Holy Smoke: how the Church of England patronises African Christians

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🗓️ 15 March 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

In this episode of Holy Smoke, I'm joined by The Spectator's features editor William Moore, who asks in this week's issue of the magazine whether the Church of England is 'apologising for Christianity'. A report by the Oversight Group, set up by the Church Commissioners to make reparations for African slavery, not only wants to see unimaginable sums transferred to 'community groups' – its chair, the Bishop of Croydon, thinks a billion pounds would be appropriate – it also deplores the efforts of Christian missionaries to eradicate traditional religious practices. But, as Will's article points out, those traditional practices included idol-worship, twin infanticide and cannibalism. Are these part of the religious heritage that the C of E patronisingly wants African Christians to rediscover? Did missionaries and early converts to the faith who gave their lives for the faith die in vain?

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority.
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0:15.9	Go to spectator.com.uk.org.
0:18.8	Forward slash voucher.
0:31.3	Welcome to Holy Smack, the Spectator's Religion podcast.
0:33.3	I'm Damien Thompson.
0:46.9	And I'm joined today by William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor, who in an excellent article in this week's magazine, asks, is the Church of England going to apologise for Christianity?
0:54.7	As he says, a report by something called the Oversight Group has declared that the Church should say sorry publicly,
1:00.4	not just for profiting from the evils of slavery through investment in the South Sea Company,
1:07.6	but for, quote, seeking to destroy diverse African traditional religious belief systems.
1:13.1	And having apologised, it recommends the Church, quote, reach beyond theological institutions and enable all Africans to discover the varied belief systems and spiritual practices
1:20.6	of their forebears and their efficacy. Will you quite rightly draw attention in your article to the horrific nature of some of the
1:30.1	so-called spiritual practices that Church of England missionaries swept away, and I wonder if you
1:36.2	could just give me a quick rundown of what you discovered. Well, I suppose the first thing to say
1:41.9	is that there has not yet been an apology from the church.
1:47.2	This is part of recommendations put forward by this oversight group, who are an independent body.
1:53.7	However, the church commissioners, which is the investment arm of the Church of England, chaired, of course, by Justin Welby,
2:00.3	the church commissioners have warmly welcomed all of the Church of England, chaired, of course, by Justin Welby. The church commissioners have
2:01.6	warmly welcomed all of the report's recommendations, and they specify that includes, as they
2:07.3	put it, suggestions around truth-telling. So in other words, what you might call the spiritual
2:12.7	demands of the report, a lot of attention has been in the media about the financial demands, you know, raising
	...

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