By Tom Campisi

   (EP News)--In 1789, William Wilberforce concluded his three-hour abolition debate in the Houses of Parliament by emphatically saying, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.”

   And 200 years after Wilberforce helped end the slave trade in Britian, he speaks to us as loudly and clearly as ever, according to Eric Metaxas. The New York City author’s latest book, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (Harper San Francisco), will be released on Feb. 6.

   The book will accompany the Amazing Grace movie, which opens in theaters nationwide on Feb. 23. The film—directed by Michael Apted (The World is Not Enough, Coal Miner's Daughter)—features Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down, The Fantastic Four) as Wilberforce and Albert Finney (Erin Brockovich) as John Newton, the former slave trader turned abolitionist who penned the “Amazing Grace” hymn. Romola Garai (Vanity Fair) plays Barbara Spooner, a “beautiful and headstrong” young woman who shares Wilberforce's passion for reform, and who becomes his wife after a whirlwind courtship. Amazing Grace is rated PG for thematic material involving slavery, and some mild language.

   The release of the film and the book coincides with the bicentennial celebration of Britain’s ban on the slave trade in 1807. In the introduction to his book, Metaxas reflects on the impilications of that victory: “It paved the way for all that followed, inspiring the other nations of the world to follow suit and opening the door to emancipation, which, amazingly, was achieved three days before Wilberforce died in 1833. He received the glorious news of his lifelong goal on his deathbed.”

   Metaxas is amazed that Wilberforce—whom he calls the greatest social reformer in history—is not a household name. So when Harper San Francisco approached him about writing a book to accompany the movie, he was honored for the chance to re-introduce the heroic Wilberforce into the American conscience.

   “I hope readers will see that a single person, completely given over to God’s purposes, can literally change the world,” said Metaxas. “It doesn’t make sense that a mere politician could have done what Wilberforce did.”

   While the movie focuses on the political battle to end slavery, Metaxas delves deeper into an exposition of the faith that made Wilberforce tick. The author said he sought to communicate the notion that helping the poor, or righting wrongs and fighting injustices, is an idea that comes not from us, but from God.

   “If you look throughout history, you see our natural, fallen human impulses lead us into to a brutal, selfish kind of Social Darwinism in which we treat those weaker than ourselves poorly, and think of their sufferings as “God’s will,” he said. “Slavery is just the tip of that grim iceberg. But in the Old and New Testaments, we see that we have a responsibility to end injustice and to help those weaker than ourselves, those who are suffering. Wilberforce fought to get 18th and 19th century British society to see that, and it was an absolutely brutal battle.”

   Metaxas is confident that Christians will find inspiration in the life of Wilberforce, not only because he helped end slavery, but because of his impact on society.

   “Not only did he lead the battle to end the slave trade and slavery itself, but he also brought the idea of loving your neighbor into the public and political spheres,” he said. “The idea that Wilberforce was able to wade into that cultural muck and over a few decades turn it into the veritable rose garden that we now know as the Victorian era is stunning. To use his own words, he made ‘goodness fashionable.’

   “Jesus turned him into a different human being and he was able to see things from God’s perspective. He was utterly devoted to the Lord and an amazing witness wherever he went. The Lord used him in such power. He speaks to our time. He was totally in the world, but not of it. That’s very rare today. Most Christians are not speaking into a sick culture.”

   Metaxas, the author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask) and 30 children’s books, is the founder and host of “Socrates in the City,” a monthly event that offers “entertaining and thought-provoking discussions on life, God, and other small topics.” He is a former writer for Chuck Colson’s BreakPoint Show and the VeggieTales children’s video and book series.

   Rev. Floyd Flake—the president of Wilberforce University, Senior Pastor of Allen AME Church in Queens, and a former congressman—called the Amazing Grace book “magnificent.”

   In the forward, he writes, “Metaxas’ work will stand as a living landmark … because it artfully captures the essence of a spiritual strength, moral clarity, human frailty, and divine purpose that dwelled among men at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This biography allows us to put in crystal clear focus the life of a man born to comfort but discomforted by the dire conditions of suffering people.”