Thursday, October 19, 2023

It is the 19th of October, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

A happy birthday today to a colorful and curious Englishman, Gerrard Winstanley, who was born on, the 19th of October in 1609. Winstanley is one of these characters in the chaotic 17th century in English history, about whom we know relatively little. For a brief season, he was a major disrupter in both the theological and political world until his movement was crushed by Oliver Cromwell, and he lived out his life, much like the majority of this early life: in obscurity.

So, what do we know of Gerrard Winstanley? He was born in Wigan near Manchester in the North of England. He was baptized soon after birth and likely attended the local schools, although we have no record of this. His father was a cloth merchant in Wigan, and when Gerrard was older, he was apprenticed to a London cloth maker. He would have been set up for a comfortable life- a member of the Church of England under Charles I, he would marry Susan King, the daughter of a surgeon.

But things started to turn in the early 1640s. The economy took a hit, drought and severe weather caused a spike in food prices, and a move to urban centers led to the raising of rents. When Parliament took up arms against King Charles in 1642, the English Civil Wars were on. Winstanley lost his business and had to declare bankruptcy. His wife had inherited land in Cobham- a rural parish to the West of London. There, Gerrard struggled to tend a farm and became increasingly radical.  

In 1648, his radical thought crystallized after he said he received a message while in a trance. The messages he received were “'work together,' 'eat bread together,' 'let Israel go free.' And 'Israel shall neither give nor take hire.'

He would develop a theology based on this and the criticism of the rich in James chapter 5. He noted that the example of monarchy in the Old Testament recommended an alternate body politic. He noted the radical “leveling” of social status in the New Testament and would take the communal example from Acts 2 as his starting point for building a new society. He was not alone in calling for a radical approach to government- this was a turbulent age with the 30 Years War raging on the Continent and the Civil Wars kicking off in England. Winstanley, echoing the thought of many, wrote, “'The old world is running up like parchment in the fire.” In England, there was a group called “the Levelers” calling for a Christian approach to society, which saw all as brothers and sisters and no hierarchy. But Winstanley took it a step further. He saw poverty as an evil inescapable in light of private property. In a series of pamphlets, he wrote he noted: “[God] doth not preserve one creature and destroy another... but he hath a regard to the whole creation, and knits every creature together into oneness; making every creature to be an upholder of his fellow; and so everyone is an assistant to preserve the whole.”

In January of 1649, he published his “The New Law of Righteousness,” in which he argued for a “true” leveling of society and named those who followed him the “true levelers”. But instead, he would be given an epithet. He and his followers would be known as “the Diggers.” Later, in 1649, a concerned citizen wrote to his local council that several people, including Winstanley, had begun to squat on St. George’s Hill. They had begun to “dig up” fences and enclosures to make all land common, and Winstanley promised “meat, drink, and clothes.”

 It was in this year that Charles was beheaded, and Cromwell and Parliament would rule. Winstanley saw this as the beginning of the Revolution, but Cromwell’s Roundheads saw Winstanley and the Diggers as too radical. The army pushed the Diggers off the land and warned of repercussions for subsequent “digging up” of private boundary markers.

We know that sometime after this, Susan died, and Winstanley disavowed the Diggers, moved back to London, and remarried. What little we know of his later life is that he would join the Quakers and die on the 10th of September in 1676. Outside of a few local histories, he was unknown until his memory was revived by the Russian Revolutionaries, and in 1918, his name was placed on an obelisk in Moscow dedicated to “social thinkers.” There is today an annual “diggers festival” in his hometown of Wigan, and revelers take to St. Georges Hill in his honor.

Born on this day in 1609, the curious radical Gerrard Winstanley died in 1676, he was 66 years old.

  

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Psalm 99 and is my wont will read from the Scottish Metrical Psalter.

1  Th' eternal Lord doth reign as king,

         let all the people quake;

      He sits between the cherubims,

         let th' earth be moved and shake.

   2  The Lord in Zion great and high

         above all people is;

   3  Thy great and dreadful name (for it

         is holy) let them bless.

   4  The king's strength also judgment loves;

         thou settlest equity:

      Just judgment thou dost execute

         in Jacob righteously.

   5  The Lord our God exalt on high,

         and rev'rently do ye

      Before his footstool worship him:

         the Holy One is he.

 

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 19th of October 2023 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose most radical opinion is that every motnh should contain the same number of days, any days left over at the end of the year are a national holiday- He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man whose most radical position is that all citizens should be required a year of national service working in food service or retail- I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.