spirit of wilberforce

January – april 2007

yeschurch Mission society

slave trade banned 25/03/1807

climb mount kenya5-15 sept 2007

Participants must be 18 or over, and will be asked to cover the costs of their own trip – so all the sponsorship money raised will go to mission work. Places on the challenges are available on a first-come, first served basis. Different

challenges have different levels of difficulty – please call to enquire. Photo: Copyright S Baguma/CMS

Join CMS for a life-changing sponsored challenge as we climb Mount Kenya in September 2007. When we say “life-changing” we don’t just mean your life. The money you raise will help train leaders for Africa so they can make a lasting difference by transforming thousands of lives.

And if you would prefer something a little different, CMS is also offering the chance to trek in Nepal, walk the Great Wall of China or climb Ben Nevis to help change lives for Jesus. You’ll experience the best nature has to offer, visit CMS projects, and come home knowing you have made a difference.

For more information on any of our sponsored challenges contact peter ashcroft on peter.ashcroft@cms-uk.org or 020 7803 3328

cHallenGe

�YES ePIPHANY eDITION

4 MISSION NeWS

6 FrOM Our COrreSPONDeNTS

10 SPIrIT OF WIlBerFOrCe

STePHeN TOMKINS

14 SlAverY TIMelINe

16 DuSK ’TIl DAWN

17 APOlOGY Or ANGST?

TIM DAKIN

19 SeTTING CAPTIveS Free

SPeCIAl rePOrTS

22 SHACKleS OF THe MIND

DeNNIS TONGOI

24 PeOPle AND eveNTS

26 MOre THAN WIveS?

CATHY rOSS

27 BlAxPlOITATION 2007

JereMY WOODHAM

William Wilberforce is gagged on the front

cover of a magazine titled ‘The Spirit of

Wilberforce’. It seems a little odd.

After all, 2007 is a big year. It marks the

bicentenary of the British Parliament passing a

Bill, drawn up by Wilberforce, MP for Hull, which

banned areas under British control from trading

in slaves.

The Bill conferred on Britain, the master of the

seas, the additional task of being an international

police force. The connection with CMS was that

those first key anti-slavery campaigners were our

founding fathers.

It’s right that we celebrate the achievements of

Wilberforce; but we can’t just end there. Does the

spirit of Wilberforce live on, or have we stifled the

voice that would tell us slavery is very much an

unfinished business?

The anniversary gives CMS an opportunity to

reconnect with the vision and values of our

founders and ask how they might apply today.

When we do that we quickly discover that the

problems of our world are deeper and wider than

in Wilberforce’s day.

There are more slaves today than 200 years ago.

There are the spectres of child soldiering, sex

trafficking and drug addiction that our Setting

Captives Free campaign has tried to fight over

the past four years. You can find updates on our

struggle in this issue. There is also bonded and

forced labour. All have the effect of enslaving

human beings, both adults and children. And then

there is humanity’s continued enslavement to arms

and warfare.

Perhaps at the pinnacle of this catalogue stands

the kind of slavery our Africa Director Dennis

Tongoi describes in his piece on page 22: the

slavery of the mind.

To understand the full import of slavery, it is time

the voices of people of colour, particularly those

in the economic South, are finally listened to, and

with care.

What made Jesus so uncomfortable to society

was his refusal to accept the prevailing consensus

of ‘the system’. The same was true of Wilberforce.

CMS is at its best when it follows the same path.

Statistics used in images: page 13, Trafficking for Forced Labour: UK country report, Anti-Slavery International, published 2006 (page 5).

Page 18, Human Trafficking report of the House of Lords and House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights, published 2006 (page 28).

Back cover, Global Trafficking in Women: Modern Day Slavery and the Movement to End It, (online at www.protectionproject.org/idw.htm).

YES Magazine Epiphany Edition. Published by CMS. General Secretary: Canon Tim Dakin. Editor: John Martin. Staff writer: Jeremy Woodham.

Designer: Gareth Powell. Printers: CPO. Printed on Arctic the Volume, a sustainable paper that has been accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council.

All photos by Gareth Powell. Views expressed in YES are not necessarily those of CMS.

CMS is a community of mission service: living a mission lifestyle; equipping people in mission; sharing resources for mission work. CMS supports

over 800 people in mission and works in over 60 countries with offices in Cape Coast, Kampala, London, Nairobi, Seoul

and Singapore. Church Mission Society, Partnership House, 157 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UU. Registered Charity Number 220297.

John MartinEditorjohn.martin@cms-uk.org

ugandan christiansFace eco-challenges

lake victoria’s receding water levels threaten the viability of its whole ecosystem, and have also led to the production of less electricity. This is just one of the environmental crises facing uganda. Another is the receding forest cover, reduced to a quarter of its 1960 levels, while 80 per cent of ugandans depend on wood fuel in their homes. With the support of CMS, A rocha, the environmental action group, launched new work in uganda in October. Originally started in Portugal but now forming a big international network, the A rocha group develops conservation projects firmly rooted at the heart of small communities, such as its reclamation of a brown-field site in Southall, london.

peace breaks outin transylvania

Amid hostile rumblings about migrants from eastern europe continuing in the British press, CMS workers in romania are pleased to report an outbreak of friendliness there. Mission partners Geoff and Gill Kimber have spent the last four years in romania helping to build relationships between different Christian denominations. Their hard work bore fruit in September 2006 when senior clergy from Orthodox and lutheran churches joined the Anglicans to receive a Cross of Nails as a symbol of reconciliation from Bishop of Coventry, the rt rev Colin Bennetts. “relationships between denominations in this Orthodox-dominated society are poor, and sometimes actively hostile but Bishop Colin’s visit changed all that,” said Gill.

Mission News“Go forth into all the world...”

sudan church warning

Sudanese church leaders have decried the slow implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s liberation Army (SPlA) in January 2005. Grave concern has been expressed at the prevalence of violent conflicts and ethnic clashes in many parts of Southern Sudan, and at the lack of development and services to the people. Critical elements of the agreement have yet to be implemented, including the determination of North/South boundaries and the boundary to the disputed area of Abyei, and the repealing of laws which contravene human rights. (See Julia Katorobo, page 8.)

“Wilberforce is to be

given the Hollywood

treatment”

wilberForce – hollywood starThe man synonymous with the abolition of slavery, William Wilberforce, is given the Hollywood treatment in a new blockbuster out in March. Marking 200 years since Wilberforce’s Bill to abolish the slave trade was passed, it stars Welsh heartthrob Ioan Gruffudd as the man himself, alongside Albert Finney as John Newton. The film also features world music star Youssou N’Dour as the black abolitionist Olaudah equiano, although some campaigners are likely to express disappointment

that the story downplays the role of hundreds of other Africans in the anti-slavery movement.

