As terrible facts emerge about its level of complicity, we expect a just and humane response – but have yet to receive one
As part of the increasingly urgent debate about slavery and its legacy, a troubling question arises: how much can we trust the church?
Because the recent revelation that Thomas Secker, the 18th-century archbishop of Canterbury, approved payments for the purchase of enslaved Africans on two Barbadian sugar plantations raises serious issues about the integrity and capability of the reparative justice initiatives of the Church of England and the United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG), the Anglican mission agency that supports churches around the world.