World history
of Abolitionism
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When thinking about the history of slavery one tends to
think about the abolitionist movement. Generally speaking when we thing about
this movement we tend to think about the Quakers and their impact in the USA and perhaps
beyond and rightly so.
While it’s true the Quakers did much toward ending slavery I
content the abolitionist movement started about the time Jesus of Nazareth
ascended into Heaven. Paul’s Epistle to Timothy clearly illustrates the picture
of a disdain for owning a human being.
Paul explains whey we have the law;
“the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers
and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for murderers,
for the sexually immoral, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for
whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel. (I
paraphrase).
This then becomes a clarion call to the world actually that
slavery was an abomination to God. That as Christians we can not abide by a
person owning another person. This of course was taken seriously by both
believers and non believers alike. To the non believer who owned slaves he saw
an enemy of his enterprises. To the believer they came to truly understand what
Paul meant when he said;
In speaking to the
Athenians, Paul stated that God "has made from one blood every nation of
men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their
preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings" (Acts 17:26). We
are all descendants of Adam. While we are divided between different nations and
languages, we are all the same -- human beings created by the hand of God.
Or when Christians thought about the letter to the Galatians
stating in Galatians 3:28; There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Or the reason we find in Genesis 1:21; So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created
them. So here in the very beginning of the Bible we see that God said he
created man in his own image. Can you imagine this image in the form of a
slave? Then Jesus said something just as important; All people can enter the
kingdom of heaven that believe on him as the “Son of God – all people.
I must point out that for the sake of this discussion the
fact that you believe or do not believe is a moot point. What is not a moot point is this; people all
over the world came to believe in Christ and the bible. As a result they knew
that if we were all the same to God no person could own such a person. This
they knew and they kicked against the idea of slavery from that day on.
Let’s take a look at Europe just a few short years before
our Revolutionary war and look at some Christian thinkers and their views on
slavery. A good place to start would be the Parliament in England and one
William Wilberforce.
Early Christian on Abolitionism
William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was an
English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the
slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political
career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for
Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became
an evangelical Christian, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and
a lifelong concern for reform.
In 1787, he came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a
group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and
Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of
abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists. He
headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for
twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
We’ll then return to our own country beginning with the
Declaration of Independence founding fathers and on we’ll go until slavery was
finally ended in the USA. It is worth pointing out that at no point was slavery
ended in certain Middle Eastern countries to this day. I maintain that in parts
of the continent of Africa it remains a problem to this day. Why then do we
hear so much about the fact that there were I repeat were slaves in the USA but
no one ever talks about the countries that have slavery to this day. That
question needs an answer and soon!
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