every home in the parish and inquire about their finances, and then accordingly give council to each family to improve their stewardship. Out of this diaconate came enterprise committees which help educate and prepare individuals to start small businesses that would allow families, particularly fathers, to stay at home while providing an income.
He formed more than 60 local parish schools and places of education that ensured that every family, regardless of status, had a place for their children to be truly educated, not just socialized and prepared for the workplace. Science, art, music, poetry, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, and grammar were core to the parish school curriculum. Chalmers believed that it is the Church that should have the best artists and scientists. He even taught mothers who desired to teach their own children but didn’t know how.
He knew that to change a society you don’t make the rich more rich and educate the educated. Instead, you educate the poor and bring them up out of the slums and the ash heap by giving them knowledge and skills to work, build, and invent. It was education combined with piety, the school and church working hand in hand to both restrain the desires of the flesh and shape the mind with knowledge.
By doing so he built community washhouses where women could do laundry and be taught how to take care of their teeth and distinguish pure and polluted water sources. He found older spiritual women who could teach younger mothers in their own homes home crafting skills such as sewing and decorating on a budget. Established trade schools would teach men handy skills such as how to repair a roof. This restored dignity to the poor, giving them better homes, clean clothes, and skills to make money. This had even a visual impact on the area as homes and streets were cleaned and repaired, and flowers were planted to purify the city air. During this time Chalmers’ efforts cut the government spending on social services including welfare, police, trash clean up, and cost of sewage in the area by 80% within 3 years. This is an important model for the church today whose duty it is to care for the orphans and widows. If we want less government spending, we must reclaim our duties as the Church of Christ.
The Free Church of Scotland
Chalmers’ work was almost destroyed during a 10-year conflict which did great damage to the Church of Scotland. This interchurch conflict was primarily over the sovereignty of the church to choose who was in the pulpit and when and where to plant new churches. Those like Thomas who were deeply evangelical pushed back on the ecclesiastical elites in their restrictions and this ultimately led to his decision to abandon the state church and start the Free Church of Scotland.
This decision meant he had to leave behind his previous parish and all the work he had done under the old church and start over from scratch. However, being a man of incredible drive, despite his growing age, he never skipped a beat. On May 18, 1842, Thomas Chalmers and nearly ⅓ Scotland left the general assembly, their homes, and their communities.
Within five years, nearly 400 new church buildings had been built, the foundation for a new college had been laid in Edinburgh, and a new parish with a new church, new school, and new wash house was built in a forgotten corner of Edinburgh.
A Church-Centered Community
Most every small town in America has an old church standing tall and beautiful in the center of town. It’s a monument to a bygone era when that Church was the center of the community, and without it there really was no such thing as community. Everything he sought to do, whether it was building a business, a school, events, art, or music, was all within the context, and for the benefit of, the community and its crucial center, the church. This must make a return in our day if we have any hope of seeing lasting and real change in our families, communities, and nation.
Chalmers’ vision shows us what happens when the Church becomes practical. When we truly believe that the Gospel is life-changing, not only for us but the whole world. That the application of the Gospel has real power to change not only hearts and minds but whole communities and nations. That poverty was not caused by a money problem but primarily by a heart problem. And if the Church would preach the Gospel, and display the truth, men’s hearts would change, dignity restored, work and stewardship glorified, and poverty abhorred.
Amazingly, Chalmers predicted that if the church did not become the center of a community, places would become “geographies of nowhere.” A place that is indistinct, boring, and of no real value. Void of culture. George Grant describes these areas referencing the part of town in every city in America where Arby’s, McDonald’s, and the shopping mall are located. But when you get away from the city centers and go to an ethnic neighborhood, they are beautifully unique, which is found in stark contrast to “fake O’charley’s, Chili’s, Outback’s and Logan Roadhouses who attempt authenticity by throwing peanut shells in the floor.” Take a picture of this area and you will not be able to tell where it is because they all look the same.
Chalmers also predicted that if the church did not become the main influence in the regulation of the economy, then the hope of liberty and prosperity for all would be destroyed and the cities would become “the servile status of the grand glorious smothering state.” We don’t have to think hard to see how this too has become the reality of our own communities.
On the government’s failure to end poverty and restore human dignity, Chalmers said, “If we wish slaves, then let the government do its work, but if we wish men, then let us apply the truth.”
The transformative nature of the Gospel does not create drab uniformity in communities but fuels beauty and creativity. It makes women more feminine and men more masculine. It creates a kind of authentic diversity. It makes the artist and musician more profound and creative. It drives work ethic in the business owner. It does not smother culture— it creates it. It does not induce slavery but sets men free. Liberty abounds because it restrains evil in a society so that the need for government is lessened because the people govern themselves, but it also lessens the control of a tyrannical government.
The Importance of Size
Chalmers did not agree with the American sentiment that bigger is better. In fact, he despised largeness and said that it is no coincidence that scripture describes the beasts as being large. A megachurch was an oxymoron in his eyes. While there are exceptions to the rule, his thoughts were not far off. His idea of true community and pastoral care centered around truly knowing one another, which is made difficult the larger a school/parish becomes.
This meant he did not allow any one parish school to grow more than 400 students, with 150-200 being the ideal. This allowed for each student and family to know one another in their cares and needs, being able to minister to each other, and also hold one another accountable. It is well said that it’s hard to sin in a small town because by the time you get home, your mama and daddy already know about it, and the same idea is easily applied to the parish.
Conclusion
Thomas Chalmers was a man of incredible intellect and drive. When God takes many gifts and uses them for His glory it’s incredible what can be accomplished in a lifetime. However, it’s not his genius that’s most impressive, but his great tenacity in forwarding his vision, his belief in the Gospel, and his unrelenting pursuit of good for his fellow man.
We may look at someone like Chalmers and feel wholly inadequate to take on such a task, but as a sinner, Chalmers was also inadequate without the Holy Spirit of God working through Him. If God had never gotten a hold of Thomas early in his life, humbled him, and shown him life, death, and eternity, we may only know him as a great professor in an ivory tower. It was said once that the greatest of men are mere men at best, but one plus God is a majority. We must never forget what God can do through one man devoted to Him and His gospel. What can he do through a devoted family, community, and school?
Chalmers’s motto to his students was, “No matter how large, your vision is too small.”
If we ever wish to see our society change, we must be willing to reject the status quo. In terms of education, we have largely been brainwashed into thinking it can only be done the government’s way. The current system is not broken, but merely operating as intended, and the fruit of this way has been devastating to our country. It is time for a change. If we wish to have more men like Teddy Roosevelt, Frederick Douglas, Robert E. Lee, Charles Spurgeon, R.L. Dabney, John Broadus, and John Adams, then we must look back at the education and culture which made these men and make plans to bring it back. Clearly what we have does not produce men such as they, but destroys them. It will require sacrifice, hard work, and an eye to the future. Plans not for ourselves, but for our great-grandchildren. Is the arm of the Lord too short? Is He too weak to do great things? It is time for the Church to remember the weight of her calling (Matt. 28:19-20), the power of her Message (Rom. 1:16), and the strength of her King (Psalm 113).
