It was British Christians who ended slavery

Exclusive: Hanne Nabintu Herland explains how the Bible's view of equality spurred abolition

Today history books are rewritten and important truths omitted to fit the Marxist propaganda narrative. With historical truths distorted, many Westerners no longer understand how important Christian philosophy, ethics and religious thought was for the success of our Western civilization.

But historical facts are hard to deny. For example, it was British Christians who campaigned for the ending of slavery and pushed for its abolition, as I have pointed out in my new book, now No. 1 on Amazon New Releases, "The Billionaire World. How Marxism serves the Elite."

The Arabs had for centuries – long before the white man ever got involved – profited from the slave trade as African tradesmen sold their fellow Africans – whom they had enslaved in tribal wars in the first place – to the Arabs. Yet, it was not the Arabs nor the African profiteers who ended slavery, nor pushed for its end.

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"In 1787, British Evangelicals formed an abolitionist pressure group, sometimes known as the Clapham Saints. They printed leaflets and gave speeches to educate the public of the abuses of slavery, then gathered petitions and resorted to various political tactics to sway the Parliament to abolish it. The Christian MP William Wilberforce managed to persuade the British Parliament of the evil of slavery. In 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed, officially prohibiting the slave trade across the Empire," writes author Simon Vincent at Strategos History.

A main reason why it was British Christians who pushed so strongly for this kind of development, was the strong cultural influence from Christianity on Western culture and its groundbreaking view on the worth of human life.

"Contrary to modern atheist assumptions, the Christian religion – with its message of equal worth – lay the ideological foundations for anti-slavery thinking. In the 17th century, Christian groups fought tirelessly to abolish the trade they rightfully called evil, and, with the help of the British Empire, finally succeeded in ending the infamous trade. The British Empire, acknowledging the evil it had helped create, went to great lengths to regret it, and abolish it," says Vincent.

He points out that anti-slavery has always been a central value in the Christian religion, inherent in the Judeo-Christian concept that all humans are born in the image and likeness of God and are thus imbibed with equal worth. Christian philosophy was revolutionary in that its definition of humanity was inclusive of all people. Christianity represented an altogether new definition of the value of human life, developing human rights and the value of tolerance as well as accepting differences and the concept of equality regardless of race, creed, gender and class.

This is pointed out by Yale and Harvard professor historian Robert R. Palmer and Joel Colton in "A History of the Modern World," one of the most highly praised history texts.

Palmer points out that the early Christians protested against the massacre of prisoners of war, were strong voices against slavery and opposed the Roman tradition of gladiator matches where men killed each other for the amusement of the crowd. They worked hard to help the poor as none before them, and taught humility and virtues such as selflessness, honesty, chastity, perseverance and that all men were brothers.

"In the slave-built Roman Empire, St. Paul urged Christians to break with the Roman view of slaves as degraded, and exhorted slave owners to treat their slaves in love, as brothers. 

'There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female; for ye are all One in Christ Jesus,' St. Paul writes in Galatians 3:28. St. Augustine described slavery as evidence of mankind's fall from grace. St. John Chrysostom called it 'the fruit of covetousness, of degradation, of savagery … the fruit of sin, of rebellion against … our True Father.' Other Church Fathers argued strongly for the emancipation of slaves, and some, like St. Eligius in the 6th century, spent their wealth on buying, then freeing, vast scores of slaves," writes Vincent.

So, as a consequence of the Christian morality impact on Western culture, it was Christian Protestants who fought against slavery during the Atlantic slave trade in the 17th century, and inspired other Christians and Evangelicals to join their cause.

Charles Spurgeon had his sermons often burned for their slavery-opposing content. The famous founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley, equally voiced strong opposition against slavery, as well as John Newton, who was a former slave trader who later in life composed the beloved hymn "Amazing Grace." Many wrote books and pamphlets that described the degrading conditions in which the slaves found themselves in, raising awareness of the ongoing human trafficking. And so, the British Christians finally managed to end it.

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