March 5, 2024 - 10:00am
Once again, reparations for slavery are in the news, with the Church of England stating its desire to create a £1 billion fund for the purpose.
The typical discourse around these kind of proposals is endlessly frustrating. For example, it is often stated explicitly or assumed implicitly that British national prosperity was “built on slavery”. This is flatly untrue: Britain was a wealthy country well before the transatlantic slave trade and continued to be one long after we had entirely banned slavery throughout the Empire, at no small cost to ourselves. Even at its height, slavery was a relatively small component of the British economy. The economic power that underpinned our time as global hegemon was largely the result not of dark deeds or plunder, but of our innovative, free and dynamic economy and political stability.
When the proposals come from the C of E, there is an added source of frustration, which is that there often seems to be very little specifically Christian reflection on how believers might think through matters of racial reconciliation. With slavery reparations, as with other matters, there is a distinct whiff of the Church leaping on board a passing secular bandwagon in the search for relevance and respectability.
Similarly, it was reported that something called the West Midlands Regional Racial Justice Initiative — a Church initiative — was seeking an Anti-Racism Practice Office (Deconstructing Whiteness). The idea that there exists some dark socio-political force called “whiteness”, which must be “deconstructed” to achieve racial justice, is for all intents and purposes a conspiracy theory. Defenders of the idea insist that hostility to whiteness does not mean hostility to Europeans, but instead against the forces of patriarchy, racial discrimination and unjust authority.
It’s hard to see how this makes things any better, however. Explicitly associating one ethnic group with systematic wickedness is deeply wrong and a recipe for unrest and antagonism. It is particularly grim coming from Christians, who ought to be in the business of promoting racial harmony, not crank theories about how all the problems of society are the fault of a certain group.
It’s all the more strange because there is simply no need for churches to import academic fads in this way. We have our own long and sophisticated history on which to draw, starting with the book of Galatians in the New Testament: “There is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
From its very earliest days, Christianity was notable for its lack of concern about ethnic boundaries and for its insistence that every human was equally in need of God’s mercy. Christian thinkers did come to confront what we would now call structural injustice, but this was done with subtlety and care and attention to the detailed requirements of justice. The crude and sweeping claims made by modern advocates of reparations are quite alien to this thoughtful tradition.
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SubscribeAre these the kind of businesses that need grants to buy mansions in California for ‘creative work’?
The Church of England is determined to become a complete irrelevance – and they seem to be progressing well towards their goal.
Thank God (no pun intended) I was never christened, I’d be high-tailing it out of that organisation faster than you can say “pew”.
When an organisation has reached the end of its useful life, when its leadership clearly no longer believe in its mandate, or its original purpose is no longer relevant, the ethical thing for the organisation to do is to dissolve itself, and return its assets to its owners. But when organisations have substantial legacy assets and lucrative or prestigious management positions, this hardly ever happens. Control of assets, and progression of the careers of senior management, becomes the organisation’s raison d’être, not the original mandate. So it is with the Church of England. Clearly most bishops no longer believe in any of it. But it is the state church, and its property, financial and educational assets should be returned to the State, which could do with the money.
You have just described activism, where the goal is never to eliminate whatever the problem is but to perpetuate it. A solution means the grift is over.
They can do what they like with their own money.
It is not strictly all “their own money”. I believe the C of E has special (preferential) tax arrangements for its staff. When they are fully weaned off any state subsidies/benefits, then I might agree.
You might add that donations to the Church attracts gift aid so providing a 25% uplift to the Church from other tax payers and an extra benefit to 40% + taxpayers. So all of us are involuntarily contributing to this exercise in virtue signalling and racially motivated redistribution.
I know what you mean, but it always seems odd that allowing us to give away a bit of our own money, is seen as a tax advantage!
I don’t know of any such arrangements, I believe religious persons are bilked of their money just like the rest of us.
Is anyone who’s calling for the church to return to its Christian roots asking why it has a billion pounds to invest in the first place?
Church of England parishioners send £300M, from collections and fund-raising, to the Dioceses each year. This is known as the Parish Share. Without these funds, the C of E would go bankrupt in time.
