William Wilberforce’s 250th Birthday

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a member of British Parliament, leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire, and a follower of Christ who sought to put his faith to action.  In honor of what would be his 250th birthday if he were still alive this week (his actual birthday was on the 24th).  I wanted to share this video documentary which is only 10 minutes long (embedding not allowed),  hat tip to Mike Hall.  I also wanted to share a couple of passages from his book, Real Christianity.

On cultural Christians, Wilberforce wrote:

You might think that if you consider yourself a “good” person and are against “bad” things, your faith is adequate.  The fact is, you might not be a Christian at all but simply a moral person.  You might understand the Christianity our culture has adopted without understanding what constitutes authentic faith.  You might know some of the basic facts about Christianity but have no idea how those facts should apply to your life, (pg. 19).

On fallen mankind:

The language of Scripture is not for the faint of heart.  It teaches that man is an apostate creature, fallen from his original innocence, degraded in his nature, depraved in his thinking, prone toward evil, not good, and impacted by sin to the very core of his being.  The fact that we don’t want to acknowledge these truths is evidence to their veracity, (pg. 28).