Rev. Joe Weekly Blog Stuff

30th March 2024

Hello,

Some of you will have heard that the Church of England is planning to start a fund to show some kind of recompense for its involvement in the transatlantic chattel slave trade over the years. I have been surprised by the negativity about the idea from people who have commented on it to me, so I wanted to dig a little deeper. What are the ethics, what are the finances, what is behind the negativity, what does the Bible have to say about it? Alot to cover and, as in many things, once you poke the bear you sometimes get more than you bargained for. What follows are mullings, not catechisms.

The ethics - I would have thought these were fairly straightforward. If the Church of England has historically benefitted from the chattel slave trade then it needs to do something about it. The CofE issued an apology for its involvement in slavery in 2006 and again in 2023. The establishment of a fund is a gesture of making some kind of recompense. To quote from a 2006 Guardian article:

'When parliament voted compensation in 1833 - to former slave owners rather than the slaves themselves - the church received £8,823 8s 9d, about £500,000 in today's money, for the loss of slave labour on its Codrington plantation in Barbados. The contemporary Bishop of Exeter and his business associates received even more, nearly £13,000.'

Parallels to the goose and the gander seem appropriate to me here. Regardless of who else did what, therefore (and if you read Hugh Thomas' 'The Slave Trade' you get an idea of just how many different groups of people were involved), in terms of ethics I would say the case is clear.

The finances - according to the independent report for the Church Commissioners published last year, the Church investments (via the Queen Anne's Bounty fund) in the South Sea Company (part of whose business was chattel slave trading) were the modern equivalent of around £440 million. According to Professor Richard Dale in the Church Times last week, these investments don't really count, because a) they were made in annuities and not directly in the slave trade and b) the South Sea Company didn't actually make any money from the slave trade in the end (despite trying their best), so technincally the Church of England didn't benefit from it. I don't understand annuities but Professor Dale's argument seems to be the equivalent of investing in the (hypothetical) failed luxury ice-cream wing of a marine mineral extraction company and arguing that there are no ethical implications if the company fails to succeed. Or pacifists investing in the catering service for BAe Weapons System, on the basis that the chefs make pavlovas, not bombs.

Going back to the figures I don't know who is right and who is wrong but financial involvement in the slave trade would seem to require some kind of response which is more than, "sorry". To be fair, the Archbishop of Canterbury did describe it as "shameful" and "a sin".

Moving onto the proposed fund, the Church of England has committed £100 million over 9 years. It has been reported that his fund might expand to £1 billion but my understanding is that this is to be by encouraging other organisations to contribute to the fund rather than the Church Commissioners adding further to it. I have also heard concerns that the money will go to corrupt governments, wasteful charities and private companies who will make profit from the fund. How the fund will be managed does seem quite vague at the moment. My concern is that money will be thrown at a situation without the proper checks and balances, costs will grow to pay for employees to run the fund and it will end up as a messy hodge-podge. However, the Church Commissioners have set up an independent Oversight Group to decide how the money will be invested (in education, in y, in awareness, etc, etc). Looking at the make-up of the group (theologians, academics, financiers, social charity experts), you would hope they have the expertise to do it well. Reparations can take various forms, depending on the organisation and context but can include the following: affirmative action, individual monetary payments; settlements; scholarships and other educational schemes; systemic initiatives to offset injustices; acknowledgements of the injustices; the removal of monuments, naming a building after an enslaved person or someone connected with abolition (Wikipedia). According to Bishop Rosemary Mallett (who chairs the Oversight Group) the idea of the Church Commissioners fund is,

“a vision of bold investment in communities impacted by African chattel slavery”.

Time will tell on the effectiveness of the vision.

Negativity - from what I can make out, the negativity about the £100 million does not stem from racism (I need to acknowledge that possibility but it is not my experience so far). Rather, it stems from the actions of the Church of England during the COVID emergency. At that time many parishes were in financial difficulty but did not get much financial support from the central church. It has been left to the individual dioceses to mitigate this financial impact and find ways of removing COVID-related Common Fund arrears. The Diocese of Lichfield has been excellent in this. However, many churches went through a time of huge anxiety about how they would pay their way (and my experience is that most churches are committed to doing this) and some dug deep into their reserves. That anxiety is now anger as well, and the idea of the CofE hiving off £100 million when it failed to support its own parishes at a time of crisis is hard to fathom for some people. To put the finances into one kind of context, at the end of 2019 the Church Commissioners were managing an investment fund of £8.7 billion. In 2022 it was £10.3 billion. So, over the COVID years (due to good management) the investment fund actually increased. Annual total Common Fund (Parish Share) between 2011-2019 ranged between £909 million - £1.09 billion. You can do your own maths and project your own feelings onto those figures.

The Church of England has now committed to spending £3 billion in its parishes over the next 9 years.

I have run out of time and space to talk about what the Bible says about slavery. Maybe next time. What I will say, however, is that the lack of support over COVID and the feelings about that does not mean that the £100 million towards recompense for the Church of England's involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery is wrong. I believe it is right and we should work hard to make sure the two issues are not conflated. As ever, I am happy to be disagreed with.

Peace and prayers, Joe