Finding Your Co-Belligerents
Mark Rodgers and award winning author Kevin Belmonte reflect on the historical Clapham Sect, and the legacy it leaves as we consider community today.
This week, on the sixth page of our latest comic, Wilberforce’s Two Great Objects, we see Wilberforce contributing a significant piece of writing to the cause of the Reformation of Manners.
As Wilberforce worked diligently on his book to share his passion for fighting for the good of society, he was supported by cherished friends and co-belligerents. In this week’s interview, we see a similar process unfold in the present day. As Kevin Belmonte wrote his book on Hannah More to further share stories of salt and light, he too was aided by beloved friends and co-belligerents, working together to advance the kingdom.
Here is more from their interview.
Mark Rodgers
We're almost out of time here, but I wanted to thank you for the biography that you've just written, and we want to highlight that biography of Hannah. We chatted earlier in terms of what took you by surprise from the novel or the research for it. But one thing you shared with me is the cover image itself. Tell us the story of the image of Hannah on the cover of the book.
Kevin Belmonte
Thank you for asking. I mean, in terms of the gratitude that I have for the image of Hannah that's used on the cover. It's kind of a Clapham Group revisited, if you will. I'm fortunate, as you are, to know many creatives who are people of faith. Malcolm Guite is one of them, an amazing literary scholar and poet. He's a Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge University, where the wonderful portrait of Hannah More that we got permission to use for the cover is kept.
Malcolm and I have been friends for about 15 years. He's been kind enough to speak well of other books I've done, and when we made the approach to Cambridge University, sent along some of the things that Malcolm was kind enough to say about my books, and so that living in community as creatives, though I had no notion that it would come into play with the Hannah cover becoming a reality and getting first time permission ever to use this painting, that dynamic came into play and helped leverage that opportunity. I'm deeply grateful to Malcolm and to Cambridge University and to Hannah More's biographer M.G. Jones, who, in the 1950s published a wonderful study of Hannah, but she found that painting and bought it.
Mark Rodgers
Oh, I didn't know that, and she gifted that painting to Cambridge University.
Kevin Belmonte
So it's an amazing thing where I think what Wilberforce said is so true: “A gracious hand leads us in ways we know not.” And I just think about that as we seek to be faithful and prayerful, “Lord, show us where the doors of opportunity are. Help us to be salt and light in our own particular circle, whether that's a town, city or a wider network of friends.” I'm mindful, as a biographer and profoundly grateful that those kinds of things happen. Every book journey that's unfolded for me has been slightly different, but in this case, there was sort of a Clapham Group dynamic. That what's old is new again, that helped bring that cover into being. So yeah, I'm really grateful for that.
"Hannah More deserves to be better known. In the eighteenth century she was a famous playwright and poet, a friend of Garrick and Johnson, and became a pioneering educationalist.
She and her sisters set up nine schools in the Mendips in and around Cheddar for children living in dire poverty. She also became a champion for the abolition of slavery, which is how I first came across her when researching Patrick Cormack’s biography of my ancestor, William Wilberforce.
It is wonderful that we live in an era when able women of the past are coming to be rediscovered, and hopefully this biography will help restore the reputation of Hannah More."
- Sebastian Wilberforce
Mark Rodgers
Wonderful. My favorite picture of Hannah actually is one we have here on the wall, and it's her at about age 22-23, and I love that in particular because most folks, if they do know of her at all, have an image of her as an older woman with a beehive hairdo. But she was obviously vibrant, and, as you know, her success as a theatrical playwright, started when she was in her late teens, right? Wasn't she at 19 or 20 when she was published?
Well, I wanted to give a shout out to
, who's a dear friend of both of ours, who also wrote a wonderful biography, Fierce Convictions. So proud of her work – we hope to coordinate with Karen next year on a Salt and Light story that she's selected. I'm encouraging her to try her hand, and it will be wonderful, it’ll be her first graphic novel-ish venture. We're doing these little, small ones, and it will be fun to have her work with an artist to develop a five page mini comic around an individual, to be named later, who represents salt and light in her cultural context.
So, I'm going to ask you the same question, Kevin, is there a story that we should tell in the future? Is there another person in history that could be the ancients, could be in the last century, or even living today, who as a saint you feel embodies this idea of living as salt and light in culture faithfully, but being in the world, but not of it. Is there a story that you think we should tell?
Kevin Belmonte
The short answer is yes, and I'll tell you in just a second. But I wanted to give Karen a shout out of my own, if I could please, because when I told her that I was about to finally take up the biography that I'd wanted to write, but was commissioned to write, all these years later, she sent me the kindest email, just encouraging me. I'd had a chance to send her images of Hannah More that I'd collected when she did her book. So, she returned the favor in a wonderful way, offering encouragement in an early stage, and I thank her in the acknowledgements. Because, as you know, writing a book is a lonely enterprise. Sometimes you're researching, you're wrestling with thoughts – how do I connect these dots for readers in ways that are meaningful and compelling? – and so she has been kind to so many, and she was very kind to me in the early stages. So, I want to make sure I say that for folks who know and appreciate her.
Thank you for reading this week’s interview. It’s inspiring to see how the legacy of the Clapham Sect continues through our own personal “Clapham circles”—a community of dear friends and co-belligerents working together for the flourishing of society. Be sure to tune in next week for more Salt and Light Stories!