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 PrintableVersion Voices against slaveryTen Christians who spoke out for freedomMoral high groundVOICES AGAINST SLAVERY Voices against Slavery is a compact paperback aimed at the teenage reader. It contains accounts of ten Christians who have made significant contributions to ending slavery. The bulk of each chapter is a fast-moving narrative of the individual’s life, and tacked on the end of each account is a short biographical summary followed by a ‘Fact File’, which gives the broader historical context. Sections entitled ‘Faith in Action’ and ‘Make your Voice heard’ then challenge the reader to apply lessons from the past to the world today and the reader’s own life. The ‘greats’ of the anti-slavery movement are all here: Wilberforce, Livingstone and Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others. So, too, are lesser known characters like Anthony Benezet and Olaudah Equiano who have their own fascinating stories to tell. By dramatically recreating scenes from these people’s lives, Catherine House brings the past to life, and keeps the reader gripped to the end. However, I have to confess, I found the author’s narrative style disjointed, and, quite frequently, confusing. Her desire not to bore young people with ‘facts’ often means the reader is still guessing as to where and when a character lived several pages into an account. The ‘Faith in Action’ sections, which show how each Christian applied the Bible in their struggle against slavery, are unduly simplistic: as, for example, in the case of Samuel Sharpe, who ‘believed that the Bible taught that no person should be enslaved’. As a slave, his role in organising widespread strike action against the Jamaican slave-owners, which spilt over into violence, should surely have been assessed in the light of Paul’s injunction: ‘slaves, obey your masters, for this is fitting in the Lord’. Catherine House seems too keen to unconditionally support her ‘heroes’, right or wrong. This simplistic approach spills over into the personal application to the reader. Encouragement to ‘celebrate…….the culture of others’, to ‘report racist bullying’, and to ‘support anti-racist organisations and campaigns’ skates over the complexity of these issues. And every teenager will know that. Ultimately, however, I am disturbed by the moralistic tone of Catherine House’s applications to today’s world. ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets’ is the touchstone of the book. Fair enough. But where, I wonder, is the heart-changing work of Christ in the soul that enables us as Christians to go far beyond the humanistic dictum ‘to treat everyone with respect and to play your part in rejecting discrimination’? I find the scales tipping against this book. Esther Bennett © Evangelicals Now - January 2007 |
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