Wilberforce: the father of abolitionism?
Thanks to Alan for reminding me of this excellent Ö÷²¥´óÐã history site dealing with the legacy of William Wilberforce. It's easy to rewrite the WIlberforce with the hindsight of two hundred years. He was a complex personality, driven by a mix of religious and political values that some voters today would find difficult to support. He was a committed Evangelical; yet he supported the arrest and imprisonment of a bookseller who published Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason". He was a progressive for his day in some matters and deeply conservative in others. He struggled, for example, with the increasing enfranchisement of the British population and believed social inequality was divinely ordained while giving generously to the poor. Some of his ideas are undoubtedly strange by our lights, but these should not obscure the comitment to abolitionism and the humanitarian vision that is also part of Wilberforce's story. And in telling that stroy, we shoud be careful to acknowledge the many others who worked tirelessly to end slavery within the Empire two centuries ago.
Comments
I don't think there are too many christian websites pointing us to the churches complicity in slavery.
But credit where it's due!
Wilberforce and friends were mavericks and would have been considered religious 'liberals' in their day - a bit like progressive theologians today.
alan
I've met many Brits who boast that Britain abolished slavery long before the US did. The reality is much more complicated than that. While it is true that slavery was abolished in Britain in 1833 and not in all of the US until 1863 with William Crawley's favorite 272 word speech Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (it obviously couldn't be enforced in the states which seceded until the war was over two years later) the nothern states had various histories of abolition. Slavery in America was a legacy of European colonization and in the south, it was considered vital to the cotton based economy which depended on lots of very cheap labor to pick cotton. The threat to end slavery was a threat to the entire economy of the region. It was the one issue, the framers of the US Constitution could not grapple with because it was so sensitive and left it for future generations to sort out. And when it was, it resulted in the worst war in American history.
I think it is noteworthy that during the Civil war, Britain actively supported the slaveholding Confederacy against the Abolitionist Unionists. Britain felt it would be to its advantage for America to remain divided and weak. How lucky for them a mere fifty years later that the Union prevailed and a strong America was able to come to the rescue of Europe as it churned an entire generation of young men into corpses in an endless war of attrition.
Anti Euro bore.
Gee Dubyah
Your E-U-pidity is showing :-)
(I just coined this word today.)
there is no way Wilberforce would be considered a "liberal" today.
His theology, reading of the bible, was conservative, he was a "born again" etc etc
PB
Its also worth asking how many millions died because of the revolutions in France and America; this was what Thomas Paine was promoting.
You could liken it to someone being arrested for selling booklets calling for Al Qaeda to blow up Parliament.
We recently had people prosecuted for such demonstrations in London, remember?
PB
Re 4:
I'm proud to be European, what of it?
Re 5- Wilberforce's conservative outlook:
I guess that would expain his opium habit eh ? ;)
GW
Lets be honest, there has been a tidal wave of liberal revisionist history poured out upon Wilberforce in recent days and that is really what you are driving at.
It seems it riles so many people that an biblical Christian spearheaded the campaign to outlaw slavery in Britain.
What a pity.
A statue to the memory of Wilberforce was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1840, bears the epitaph:
"To the memory of William Wilberforce (born in Hull, August 24th 1759, died in London, July 29th 1833); for nearly half a century a member of the House of Commons, and, for six parliaments during that period, one of the two representatives for Yorkshire. In an age and country fertile in great and good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times; because to high and various talents, to warm benevolence, and to universal candour, he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life. Eminent as he was in every department of public labour, and a leader in every work of charity, whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of his fellow-men, his name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire: in the prosecution of these objects he relied, not in vain, on God; but in the progress he was called to endure great obloquy and great opposition: he outlived, however, all enmity; and in the evening of his days, withdrew from public life and public observation to the bosom of his family. Yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country: the Peers and Commons of England, with the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at their head, in solemn procession from their respective houses, carried him to his fitting place among the mighty dead around, here to repose: till, through the merits of Jesus Christ, his only redeemer and saviour, (whom, in his life and in his writings he had desired to glorify,) he shall rise in the resurrection of the just."
What are really your motives for raising the opium matter?