Meanwhile, CMS is working with the film’s producers to capitalise on audience reaction to the film to help abolish modern-day slavery. For more information visit www.amazinggracemovie.com

More news updates every week at www.cms-uk.org/news

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Mission partner Louise Wright prepares for being alone with God in a polling boothIt is mainly t-shirts and hats this week. It’s hard to describe the carnival atmosphere in town, as every day the candidates in Congo’s general election turn up with different presents for the voters. The serious ones started long ago. Matenda got the road repaired all the way to Pangi and opened a new hospital. His main rival Gertrude opened a radio station, where I have just given an English lesson, and an Internet café. The advice to the electorate is simple: accept everything you are offered but your vote is your secret. Choose whoever you think will govern the country well. Christians are told that in the polling booth you are alone with your God. He will guide your vote. Even if your candidate doesn’t get in, your voice has been heard. Accept the results.

Being alone with God in a polling booth is fine if you can read. If you can’t, you’re allowed to take someone, but the women in my literacy class are determined to go alone. It’s quite a daunting task. It’s added impetus to the resurrection of the diocese’s literacy work. We had a very good reunion of former co-ordinators, reflecting on past experiences. We plan for Anyasi to take over as animateur. Titles are very important here. Anyasi’s new title reflects our decision to concentrate on training in the parish context. We have no resources for this work so far, but I have bought Anyasi a bicycle with money given by supporters in the UK.

Mission partner Ross Wilson is sent to one of Thailand’s most notorious prisonsEvery day that Ivan wakes up, he is unsure whether it will be his last. He is a Hong Kong national on death row in Bangkwang prison. He has been there for five years and when he returns to his cell at 4pm, he could – without any prior warning – be taken away for execution. The cell is small and is shared with many other men in the same situation. It has been without a working fan throughout the hot season. The food is indescribable and all inmates on death row are shackled permanently. Ivan is convinced of his own innocence and claims he was set up by a corrupt partner. I do know that he is a warm, funny, intelligent young man who

even in the best case scenario (pardoned with a commuted sentence) will spend the rest of his life in prison. It’s soul-destroying stuff. A friend at Christ Church who was returning to Australia introduced me to Ivan. I visit him, write to him and pray for him, and a number of others. Every month, I go to a women’s prison which houses 4,000 inmates from all over the world. There is a group of 100 or so Christians led by a wonderful Nigerian woman who pray and praise together and tell other inmates about Jesus. Their efforts are not altogether welcomed by the administration but they joyfully persevere and make me embarrassed to be forever complaining about my life.

from our correspondentsCMS partners report from around the regions

�Difficult lessons in a world where ‘yes’ frequently means ‘no’ are learnt by mission partners Angela and Chris ChorltonA rollercoaster journey covering more than a thousand miles is how it feels to have been

in Egypt for over two years. In many ways we hardly feel we have taken one step into

understanding what is going on here. But we have learned basic but profound lessons.

Number one is that there is no ‘welcoming committee’ in the Orthodox Church, and

maybe we spent too long looking for it. Such welcome as there is consists in your baptism at 40 days (boy) or 80 days (girl). Lesson

number two is that relationships are vital and you must maintain them. At the school, if any

family member dies – from the cleaner’s to the

director’s – most teachers will drop everything to go to a funeral. Classes are all left with a couple of teachers, and students think nothing of it because, after all, it is a funeral. The third lesson is that ‘yes’ often means ‘no’. In this culture, saving face is more important than being honest. So if you are invited for a meal or asked to do a favour, you will always say ‘yes’ even if you can’t oblige. Next lesson? Trust takes time. Historically, Protestant Christians have come to Egypt to convert the Orthodox to Protestantism. Naturally the Church is somewhat suspicious. However, patience has brought opportunities to demonstrate that we are standing with them, not against them, in their struggle to be a light in this deeply Islamic society. The last lesson is on a more positive note. While we have struggled with some of the Orthodox doctrine and practice, we have learnt much which has challenged us and enhanced us spiritually.

Jean and Paul Dobbing, mission partners in Nepal, view a turning pointWe had a rough welcome back to Nepal. It was the start of an interesting, difficult, and – some say – historic time. We arrived the day before a 19-day Peoples’ Protest: a time of strikes, demonstrations and general shut-down. Everything came to a standstill while thousands protested for King Gyanendra to return power to democratic government. For around 18 months he

had assumed full ruling control, in a bid to quell the violent Maoist insurgency.

His hard-line approach proved to be very unpopular and we arrived when hundreds of

thousands of people were protesting for Nepal to become a fully democratic state. The night

before a planned rally of two million people in Kathmandu, the King conceded power. Instead of a protest march, which undoubtedly would have seen some violent clashes, the next day saw a victory march with people waving branches and the beginning of a return to normal life again. We were stuck inside during curfews for much of the time, but could hear the protests outside. Since then, the main political parties have attempted to join together and begin drafting a new constitution. Nepal is experiencing peace as the political parties attempt to work together for a better future. They have a big challenge. The Maoists have declared a temporary ceasefire and have been included in the political talks. It looks like Nepal, the only officially Hindu kingdom in the world, may change and become a secular state.

from our correspondentsCMS partners report from around the regions

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Africa Editor Julia Katorobo reports on Sudanese church leaders’ impatience with the new peace agreementIt was supposed to end almost two decades of civil war, but the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is a source of frustration for church leaders in Sudan. Its implementation is too slow. They cite the prevalence of violent

conflicts and ethnic clashes in many parts of southern Sudan, and lack of development

and services to the people.

The Rt Rev Daniel Deng, Anglican bishop of Renk and chairman of the New Sudan Council of Churches, has appealed to the international community to see that the issue

of borders is settled very soon. “As churches, we are ready to work with

international organisations to open the way. Urgent needs include shelter, water

and schools for those arriving back in their home areas,” he said. He also expressed concern at the escalation of fighting in Darfur, which the clerics believe is at the crux of the matter. They are calling on the Government of Sudan and other stakeholders to disarm the Janjaweed and accept a UN peacekeeping force because it is in line with the wishes of the people of Darfur. “Peace in Darfur is essential for the stability of the whole country. We ask all our international friends to help to achieve a genuine peace in Darfur. This process needs to begin straight away if the referendum on southern Sudan provided by the CPA is to have any meaning.” In marked contrast to the views of the ruling regime, CMS Regional Manager for Sudan, the Rev Pauline Walker, said, “It cannot be overestimated how much international involvement is a crucial factor in making sure that the agreements reached are actually kept to and put into place.”

