"One of the most important and least known facts about the battle to abolish the slave trade in Britain two hundred years ago is that it was sustained by a passion for the doctrine of justification by faith alone - which is at the center of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Wilberforce saw mankind could, in no way, glory in their race to feel justified nor superior to another person, let alone another race or culture. He saw that the only thing which truly frees mankind, the only thing that truly sets us at peace and gives us that justification we're looking for is faith in Jesus Christ and because he saw this, he saw how vile, repellant, and evil was the slave trade.
Speaking of those who approved of the slave trade in his day Wilberforce said,
"They consider not that Christianity is a scheme 'for justifying the ungodly' by Christ's dying for them 'when yet sinners' - a scheme for 'reconciling us to God' - when enemies; and for making the fruits of holiness the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled."*
The purest motivation then, for an end to racism, is to see that men are not made right by contrasting themselves from others but by seeing how short we all fall when compared to God's holiness, by throwing ourselves at his mercy, trusting the sacrificial grace of His Son, and finding our hearts and affections renewed by this scandalous grace.
*William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, ed. Kevin Charles Belmonte (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996).
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