About the Freedom pack
Worship God and change the world: that’s the challenge from Tearfund’s new resources to mark 200 years since the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
William Wilberforce
Christians living in the age of transatlantic slavery believed that the appalling conditions in which slaves were captured, transported and treated were offensive to humanity and to God. Inspired and impassioned during the recent Christian revival, they saw it as part of their worship to destroy the structures that kept people in chains. They persevered, even though their task appeared impossible.
There were approximately 4 million slaves living when the Abolition Bill was passed on 25 March 1807. Today, more than 12 million people live in forms of modern-day slavery, including forced labour on farms, domestic service – even drug trafficking or sex work.
Tearfund’s new Freedom film tells a heart-breaking story based on our work with young people trafficked into the sex industry in India and Cambodia.
And it poses a question: can even the smallest of our actions here set people free in other parts of the world?
The Freedom pack, which you can order free of charge, will help you and your church or group to explore the issue of slavery and how we can combat it today.
It includes notes for speakers, session plans for small groups, children’s groups and youth groups, and a new resource from worship leaders Tim Hughes and Al Gordon which explores the link between worship and justice in the Bible. Plus you’ll get a free CD featuring new track How long? written specially to commemorate the anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Together we can end today’s slavery.
J M W Turner's powerful work, 'Slave ship - slavers overthrowing the dead and the dying - typhoon coming on' had a startling impact in its day.
The end of the slave trade
Freedom Day on 25 March, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, marks an incredible victory for Christian campaigners, who mobilised a nation to overturn the most offensive injustice of their day.
By the eighteenth century the slave trade had become the bedrock of the world economy. But this ‘wicked trade’ was brutal and inhumane, and as the abolition campaign developed, the public became increasingly aware of its horrors. In one notorious incident the captain of the slave ship Zong threw 130 slaves overboard so that he could claim insurance for their deaths.
Many Christians were slave-owners too, justifying their actions from the Bible. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel labelled slaves their property by using red-hot irons to brand the word ‘Society’ across their chests.
Yet other Christians were waking up to the power they had to change history. The kind of Christian activism that set millions free from slavery was born in part from the widespread revival in the eighteenth century. As people came closer to God, they came closer to a desperate concern about the injustice of slavery and their brothers and sisters who were suffering. Together, Christians from different denominations gathered to change public opinion and change the law.