Drought can be good for fertilizing a city garden, says Colin SmithSome new folks are moving in to the Nairobi neighbourhoods. A sure sign of failed rains is the sight of Maasai herdsmen grinding Nairobi traffic to an even slower pace as they direct their cows down main roads looking for pasture on the verges and in the central reservations. It can be hard to know how to respond. All Saints Cathedral organised local collections and sent trucks with supplies to affected areas. Carlile College similarly

organised a visit to a neighbouring diocese. Some, however, responded in a

way that touched their lives more directly. I’m a member of a men’s group, men@6,

which meets in our home. One member

doing some building work employed a Maasai security guard. The guard asked if his brother, now struggling to graze cattle in Nairobi, could bring them into his garden. It doesn’t take much imagination to work out what hosting a herd of cattle for a month does to the average garden even without the accompanying sounds, smells and flies. “What could I do?” said Madoka. He clearly felt he had no choice but to say yes. I have not seen the remains of his garden but I know the Maasai cattle survived the drought, and at least one Maasai kept his herd intact, finding refuge in the city. Today the drought has gone. The rains have been the best in years and while the mud may be deep in places, if it rains on the fields at the rural home no one will mind how much it rains in the city.

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THE PRICE OF A SLAVEThis was the currency of the slave trade. Called manillas, they were ſirst produced by the Portuguese in imitation of bracelets worn by African women to show off wealth. By the 18th century they were the main currency used to buy slaves and Birmingham was the world centre of production. British slave traders would pay Africans in manillas for

captured slaves and then trade the slaves for sugar, tobacco and other commodities. This symbol of the slave trade remained legal tender in

British West Africa until 1949.

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A portrait of a man who fought the greatest evil of his day, by his biographer Stephen TomkinsThe Spirit of Wilberforce

A portrait of a man who fought the greatest evil of his day, by his biographer Stephen Tomkins

After the Abolition debate on 23 February 1807, when Parliament finally agreed to abolish the slave trade by a landslide majority, Wilberforce returned with his victorious friends to his Westminster house. It had been an emotional night for him. After a twenty-year campaign which had repeatedly wrecked his health – nearly killed him, in fact – and had often seemed quite hopeless, the victory was won. In each of those twenty years, British ships had carried 40,000 slaves from Africa, and finally the trade was outlawed. For two decades Wilberforce had been opposed in Parliament as a misguided do-gooder, and derided as a traitorous fanatic, and suddenly MPs were fighting to pay tribute to “that exalted and benevolent individual”, clapping and cheering him – a display unprecedented in living memory. Wilberforce sat through it in tears.

And now as he came home to celebrate with his friends, his first words were to his Abolitionist friend and Clapham landlord Henry Thornton: “Well, Henry,” he grinned, “what shall we abolish next?”

One thing this snapshot of Wilberforce exemplifies, I think, is his sense of humour. That might not normally be the first of his qualities that a biographer would list, but it is worth mentioning if only because it tends to get eclipsed by his weightier attributes. He has the misfortune of being known to later generations through the biography of his sons, who inherited his piety and seriousness, but were as monumentally dull as he was full of life. Others, such as Thornton’s daughter Marianne, talk of his childlike sense of joy, his sparkling eyes and his tendency to get so carried away in family hymn-singing that he would pull the leaves off geraniums. He had a wicked wit – though it was important to him to control it – and was famous as a young MP for his satirical impressions. As weighty as Wilberforce’s achievements were, it is

worth remembering that there was a human being behind them.

On the other hand, many a true word is spoken in jest, and I think that Wilberforce’s quip reveals some important things about his outlook. One is that he was not a one-issue politician but an inveterate campaigner, and had many other concerns as well as the slave trade. This contrasts with the other great Abolitionist leader, Thomas Clarkson, for whom Abolition was his life, and when he (Clarkson) gave up on the cause he quit public life altogether and became a Lakeland farmer. The other main causes

for which Wilberforce contended throughout his career were evangelism (at home and in British India), providing for the poor, and improving public morality. In his own words, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” By manners he meant morals, rather than talking with one’s mouth full.

So if Wilberforce were alive today I think it is safe to say that he would be involved with the most pressing campaigns for social justice such as the abolition of world poverty, and with Christian mission at home and abroad. His choice of causes was not perfect. His reformation of manners, for example, sometimes involved getting penniless workers gaoled for selling tracts arguing for democracy, and he opposed extending the vote to Roman Catholics (though he changed his mind on that). Of course he would not espouse the same ideals today, 200 years down the line, but still I do not imagine I could always agree with him.

Another aspect of Wilberforce’s outlook that is reflected in that joke is his underlying sense of mission. It was not simply that the issue of the slave trade assaulted his conscience and drove him into action. This is what happened to Clarkson, who wrote an essay on the subject at Cambridge and then could not get it out of his head. Rather, for Wilberforce, the compulsion to do something worthwhile with his life came first, and he channelled that into Abolition.

This compulsion came from his evangelical conversion. He was a man of unusually high moral principles before then, an incorruptible politician in an

The Spirit of Wilberforceage of endemic corruption, but he lived his life largely for his own benefit. On his conversion you could say that he struggled to find enough sins to repent of – except for a notion that he had done nothing in the face of a dreadful, overwhelming sense that he was accountable to God for what he had achieved with his life. He spent a year in miserable self-condemnation, until he saw the two great objects that God Almighty had set before him.

His critics picked up on this point and blew it out of proportion. The poet Coleridge said that Wilberforce did not “care a farthing for the slaves” if only “his soul were saved”. In reality, his private journal

11

2.4 million trafficked people working in forced labour plants

reveals a man whose compassion for the slaves was unquestionably real and heartfelt. But it was his commitment to God that turned that compassion into an unflagging 20-year campaign.

It’s unfair on a lot of people that Wilberforce’s name is so uniquely linked to the Abolition movement. Many others brought to it essential qualities that Wilberforce lacked. He was not perhaps as driven as Clarkson. He did not have the first-hand knowledge of Olaudah Equiano, the former slave, or John Newton, the former slave trader. He did not have the PR genius of the Quakers who invented the idea of the mass petition. He did not have the rage of the evangelical lawyer James Stephen, who said, “I would rather be on friendly terms with a man who had strangled my infant son than support an admission guilty of slackness in suppressing the slave trade.”

What Wilberforce brought to the campaign was, above all, stamina. He was the one who kept bringing his bills to Parliament, kept researching and

speaking and debating, and kept the issue alive in the public eye, while others came and went, for 20 years. And, just as important, he then devoted another decade and more to getting the law properly enforced.