Individual parishes have recently stopped sending their Parish Share in disgust with the antics of these bishops and church commissioners. So far this has been limited to be the evangelical churches who are dismayed by the Living in Love and Faith decisions (the blessing of gay marriages).
But if this was to spread to mainstream churches – whose congregations are generally pretty conservative – we could rid ourselves of these turbulent priests, change the direction of the church from woke nonsense to Christian orthodoxy and traditional values and start rebuilding the reputation of the church before it is too late. Unfortunately, converting grumbling into action is notoriously difficult, especially among older congregants who understandably don’t relish being drawn into controversial matters.
I often wonder what would happen if enough motivated, anti-woke, Traditionalist types were to start attending weekly services in specific, well-selected churches. Given the falling numbers of weekly worshipers, a few thousand new people, if they had a plan, could probably tip the balance and provide a substantial counterbalance to the woke clergy. They might even be able to wrest control of the General Synod off the liberals. And that might save the C of E.
That thought experiment is already playing out across the world. The evangelical churches are the ones who have to split and rebuild (with no claim on the assets), while the withered remains of the progressive institution slowly dies, allowing its administrators to then fully focus on property development and funds management, all with the aim of providing financial support to whatever half-baked progressive missional activities their bubble wrapped bishops can dream up in between streaming Sunday services to seven octogenarian parishioners who can’t work out how to turn the volume up, eventually realising it doesn’t make all that much difference anyway.
This is very, very accurate
If only the Church of England had a book to guide them on such matters…
Ezekial. The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent
Deuteronomy. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
The Bible is quite clear. Man should not engage in collective punishment. Man should not visit the sins of the fathers on the sons.
The Church of England amassed a tiny fraction of its wealth from slavery. A far greater slice of wealth was created first on the back of serfs and peasants and later from the toil of industrial workers. At the zenith of the Church of England, my family not only didn’t have a vote, they were compelled to work from literally toddlers in conditions that would kill them before their 34th birthdays with the dividends of their labour in part paid to the Church of England. It is hard to see 180 years later what the privilege is and was to be born white and poor in Middlesbrough.
Almost all of us can have a grudge with the past. Not wanting to sound like an old Marxist, but if there is a collective grudge it is not united by skin colour but by class. And frankly, that is something a former executive of BP and son of Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne wants us all to ignore with stunts like his reparation plan.
Totally !
I was reminded of a Thomas Sowell quote earlier this morning:
“Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?”
This is quite literally what morons like Welby are asking for.
Disestablish now. Strip all the assets and distribute to UK citizens. Turf the troughers like Welby out of their palaces and their sinecures in the House of Lords.
At the risk of a life ban from UnHerd, I’d like to sing a hymn for Justin…
——–
All things woke and terrible
All protests big and small
All groups left and horrible
Welby supports them all.
——–
Each statue toppled over
Each car they won’t let start
He loves the rainbow colours
Thrown over works of art
——–
From drag queens grooming children
To men in women’s sports
He thinks we should all praise them
If not, we’ll be in court
——–
All things woke and terrible
All protests big and small
All groups left and horrible
Welby supports them all.
——–
Each lying foreign gangster
He says we must let in
But ask ‘bout Lambeth Palace
There’s no room at the inn
——–
He pledged one hundred million
For sins we must redeem
But now they want a billion
For their giant Ponzi scheme
——–
All scams woke and terrible
Are scams that Welby chose
But ask him who is going to pay
He just replies “God knows!”
I entirely agree. But in all fairness, we should remember that he stood in solidarity with the Chief Rabbi, when he asked the British people to think very carefully how they cast their votes in the 2019 election. For that one action, there are a lot of people on the far left who will never forgive Mirvis and Welby.
Come to think of it, it may help to explain why we are seeing such vicious antisemitism from the left these days. “Spoil our party, would you? Right, time to put the boot in…”
Brava!
You should get a free lifetime subscription for that. So many of us prefer the comments to the articles.
