by Ian Paul, Psephizo
Profession Richard Dale writes: KICKING IN THE CATHEDRAL DOOR
How the Church Commissioners relied on bogus history to denounce their predecessors and vilify their own Church
It is over three years since the Church Commissioners published their controversial report on the Church’s links to the slave trade. Since then critics have challenged the Commissioners’ historical research while both the Church Commissioners and their historical advisers have published their separate responses to such criticism. However, in the light of recent academic research it is now clear beyond doubt that the Commissioners’ historical analysis is deeply flawed and their conclusions mistaken. The Commissioners therefore have a moral responsibility to withdraw their report and correct the record before a false historical narrative, to which they have lent their full authority, becomes further embedded in Google, AI and in schools and colleges throughout the world.
In February 2021 the accountants, Grant Thornton, were instructed by the Church Commissioners to review the ledgers of Queen Anne’s Bounty to “determine the extent to which the origins of the Endowment Fund may have been derived from the profits of the slave trade.”
Grant Thornton’s verdict was devastating: