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Wilberforce Be With You: The Christian Right Claims Amazing Grace
Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of slavery. But since Hollywood doesn't release new titles on Thursday, it's waiting until today to launch Amazing Grace, a new movie about 18th-century British abolitionist William Wilberforce. The flick, directed by Michael Apted (creator of the mesmerizing 7-Up documentary series) and produced by the studio that did The Chronicles of Narnia, is getting enthusiastic advance reviews. But nowhere is the film more highly anticipated than among conservative Christians, who see parallels between Wilberforce's moral battle and their faith-based campaign against sex trafficking. But Wilberforce's unlikely victory is also viewed as a metaphor for the Christian right's struggle to remake the culture. Presidential hopeful Sam Brownback was dubbed a "Wilberforce Republican" by the Economist, and has eagerly accepted the title. And check out this email appeal I recently received from Ted Baehr, who runs MovieGuide, an evangelical movie review site:
One man, William Wilberforce, was used by God to abolish the slave trade in England and bring about a reformation of manners.
Imagine what you and I can do together to redeem the media and save our culture! [...]
Because of Wilberforce's willingness to serve the Lord, a Victorian society where women and children were safe and where the Church was addressing social evils in creative ways saved a nation that was quickly falling into rampant paganism.
[...] you can help us bring about a moral reform in our nation that will set the captives free from the bondage and slavery of corrupt media.
This is the chance for the Church in our era to address social evils in creative ways!
Wilberforce has officially been recruited as a culture warrior. (BTW, MovieGuide gives Amazing Grace four stars, though it warns viewers that it contains "female cleavage.")
Of course, Wilberforce's story doesn't just resonate with religious conservatives. His against-the-odds struggle for social justice plucks liberal heartstrings as well—ours included. For a progressive interpretation of British abolitionism, see Mother Jones co-founder Adam Hochshild's most recent book, Bury the Chains, which argues that the anti-slavery movement was "the first great human-rights campaign." As Hochschild explained when I interviewed him:
In a time that feels politically grim, especially for anyone in the U.S. who cares about social justice, I hope people will take heart from a story of folks who started a campaign at a time when it looked even grimmer. The idea of ending slavery seemed totally utopian, crackpot, wildly too idealistic. But they succeeded. And they succeeded in 50 years, in the lifespan of some people [...] They went through some very grim times, one of them being the long wartime period like the one we're seeing now. Wartime is bad news for progressives, and it was the same thing [during the Napoleonic wars]. So I guess to the extent that it's possible for a book like this to have any effect, I would just like to see it have the effect of making people working for justice today feel heartened and to know that any big struggle will always be a long one with many setbacks.
I don't see anyone calling themselves "Wilberforce Democrats" any time soon, but that's no reason to let the right lay exlcusive claim to the legacy of abolitionism, or even Amazing Grace. So take a break from your usual pagan film fare and see if it lives up to the hype. (And for you history buffs/Afropop fans, it's your chance to see Youssou N'Dour's silver screen debut as Olaudah Equiano.)
having seen 'Amazing Grace' twice, i'd say it gets history right: portrays Wilberforce with some flaws (an issue with drugs, for instance) but driven by his personal beliefs to make a difference in the world.
peace,
-joshMshep
"[A] Victorian society where women and children were safe and where the Church was addressing social evils in creative ways saved a nation" - Ted Baehr
Ted Baehr's appropriation of William Wilberforce is deeply flawed. Wilberforce lived in Georgian, not Victorian, England. A huge difference, which suggests that Mr. Baehr is parroting phrases without knowledge of his subject. If Mr. Baehr thinks that Georgian - much less urbanizing and industrializing Victorian - England was a safe haven for middle and lower class women and children, he should read a little. Something accessible, like Dickens, for starters.
Housing, sanitation, health, education and working conditions were abysmal. Poverty, labor dislocation, and maternal, infant and childhood mortality rates were high. Wilberforce would have fought these in 1890 or 1990 for the same reason he fought slavery in 1790.