Nobody said you had to be perfect to be a disciple of Christ; no disciple is and in fact the admission of this is the starting point of entering discipleship.
PB
pb re your 5
This is a quote from my comment 1
Did I say 'today'?
alan
THe quote was there when I posted - duh!
Wilberforce and friends were mavericks and would have been considered religious 'liberals' in their day - a bit like progressive theologians today.
Alan
not really sure what you mean in 9.
Lets review.
Certainly all levels of British society were involved in slavery, the Commons backed it to the hilt and the Anglican church too.
So Wilberforce's position was anti-establishment in those terms. yes.
But if any liberal thinks he would be their chosen company today on theological grounds then they are mistaken...
His work "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity" was an attack on nominal liberal Christianity and a guide to the faith any bible believer today would be very comfortable with.
Does that clarify matters any?
PB
...Just in case there is any doubt, have a glance at some of his writings here for yourself from the book mentioned;-
PB
PB my point in raising it (opium) is to query your portrayal of WW as conservative, bible fearing etc. I do not contend that he was anything other than a good man who acheived something vitally important. Nothing more.
There were no public figures of that day that I can think# of who professed atheism, so I am wondering, was it not prerequisite to advancement to profess faith? I believe it was.
This is a point you raise in respect of todays "prejudice" against the faithful so i am sure you understand.
GW
You have entirely missed the significance of the primary evidence cited in post 12, the book Wilberforce wrote; and the epitaph written about him in post 8.
You seem to be suggesting Wilberforce may have simply pretended to be a Christian to advance his career.
Nothing could be further than the truth. The book he wrote and to which I link is a concetrated attack on just such "nominal" faith. He was a close personal friend and colleague of former slave trader John Newtown who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.
He was also a leading member of the fervently Christian Clapham Sect.
"Nominal" is the term he uses throughout the book and it means "in name only". Check the link in the above post.
His faith was what motivated him as "good" it was not incidental. Its not really up for discussion; even William openly concedes the point above.
But I was thinking about this overnight and I think it is rather disturbing for us to arrogantly measure great men of history by the inch tape of our own "righteous" beliefs.
People such as Wilberforce are true giants of human history, albeit flawed like all men, and to presume to clumsily grade them by our own prejudices is arrogance in the extreme, I contend.
The vast majority of us are not fit to lace the boots of such men. And I am not just saying this of men of faith.
If we presume to arrogantly pigeonhole any great men of history I think it is almost presuming to make ourselves equal to them.
I once heard a senior academic at QUB say in a very arrogant tone that he was "very fond" of John Wesley, as though John Wesley was a chess piece; he had no idea what Wesley really was about.
I think such people deserve a little more reverence, flaws and all.
Churchhill used drugs heavily to see him through WWII; but again, let's just stop for a moment and ponder on what he averted and achieved, before we toss such as him from intellectual toybox to toybox like a plastic plaything.
Men like these literally poured out their lives for others in a way very few of us can begin to imagine.
PB
PB
Wilberforce certainly was a "liberal" in todays terms, especially in realtion to the Bible-believers that supported slavery-I think that is what posters are saying.
Might I suggest that since 'Christians' have been doing such a bad job on the question of slavery according to several threads in this blog that secular humanists take up the problem of modern day slavery which appears quite rampant in the modern and predominantly secular UK.
How come with the decline of attendance in churches and the decline of religious belief in the UK that children now go missing into the sex trade?
Who do we blame for these problems today?
Regards,
Michael
Well the issue is being addressed by our police forces and our courts. Like any illegal activity it is hard to police but that is not to say that it is not being policed.
"How come with the decline of attendance in churches and the decline of religious belief in the UK that children now go missing into the sex trade?"
I fail to see the correlation like wise I could say with the high level of church attendance in the USA and the rise of religious belief why does the USA have a sex trade in children, one of the highest murder/crime rates in the western world etc of course I do not really believe that there is a correlation as this would be an argument from fallacy.
"Who do we blame for these problems today?"
If there wasn't a market then ther wouldn't be a trade-target the people who want to want to exploit this vile trade.
Dylan
Did you actually read any of Wilberforce's book?
Did you actually read post 14?
I am just dumbfounded how you can label him a liberal.