There is some debate among historians of the Abolition about who gets the lion’s share of the credit. I would prefer to say, of Wilberforce as of any of them, that he fought the greatest evil in the world of his day, and played his part in its defeat. Who could ever claim more?

William Wilberforce: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins is published by Lion in January, priced £8.99. Stephen’s recent Short History of Christianity was described by J I Packer as “a brilliant popular page turner that keeps you reading for hours at a time,” and by Terry Jones as “the sort of book I wish I’d read 50 years ago.”

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2.4 million trafficked people working in forced labour plants

John newton 1735–1807. A former slave-ship captain, hymn-writer and founder of Eclectics, the evangelical group that first proposed an Anglican society for evangelistic mission. Wrote a gut-wrenching account of his time in the slave trade and its evils.

william wilberforce 1759–1833. MP for Hull and a founder vice-president of CMS. (He was initially invited to be President but lacked the time). His first anti-slavery bill, in 1791, was defeated 163 votes to 88, but he didn’t give up. When in 1805 the House of Commons finally passed a law that made the slave trade illegal, the House of Lords blocked it.

Henry thornton 1760–1815. Economist, banker, philanthropist and MP for Southwark. He was the founder and financial brain of the Clapham Sect, one of Britain’s first ‘pressure groups’ instigating numerous campaigns for philanthropic causes and lobbying for social reform.

1102: The trade in slaves in Britain made illegal. By the 18th century black slaves were being imported as personal servants, although they weren’t bought or sold.

1783: Anti-slavery becomes a public issue. Dr Beilby Porteus, Bishop of Chester and later Bishop of London, issues a call to the Church of England to cease its involvement in the slave trade. Sir Cecil Wray, MP for Retford, presented the Quaker anti-slavery petition to parliament.

1785: Thomas Clarkson enters a Cambridge Latin essay competition. His topic: Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting? It caused him to start amassing information on the slave trade, a course which he pursued for the rest of his life. His in-depth research built a body of solid evidence which was invaluable in proving the evils of slavery.

1787: Granville Sharp takes the lead in founding, with Clarkson, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and a settlement for emancipated slaves in a newly demarcated region of Africa called Sierra Leone.

1789: William Wilberforce’s first House of Commons speech against the slave trade. It took 18 years before he secured a Commons vote.

1791: John Wesley’s last letter addressed to William Wilberforce. “O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the Sun) shall vanish away before it.”

global abolition Sweden: 1335

Finland: 1335

Portugal: 1761

Haiti: 1791

upper Canada: 1793

France (first time): 1794–1802

Argentina: 1813

Gran Colombia (ecuador, Colombia,

Panama, and venezuela): 1821

Chile: 1823

Mexico: 1829

Mauritius: 1835

Denmark: 1848

France: 1848(including all colonies)

Peru: 1851

romania: 1855

Netherlands: 1863

united States: 1865

Puerto rico: 1873

Cuba: 1880

Brazil: 1888

Korea: 1894

Zanzibar: 1897

China: 1910

Burma: 1929

ethiopia: 1936

Tibet: 1959

Saudi Arabia: 1962

Mauritania: July 1980

1807: Slave trade declared illegal by the House of Commons, but the Act did not end it. British sea captains caught slave- trafficking were fined £100 for every slave found on board but could avoid fines by ordering slaves to be thrown overboard.

1833: Slavery Abolition Act: gave all slaves in the British Empire freedom and the Government paid compensation to slave-owners according to the number of slaves they had. For example, the freeing of the Bishop of Exeter’s 665 slaves resulted in him receiving £12,700.

today’s church Mission society cares deeply about continuing the legacy of its founders, in a world which contains more slavery than in wilberforce’s day. throughout the last four years, cMs has been building the setting captives free campaign to fight modern forms of slavery, including sex trafficking, child soldiers and various types of addiction.

in the run-up to 2007, setting captives free has addressed over 100,000 people, exhibited at over 40 major events, inspired a personal commitment to anti-slavery from around 10,000 people, distributed 20,000 ‘Kitgum crosses’ to people who wore them as a sign of their solidarity with children forced to go to war in uganda, gave away 7,000 prayer bands, delivered a petition on child soldiers to Downing street and lobbied Mps and other Vips to get involved.

sunday 5am

The still of the night in peaceful Mvumi village is shattered by the loud crowing of a cockerel right outside my window. I wake in a panic and wonder if Delia has a good recipe for cockerel casserole.

8am

Hot and dusty, we arrive at the local pastor’s home for breakfast. All through the village the traditional breakfast of ugali is being cooked on open fires and we exchange greetings at many homes. The five minute walk takes us 30 minutes! Small children follow us everywhere and the

braver ones hold our hands or carry our bags! We talk about the poor harvest. Our hosts have just 10 sacks of grain, the bare minimum needed to see the family through the year.

10am

The official start of the church service! Women carrying babies wander in and out of the building. The Mothers’ Union choir sing and dance. They have perfect pitch and the singing is beautiful.

We are invited to sing. We offer a couple of tentative choruses. The children join us in a song that we shared with them earlier in the week. As we all ‘Zoom around the Room’ praising God, the

children get totally over-excited and we scuttle back to our bench, leaving the pastor to sort out the resulting chaos.

12am

Still going strong. There are five choirs and each has sung twice. The pastor has been asked to keep the sermon short, but it is Harvest... Women carrying huge sacks of grain on their head

process to the front of the church. Our friends from breakfast are dragging a sack of maize. They explain that they are giving to God what is his, and this sack is 10 per cent of their food store.

Knowing that they now have less than they need to feed their family until the next harvest, we are stunned into silence.

5pm

Our hosts, CMS mission partners Alison and Peter Roots, take us to the computer room at Mvumi Hospital. There is a mural on the wall and Peter explains that patients can’t read, so instructions for HIV drugs are painted in pictures. The drugs are often ineffective as people don’t eat enough food

for the drugs to be absorbed. Another effect of famine.

8pm

It is dark and the village is deserted. We look at the night sky and think of Isaiah 40:26 and know that God is sovereign over all his world.

Julie whitField shares a day From her recent visit to tanzania with a cms short-

term mission group

dusk ’til dawn

apology or angst?should the church oF england really apologise For its past, asks cms general secretary tim dakinThe public debate on slavery is focused on whether cities like Bristol and Liverpool, which grew rich on the trade, should apologise for their murky past.

The Church has become part of the discussion ever since it emerged into public knowledge that 18th century slave-worked plantations were owned by ecclesiastical bodies, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel owned slaves who were branded with ‘Society’ on their chests.

