Let us praise William Wilberforce, liberator of slaves, man of God
by Julian Mann, The Conservative Woman:
AMIDST the recent Black Lives Matter protests, the evangelical Christian chiefly responsible for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade by the United Kingdom parliament gets practically no mention.
In today’s terms, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) had very politically incorrect opinions. But without the parliamentary campaign he led as a backbench MP over 20 years to abolish in 1807 the trade in people enslaved in Africa and brutally shipped to the West Indies, Britain would not have led the way to the abolition of slavery itself across the civilised world.
William Hague, former leader of the Conservative Party and Foreign Secretary under the Coalition Government led by David Cameron, wrote a masterly biography of Wilberforce in 2008.
Hague showed how central Wilberforce’s evangelical faith was to his philanthropy. All lives mattered to Wilberforce because he believed all people were made in the image of God and that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners out of all nations.
Wilberforce’s faith also led him to abhor revolutionary agitation. He firmly opposed the anti-Christian utopianism of the French Revolution and the terrible inhumanity it unleashed.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
