Amazing Grace Sunday to be Celebrated Around the Globe
The highly anticipated Amazing Grace film is doing much to raise awareness of slavery.
by Gretta Curtis
Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 9:28 (GMT)
The highly anticipated
Amazing Grace film stars Ioan Gruffudd as William Wilberforce, the man who championed the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and is doing much to raise awareness of slavery.
An estimated 27 million people are living in slavery today, indicating that there are more people living in slavery today than at any other time in history. Ironically, this year marks the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade in the British Empire, a historic event brought by Wilberforce and a group of friends. The group included John Newton, the slave-trader turned songwriter who penned the popular hymn Amazing Grace.
In advance of the release of the film chronicling their heroic actions, another larger group of abolitionists are once again mounting a campaign with the aim to end slavery once and for all.
The campaign will culminate on Sunday 18 February, when thousands across the globe will celebrate AMAZING GRACE SUNDAY.
Directed by acclaimed director Michael Apted (Coal Miner’s Daughter), Amazing Grace tells an inspiring story of how one man can change the world.
Wilberforce’s life was an astounding spiritual and moral quest, and he is an inspiration to millions to this day. Elected to parliament at the age of 21, Wilberforce led a diverse coalition of believers in a decades-long struggle to end the lucrative but dehumanising slave trade. He was aided by slave-trader-turned abolitionist Rev John Newton (Albert Finney) and by his spirited wife and political compatriot Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai).
Amazing Grace premieres in the UK on 23 March 2007.
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Added: Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 13:09 (GMT)
I've been privileged to be asked by the filmmakers of AMAZING GRACE to write a new and accessible biography of William Wilberforce. It shares the film's title, AMAZING GRACE, and will be released on Feb. 1st. There is more to Wilberforce's story than it is possible to put into a film, and I'm entirely thrilled to have had a chance to get much of what could not be put into the film into my book. Thus far the reviews have been extraordinary and I do hope that British and American readers have a chance to dig deeper and find out what it was that made Wilberforce the man he was, and to learn more of the dear friends and compatriots in his grand struggle for justice. There can be no doubt this bicentennial is a goad to us all to work harder for justice around the world, and I hope this book and film do their part in reminding us all of what has been done and what is yet to be done.
ERIC METAXAS, author of AMAZING GRACE: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (HarperSanFrancisco).
Eric Metaxas, New York, NY U.S.A.
