Holy Piggyback: The Religious Right steals an icon

Posted by Kathryn Joyce at 7:35 AM on March 2, 2007.

I first heard of William Wilberforce, subject of the new abolitionist bio-pic, Amazing Grace, from a conservative Christian leader of sorts, the wife of conservative Democrat whom I was interviewing regarding her involvement with the Fellowship Foundation (an elite Christian organization, with ties to numerous politicians, that Jeff Sharlet has written about extensively), and the role that their sort of theology should play in national affairs.

In the course of explaining the difference between religion ("legalistic," "about ritual, rules and regulations") and the way they describe their own beliefs, "a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ," she began speaking about William Wilberforce, a man she described as having sparked a spiritual movement that swept the nation, as she and her group hoped to do.

Having heard this primer on Wilberforce, it was unsurprising to see how veteran Christian Right groups welcomed, and promptly...

... appropriated, Amazing Grace and Wilberforce as their spiritual and movement ancestors. Predictably, the film has gained the accolades of a wide range of Christian Right activists, from Concerned Women for America, which praised Wilberforce as a model for today's grassroots activists, to the Institute for Religion and Democracy, which announced, "William Wilberforce made change possible by forging a social witness that connected orthodox Christian faith with public policy and cultural renewal." (And, bearing in mind my interviewee's adamant distinction between religion and faith, it was interesting to see some more conservative-minded media critics faulting the film for a lack of religiosity.)

As Fred noted earlier, People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, summed up a few of the abolition-comparisons that conservative believers are eagerly making, beginning with the most apt analogies to human trafficking and forced labor, stretching to the offensive but unsurprising comparisons to abortion and traditional families, and even winding up in the absurd territory of pork-barrel spending:

Today marks the theatrical release of "Amazing Grace," a film about leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce, whose efforts in Parliament led to Britain's ban on slavery and the slave trade 200 years ago. The company that produced the movie has launched a campaign, called "The Amazing Change" to raise awareness of modern-day slavery and human trafficking and to promote groups that fight against them, and religious groups from the National Association of Evangelicals to Sojourners have endorsed the movie and its anti-slavery message. The concern over human trafficking extends to many groups and activists normally focused on right-wing wedge issues, like Concerned Women for America the Heritage Foundation. Others, however - like Sam Brownback - seek to latch their own agenda to the coat-tails of the movie.

Brownback, struggling for recognition as a viable presidential candidate, has tried to link his candidacy to Wilberforce by linking the historical figure not just to Brownback's work on trafficking and Darfur, but also to abortion and gay marriage, issues more politically marketable to the religious-right base he hopes to motivate: "If William Wilberforce were alive today, I believe he would be passionately fighting for the dignity of every human life everywhere, without regard to race, wealth, or status. He would also feel compelled to take up the vital cause of renewing the family and the culture," the senator said in his announcement.

Obnoxious as this sort of moral piggy-backing is - the abortion-as-slavery comparisons only rivaled in sheer audacity and tin-eared insensitivity by pornographic Holocaust analogies -- the specific issues being conflated with Wilberforce's anti-slavery crusade may not be significant as the more generalized lesson Christian conservatives are hoping their followers will take from the film. As the IRD interpreted, that though the social change they're hoping for may be long coming, Christians should continue to assert their ideals in the public square, as such, as religious beliefs. "Like the reformers of Wilberforce's day, orthodox Christians have a place in today's public policy arena." A statement that's difficult to argue with when discussing abolition, but one that trails a lot of baggage when the righteous cause in question is left up to the viewer's interpretation.

And that vagueness seems to be precisely the point of many Amazing Grace promotions. For example, the "Voices and Votes: Religious Conviction in the Public Square" conference at Yale University, which featured an array of largely conservative Christian Right leaders, including Richard Cizik, Richard Land, Ralph Reed and Ron Sider, also highlighted both the current film, and a related John Templeton Foundation-funded documentary on Wilberforce (set to air this fall), as part of its argument in favor of (as titled), "Religious Conviction in the Public Square." Or the two "Wilberforce Weekends" held last month:

This month, two upcoming "Wilberforce Weekend" events will feature a joint presentation by both film companies. The Wilberforce Project and Bristol Bay Productions will each explain how they have worked in concert to make William Wilberforce a household name again. The first Wilberforce Weekend, January 12-14 in Lansdowne, Virginia, is sponsored by the Wilberforce Forum, the think tank division of Prison Fellowship, founded by Chuck Colson. The second Wilberforce Weekend, January 19-21 in Osprey Point, Maryland, is sponsored by the Trinity Forum Academy, a division of the Trinity Forum, that trains young Christians to impact contemporary culture.

If the association with Christian Right luminary Chuck Colson didn't give away the show, the language of the film's fans surely does: "a model for today's grassroots activists," training "young Christians to impact contemporary culture," religion's right to the "public square." The promotional merchandise for the linked TV Wilberforce documentary even includes an audio-CD set on how fans can learn to be a better Wilberforce themselves:

Available now: An audio CD entitled Engaging The Culture-Changing The World: Lessons from William Wilberforce is a series of four 27-minute talks on the following topics: (a) the change from the self-indulgent world of the late eighteenth century to the seeds of Victorian England, (b) the ten ways that Wilberforce achieved change with issue campaigning, (c) Wilberforce's spiritual discipline, (d) and how to be a contemporary Wilberforce. Available now under Resources at www.thebetterhour.com.

Though the movie may be documenting a noble cause and man with whom all sides of today's culture war may wish to align themselves, or strive to emulate, it seems as though the Christian Right is determined to have the lock on Wilberforce's legacy, at least as far as it concerns their own efforts to intertwine church and state, by laying claim to one of the best results of such an entanglement, and firmly ignoring all the others.

Tagged as: religious right, slavery, movies, abolition

Kathryn Joyce is working on a book about Christian conservative women, to be published by Beacon Press.