The latest liberal revisionist film

Just as Letters from Iwo Jima blots out the nature of the Japanese regime during World War II, Amazing Grace removes Christ from the story of William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery crusader. Ben W. writes:

Talking about Eastwood’s films as revision, see the following review of how both the historical content and spiritual significance of Wilberforce’s anti-slavery position gets eviscerated in order to appeal to the secular/liberal instinct:

“But in the film, Wilberforce seeks God in a garden, not a church. He never refers to Jesus. He displays none of the historical figure’s passion for winning converts to Christianity.”

It’s as if the filmmakers couldn’t conceive that an anti-slavery position could be sparked by one’s religious and metaphysical inclination. It has to be a material force (hence Wilberforce’s conversion takes place in a natural setting—a garden—rather than transcendent (church) setting. Christ of course has nothing to do with it. It has to be a natural impulse though we know that naturalistic man enslaved men historically in and through nature.

Spencer Warren comments:

The review not surprisingly fails to note that not only did Wilberforce lead the fight to abolish the slave trade, he led the fight to abolish slavery in the British Empire! Days (as I recall) before his death in 1833, Parliament enacted the bill to abolish slavery. Wilberforce was the Lincoln of the British Empire. When he died memorials were held in his memory in Northern US cities.

He authored a book on Christianity that is still in print; I have a copy, Practical Christianity is the title, as I recall.

He also gave much of his fortune to the poor and destitute, and opposed the French Revolution. He was a Tory, a friend of Pitt. The speeches against slavery in the House of Commons by Pitt, Fox and others are among the greatest in history. These were shown in the magnificent BBC dramatic historical series, “The Fight Against Slavery,” about 1975. The tribute to him in the Commons when the trade was outlawed, by criminal law reformer Sir Samuel Romilly, has the most fantastic peroration, also shown in the tv film.

His close associate John Clarkson must also be remembered, and Granville Sharp.

Russell W. writes:

I’m willing to believe that the movie tones down Wilberforce’s explicit and ever-present Christianity, but I’m not sure the claims that it sanitizes out Christ is fair. Albert Finney in the movie plays John Newton, the former slave trader who composed the song, and at one point he says to Wilberforce: “I am sure of only two things: that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.”

I believe also (according to the producer of the film) that it also includes content about Wilberforce’s other great crusade aside from ending the slave trade: restoring gentility and public morals into society.

On those points I think this film is pretty good from a traditionalist perspective.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 22, 2007 12:28 PM | Send