Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

23 July 2007

Amazing Grace (Movie)

The abolition of legalised slavery in the British Empire in 1807 was one of the great turning points for Western civilization, and was directly because of the powerful conversion of John Newton, a former slaveship master turned Anglican rector, who counselled the British MP William Wilberforce after his own conversion experience to serve God by staying in politics and fighting slavery and general sinfulness.

John Newton is most famously remembered for his heartfelt hymn, Amazing Grace, which captured the essence of his conversion experience.

A new movie called Amazing Grace has been made about William Wilberforce and John Newton and will be released in Australia on 26th July.


Modern Slavery
Unfortunately the abolition of legal slavery in most countries around the world has not stopped the trafficking of human beings. Stop the Traffik is a global organisation setup to help raise awareness of human trafficking and call on the UN and member governments to do more to combat this massive problem. They are using the Amazing Grace film to raise awareness for the plight of people in bondage.


For more good information on this topic check out the Anti-Slavery Project, which is supported by the Community Law Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the BBC UK's Modern Slavery in-depth feature, which provides the following shocking statistics:

10 October 2006

Flat Earth Myth

Whilst reading the comments on one of Andrew Bolt's posts and came across an interesting link to an article entitled Myth of the Flat Earth by historian Jeffrey Russell.

Russell points out that claims that the Church Fathers believed or promoted the idea of a flat earth, particularly in opposition to Christopher Columbus, are absurd. He claims that most Christians since the 3rd century believed in a spherical Earth. The flat earth myth began in the 1830s in Paris. So why did this myth catch on?

“The answer is that the falsehood about the spherical earth became a colorful and unforgettable part of a larger falsehood: the falsehood of the eternal war between science (good) and religion (bad) throughout Western history. This vast web of falsehood was invented and propagated by the influential historian John Draper (1811-1882) and many prestigious followers, such as Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), the president of Cornell University, who made sure that the false account was perpetrated in texts, encyclopedias, and even allegedly serious scholarship, down to the present day. A lively current version of the lie can be found in Daniel Boorstin's The Discoverers, found in any bookshop or library.”
Given Pope Benedict's recent speech about the place for theology in the sciences, the false view that science and religion must be opposed is a common one. For my own part, when I found my faith in Christ, I did not lose my interest in science - but I came to see that science (as I understood it) did not trump faith, but supports and is informed by it.

[UPDATE: Interestingly Daniel Tammet comments on how a recent interview with Richard Dawkins showed the same sort of erroneous either/or thinking about science and religion.]

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