British Empire was un-Christian, says Archbishop

THE Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday condemned the British Empire and dismissed its legacy as ‘un-Christian’.

It was driven by a sense of superiority but was really based on ‘abuse and exploitation’, said the Most Reverend Justin Welby.

He accused Christians who served the empire of carrying out ‘many’ murderous atrocities and advised their modern successors ‘to take seriously the abuses of our history’.

His criticism amounts to a repudiation of much of the history of the Anglican Communion, of which he is the worldwide leader. The comments follow the Archbishop’s controversial expressions of regret in 2015 for British actions during World War Two.

On the 70th anniversary of the RAF attack on Dresden, he told worshippers in the German city of his ‘profound regret and deep sorrow’ over its destruction.

His latest remarks put him at odds with those in his church who believe the empire was a force for good as well as bad.

They include the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, second in the CofE hierarchy, who has praised the English culture in which he grew up in Uganda.

‘The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done,’ he has said.

Archbishop Welby warned Anglicans to be aware of their own history in a lecture on how to spread the Christian faith at Lambeth Palace.

He asked: ‘How are British Christians heard when we talk of the claims of Christ by diaspora communities who have experienced abuse and exploitation by an empire that has seemed to hold the Christian story at the heart of its project? The ideology underlying the British Empire was largely predicated on the superiority of the British. The Church often colluded with that, and it was a thoroughly un-Christian worldview.’

He cited the Amritsar massacre in April 1919 when a British officer ordered troops to fire on a crowd of Sikhs in the Indian city, killing as many as 1,000.

They died, he said, after ‘publicly and peaceably gathering to celebrate a local festival’.

The Archbishop continued: ‘The machine gun magazines emptied on innocent men, women and children have left indelible marks on the site of the massacre and on the consciousness of Indian Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims.

‘This atrocity, and so many others, were perpetrated by Christians and done in the name of Christian society. It’s not good news; it’s not of God; it’s not Christ-like.’

He also accused Christian evangelists in Africa of responsibility for large numbers of deaths in religious riots.

Archbishop Welby, who worked in the oil industry in West Africa in the 1980s, said ‘some time ago’ evangelists had ignored local advice to launch a ‘crusade’ in a mixed Christian and Muslim area.

‘Hundreds were killed in subsequent riots,’ he said. ‘The errors and sins of our past are part and parcel of our present.

‘We need to take seriously the abuses of our history and engage other faiths with humility and empathy.’

He added: ‘Our mandate to witness will otherwise be disowned by a younger generation much more attuned to necessary demands for respect and cultural diversity.’

As well as heading the CofE, the Archbishop leads the Anglican Communion of more than 70 million people worldwide whose allegiance springs from the history of empire.

‘Abuse and exploitation’