The C of E can’t acknowledge its real original sin

In the introduction to its new report on its 18th-century financial links with slavery, the Church of England invokes the concept of “Sankofa – looking back to move forward to a better future”. The Church Commissioners have set up a

£100 million fund not (as you might have thought from the headlines) to pay reparations, but to use its income to finance “impact investments” addressing the legacies of slavery.

Since modern Anglican parishes are so woefully deprived of money by the Church’s central and diocesan bureaucracies, the report has caused understandable ill feeling.

But I want to look at it in a different way and take the concept of Sankofa seriously. Sankofa – a word in the Twi language of Ghana – is traditionally symbolised by “a bird with its head turned backwards while its feet face forward carrying a precious egg in its mouth” (I quote Wikipedia). I cannot help laughing at this image when I think of the Church of England. I see before me all those lawn-sleeved bishops in the Lords looking backwards, yet moving forwards, their mouths stuffed with precious eggs. Yet it is actually rather an apt picture of how an ancient institution finds itself operating.

Let us get the bird of Sankofa to look back even further. What did the Church of England do in the Reformation? Most of its prelates played along with Henry VIII and his successors by letting the state in effect nationalise the Church, taking control of its buildings, money, appointments, doctrine and liturgy.

This process was rough. It involved dissolving monasteries, evicting monks and nuns, pinching treasure. In somewhat later times, it increasingly involved the destruction of sacred and beautiful objects. Church and state also persecuted those believers who disagreed with what was happening, preventing their worship. In the 16th and 17th centuries, about 600 Catholics died because of persecution in England. Thousands were menaced, dispossessed, attacked. All Catholics (and other non-anglican Christians) were deprived of civil rights until the 19th century. Even today, the one faith our monarch is forbidden by law to adopt is the Catholic one.

It is a generalisation, but not an unfair one, to say that the leaders of the Church of England at the time were almost always acquiescent in these persecutions. Some were zealous in advancing them. The clergy, especially senior clergy, also benefitted materially from them. The lands, palaces, parsonages and places of worship of the Church of England depended – and still, to a large extent, depend – on what, in other contexts, the modern Church calls “the structures of sin”.

Despite being a Catholic myself, I do not mind much. I recognise that my own Church was just as greedy and keen on persecution when it got the chance. I am so fond of the dear old

C of E that I even set up, and still chair, the Rectory Society to celebrate the wonderful clergy houses on which it often expended its ill-gotten gains. I would be completely opposed to reparations paid to Roman Catholics.

My point is this: when the Church of England investigates its connection with slavery, it undoubtedly addresses a great wrong, but not one which lay at the heart of its life and purpose. The Church’s involvement with slavery was scandalous, and yet almost accidental. This is not the case with the Reformation. In that period, the C of E established its power, wealth and national privilege by methods which were sometimes murderous and usually oppressive.

It would be interesting if it did a report on all that, but it won’t. Persecution of Christians by Christians is not a fashionable cause of guilt. Besides, such a report’s logic would remove almost the entire patrimony of the Church of England.

♦ Not so long ago, the idea that Nato allies would call for the unleashing of German tanks to fight on the continent of Europe would have frightened everyone. Not now. Anyone who wants to defeat Vladimir Putin’s invasion believes Ukraine should have large numbers of German Leopard 2 battle tanks to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces as soon as weather permits. Germany has made them and, in many cases, sold them to allies, but still dithers about letting them be used.

Given history, one can understand Berlin’s reluctance, but the present situation is the reverse of the past. In 1941, Germany invaded Russia and Ukraine. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Both were acts of aggressive war. “What do we want? German tanks? When do we want them? Now!” We must all get used to the slogan.

♦ A heated dispute continues about whether Prince Harry was right (morally, not factually) to announce he had killed 25 Taliban. Some say soldiers never get into the numbers game. They disapprove of him doing so. Others point out that citations for medals often enumerate how many of the enemy were killed. They defend the Prince’s revelation.

This conversation is at cross purposes. It is true that numbers are recorded and that, in some circumstances, the number of those killed in combat is used as a mark of individual valour. What is not true, however, is that servicemen are supposed to speak about their own tally, especially in public. This is to avoid boasting and the unpleasant attitudes to killing that go with it. It is by telling the world how many lives he ended that Harry erred, breaking the custom of his former comrades.