Mtr Kelli Joyce

Dear friends in Christ,

Today is the feast of William Wilberforce, who died on this day in 1833. Wilberforce was a member of parliament in the United Kingdom almost his entire life - from the age of 21 until his death. He fought for policies that would aid the poor and promote education, but is remembered primarily for his promotion of the cause that would define his life and career: the abolition of the slave trade and slavery.

There have always been people who knew that slavery was wrong. Enslaved people knew that it was wrong. And they always had allies, though sometimes few in number, who became activists for abolition. They opposed the laws allowing slavery, broke the laws against harboring those who had escaped, and worked to change both laws and hearts. From 1787 onward, William Wilberforce was one of these allies.

Wilberforce fought a lonely fight in parliament from 1789 to 1805 - each year he would propose the abolition of the slave trade, and each year his proposal was defeated. In 1806, it finally passed. But Wilberforce wasn’t finished. Having outlawed the slave trade, he turned his energy toward abolishing slavery itself, and securing freedom for the countless humans still wrongly held captive in the United Kingdom and its colonies. This fight would take even longer than the first. The passage of a bill abolishing slavery became certain on July 26, 1833. Wilberforce, who had been ill for a long time at that point, died three days later. The following year, almost 800,000 people received their freedom.

The fight that Wilberforce fought was not popular. His position was not in accordance with the common wisdom and general opinion of white people in his time. Wilberforce grounded his opposition to slavery in his convictions about the nature and will of God, but at the same time, it is concerning that so many devout Anglicans opposed his work.

What laws must change now if our society is to be just in the way God demands through the words of the prophets? What unpopular movements need our support? What will we risk?

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli