Charles Simeon: Parish Pastor

When Charles Simeon (1759-1836) arrived at Cambridge in the late 1770s, the evangelical movement had limited institutional influence on the Church of England. By his death in 1836, it is estimated that a third of Anglican pulpits were evangelical. Simeon himself mentored over 1,100 ministers over the course of his lifetime, which indelibly shifted the course of evangelicalism in the Church of England. But what made Simeon such a mammoth figure in evangelicalism? This book argues it was his pastoral theology. Simeon’s impact was not only profound, but also distinct from that of his evangelical peers in the long eighteenth century. He tirelessly gave his life to training young ordinands in a period when the vast majority of England’s ministers were educated in Cambridge and Oxford. By staying local and exemplifying an extraordinary commitment to ordinary ministry, he marshalled a multitude of zealous men ready to follow his model. Thus, he profoundly marked the Church of England and the world. In order to reach people outside his parish, he molded pastors–and in order to train pastors, he cared for the people within his parish.