So I finally got to see 'Amazing Grace' last night. Many thoughts went through my head as I watched what is a good film - interesting, well made, true to the spirit of its chosen subject.
I thought of Chariots of Fire and how excited we were, but I was young then. It's still good to see a positive film about an evangelical Christian, however, even if they don't get it quite right (with him or with Newton - powerful but ultimately inaccurate portrayal). A lot of dramatic licence is used as in CoF (where the attractive hurdling nobleman is a pure figment of the imagination) - Amazing Grace to the familiar tune, the black gentleman he never met, etc. I think I understand why that is necessary better than I did in the past. Then there is the counterpart (a la Harold Abrahams) with Pitt and Thomas Clarkson, so we don't forget what good sorts humanists (moderate and extreme) are too. Scenes like the one where it is made clear how pro-American Wilberforce was and the gratuitous use of Scots guards playing the AG tune outside Westminster Abbey at the very end grated slightly but we need to live in the real world and at least when we talk about Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect people will have some idea of what we are talking about.
All the way through I couldn't help thinking about the abortion trade, the scandal of our own age. The parallels between the two have long been apparent to me. Seeing the valiant efforts they made and the constant defeats they knew and the sort of bedfellows one has to make to get anything done in Parliament was rather dispiriting in some ways but if God gave them victory in the end, surely we have hope too.
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