And regarding all this beating up on the church ref trafficking...
Salvation Army and Tearfund and are Christian groups taking real international action on trafficking.
The Salvation Army ran an international media campaign during the World Cup to warn men that having sex with imported prostitutes in Germany would be rape.
The Stop the Traffik coalition has many faith groups and churches involved;-
I'm sorry but this beating up on Christians on this is actually sectarian discrimination and, yes, religious intolerance.
PB
Out of 668 members Stop the traffik coalition has
34 faith groups
183 church groups
Not sure how many other Christian groups may also be listed under other grouping, eg women's and business Christian groups etc.
Why are so many people here so keen to pile up venom against Christians fighting against this evil rather than joining up and fighting the real villans???
There is something seriously wrong in that attitude I reckon...
PB
Re #17
I fail to see the correlation like wise
Exactly, it's not a question of what people believe it's a question of what they are. People do some bad things, others do some good things. Christians, Jews, Atheists, Secular Humanists, whites, blacks, asians, Irish, English etc etc ...... have adherents in both the 'good' and the 'bad' moral camps.
Why demonize the belief or the race or the nationality and not the persons directly responsible?
Regards,
Michael
RE 20.
Well said Michael, why demonize the faith for the errors of the individual, and why exalt the Faith for the acheivments of the individual?
If as in my worldview, there is no god, then these people acheived all their great works on their own.
See?
Re PB.,
The only point that I was making was that Wilberforce was a liberal in comparison to the many other "Bible-believers" at that time who supported the slave trade-it's a simple point.
"I'm sorry but this beating up on Christians on this is actually sectarian discrimination and, yes, religious intolerance."
Where exactly did I beat up on the modern Church?
"Why are so many people here so keen to pile up venom against Christians fighting against this evil rather than joining up and fighting the real villans???"
When did I pile venom on modern Christians figthing this sick trade?
Re PB and Micheal could you show me exactly where I am "beating up" the modern church in tackling the modern slave trade...the answer is NOWHERE!I am aware that they do a lot of great work, so please get off those sanctimonious high horses and if you want to attack me, please do but not on things that I actually say not things that you make up-got that?
"Exactly, it's not a question of what people believe it's a question of what they are. People do some bad things, others do some good things. Christians, Jews, Atheists, Secular Humanists, whites, blacks, asians, Irish, English etc etc ...... have adherents in both the 'good' and the 'bad' moral camps.
Why demonize the belief or the race or the nationality and not the persons directly responsible?"
Exactly Michael, so then why did you use the argument from conseqences re: secular humanism?
And re: your 2nd para where exactly did I do that?
I'm sorry but you 2 guys have really annoyed me with those posts and I really dislike being misrepresented and being portrayed as something(which I thought I made it quite clear)I am not.
Re #21
Gee: I agree - we all view the world through the color of our own prisms (Disraeli?)
Re #22
Dylan Dog; I apologise if I have misrepresented you. As to my use of the arguments re secular humanism I am just playing the other side of the tune so we can all see how our beliefs color our views. I am a 'both/and' and not an 'either/or' person so I think there is 'truth' to be found in all opinions from numerous worldviews.
I respect your worldview and Gee Dubayah's and PBs and Mark's and ....
[good grief do I really want to include Mark? ;-)]
Regards,
Michael
ps Internet handles intrigue me. Dylan Dog is yours' a reference to Bob Dylan - he who sang We live and we die, we know not why, but I'll be with you with the deal goes down?
Re #21
Gee: I agree - we all view the world through the color of our own prisms (Disraeli?)
Re #22
Dylan Dog; I apologise if I have misrepresented you. As to my use of the arguments re secular humanism I am just playing the other side of the tune so we can all see how our beliefs color our views. I am a 'both/and' and not an 'either/or' person so I think there is 'truth' to be found in all opinions from numerous worldviews.
I respect your worldview and Gee Dubayah's and PBs and Mark's and ....
[good grief do I really want to include Mark? ;-)]
Regards,
Michael
ps Internet handles intrigue me. Dylan Dog is yours' a reference to Bob Dylan - he who sang We live and we die, we know not why, but I'll be with you with the deal goes down?