The C of E General Synod has voted to apologise for the Church’s part in slavery. In so doing, many Christians – and non-believers – will be encouraged to feel the Church has done nothing for the past 200 years.

The reality has always been more complex. Professor Lamin Sanneh in ‘The Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799–1999’ asserts that, “In the early 19th century in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the CMS had launched the Christian movement as an international, ecumenical, and cross-cultural force for antislavery and as the ally of the dispossessed and the outcast.”

On this reading the crucible of the anti-slavery movement gave birth to an important development in the world Church and its global mission. Therefore, we should be celebrating the way in which the anti-slavery movement began to forge mission as “a human-rights imperative, based on the validation of those tainted by the slaver’s shackle,” as Sanneh puts it.

For pioneering anti-slavery Africans like Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Christianity meant a commitment to justice that didn’t reduce things to black and white.

He was anti-slavery wherever he found it, and if African chiefs were oppressing their people and acting unjustly, and themselves using slaves, that problem had to be tackled every bit as much as the colonial slave trade. Crowther didn’t roll over and accept what offended his Christian values of justice, yet he was commended for his humility and promotion of harmony.

While Crowther would later be humiliated by racist missionaries, Sanneh says, “The British flag was perceived locally by victim populations as a symbol of anti-slavery... Accordingly, the settlers agreed to have a European missionary join them as a partner, not as an overlord.”

Neither Crowther nor CMS has a history of unclouded glory and any note of self-congratulation is entirely inappropriate. But the Abolition Bicentenary events should focus on the legacy of anti-slavery as well as slavery. We can celebrate the birth of “the Christian movement as an international, ecumenical, and cross-cultural force for anti-slavery and as the ally of the dispossessed and the outcast” – a calling which we continue to strive to live up to as worldwide family of Christians, and which we continue to undermine through negligence, through weakness and through our own deliberate fault.

Our acts of repentance at the Bicentenary need to focus less on our historic guilt than our contemporary inability to turn away from the sin of turning people into commodities and to campaign for the liberation of all trapped in current forms of slavery.

In slavery and the fight against it, Church and State showed both their worst and their best. But we can take inspiration that at its darkest, messiest, most implicated and corrupt, the Church produced something great – the sin is we have forgotten we are part of this liberating movement and have become enslaved ourselves in the image of being an enslaving movement.

People may say, ‘The Church can’t talk because it was just as bad as anyone.’ But the Church can talk. Though it was, and is, just as bad as anyone else, it instigated a movement that, fraught with human failure, instigated liberation. Dare we live up to this precedent today?

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4,000 women trafficked to UK to work as prostitutes

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Enslaved, trapped, lost, forgotten, without hope... Can words fully describe how trafficked women and children must feel? Trafficking, our modern day slavery, is a global reality that is only beginning to be fully grasped, and already the figures are overwhelming. It is estimated that one million humans are trafficked across international borders each year, many of them children, and the majority end up in some form of sexual exploitation. But the figures cannot tell the human side of the story. Sabina was 12 when she was taken to India, sold and forced to work as a prostitute. Listening to her tell her story with tears rolling down her face was heartbreaking. I wanted to cry, I felt sick, and wondered at the depths of human sinfulness.

But I am reminded that it was for such people that Jesus came to earth – to give hope to the hopeless, to set the captives free. Throughout the Bible we read of God’s heart for the poor, commanding his people to help widows and orphans. It is in this light that the Church of Bangladesh Social Development Programme (CBSDP) carries out its anti-trafficking project. Working in vulnerable communities, it raises awareness about trafficking and how to prevent it as well as supporting and rehabilitating returned women who have been trafficked. As a result, Sabina has now been able to complete a tailoring course, and works

making clothes from her house. She has regained her dignity and hope for the future. Trafficking is inextricably linked with poverty, with the great majority of trafficked victims being the poorest people from the poorest countries. The CBSDP’s work complements our regular development work of helping raise people out of abject poverty. Five years ago Sadana was struggling to run her family with the wages of her day-labourer husband. But with help from CBSDP she started raising poultry and began to earn an income. Now she is able to educate her children, and more importantly, she has a sense of security and is positive about the future. She is at much less risk from traffickers.

But in this age of globalisation, poverty, and hence trafficking, the problems cannot be solved by local development projects alone. We all have a part to play, be it just in choosing carefully the tea we drink or the food we eat. And of course we can all lobby our politicians to effect change. I take heart from the work of William Wilberforce, who showed that by doing just that, the seemingly impossible can be achieved.

Amidst the darkness of trafficking, there is hope.

traFFicking is a mission Frontier

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The United Nations Drug Control Programme estimates that over five million people a year die from the consequences of drug addiction. HIV is also rapidly spread through the intravenous drug-using communities and their families and friends, with a very high incidence in India and Russia. HIV and Hepatitis C are common. Jackie Pullinger, the Hong Kong-based author of Chasing The Dragon, recently told me that part of the role of her St Stephen’s Society is to “prepare people to die well”. Many of us have seen our members, our colleagues and wonderful Christian leaders die as a consequence of past drug use. Depressing news. But there is an amazing movement of God among the drug-using populations.

CMS is a key stakeholder in the International Substance Abuse and Addiction Coalition (ISAAC), which met on the Egyptian shores of the Red Sea recently to empower those who provide vital care in the addiction field. Over 2,500 ISAAC members run many projects in more than 55 countries, and are an astonishing ecumenical coalition of people from every background – Harvard and Oxford graduates, professors, health professionals, government advisers and experts tackling prostitution and organised crime.

CMS plays a key role in the network by financially supporting programmes, and sponsoring partners to provide training, resources and encouragement. We work at a strategic level. CMS Director Phil Simpson, a former drug adviser on rehabilitation, is on the Council of Reference. Meshach Chujor, a CMS South to South Partner, is a Russian-speaking Nigerian working in Tajikistan in drug prevention. He is a recognised ISAAC leader and consultant. I am a trustee.

Projects range from large multi-million pound ones working across up to 14 countries, to small, emerging ones with few paid staff in countries like Kenya, Mongolia, Nepal and Burma. Strong regional networks in Ukraine demonstrate the ability of ISAAC to connect, equip and resource the people of God to serve effectively in this demanding field.

Entrepreneurial faith and sacrificial service is a hallmark of most of these programmes. The gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher flow through these networks in inspiring richness. It makes you humble, glad and full of hope to belong to this marvellous company of people. Ravaged but restored people tell how discipleship is essential to their daily well-being but that many churches place the discipleship bar far too low.

