The ideological error of Welby’s £100 million slavery fund

Jan 14, 2023 by Jill

by Gavin Ashenden, Catholic Herald:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has dipped into the back pockets of the Church of England where the Church Commissioners keep their spare cash.

They manage an investment fund for the C of E of £10 billion made up of historic assets. They have agreed to give Mr Welby £100,000,000 to compensate the descendants of black people for having been enslaved six to 10 generations ago. Part of the justification for this is the recognition that some investments in the 18th Century accrued benefit from profits made from a number of sources but including the slave trade.

This raises some serious and interesting questions. However Justin Welby shows little interest in them. But if he does not, other members of his church do.

The redoubtable Rev. Marcus Walker, founder of the movement Save the Parish, has commented: “Suddenly, the Church has money. After decades of telling us there is no money to fund churches and ministers who keep the church alive on the front line, suddenly they have found £100 million behind the back of the sofa.”

It is an internal matter of church governance for the Archbishop to explain to the Rev. Walker why by prioritising his sense of historic complicity in the slave trade, he can find £100 million pounds to assuage his historical grief while ignoring the needs of his parishes. But whatever the justification it pays no attention to many other factors that some might consider had relevance. Does no credit accrue for having freed the slaves? It was the evangelicals in the Church of England (known as Wilberforce’s Clapham Sect) who did so much to triumphantly abolish slavery. Does this institutional self-deprivation have no financial implications to set alongside earlier profits? If not, why not?

It ignores too the financing of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. To pay for the ending of slavery, the government of the day borrowed £20 million to buy the freedom of those currently enslaved (multiply by 100 for today’s worth). This was a national loan that we funded by our taxes. In fact we only finished paying off in 2015. How many times over should citizens over the last 190 years be paying for the activity of their ancestors?

It also ignores the historical fact that it was largely Africans selling other Africans into slavery that fed the unspeakably cruel slave trade in the first place. Why are they exempt from any moral or financial calculation if such calculations are being constructed?

But the theological and philosophical questions are more interesting.

Read here

Watch: Should the Church of England repent for its links to the slave trade with Gavin Ashenden

and Revd Marcus Walker warned people will be put off donating to the Church, G B News