Ben Lindsay is a Christian pastor (in London) and founder of the charity Power the Fight, which ‘trains and empowers communities to end youth violence.’

Ben is author of We Need To Talk About Race (SPCK, 2019), a book endorsed by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, as a ‘must-read’.  It is also recommended by the Church of England Evangelical Council.

Based on personal experience (of himself and others) and historical analysis, the book’s central thesis is that the UK church continues to be deeply affected by, and must take responsibility for, its historic racism.

There is a lot here that will give insight to how it feels to be a black person living in a white majority setting.

I was first alerted to some of the problems with this book by this article by Giles Udy, who finds it to be ‘deeply flawed’ in its treatment of history.

This is not to deny the existence of racism in the church, or the urgency of the need to deal with it.  But, as Udy points out,

‘the fact of the existence of racism in the church does not validate every diagnosis of its cause, nor every solution for its eradication.’

What, then, are some of the reasons that Lindsay’s book is an unreliable guide to racism in the British Church?

Use of personal anecdote

Much of the book is based on two kinds of reference to personal experience.

The first is a generalised reference to experience: “In my experience, I have found that…”  This constitutes a low level of evidence, and a tenuous way of building a case.

The second is a more specific reference to experience in the form of personal anecdote.  There is more here for the reader to go on.  To be sure, some of the stories he tells are egregious examples of inter-racial hatred.  Others, however, are questionable.

For his very first example, Lindsay recalls:

‘I was at a Christian conference a few years ago when a white church leader commented on my high top/Afro hairstyle asking, ‘Is that a basketball thing?’ Perhaps he was genuinely curious, but the highlighting of my difference and the implied assumptions surrounding the question – that all black men are into basketball (even though I don’t play basketball) – made me feel uncomfortable. Was I being oversensitive or was his comment racist?’

It is clear enough that Lindsay regards this as an instance of ‘racial micro aggression.’  His acknowledgement that he might have been ‘oversensitive’ is vitiated by his later comment that

‘If you are black, let me say to you: you’re not imagining the issues, you have not got a chip on your shoulder, you have the right to call things out and, when you do, you’re not being aggressive. Unmute your voice and prayerfully speak against racial injustice in your church context.’

I’m sorry, but this suggests to me a form of inverse racism – a possibility that Lindsay does not ever acknowledge, so far as I can see.

Some of the personal experience which Lindsay relates is so anecdotal and unspecific that it is impossible to evaluate it.  Here is an example:

‘The hope and optimism black people such as my grandparents felt coming to the UK was met with a barrage of hate from some white people. Whether that came from the police, politicians or the average white person on the street, black people struggled to be seen as equals. Getting good jobs, renting and buying homes and being treated fairly were all a struggle.’

This may form the basis for an informal conversation between two people, but not much more.

Lindsay relates a comment made by an adult at church who was Scottish:

‘I was ten and he took great pleasure in telling me that my surname – Lindsay (a Scottish name) – was not my own; it had been ‘given’ to me. Although I did not realize what this older white male was saying at the time, my mum explained that he was informing me my last name would have belonged to my ancestor’s slave master. My friend’s father had made the point loud and clear – I was not to associate my black self with his proud Scottish heritage. I did not appreciate the history lesson.’

But is the racist nature of the man’s comment quite so ‘loud and clear’ as is claimed?  Ben Lindsay has not explained why he and his mother did not suppose that the comment was not meant to be merely informative (‘Have you ever wondered why you have a Scottish surname?’), or, at worst, a bit clumsy.

All of this tends to undermine Lindsay’s generalisation that,

‘black people are experts in distinguishing between sincerity and artificiality on the topic of race.’

Lindsay reports a conversation with a black visitor at his church who tells him after the sermon

‘I was very nervous about walking into your church…There are too many white people here and I have a problem with white people. I have had bad experiences, specifically with white people in a church context… [But] I was blown away by your welcome and your sermon was on point. It actually made me realize that I have prejudices against white people. Will you help me?

Lindsay responds:

‘I was undone. In one conversation I saw what our church could be and how far we were from achieving it… I knew the type of church God wanted us to become: a racially diverse church that is not afraid to discuss issues which have the potential to expose racial disharmony and concerns that may have become barriers for people of colour experiencing Jesus and flourishing in church life.’

But, as Neil Shenvi. remarks, Lindsay is ignoring the woman’s own self-confessed prejudice:

‘While the woman herself recognizes that she is prejudiced and that his church helped her recognize that fact, Lindsay doesn’t focus on her prejudice but on the need for his church to talk more about “barriers for people of color.” While there is certainly room to learn more about this woman’s past and to talk about such barriers, I can’t help thinking that Linday’s reaction denies the woman agency and responsibility and even the opportunity to hear the gospel preached. Regardless of her experiences, she has allowed them to make her prejudiced and she needs to repent and embrace the multi-racial community found in the body of Christ, something that she herself recognizes.’

