William Wilberforce was a political activist. He was an idealist. He fought a twenty-year fight to end the slave trade and emancipate the slaves of England. You might even say his passion was social justice. With a profile like this, he should be the hero of every modern liberal. Ah, but like every man William Wilberforce has a black spot on his record. He suffered from a serious character flaw, one so big I dare say it eclipses all his great humanitarian accomplishments: William Wilberforce was a devout Christian.
After having a powerful spiritual experience, which he considered his conversion to Christianity, Wilberforce considered for a time leaving public office to offer his life wholly to God. He was counseled by friends, including John Newton (Anglican minister, former slave trader, and writer and composer of the famous hymn Amazing Grace), to remain in politics. After being convinced to join the abolitionist movement as its voice in Parliament, Wilberforce turned his passionate faith into a political force that would ultimately see the end of slavery in the entire British Empire. A movie about his life and faith titled “Amazing Grace” hits theaters this Friday, February 23rd, 2007 (exactly 200 years, to the day, after Wilberforce’s bill to end the slave trade was finally passed).
This movie is quite an achievement for the “evangelical right” in America. It’s taboo to talk about Christianity in a Hollywood movie these days, unless you’re making fun of it or blaming it for the world’s problems. In this movie, distinguished, Academy Award nominated, Golden Globe winning actor, Albert Finney, utters the line, “I know two things; I am a great sinner…and Christ is a great savior.” Personally, that isn’t something I ever expected to hear in a movie theater ever in my life. William Wilberforce is played by Ioan Gruffudd (from the Horatio Hornblower series, King Arthur, and The Fantastic Four). The movie is directed by Michael Apted.
More importantly, however, this movie will, I hope, draw attention to a supreme example of a Christian ideal. Modern liberals are wont to blame religion for all the ills of the world, and then to try to pretend that some form of enlightened, all-tolerant atheism has always been the driving force behind progress throughout human history. It’s certainly a pleasant fiction for the secularist, but lucky for us Christians those pesky historical details keep getting in their way. All joking aside, Christians have come to be seen as mostly apathetic towards issues of social justice and poverty around the world, and frankly that’s unacceptable. Like Wilberforce, Christians should be the ones in the lead, taking a stand on issues that affect our society today. Abortion is an important issue, one that can even bring Catholics and Protestants together in a common cause, but we also have to realize that poverty and even slavery are still important issues today that need to be taken seriously. How should we deal with them? How should we treat social justice issues? I don’t know yet, but I do know that Christians should be the ones to figure out the answers to those questions and then take action. And when we do take action, when we step up to the plate for the innocent who suffer, when we clothe the naked, feed the hungry or free the slave, people will see that. They will see such noble, selfless deeds. They will ask us why we sacrifice our time and our lives to do such things. They will ask us what motivates us, what gives us the strength to go on. And then we can answer, joyfully, “God, with whom all things are possible, by His amazing grace.”
(Visit the official movie site to watch the trailer and learn more about how you can help put an end to the modern slave trade)
I am glad I read your blog after our short IM. I didn’t know about this movie, haven’t heard anything about it. But it looks good from the preview. I will see it someday, just not sure if it will be in the theater.
Too many Christians and too many atheists demonize each other, especially in the blogosphere.
I hope it didn’t sound like I was unabashedly attacking atheists with mere ad hominem insults. I was only pointing out (however cynically my tone may have been) that most atheists are quick to blame religion for all (or at least most) of the world’s strife, when, if anything, the opposite is actually true. There’s also a spreading belief that it’s ok to be religious only so long as you don’t let that religion interfere in the public sphere. The main point of this post was to awaken people to the life of a great man who did amazing things and changed world politics BECAUSE of his religion, not merely in spite of it. I certainly wasn’t trying to demonize anyone, and I agree that there’s far too much of that going on these days (if you haven’t already, check out the “about coram deo” page, where I talk about this a little bit).
Thanks for the comment, Paul.