Made my evening, that! :0)
This is a Perfect summation of Welby and the current crop of bishops that run (ruin) the C of E
Welby is a `vicar of Christ’ in name only. He’s coming at the C of E from a business perspective rather than a spiritual. Has he read the Bible? Possibly. Does he understand the Bible or the teachings of Christ, very doubtful. He’s more interested in getting a high DEI/ESG score than administering to his rapidly diminishing flock.
Would be an intriguing experiment to advertise for a ‘Deconstructing Blackness Officer’ given that the Anglican Communion is 80% black.
Isn’t it time to let the Anglican communion in Africa secede from the CofE ? Then he wouldn’t have to bribe the Bishops in Africa to shut up about gay vicars here in England .
One hopes that the next Archb of Canterbury will be a charismatic figure from the Anglican African Communium. That would change things for the better. Starting by sending the Archb of York to Rwanda
This is basically on the verge of happening as it is. A dozen Archbishops from the so-called Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches basically said that those churches are in the throes of moving away from the mother church in England over the blessings of same sex marriages. As they said last year:
“As the Church of England has departed from the historic faith passed down from the Apostles by this innovation in the liturgies of the Church and her pastoral practice (contravening her own Canon A5), she has disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic “Mother” Church.
Indeed, the Church of England has chosen to break communion with those provinces who remain faithful to the historic biblical faith expressed in the Anglican formularies (the 39 Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal and the Book of Homilies) and applied to the matter of marriage and sexuality in Lambeth Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.”
When you rise high in any organisation it is tempting to use the assets within your control to win the good opinion of your peers in your circle by dispensing funds within your grasp to “deserving causes”.
The plan has nothing to do with Christianity which does not seek to penalise one group for the sins of another. Virtue signalling was something that Christ rebuked the Pharisees from engaging in. Unfortunately the C of E has been taken over by the Pharisees and the teaching of Christ no longer prevails.
Exactly! Very well put.
An excellent article!
Excellent article; many valid points.
As the head of the official state church, I wonder if there’s some sort of “recall petition” mechanism we could initiate here ? I assume we are all, by default, members of the state church and entitled to express a view.
It’s frustrating enough to be able to publish in mainstream media abroad but not at home here in the UK where I live because of the crazy closed shop that is the British media. To the shame of UnHerd, they are just like the rest. But what really boils my piss is the deletion of polite, factual comments by me and others. Many pay for the privilege to read above the line *and* write below the line.
Slavery is widely practiced today in Africa, India, China, and the Arab States and everyone just shrugs or turns a blind eye. It’s cultural, don’t you know.
Christians in Great Britain and America ended it two centuries ago. The price was paid.
The largest slave trade of all was from Europe to the Mediterranean and Middle East, especially of Slavs taken down the Danube, but even seized from Britain most notably from the West Country and South Wales. North African slavers even kept a base on an island in the Bristol Channel till finally driven out by the Royal Navy. Most countries round the Med had an insatiable appetite for galley slaves.
It’s surely Welby trying to stay in control of his personal Empire comprising the church of England in England and its branch in Africa .The African bishops were in revolt untill recently because of moves to allow gay vicars and bishops and to permit gays to marry in church etc . Africa is culturally homophobic .
The billion pound pay out and doubling down on anti – racist identity politics is surely just a bribe to get the African part of the church to go quiet on homosexuality . If he is SO very much against historical injustice why not let the African C of E go their own way ? Why does he insist on clinging on to his little empire .
All attempts to persuade the Africans have failed for the last 20-odd years.
Good for the Africans.
Oh, that is an interesting angle on it. Hmm, hadn’t occurred to me.
Honestly, if the motivation was some sort of Machiavellian scheme to dole out the filthy lucre to maintain Church unity I’d be more comfortable. I fear it really is just wooly-minded virtue signaling though, which shall result in a lot of money being pissed away.
First class; says it all and in brevity!
When can we rightfully seek reparations from those on the selling end of the Atlantic slave trade? Or would that mean we have to “deconstruct blackness”?
