Amazing Grace

We are great sinners.  And Christ is a great Savior.

That is one of the primary thoughts and convictions I have leaving "Amazing Grace."  I just got back from seeing the movie and thought it excellent.  And deeply moving  How are we capable of perpetrating such inhuman treatment on other humans?

The descriptions of slavery will wrench your soul, as they should.  I heard a few details I hadn't heard before.  And the personal price Wilberforce paid for his long struggle for abolition will break your heart.  This man's passion for the campaign wasn't wholly explained in the movie, I think, but his utter commitment was obvious.

When he and his compatriots finally prevail in outlawing slaving in the British Empire, it's a true victory that the audience shares with him.  I felt like standing and cheering with the other MPs in Parliament that supported the bill.  When our country had many more years to tolerate the intolerable, the British Parliament, even the Prime Minister, was debating the morality of treating human beings as property.  These were great men.  An immeasurable justice was finally righted in that vote. 

As John Newton says in the movie, "They [the slaves} were the human beings, and we the apes."  Yet John Newton was wholly changed because God saved Him.  And men and women like William Wilberforce could literally not live with the existence of slavery on their consciences informed by their Christian convictions.

That is one small disappointment in the movie.  Though Wilberforce' and other's Christianity was quite clear, how their abolitionist convictions grew out of that was never really argued for.  And I thought that would have been quite bracing.

Wilberforce and his compatriots gathered information and evidence about slavery to add to their persuasive case so that those cloistered from the true horror could begin to understand.  In one case they invited a group of MPs and their wives on a boat cruise of a harbor, eating fine food and enjoying music, only to be brought along side a slaver that still stank of the death of 400 slaves in the holds during the voyage from Africa.  They couldn't avert their eyes any longer.  After presenting his evidence  to Parliament, Wilberforce concluded, “Having heard all this you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know.”

The modern horror of abortion needs to be confronted in the similarly.  Understanding the humanity of the unborn and the horror of abortion adds understanding to the moral persuasion.  It's too easy to hide from the ugly details of injustices in our world.

The dignity of vocation was a subtle message in the movie.  As a young man, Wilberforce considered withdrawing from the world to lead a meditative life with God, but his friends persuaded him to stay in politics and campaign for justice.  Our world needs Christians in every profession bringing their light to bear on all aspects of life.  God working through mankind at a otherwise mundane task can bring change in the world.  Christians need to be in the world living out Biblical convictions.  “The principles of Christianity require action as well as meditation,” Newton counsels Wilberforce.

Don't miss this movie.  It's about a serious subject, but it's about a man who has been too long forgotten and is a true hero.  And his vision of justice extended beyond slavery, to issues about a civil society concerning us today.  I was personally inspired and Wilberforce is added to a very small group I consider my heroes.  He's a truly great man we should know about and be inspired by.  I'm kind of ashamed I never made an effort to read about him. 

It's not a stuffy movie.  The characters are human, humorous and light at times.  There's political intrigue, some romance.  One of the nice things aobut the period dramas being made these days is that the characters are three-dimensional, not boring fuddy-duddies.   I took my teenage niece with me and she enjoyed it, too.  The audience at the showing I was at applauded at the end.

We all need amazing grace.  And with God's grace amazing things are possible.

Comments

[Robert Casteline]

I am very much looking forward to seeing this movie. As we rightly focus out attention on abortion since it is the injustice most readily accessible in the US, we should not forget that slavery still exists in the world, though now it goes by the name of "human trafficing". Many of those are sold and used in modern slavery are children who are sexually abused in the most heinous ways we can think of. And it occurs more frequently in the US than most of us are aware or should feel comfortable with. I offer the following for your consideration:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html
http://www.worldrevolution.org/guidepage/humantrafficking/overview
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/

[Robert Casteline]

Coincidentally, this was in my email box today:

http://www.worldvision.org/about_us.nsf/child/enews_cambodia_200702?OpenDocument&campaign=12653919&cmp=EMC-12653919&ppi=30132471&wvport=pr&wvsrc=enews

[Susan]

I am willing to sit through bad movies made by Christians so they have someone to practice on. I am also willing to sit through bad costume dramas because I love period pieces. I am happy to say that sitting through Amazing Grace was a pleasure on both fronts!

[alan aronson]

"As we rightly focus out attention on abortion since it is the injustice most readily accessible in the US,..."

Hi Robert, a few thoughts here. First that I agree with the present day slavery concerns you have. Second, that abortion is an "injustice" isn't a settled issue but is admittedly arguable, if one allows theology into the argument, however, even if one grants that an injustice exists, it clearly isn't the most readily accessible one in the U. S.

Should Roe be overturned tomorrow abortion will still be legal and constitutional in California and New York as well as other states and, if the recent election in South Dakota is any indication, will wind up applying most everywhere in cases of rape and where the life of the mother is at stake. Even where abortion would be illegal, anyone with the price of a plane ticket would have no problem getting one.

Abortion and related issues may be the only allowable ones for religious conservatives given the realities of contemporary politics but there are plenty of injustices that could be corrected tomorrow given the political will.

Medicare happened quickly and smoothly back in the 1960s and universal health care in the U. S. would likely be as easy once the decision was made.

Unwinding Iraq isn't going to be simple or pretty but staying out of future conflicts and developing a rational energy policy requires only that a few votes change in the Senate and for President.

A President who will sign a card check law.

Policies that encourage child care for working mothers and economic policies that favor the middle class.

Some of these would also probably cut the abortion rate.

Trying to tie abortion to the abolition movement is problematic from another standpoint, that of Wilberforce himself. You don't have one like him; not even close.

Just from a little reading one gets the impression that he was quite a remarkable man; a moral genius. One has to wonder what his opinion would be of the politics of much of the Christian right.

Wilberforce was interested in all manner of social reforms as was the evangelical movement in general.

"He worked with the poor, he worked to establish educational reform, prison reform, health care reform and to limit the number of hours children were required to work in factories."

"Wilberforce believed that he and his supporters should attempt to cure every social ill in the country."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/people/williamwilberforce_1.shtml

"Third, Wilberforce and his friends pioneered the field of philanthropy. Wilberforce either started or provided leadership in 69 charities. He created the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a huge issue of the day. He also started the Society for the Betterment of the Poor and was a founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society, "

http://www.wilberforcecentral.org/wfc/Wilberforce/index.htm

No kitty crunching for Wilberforce.

Also, http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/02/doing-gods-work.html

[John]

Interesting list of 'injustices'.

[tom]

Alan, Truth was settled before we were created and abortion/murder has been settled as evil since it existed. Your words cannot change that by confusing it with unsettled things like welfare reform, socialism, etc.

James Kennedy, Alan Keyes, James Dobson, Bill Bennett, Chuck Colson, etc have provided this culture with ample Truth similiar to Wilberforce then. Current leaders are (hopefully just a bit) more stubborn than they were then. Please don't help they keep us in their stench.

Thx much.

[alan aronson]

Sorry Tom, occasional mammalian aversion to parenthood trumps murder charges up to a certain point. That is why I have yet to see many advocating capital punishment for doctors, nurses and mothers.

I do take the unsettled things seriously. If we had a rational health care system, things like this wouldn't happen:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702116.html

And we wouldn't send folks off to war and neglect funding their health care when they come home broken.

I realize you are kidding but the sad truth is that the religion that produced Wilberforce (amazing how the Anglosphere did so well in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century) and MLK seems to be guided by moral midgets you name these days.