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Summer 2007 Reading: Wilberforce’s Practical Christianity

With the summer 2007 Trinity Forum Reading, we join the celebration of the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade with an executive summary of Wilberforce’s electrifying 1797 manifesto on the Christian life and its role in society.

William Wilberforce is justly honored for his work to end the Atlantic slave trade. Less well known is the second of his “great objects”—the transformation of culture, which Wilberforce knew was a prerequisite for abolition.

A Practical View of Real Christianity (to use its short title) was a best-seller for fifty years and contributed directly to the Second Great Awakening. Our edition is abridged and with a Foreword by Chuck Stetson, who is, among other things, a Manhattan investment banker, chair of the Wilberforce Central alliance, chair of the Bible Literacy Project, and producer of the upcoming documentary film on Wilberforce, The Better Hour.

The Reading focuses on the chapters Wilberforce himself emphasized as particularly critical for leaders. In a letter to his friend, Prime Minister William Pitt, Wilberforce wrote,

I am not unreasonable enough to ask you to read my book: but as it is more likely that when you are extremely busy than at any other time you may take it up for ten minutes, let me recommend it to you in that case to open on the last section of the fourth chapter, wherein you will see wherein the religion which I espouse differs practically from the common orthodox system. Also the sixth chapter has almost a right to a perusal, being the basis of all politics, and particularly addressed to such as you.

Stetson’s Foreword gives us an overview of the book in its historic setting, addressing its themes, influence, and the personal habits and faith of Wilberforce that made it such a powerful force for cultural transformation in his day—and in ours.

The Reading will be available in early August. You can order copies from our online store.

May 2007