Every transaction involves a seller as well as a buyer. Africans willingly sold other Africans into bondage. This was not the first occurrence of this act, nor was it the last. Slavery remains in some parts of the world, but no one wants to talk about that. Instead, we have nonsense like this.
Aren’t these criticisms of the transatlantic slave trade transatlanticphobic?
I’m reminded of the buying and selling of “indulgencies” during the late medieval period by the established church, the practise of which led towards a recognition of falsehood and absurdity, and the Reformation.
The use of funds to try to expiate “guilt” is simply iniquitous and a sign of degeneracy.
One of the pre-Reformation practices was the establishment of a Chantry for the atonement for sins . A fund was established for a priest to regularly perform masses and liturgical chants for the benefit of the departed sinners.
Perhaps the Church could re-establish the Chantry system enabling the sins of long dead slave owners to be atoned and salving the conscience of their descendants in melodious form thereby restoring liturgical music and enriching the life of the Church and making use of empty churches.
Much better than trying to determine who might legitimately have been disadvantaged as a result of the ancient ills of the slave trade. Many of the descendants of slaves are likely to be much better off in former colonies than if their ancestors had remained in their original homeland among their original enslavers.
“Defenders of the idea insist that hostility to whiteness does not mean hostility to Europeans, but instead against the forces of patriarchy, racial discrimination and unjust authority. ”
Try making a similarly vague association between “blackness” and a few negative attitudes or values, and see how far you get before facing the modern equivalent of excommunication.
This nonsense is absolutely demented.
My catholic ancestors in Ireland had to pay the tithe to the British church for centuries. These were starving peasants and the money was extracted often at the point of a gun. WHERE’S MY REPARATIONS, JUSTIN?
Good point, but just like paying reparations to black businessmen paying to random Irishmen because of the sins of some Englishmen long ago would be equally daft. I live in England but have Irish ancestors who supported the set up by serving in the Army and also a Catholic Bishop and Catholic tenants. Should I be paying myself reparations for the actions of some of my ancestors to the disadvantage of others. It makes no sense.
In fact, didn’t everyone in the Middle Ages pay tithes (10%) to the Church under the prevailing exortion racket at that time ?
It’s almost like every single corporation and public institution is now led by a false aristocracy, members of which are fearful that should they in any way question the current secular dogma, they will forever lose their ridiculously high salaries and be forced to mingle with the common people.
In the US, slavery was a failed commercial model. During the last half of the 19th century, farming was transitioning to mechanized cotton harvesting and the North was building a lucrative industrial base. Southern slavers were left behind and the institution would likely have imploded without the civil war because it wasn’t a viable model.
The Church of England might consider setting aside a few hundred dollars to combat modern slavery.
If there any Church of England followers reading, please try to comprehend the consequences of your Fall and how we feel about you now. First you meekly locked the doors of churches at the behest of deranged NHS First progressives. A betrayal. Now it appears that you have bowed the knee in every regard to the ugly totalitarianism of the modern progressive credo, and the stench of your nasty and hysterical reverse racism is overwhelming. I will not set foot in your church ever again. And I know I far from alone. Give up. Shut up. You have made yourselves wholly irrelevant to true christian life here.
Are we sure that somewhere down the road the C of E did not turn into a West End production? The creation of a 1 billion GBP fund (with co-investors) by a religious institution sounds like a twisted joke. The gilded frocks, the smells and bells, they all contribute to a theatrical atmosphere.
I’m beyond caring what the CofE does – ever since I was expelled from Sunday school! – but I do have one concern: where is the £1B coming from? If it doesn’t go anywhere near my wage-packet or pocket, then, as you were, I can go back to not caring. [Edit to add, I’ve just read the comment about Gift Aid, so now now I’m back to caring.]
Defenders of the idea insist that hostility to whiteness does not mean hostility to Europeans
Imagine trying to claim that hostility to blackness does not mean hostility to Africans.
A good many blacks in South Africa wish the country could return to the old days of white rule because there was law and order and things worked back then.
Instead of making disciples and passing on the Gospel, progressives engage in performative righteousness. It requires no carrying crosses and makes you popularish with the progressive elites.