Many of these projects are developing Christian communities and churches to sustain and feed the growing movement. Families naturally also enter into recovery and become part of these vibrant communities. As the Spirit expands horizons many are being challenged to work in other countries and the missional impulse of this movement is a welcome shot of spiritual adrenaline.

It is not so much about getting high but getting low to the street level – meeting and serving people where they are at. ISAAC members prefer pavements to platforms. An impressive range of new projects are being created – new schools for street kids or children of addicts, educational initiatives, diverse income-generating projects, health and housing projects, and sports programmes.

A group of female members showed the Conference how they could lift a large, generously-proportioned man from the floor to the roof to demonstrate the value of collaboration and how the impossible is made possible by the many.

when did i see you addicted, lord?

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when did i see you addicted, lord?

Insecurity became part of life for 1.8 million people in northern Uganda during two decades of the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency. The Ugandan Army (UPDF) has battled against the mystic group that claimed to want to rule by the Ten Commandments but which became notorious for abducting, maiming and killing, and turning children into soldiers. The rebels were never fully defeated partly because of their perennial trick of taking refuge in Sudan or Congo.

Now for the first time the two sides are talking peace. International pressure has spurred them on. Previously the global community seemed either unaware or indifferent about the magnitude of suffering. But eventually individuals and civil society organisations began to rally behind church and civil leaders.

Many ordinary people were forced to move into cramped conditions in camps, losing their livelihood and aspects of culture. Many remain traumatised from seeing their loved ones fall victim.

One 10-year-old girl who spent three years in LRA captivity with her siblings described how she and her twin sister went to steal food from a garden, only to fall into a UPDF ambush. In the crossfire she was shot in the leg and left for dead. When she came to, termites were gnawing at her limbs. Her sister was dead. Today her leg is amputated and she continues to suffer trauma from losing her family. She is only one of an estimated 25,000 abducted children.

For the sake of such voiceless people, CMS launched the Break the Silence campaign in 2004. Bishop Benjamin Ojwang of Kitgum took a petition to Downing Street asking for help to break what local churchmen had called “an international conspiracy of silence”. CMS also worked with the Diocese of Kitgum to make little crosses out of cwa wood for Christians in the UK to wear around the neck in solidarity.

Visits between Uganda and the UK have been part the campaign. One such visit was by Patrick Lumumba, the mission co-ordinator for the Diocese of Northern Uganda, and Harriet Okeny from the Diocese of Kitgum. Later a Praxis visit was organised for UK Christians to visit northern Uganda where they saw some of the thousands of ‘night commuters’ walking long distances each evening to sleep in town shelters or on verandas to avoid abduction.

Today change is evident. Across continents, the plight of northern Uganda is on the lips of pressure groups and decision makers. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the top LRA commanders. While some of this has generated controversy and the future is not clear, there is a sense of accountability internationally. Best of all there is dialogue. At last the silence is broken.

the silence is broken

There is a particularly pernicious form of slavery going on all over Africa today. It can be put very simply: perception.

Thanks to Bob Geldof, the United Nations and others, we all know that on the richest continent in terms of natural resources, the majority of the people live in crippling poverty.

When African leaders address this underdevelopment, they are quick to blame colonialism among other external factors. Yet many of the world’s richest nations were once colonies: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong.

On the other hand some of the world’s poorest nations were never colonised: Afghanistan and Thailand, for example. Many rapidly-developing nations received their independence at the same time as African countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.

According to the World Bank there are three major sources of a nation’s development: 59 per cent comes from human and social capital, 25 per cent from the ground (natural resources), 16 per cent is manufactured capital (infrastructure).

This means that in the wealthiest countries, human capital accounts for three-quarters of the producible forms of wealth.

I believe Africa’s biggest challenges are not external but internal, that of her worldview.

Pete Ondeng in his book Africa’s Moment says, “I am convinced that the perception, or paradigm, through which many non-Africans view Africa is one of the key obstacles to Africa’s development. Unfortunately, this negative perception is not confined to non-Africans. Too many Africans carry around a burden of negativity about themselves and their continent that severely cripples their ability to progress.”

The humanistic world view predominant in the secular Global North identifies poverty in physical terms: limited resources. The solution? More money needed. Africans dominated by their traditional religion relegate the problem to the spiritual realm: more power needed. The solution? To appease the spirits, more sacrifice, hence the thriving of prosperity Gospel ‘theology’. Biblical Theism defines poverty in relational

terms, the solution being the restoration of proper relationships to God, others and Creation.

The Church in Africa holds the key to her development and must look beyond numbers and the saving of souls. She has divorced discipleship and development, preaching a dualistic worldview.

Dr Tokunboh Adeyemo, founder and executive director of the Center of Biblical Transformation says:

“Africa has been evangelised but the African mind has not been captured for Christ... For decades ... evangelism and missionary activities [were] directed at getting people saved [spiritually], but losing their minds. Consequently, we have ... over 50 per cent Christian population on the average, but [it has] little or no impact on society. In fact, it sounds like an irony that within our own rank and file such practices as witchcraft, traditional religions, orgies, tribalism and the like are regarded as normal...”

The Good News of the Kingdom is relevant for this world, not just for heaven. CMS in Africa is engaging leaders in Discipleship For Wholistic Transformation and as a result is beginning to see local churches not only proclaim, but also demonstrate, the love of Jesus to their broken communities. They are preaching the whole Gospel to the whole person, to the whole nation.

shackles oF the mindcms aFrica director dennis tongoi addresses the roots oF aFrica’s present day slavery

Free your mind

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handpicked. but at what cost?shackles oF the mind

upDates Mission partners laura and Maurice Connor (Pakistan) are delighted to announce the birth of their daughter Amberley rose on Sunday 29 October. Congratulations to Abby Peggs, Cross-cultural Engagement Administrator, on her own cross-cultural engagement – to Sam Baguma, a Ugandan, who is East Africa Development Officer for charity Cure International.

