Is the Church paying reparations on a false premise?

In January last year, the Church Commissioners, who run the Church of England’s investments, published a report into one of their main predecessors, Queen Anne’s Bounty. The report said the Bounty had invested the rough equivalent of £440 million today in the slave trade, via the South Sea Company, between 1720 and 1740.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said, “I am deeply sorry for these links”. In atonement, the Commissioners committed £100 million to a nine-year programme of “impact investment, research and engagement”. This decision was not universally acclaimed by ordinary Anglicans. Parishes are getting poorer. Many felt that any sums available should be spent on Christian ministry today rather than righting wrongs committed 300 years ago.  The top brass prevailed over the poor bloody infantry, however. The £100 million programme is going ahead. Money is also being spent on recruiting “racial justice” officers [see my columns of March 5 and 19] to preach to the heathen, better known as the man or woman in every pew in England, about “deconstructing whiteness”.  The report’s foreword spoke of the modern-day Church’s “commitment to truth-telling” to attain “Sankofa”, a Ghanaian word meaning “looking back to move forward to a better future”....