Abolition

A giant figure among English evangelicals at the end of the 18th century went to sea to serve on his first ship at the tender age of 11.  He later became captain of slave ships that hauled hundreds of slaves in hideous conditions from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic, to plantations where they were sold and often worked to death.

But this man, John Newton, deeply repented of that life and changed course by the grace of God.  He became a parson and probably influenced the course of civilization - by becoming a father figure/friend to William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce was the leader in parliament who took on the cause of abolition (of the slave trade) while still in his twenties and never let go throughout years and years of parliamentary battle.  If you wonder, as I did, who could oppose abolition?  Eric Metaxas in his book, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, explains that the answer to that question is, lots of people.

Listen to Newton's song, "Amazing Grace," and his gratitude to God for radical change.  The song is more than 200 years old and it still moves us.

He changed Western Civilization

Eric Metaxas spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. last spring and made quite an impression.  Barack and Michelle Obama, at his table, are laughing at his dry wit (which shows up whenever he speaks) in this photo.

Having written for Veggie Tales, Chuck Colson, The New York Times, and more, his background is eclectic. He became a Christian believer after graduating from Yale as a confirmed unbeliever (conversion video here).

That's all great, but what interests me are his biographies of a couple of Christians who lived in difficult times and tried to make the world better.  One of them was more clearly successful than the other.  That man was William Wilberforce.  He actually changed Western Civilization after something like 30 years of effort by getting the slave trade stopped in England.

Here's a video of Eric telling the story to a live audience.  His book is entitled, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.

Social good

From the introduction to Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce & the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

"From where we stand today . .  the end of slavery seems inevitable, and it's impossible for us not to take it largely for granted.  But that's the wild miracle of his achievement, . .  . . . [he] can be pictured as standing as a kind of hinge in the middle of history: he pulled the world around a corner, and we can't even look back to see where we've come from.

"He seems to rise up out of nowhere and with the voice of unborn billions, with your voice and mine, shriek to his contemporaries that they are sleepwalking through hell . . ."

An end to the slave trade and the freeing of eight hundred thousand slaves in the British empire, these are the most notable achievements of Wilberforce and the abolitionists.  But here are some societies they also created to help the unfortunate in their own country:

"Asylum for the Support and Encouragement of the Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor
Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor
Institution for the Relief of the Poor of the City of London and Parts Adjacent
Society for the Relief of the Industrious Poor
British National Endeavor for the Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors
Asylum House of Refuge for the Reception of Orphaned Girls (the Settlements of Whose Parents Cannot Be Found)
Institute for the Protection of Young Girls

". . . and finally, the interestingly named Friendly Female Society for the Relief of Poor, Infirm, Aged Widows and Single Women, of Good Character, Who Have Seen Better Days"

They were "do-gooders" who made goodness fashionable, the first society-wide social conscience.

Moral argument

The Christian church was the only social institution that was making a full fledged moral argument against the institution of slavery during the middle ages.  But something happened to the church in England. There were 400 clergy in the 1600's who claimed allegiance to God before allegiance to King James - so he fired them all (Alistair McGrath, Christianity's Dangerous Idea).  The king replaced these brave believers with boot lickers, and the next century saw a church retreating from courageous, Biblical faith.

In the late 1700's, the church generally was full of cultural platitudes rather than a challenge to culture (Eric Metaxas, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery). There was a small, marginalized group of "methodists" or "evangelicals" who took the Bible seriously. The fight against slavery was born there. That group included William Wilberforce, who fought slavery as a member of English parliament all the rest of his life.

It's easy to see how the Bible inspired that fight.  Jesus taught that caring for people's needs was just like doing it for Him (Matthew 25).  He taught the Golden Rule, to treat others as you would have them treat you (Matthew 7:12).

But even before that - God created humanity in His image, the foundational principle for human rights.

Moral persons

(cont'd)

It's hard to believe that people would claim something so nonsensical as legal personhood for chimpanzees, though they are being consistent with their worldview which says that there's nothing special about human beings (you have to wonder how they can deny the specialness of humans).

William Wilberforce was one of the founders of the SPCA. As a Christian, he appealed to humans' moral responsibility to kindly care for animals - and this was consistent with his worldview that humans are accountable persons who can choose to do what's morally right.

Sometimes you hear that Christians have no business "moralizing," that they should keep their values to themselves, that God's standards are not for the world at large but just for believers. I have to disagree. God's standards for behavior are light in the darkness of a confusing world.

"Wacky charismatic"

Canon Andrew White is a British priest in Baghdad, Iraq.  He loves Iraq, his parishioners, and his Lord (not in that order), and calls himself a "wacky charismatic evangelical believing Anglican."   He was given the 2014 William Wilberforce Award a couple of weeks ago.

He's nothing like what you might expect.  He has MS, his father was Indian and Baptist, his mother English and Pentecostal, and he became Anglican.

Eric Metaxas interviews him here, and the interview is extraordinary.  It's funny.  It's odd.  If you watch it patiently, though, you will rejoice in the utterly unique way God may call individuals to their special life vocation.

Ubiquitous slavery

Slavery existed all over the ancient world including Greek and Roman civilizations, native American cultures, Islam, Viking raiders, African tribes, etc.  Philosophers Aristotle and Plato had no objection.  They taught that it was natural, that some people groups were pretty much born to be slaves of their (superior) civilization.

Spain began to enslave the native people of the Canary Islands in the 1430's.  "When word of this reached Pope Eugene IV, he immediately issued a bull . . . under threat of excommunication he gave everyone involved fifteen days to "restore to their earlier liberty all and each persons of either sex . . .these people are to be totally and perpetually free . . ."  (from Rodney Stark, Victory of Reason).  But this and the next two warnings by popes were ignored while Spain, as well as other European nations, kept it up.

Governments, plantation owners in the new world, merchants who profited from the trade, all of these constituted a formidable stronghold for the institution.  When Wilberforce and his abolitionist friends started their campaign, slavery had never been outlawed.

Somehow, they thought it could be done.  How?  They had a moral argument.  That's tomorrow's post.