new cMs trustees electeDKatharine von Schubert, Martyn Snow, Kang-San Tan, Kevin Ward and Simon Winn were recently elected to be Trustees of CMS. You can read more about them at www.cms-uk.org/about.htm

eVentsJC Jones Memorial lecture 2007 by Lord Carey of Clifton, former Archbishop of Canterbury: “Two cultures, one mission – the future of the Christian faith in a secular age”. 26 Feb, 11am Christchurch Carmarthen, 7.30pm St Michael’s College, Llandaff; 27 Feb, 7.30pm St Michael’s Aberystwyth; 28 Feb, 2.30pm St Paul’s Craig Y Don, Llanrhos. Contact Margaret James: hmjames23@hotmail.com or 01792 424090. CMS east Central conference (2–4 March, High Leigh) with Mark Oxbrow, CMS International Mission Director, on “Fresh Expressions of Global Mission”. Contact Jane Fulford on jane.fulford@btinternet.com or 0118 969 5039. “Reconciliation to God” is the theme of the CMS South conference at Herne Bay Court, 23–25 March, focusing on Africa’s Great Lakes region, with community health pioneer Dr Pat Nickson. Contact Helen Black on helensasra@aol.com or 01252 316170. A major CMS contribution to the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade is African Snow by Murray Watts. It premieres at York’s Theatre Royal, 30 March to 21 April. In cinemas from 30 March is Wilberforce blockbuster Amazing Grace. More on both from Cat Morgan: cat.morgan@cms-uk.org or 020 7803 3266. Worcester Archdeaconry CMS Action Group’s annual special meeting is on 24 May, 7.30pm, St Peter’s Church Bengeworth, Evesham. Contact Canon Peter Burch on 01386 853837. Short-term mission trips are taking place to Ghana, Romania, Russia, Burundi, China and India in 2007. Contact Debbie James at debbie.james@cms-uk.org or 020 7803 3326.

cMs – at your serVice

To get speakers for your church or eventHelen Shepherd 020 7803 3300helen.shepherd@cms-uk.orgChris Woo 020 7803 3394chris.woo@cms-uk.org

Mission Partner linksJulie Whitfield 020 7803 3339 julie.whitfield@cms-uk.org

CMS resourcesrichard long 020 7803 7803 3376 richard.long@cms-uk.org

General enquiry linelinda Howell 020 7803 3326 linda.howell@cms-uk.org

welcoMeHelen Shepherd and Chris Woo have joined the Church Relations Team as Deputation Facilitators. Give them a call to get a CMS speaker at your church or event. richard White is our second part-time Missional Cell Developer, working with Andrew Jones. He’s originally from South Africa but now based in Liverpool and is also pastor to ‘the Dream network’ (www.dream.uk.net). Romford-based Matthew Cope joined the finance team in October as Expenditure Processing Assistant. From a little further east, Milena Alincova, originally from the Czech Republic, took up the post of Learning Assistant in October, helping administer training for people in mission. Patricia Kapolyo is covering a variety of roles during recruitment of new staff. The fundraising team welcome Sas Conradie, formerly of Geneva Global, as Trust Fundraiser taking over from Paul Bigmore, who becomes Fundraising Manager. Philip evans has previously worked with our sister mission agency USPG and is now our Church Fundraiser, taking over from Peter Ashcroft, who moves on to a variety of special projects in the upcoming months.

farewellMike and Sue Hawthorne sadly had to finish as mission partners for medical reasons, just after relocating from Sudan to the Church of North India Diocese of Amritsar. Both teachers, they had worked for five months in Sudan helping to rebuild the Episcopal Church of Sudan’s educational programme but the situation at that time made their particular role unfeasible. Mission partner ravi Sangra has completed over three years as a youth and children’s worker in south London, in a partnership with Spinnaker Trust and St Alban’s Church Streatham. John lephard retired in July as Expenditure Accountant, after eight years at CMS and was known for his caring, prayerful ways and enthusiasm for mission. Phillipa Powell, Vocational Recruitment Assistant, left in August for a new career in occupational therapy after four years helping new people in mission find their feet with CMS. Learning Assistant Jesse Doyle moved on to a year-long Ichthus discipleship and evangelism course in August.

DeatHsCecilie Pain, Uganda 1942–54 and1970–73, died 13 May, aged 92. ruth Walker, Pakistan 1957–67, Foxbury CMS training college 1967–68, died May, aged 79. Ruth Singleton (née Harrison), Amritsar Diocese, India 1951–68, died 1 August, aged 84. Winifred (Frances) Wilkinson, China and Hong Kong 1938–52, died 2 September, aged 94. Dr Andrew Morton, Education Secretary 1980s, died 14 September. Margaret Irene lloyd, CMS admin staff 1934–73, died 19 September, aged 94. Olive Beardsley, warden of Venn House, 1988–97, died 7 October. The rev Harriet (etta) Johnson, Burundi 1962–81, died 8 November, aged 86. Nancy (Nan) Read MBE, Uganda 1953–81, died 10 November, aged 87. Canon Peter Kiddle, Kenya 1952–73, died 12 November, aged 84.

people andevents

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Surely Wilberforce would thrill to the sound of crowds of children filling his own church with energy and spectacle to tell the story of slavery today.

That’s what happened in November 2006 at Holy Trinity Church, Clapham, when children from local schools in london put on one of the first performances of Free for All, a unique community drama event.

“The children were inspired and inspiring!” The reaction of this audience member was typical.

In 2007 some 30 cathedrals the length and breadth of Britain will host Free for All to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade.

using drama, dance and music, Free for All explores the story of the Abolitionist movement and the continuing story of slavery in the world today.

Children from the local area come for creative workshops with professional actors before giving a performance to the local community in the cathedral. The children’s energy and excitement mix with shock at discovering the facts about slavery.

“The take-up by cathedrals of this dynamic community event has been fantastic,” says CMS Youth and Children’s Adviser Anita Matthews. “And we think schools will love the way Free for All brings issues like human rights, justice and freedom to life.”

The Free for All team need your help: volunteers are needed at all the venues to make the show happen. Find out more at www.cms-uk.org/freeforall. Anita Matthews is your contact on anita.matthews@cms-uk.org or 01332 270917, or ring the CMS office on 020 7803 3340.

people andevents Free For all

WellS 10–11 JANuArY

WINCHeSTer 15–19 JANuArY

WeSTMINSTer 23–24 JANuArY

CHelMSFOrD 5–9 FeBruArY

GlOuCeSTer 12–16 FeBruArY

MANCHeSTer 26 FeBruArY – 2 MArCH

BlACKBurN 5–9 MArCH

YOrK 12–16 MArCH

BrISTOl 19–23 MArCH

PeTerBOrOuGH 26–29 MArCH

Hull 16–21 APrIl

lIverPOOl 23–27 APrIl

CHeSTer 14–18 MAY

HereFOrD 21–25 MAY

POrTSMOuTH 4–8 JuNe

BIrMINGHAM 11–15 JuNe

DerBY 18–22 JuNe

ISle OF MAN 25–29 JuNe

exeTer 4–7 JulY

SuNDerlAND 9–13 JulY

SHeFFIelD 16–20 JulY

GuIlDFOrD 17–21 SePTeMBer

ST AlBANS 24 SePTeMBer

CHICHeSTer 1–5 & 8–12 OCTOBer

SOuTHWArK 15–19 OCTOBer

NOrWICH 29 OCTOBer – 2 NOveMBer

COveNTrY 5–9 NOveMBer

BrADFOrD 12–16 NOveMBer

lANCASTer 19–22 NOveMBer

very special booking!SIerrA leONe 26–30 NOveMBer

Only two months ago I read the following from Max Warren’s CMS newsletter of April 1968, where he refers to an asterisk or a little ‘m’ appended to a husband’s name as “until 1950 the only form in which wives appeared in the list of missionaries in the CMS Pocket Book.”

