Church has gone mad with guilt over reparations
‘Don’t embroil the rest of society in your self-flagellation’
ON ONE hand pleading poverty and seeking donations, on the other amassing a billionpound reparations war chest to atone for mistakes that occurred hundreds of years ago, the Church of England has gone mad with middle-class guilt.
Having already announced a £100million fund towards slavery reparations, a report this week insisted this was not nearly enough and demanded 10 times as much. This enormous sum has angered many clergy and their congregations, who have penny-pinched in order to repair and maintain historic churches. Such profligacy sits ill with financially struggling clergy and worshippers – given that congregations and the influence of the CoE are both in decline.
Reverend Ian Paul of the Archbishops’ Council believes it is putting out the wrong message. “Why would ordinary churchgoers continue to give to their local church when it appears we have these vast sums to throw around?” says Rev Dr Paul. “Whoever commissioned this report appears to have a death wish for the Church of England.”
Not least of all when the CoE is clearly in the middle of an existential crisis.
BETWEEN 2009 and 2019, average weekly church attendance fell by 228,000, before less than half of Britons identified as Christians in the 2021 census – a fall of 13 per cent over 10 years.The fall in attendance was exacerbated by Covid-19, with many churches kept closed.
In contrast, Islam and other religions have recorded a rise in numbers, thanks in part to mass migration. A recent report claimed a further decline in church attendance, of a quarter since 2019, could in fact be put down to a cut in the number of services. “Attendance has been lost through reduced service numbers but can be gained through starting new services and congregations,” said the Diocese of Oxford report.
The central thesis of reparations is that white majority countries owe money to ethnic minorities as their ancestors may have enslaved others or benefited from a slave economy. Yet the great evil of slavery was practised by all inhabited continents and all races.
Shouldn’t the CoE instead be spending any spare money it has on increasing the provision of its services, not redressing some long past crime?
The entirety of Georgian Britain benefited from the slave trade – undoubtedly a wicked business – but does that mean we should all be taxed for past misdeeds?
Should the glories of Georgian architecture be laid waste to appease a noisy leftwing minority who see racism in every aspect of our history?
I don’t see our government pressuring France for reparations over the Napoleonic Wars that first saw the imposition of income tax in 1798 to raise funds for our national defence. Even our industrial revolution has been damned for its supposed contribution to climate change and eco zealots are demanding reparations for that.
But they conveniently forget it was the ingenuity of that seismic period of history that raised the prosperity and lifespan of working people way beyond anything they had experienced before. And it brought benefits to the rest of the world through global trade and development.
Bad things happened in the past, but frequently better things came out of them. Britain abolished slavery before many other nations and the Royal Navy enforced the abolition at the loss of 1,600 sailors in order to free 150,000 Africans. And yet there is a vogue now, mainly among the left-leaning, affluent white middle class, to beat your breast in apology for centuries old misdeeds.
It is virtue- signalling of the most abject kind, combining hatred of oneself and one’s past with seeking absolution by throwing money at the perceived guilt. That’s fine if the money is yours to give away, but don’t embroil the rest of society in your self-flagellation because many working people do not share the sense of guilt.
The CoE above all should be more careful because the cruel reality is it might not be in its privileged position much longer.
EVEN Prince William has been said to show less interest in taking on his father’s mantle of Defender of the Faith. And that would be a pity, as the Protestant Church of England has much to be proud of in the cultural fabric of our country.
It should spend its efforts and money on maintaining that legacy, rather than embracing woke causes that could well cost it support in the wider community.
After all, fads pass, culture endures.