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About Joseph Knippenberg
Bio
I am a professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, where I also direct the Rich Foundation Urban Leadership Program. Much of my scholarly work focuses on the relationship between religion and politics.
I am also an Adjunct Fellow of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University in Ohio. In addition to contributing occasional essays and columns to the Ashbrook website, I am one of the principal bloggers at No Left Turns.
My political (and other) commentary has appeared in The American Enterprise Online, The American Spectator Online, The Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, and Touchstone magazine, as well as in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Marietta Daily Journal.
I live in Dunwoody, Georgia with my wife, Lee, and our two children, Liam and Charlotte. We attend Smyrna Presbyterian Church (PCA).
William Wilberforce: "liberal," "conservative," or neither?
I've noticed that both camps are claiming William Wilberforce as one of their own. I've read more than a few reviews (most recently by Phil Kloer in the Atlanta paper) that insist upon Wilberforce's liberalism, yet many conservatives (Hugh Hewitt, Chuck Colson, and Michael Medved come to mind) celebrate Wilberforce as one of their own. (Indeed, my wife attended a preview of AMAZING GRACE hosted by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and his wife.)
So, Good Will Hintonites, which is it? Wilberforce the liberal, Wilberforce the conservative, or Wilberforce neither?
By the way, I have a post at NLT in which I provide links to many of the current reviews.
Comments
Links to your NLT post?
Joseph-
Your post doesn't have your NLT post link. Care to edit it and add it?
About Wilburforce, for his day, he was a social-liberal. No question about it. He was pushing for greater equality and a general upsetting of the social order. He was certainly pushing for governmental interference in the marketplace and the government to curtail certain individuals' right to make a living and to exercise their free choice.
However, from the perspective of the 21st century, I can imagine it wouldn't be that hard to show Wilburforce was a conservative. I don't know what the argument would be, so I'm looking forward to your links.
Wilberforce as a "social liberal."
Wilberforce's various associations might correct such errant views. He belonged to one particularly focused to staunchly eliminating vice from society. As the liberal political tradition has always sought to lessen any trickle down approach to defining vice and enforcing vice laws, the tradition doesn't fit him.
Yet, current inclination from any inclined to profess themselves sufficiently intellectual to reach conclusion on either side of such an unimportant issue shows but the narcissism, position by edict and subservient acceptance by others of current liberal academia (read, deconstructionism through imposition of vice.)
Should Wilberforce be alive today, he might work with these devils, but never lose sight of their inclination to accept enlarged slaveries through constant redefinition of terms, especially the meaning of "is."
Re: Links
I think Will did me the favor of supplying the link.
I saw the movie again today (with folks--all conservative Reformed types--from church). Perhaps it's a Rorsach test, but no one objects to the politics. In addition, they didn't think that the religious element in Wilberforce's life was underplayed.
If I wanted to be confrontational about the movie's politics, I'd ask how anyone who opposed slavery and wished to protect animals couldn't also oppose abortion. Now THERE'S a Rorsach test!
Joe Knippenberg
Opening weekend for the movie
Looking at the Box Office Mojo site, the movie did quite well: on substantially fewer screens than a lot of other movies (791 vs. 2,000 - 3,000 for most of the top ten), it came in tenth in overall receipts ($4.3 million) and roughly comparable in per screen average to the top two movies (GHOST RIDER and THE NUMBER 23).
Here's hoping the buzz builds. I expect a lot of church friends to go soon, and it wouldn't shock me to see a lot of Christian college youth groups to find a theatre showing it.
Joe Knippenberg
Neither and Both
I wanted to take a whack at this the other day when you posted, but I got to sit on it a while. Here's my 2 cents that nobody will read.
In general, people's political identity seems to be founded on their opinion on particular issues. Person A is a Republican because she's pro-life, and person B is a Democrat because she's pro-choice. Person C is a Libertarian because she's very much for limited government.
(This may not be true for all the issues related to a party. The split between Social and Fiscal Conservatives comes to mind. But folks usually identify with a party because of issues associated with their party.)
Given that, slavery is not really an issue anymore. Sure, there are probably some wackos out there who hate other folks so much that they wouldn't mind owning a few, or other folks so enamored of "aboriginal cultures" (i.e., not Western) that they don't mind if *they* have slaves. But, in general, 99.995% of both liberals and conservatives in America today think that slavery is wrong. But since it's not really on the political table anymore (thank heavens), neither side gets to claim Mr. Wilberforce.
However . . .
Given that Mr. Wilberforce is a public figure (and I hope the movie does well enough that his life and wonderful work come into more light), both sides are probably going to look at him and see what their own worldviews let them see.
Liberals will probably look at slavery and see connections to modern Civil Rights issues. So they'll claim him as their own.
Conservatives will probably look at slavery and see a parallel with abortion. So they'll claim him as one of their own.
Either way, his is a great story, and I'd much rather see a "He's mine!" argument than a "meh."
Pity
I am reading your piece.
It is a pity that slavery is no longer a political issue. There is still slavery in the world, just not in America or Great Britain, nor any place where ideals of the natural rights of man have any currency.
I think Mr. Wilberforce would definitely have seen himself as a liberal. The term meant something else in his day. I have a hard time calling myself a "conservative", although your classifications would place me as a Republican/Libertarian. To say that I am "conservative" implies that I am content with the status quo and would preserve it. I would not. I find it easier to side with Wilberforce's liberalism than with today's conservatism.
Kate Pitrone
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