In the two hundred years before 1807, slavery and the slave trade led to the accumulation of massive wealth. In a pre-industrial society, that wealth saved or created many of England's leading families, just as they did in America. At a time when members of Parliament, like Wilberforce, were virtually appointed by "society" rather than elected via universal suffrage, Wilberforce convinced his peers that it was not in their interest to let slavery legally continue.
Stop and think. Wilberforce convinced society's leaders that what made many of them wealthy, what gave them security, status and power, was morally wrong and should be corrected. What would a comparable achievement look like? Convincing the South to walk away from slavery in 1860? Convincing General Motors to advocate for greater union membership in America? Or, convincing Mr. Cheney to promote peace or the Petroleum Institute to tackle global warming?
Wilberforce's commitment was to social reform, not social conservatism in the vein of today's American fundamentalists. He was interested in curbing the excesses of private and public life for a greater good that all would recognize.
American fundamentalists seem willing to tolerate any governmental or private excess - other than sexual, and even then it's OK so long as the malefactor is deemed "cured" - so long it promotes their views and blocks those of others. I do not think Wilberforce would approve. I think he would consider that hypocritical and self-serving, an abandonment of the principles for which they were fighting.
Wilberforce's work remains unfinished. Slavery may be illegal, but it continues via abusive working conditions here and abroad, and outright trade in people, including the sex trade. For those interested in helping to finish it, see, e.g., www.wilberforce2007.co.uk.
President Abe Lincoln was a REPUBLICAN who freed the slaves while the Democrats were known as the southern party, until recently. Slavery still goes on today in southern Sudan. Why the silence?
Why don't people talk about the great Black Holocaust during February? Why the silence? I hear that close to 12 million Africans died coming over in those hell holes that they call ships. I am not casting blame on anybody's racial background(e.g. White) for the Black Holocaust, we are beyond that, but at least let us remember it and have a moment of silence. Yes, we all agree, Willberforce was a good man and we thank God for him and the Methodists.
Few notes...
1) To Jackie Todd: Yes, Lincoln was a Republican. So? The early Republican party drew from the crumbling Whig party and the Free-Soilers. Ignoring slavery (something we all, I hope, agree generally, though not specifically, with Lincoln on - "colonization" as a solution is certainly distasteful to me), many modern Republicans would oppose Lincoln's stances: his perennial championing of "national improvements" (education, infrastructure, etc...) would sound to many ears like "wasteful government programs."
The reason the Democrats lost the South was because of Nixon's "Southern Strategy," which specifically aimed at stealing a traditional Democratic constituency through race-baiting. It's important to remember that most pro-segregation Democrats (Robert C. Byrd and George Wallace excepted) switched quite gleefully to the Republican party. Think about Strom Thurmond...or remember that Eisenhower used the national guard (at the Little Rock mayor's request) to enforce desegregation, against the will of the Democratic Governor.
As for Southern Sudan, "why the silence?" is indeed a fair question. Though, it transcends political boundaries. Bush called it a "genocide," and yet has done nothing. He talked about the oppressed Iraqi people who had been victims of massacres 15 years ago, and committed our military to their "liberation" while doing nothing about the genocide and slavery in Sudan. We should all be focusing on this question, not simply saying one group of people (that has only recently regained limited political power) should be more vocal about this issue.
2) Religious Conservatives are always eager to associate themselves with pious historical figures. Some of you may remember a painting popular around the '04 election that portrayed GW Bush praying at a podium, with Lincoln and Washington laying their hands on his shoulders. When asked in a 2000 primary debate who his favorite philosopher was, Bush answered "Jesus." Which is funny, because usually people who refer to him as a philosopher are non-believers; indeed, many believers would consider it an insult to denigrate God's son by reducing him to a "philosopher." But when it's an evangelical politician, somehow it slides...
Or take the question of the filibuster. When the Republicans were threatening re-writing the Senate rules to prohibit Democrats from using it to block Supreme Court nominees, the rhetoric was "the filibuster was once used against people of color. Now it may be used against people of faith." By invoking the civil rights movement, they tried to cloak their radical social agenda in the terms of "freedom of religion," and place themselves on the same moral plane as people such as Martin Luther King, Jr.
This tactic is simply repugnant. I hope Brownback does not gain any momentum by this preposterous moniker.