Until the 1950s! I had been under the misapprehension that this had been a 19th century phenomenon, and that was bad enough!

Jane Austen observed that history consisted of “the quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilence on every page; the men so good for nothing and hardly any women at all.”

A little harsh perhaps but in recent years historians have come to the same broad conclusion as Austen, noting the apparent invisibility of women from many historical texts. It is as though we have trained a camera lens through the ages and have found the women missing.

The role of the 19th century CMS missionary-wife was clearly and unambiguously stated by Georgina Gollock, the first CMS Women’s Secretary, in her book Missionaries at Work published in 1898:

“The primary office of a missionary’s wife is that of being a helpmeet to her husband. Her life is merged in his, and both together stand as one to set forward the work of the Lord. This has first to be done within the home, then in sharing and aiding in her husband’s sphere of labour, and beyond that in taking up such further service for the Master as time and strength allow.”

So she was to serve in the home and help her husband; seen but not heard. Only if there was any time left over was she to be involved in ‘other areas’. And yet it was these other areas – most often teaching and health – that proved to be the seed-bed of some of the most radical, highly-effective and influential work that has ever driven CMS forward. It ended up playing a key part in opening wider society’s eyes to the possibilities of what a woman could achieve.

The lasting impact of women within CMS was one of those unexpected surprises that CMS neither planned nor anticipated.

This was the ambiguity and tension inherent within the evangelical world in which CMS was born. As English historian David Bebbington puts it, “Evangelical religion, despite its emphasis on the domestic role of women, was more important than feminism in enlarging their sphere during the nineteenth century.”

By holding to the spiritual equality of all individuals, both men and women, the roles and spheres of women were enlarged.

Which brings me to those characters even more conspicuously absent from our Big Picture: the women of the communities which were the mission fields of yesteryear, and the wives of the slaves. They don’t even feature as a little ‘m’ or an asterisk in the mission story. They have been utterly banished to the darkest corners of history.

We in the Global North are finally getting around to learning that Abolition wasn’t the white man’s burden, that Africans such as Olaudah Equiano played an equal role to whites like Wilberforce. But how long will it be before we take seriously the passage in Equiano’s autobiography in which he writes movingly of the pain of separation from his mother and sister?

How long before we can name these women who patiently rocked the cradle with living Bible stories which nurtured the sons and daughters of Africa and later helped them endure the bestial horrors of slavery? Will their names ever be known? Or will they too remain invisible?

After two centuries of Abolition, that old evangelical ambiguity remains. What kind of message was delivered to these women by those following the advice of Gollock, and those liberating the slaves? Was it a message that, wittingly or unwittingly, reinforced gender stereotypes? Or did they spread a message of liberation by a Loving Father who can undo even those tight, binding chains of gender stereotypes?

Dr Cathy Ross is CMS Mission Interchange Adviser and has been a mission partner in Rwanda, Uganda and DR Congo.

more than wives?cathy ross

Another middle-class white man opines about slavery. Oh goody. Brace yourselves for a lot more before the year’s out. The bicentenary of Wilberforce’s Bill is a historic occasion, to be sure, but in the celebration are we witnessing the exploitation of exploitation?

For the issues around slavery and its so-called abolition are by no means cut and dried. They are though, it still seems, black and white.

While well-meaning white folk are eager to celebrate the achievement of Wilberforce and are focused on using the Wilberforce legacy to fight modern slavery, some black groups are vociferously campaigning against celebrations. The Operation Truth 2007 website says it’s akin to the Germans organising a commemoration to the Holocaust.

Of course, last year in Berlin a vast memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was unveiled, not without controversy, but mainly interpreted as Germany properly facing up to its history.

So will we face up to our history and dig deeper into the story we all think we know? It is tempting for Christians simply to rejoice at the chance for a ride on Wilberforce’s coat-tails.

Well, it could be a bumpy ride. Wilberforce’s 1807 Bill of course only abolished, as he put it in his speech to the Commons, “the carrying of men in British ships to be sold as slaves in the British Islands in the West Indies”.

Even in 1833 when the Act to emancipate slaves was finally passed, they didn’t get their freedom straight away. Wilberforce himself didn’t think they should, favouring a gradual ‘apprentice’ system. Should we excuse him, just because it seemed like a step too far in the context of the time?

Not necessarily, says Toyin Agbetu of the Ligali organisation, which campaigns against negative stereotyping of Africans in the media. For him, abolitionists were guilty of still trying to control the people whose freedom they had campaigned for. “African activists have always worked towards immediate freedom, immediate independence, immediate debt relief, immediate increases in aid, immediate trade reforms and immediate equal rights.”

And Richard Reddie, the project director for Set All Free, the Churches Together programme for 2007, which CMS is supporting, is sympathetic. “It is not enough for Christians to hide behind the good work of William Wilberforce and use this as an excuse not to address the damage caused by the Church.” On the contrary, we have a golden opportunity “to finish off the good work started by Wilberforce and others, who, in their efforts to end slavery, failed to dismantle the structures and systems that oppressed Africans.”

As one does, I’ve been flicking through an original Morning Chronicle of 17 March 1807 (thanks Dr H Oliver). Once past the adverts for sprung wigs, you’ll find “Mr Secretary Windham” criticising the abolitionists thus: “Those who supported this, did it at no expence [sic] of their own, and he always thought there was in this too much of cheap virtue.”

It may have been an unfair criticism of Wilberforce and the campaigners who had sacrificed monvey and time over decades to pass the bill. But the response of Christians today must not smack of “cheap virtue”.

One response of CMS is sponsoring the play African Snow. Award-winning playwright Murray Watts enters the minefield of guilt and forgiveness, and finds no easy resolution between slaver and enslaved.

I’m just a white man opining about slavery. All I know is, as a CMS mission partner recently said to me, “Slavery didn’t go away, it just changed its face.”

blaxploitation 2007

2�Jeremy woodham

25/03/2007 27 million slaves