Room Biographies
When the new building was inaugurated in 2004, the facilities were named to reflect Christian history in the United Kingdom. The following sections provide a brief biography of each character represented.
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This room is named after the original church in Chineham which was a wooden hut on the other side of Reading Road. It was part of the parish of Old Basing.
In 1986 when Christ Church was originally built, the name Christ Church was adopted to convey the unity of a church embracing all Christians, in a parish now separate from Old Basing. The main meeting room in the Church was named St Joseph's Room.
In 2003, when the latest expansion of the church buildings was opened,\ the name St Joseph's was retained as one of the room names in order to convey something of the journey and heritage of even quite a modern church building.
Hannah More (1745-1833)
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Hannah More put her Christian beliefs into practice through Sunday schools, social welfare work and wider campaigning for evangelical biblical Christianity. Lay women played an immensely important role in the evangelical revival and its aftermath.
Hannah had a gift for writing from which she made her fortune. She was converted somewhere in the period 1785-87 which changed her life. In London she joined Wilberforce and Newton as prominent Christian campaigners against slavery.
When not in London, she lived in the area around Cheddar Gorge and put her Christian beliefs to very practical use. She established Sunday schools for the children of the poor, so that they could both learn to read and, of course, as part of that, to read the Bible. She established women's benefit clubs to try and encourage a degree of independence for poor women. She also wrote a lot of Christian literature setting out the claims of Christ upon us.
Hannah More combined working with the well-heeled of London on the big campaigns with a real involvement in the life of the poor in Somerset. A Christian who put faith into practice.
John Newton (1725-1807)
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John Newton was a tough sailor, converted to Christ and became of the great early leaders of the evangelical revival in England.
For most of his life he captained a slave-trader, plying its evil trade back and forth across the Atlantic, a hardened and rugged seaman, about as far from the Lord as one could get. In 1748 his ship floundered off Ireland. All seemed lost and Newton fell to his knees in prayer for deliverance. That experience set Newton on the road to a living faith in Jesus.
Newton had everything against him, class, upbringing, lack of formal education and an enthusiasm for the truths of the gospel. He was repeatedly denied ordination. Eventually he became Rector of Olney in Buckinghamshire where he wrote many great hymns including, Amazing Grace, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds and Glorious things of thee are spoken. In 1780 Newton moved to the City of London and, alongside Wilberforce was prominent in the campaign against the slave-trade.
The Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885)
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Shaftesbury was a fascinating character who combined an utter commitment to the evangelical gospel of Jesus with a passionate concern for the poor.
Shaftesbury was converted after entering Parliament in 1826. He was deeply influenced by both the supreme authority of the Bible and the doctrine of the second coming of Jesus, which, he believed, should shake Christians out of their complacency both for the spread of the gospel and the welfare of humanity.
He was a passionate supporter of the great evangelical societies of the nineteenth-century, including the Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London City Mission and the Church Pastoral Aid Society.
Shaftesbury was responsible for the introduction of legislation restricting and banning the employment of children in factories, mines and as chimney sweeps, the development of various forms of social housing and the protection of the mentally ill. He would tour the slums of London in the company of the City Missionaries, establishing schools and encouraging Christian work among the poor.
Shaftesbury opposed creeping Catholicism in the Church of England; genuflections, vestments, candles, incense all, well, incensed him (!), obscuring the great and comforting doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
William Tyndale (1495-1536)
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William Tyndale's life's work was the translation of the Bible into English and it cost him his life.
At this time it was still illegal to possess a Bible in English. Tyndale was committed to the boy at the plough knowing the Scriptures as well as any cleric. He lived and worked in Europe hunted at all times by the Catholic authorities.
In 1525 he completed the first ever translation of the New Testament into English from the original Greek. He revised the work in 1534 and set about translating the Old Testament. His translation has formed the basis of biblical translation for many centuries.
Tyndale is remembered for his work of translation, his beautiful use of English prose and for his martyrdom as a Reformer. Tyndale did not just translate the Bible; he read it. This led him to the great biblical doctrines of justification by faith alone, the centrality of the Scriptures and the denial of Catholic practices.
In 1536, in Europe, he was betrayed, arrested, charged with heresy (including, "he maintains that faith alone justifies") and burned at the stake.
John Wesley (1703-1791)
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John Wesley, together with that of his hymn-writing brother Charles, has had an enormous and deeply significant impact upon the development of Christianity in England and across the world.
Wesley, who became a fellow at Oxford in 1729, had an earnestness about him and began reading a range of spiritual writings and gathered a group around him known as The Holy Club. He also came into contact with the Moravians who emphasised the importance of personal piety and faith.
These influences came together on May 24, 1738 when Wesley had a remarkable conversion experience; the date generally used to mark the beginning of the evangelical revival. In his own words, he felt his "heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
Wesley began preaching in the open-air and formed his followers into societies and classes, each class under a leader - the beginnings of the Lay Preachers movement. Wesley himself averaged 8,000 miles a year on horseback.