The Reformation Evangelicalism and the British Anti-Slavery Movement

Throughout the last 500 years, there have been several great revivals of Christian evangelism, specifically with regards to human rights. Christians, particularly evangelicals, have been at the forefront of many social movements that would in the modern parlance be deemed social justice movements, such as the anti-slavery movement, Prohibition, and the broad, all encompassing poor relief of the Victorian Era. One of the most notable “ and most well documented “ of the aforementioned Christian humanitarian movements was the anti-slavery movement in England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly as exemplified by the work of the Clapham Sect and William Wilberforce.

This paper will explore the connections between the early Reformers and the Evangelical British abolitionists, taking into account patterns of Scriptural citations, rhetorical devices, and methods of disseminating information and ideas to create a popular Christian social movement, as well as the contextual similarities that could contribute to a more holistic understanding of these two movements, both in themselves and as parallel social reform movements. In short, this paper will seek to explore and address the following lines of inquiry:
1) What legacy did the Reformation bequeath to later social reformers, particularly British anti-slavery campaigners in the Georgian and Regency Eras?
2) In what ways were the reformers of each period motivated by religion, and what other contextual factors led them to adopt similar means of accomplishing their goals?
3) Finally, what shared factors contributed to the ultimate success of the attempted reforms during each period, particularly in terms of religious motivations and theology?

For the purpose of this paper, the term Evangelicals will be somewhat anachronistically applied to Quakers; self-titled Evangelicals, such as the Clapham Sect; and those other Protestants whose work towards the abolition of slavery was motivated internally or externally by Evangelical ideals, regardless of their specific religious affiliation, in order to effectively make a distinction between the two time periods and social movements in question. Where pertinent, differences between these contemporaneous and interrelated groups will be explained, so as not to confuse the reader, but for the sake of brevity, these groups will be labeled broadly as Evangelicals where such distinctions are not necessary. Likewise, the term Protestants will be used broadly to refer to those of the early Reformation period unless otherwise specified.

Legacies are complicated things, in part because the people who leave them rarely intend to do so, and in part because the intentions of the original people are almost always superseded by the needs and desires of later generations; they are difficult to leave intentionally, and very easy to co-opt, but no single party can be responsible for creating a legacy, only for contributing to one. The Protestant Reformation is an excellent example of this phenomenon, as myriad (often competing and contradictory) legacies have been ascribed to the Reformation and the Reformers themselves, particularly in recent years as many new schools of thought have emerged within the historical discipline. Martin Luther, arguably the most well-known Reformer, has been alternately blamed for the scourge of Nazism due to his anti-Jewish tirades and praised for his role in combating corruption within the Catholic Church .

As the practice of religion, particularly the religion of 16th century Europe, has always been inherently social, the Reformation was first and foremost a social reform movement formed in response to both perceived and substantiated cases of corruption that were endemic to the dominant Roman Catholic Church. Like most social reform movements, it was headed by a few well-known, charismatic figures who did much of the thinking for their lower- and middle-class followers. Protestantism was itself a polarizing issue, which quickly led to the development of a number of factions led by different figureheads, including Luther; Calvin; Thomas Münster, a radical who led the Peasants’ Revolt; and Jan van Leyden, the Dutch tailor-king of Münster , whose radical Anabaptist teachings led to the development of a brief theocratic kingdom in Münster. These factions held differing beliefs about the role of Christians, the Church, and civil authorities in alleviating social ills, but all of them at least paid lip service to the concept of poor relief in some way. Indeed, given the nature of their movement, reliant as it was on the goodwill of the masses, and the Reformers’ desire to oppose the Catholic status quo in favor of some form of Biblical literalism and the democratization of theology, it would have been nearly impossible to avoid doing so, particularly considering the numerous Biblical injunctions to care for the poor. These specific ideas, however, found an enthusiastic reception in the Reformers’ theological undertakings, and rudimentary systems of poor relief were disseminated through mass media along with new doctrines regarding baptism, the sacraments, and the nature of sin and redemption.

The Clapham Sect was an influential group of Evangelical social reformers in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Illustrious members of the Clapham Sect included William Wilberforce, the British MP who represented Yorkshire, arguably one of the most politically influential and affluent borough in Britain, in the House of Commons for decades; Hannah More, who founded a girls’ school, was a noted writer, and was involved in the education of Princess Charlotte; James Stephen, a Master in Chancery , Comptroller of the Navy Sir Charles Middleton, who was instrumental in Admiral Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar; and other such eighteenth- and nineteenth-century luminaries as Charles Grant, James Shore, John and Marianne Thornton, and Lord Gambier. Its purpose can best be summed up in a 1787 quote from Wilberforce himself: God Almighty has placed before me two great Objects [:] The Suppression of the Slave Trade & the Reformation of Manners . The Claphamites took these two matters very seriously, believing themselves to be morally obligated to care for the poor and improve society and to seek freedom for the enslaved. The main source of their motivation was their Evangelical faith; the Clapham Sect was largely responsible forand emblematic ofthe second spring of the Evangelical movement that had begun in the 1730’s and 1740’s . When they gave speeches or disseminated pamphlets on the evils of the trade and the culpability of the entire nation for the sins of slavery and oppression, they made frequent allusions to Scripture and Christian teachings on justice and human equality, echoing both the sentiments and the rhetoric of the Reformers some three centuries prior .

Given that the trans-Atlantic slave trade endured for a few hundred years and the abolition movement took root and achieved most of its goals in less than half a century, while most such social reform movements have difficulty gaining traction or successfully achieving their goals, it is remarkable that such progress was made in such a short period of time, particularly given the significance of the slave trade in the British economy. Apart from the religious elements of each, were there other key factors shared by the Reformation and anti-slavery movements? In short, yes. The development and subsequent popularity of the printing press, the circumstances of significant internal political instability and external political pressures, the combination of radical idealism combined with strongly conservative philosophies and tendencies, and the presence of polarizing figures like Luther and Wilberforce were all significant factors in the development of both movements, though the Evangelicals had the benefit of hindsight and nearly three centuries’ worth of other technological progress.

The importance of the printing press in the development of the Protestant Reformation can hardly be overstated, as it allowed for the widespread, relatively inexpensive dissemination of ideas outside of those sanctioned by the Catholic Church, making it the oldest form of mass media; it continued to play this role throughout the next few centuries, breathing life into social movements and stoking the fires of popular opinion until the development of radio. The Reformers’ then-newfound ability to affect public opinion through the written word without having to physically travel and give speeches enabled some Reformers, such as Calvin, to develop a significant following, despite financial difficulties that precluded extensive travel.

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