Udy says that the comment that first alerted him to the problems with Lindsay’s work was the following:

‘I remember an occasion in the 1980s when my mum had come home from her midweek prayer meeting. There had been a discussion about Nelson Mandela, who at the time was serving life in prison, accused of conspiring to overthrow South Africa’s apartheid rule (the system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991). That evening, a white church member had described Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and said he deserved to be locked up. That was a view shared by the then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher.’

As Udy remarks, this was not an unreasonable thing for a British person to say at the time, given the fact that Mandela had not renounced violence and that his wife Winnie advocated (and was possibly implicated in) the horrific practice of ‘necklacing’.

As for the claim that Margaret Thatcher regarded Mandela as a terrorist, Lindsay cites an article in The Independent newspaper as the source.  But this claim is discredited.  According to this piece by Martin Plaut in the New Statesman, in October 1987 a journalist asked her: ‘What response do you have to a reported ANC statement that they will target British firms in South Africa?’  (At this time the African National Congress was carrying out low-level attacks against the South African government, although not against British interests).

To the report that the ANC intended to target British companies, Thatcher responded, ‘This shows what a typical terrorist organisation it is.’  There was no mention of Mandela, only of an alleged threat from the ANC.  In fact, writes Plaut,

‘The archive reveals that Thatcher resisted the apartheid government’s requests that she crack down on the ANC in Britain, as well as deport the head of the ANC’s military wing, Joe Slovo, who was then living in London.

‘She also refused to supply new aircraft to the South African Airforce. Little surprise that Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, a founder of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, sent Thatcher a fulsome handwritten thank you letter, praising her stand.

‘As for Nelson Mandela, there is ample evidence that she believed he should be released by the South African authorities to participate in negotiations to end apartheid. Recently released papers in the National Archive show her making this point to Robert Mugabe on 1 October 1988. “We…continue to press for Mandela’s release,” she told the Zimbabwean leader.’

Historical roots of racism in the UK

Lindsay clearly takes the historical roots of racism in the UK very seriously.  He writes:

‘Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the truth about the role of black people and our part in history has been eradicated, hidden, distorted and misinterpreted – whether that be in the education system or within institutions like the Church. The historical and social forces underlying racism go very deep, and we need to understand them if we are going to uproot them.’

Given this conviction, it is incumbent upon Lindsay to treat the historical evidence with care.  As the following discussion will show, he too often treats it carelessly.

Conflating US and UK experiences of racism

Lindsay writes:

‘Speaking at the Q Ideas conference on race reparation, the Revd Duke Kwon argues that the Church can and should be engaging in the work of restoring and repairing historical racial hurts that have shaped and characterized the Church in the twenty-first century. He reminds Christians, “the Church was the moral cement for our structure of racism in our nation’ and ‘we have not yet fully reckoned with our Christian responsibility for the legacy of racism in our . . . society”.’

Udy responds:

‘This is a massive accusation. Ben never mentions that Kwon is American and was referring to America. This is a very serious error. British church members reading these words, endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other senior leaders, will believe them to be the truth about the British Church – on the basis of an American pastor’s contentious comment about the American church.’

Lindsay writes:

‘There is no doubt…that, historically, the concept of white supremacy has been woven into the fabric and structure of our society, which is to the detriment of black people and to the benefit of all white people.

He offers support for this in a footnote:

‘See the transatlantic slave trade, apartheid, Jim Crow laws, ‘The McPherson report’, hostile immigration laws, disproportionate incarceration rates in the UK and US and the UK ‘Race disparity audit’ for evidence.’

Noting that Lindsay’s book specifically aims to deal with racism in the UK church, Udy comments that

• ‘apartheid’ was a South African, not a British, phenomenon
• The ‘Jim Crow’ laws pertain to America, not the UK
• ‘The McPherson Report’ relates to the police and not to the UK as a whole
• The allegation of ‘hostile immigration laws’ would need to be support by argument, not used as evidence in an argument
• ‘disproportionate incarceration rates in the UK and in the U.S’ is, similarly, too broad and too complex an issue to be amenable to assertion without argument – and, in any case, introduces an American example in supposed support for a UK problem.
• ‘the UK “Race disparity audit”‘ provides no evidence of ‘white supremacy’.

A further problem with Lindsay’s discussion of ‘white supremacy’ is noted by Neil Shenvi. Lindsay produces an ‘iceberg’ model which includes ‘disproportionate unemployment rates’ and ‘eurocentric curriculum’ as examples of covert ‘white supremacy.’  But, as Shenvi remarks, it doesn’t make sense to link clear instances of racism, such as ‘racial slurs’ and ‘violent racist attacks’ with such complex and multifactorial phenomena:

‘A violent racist attack is a terrible sin. On the other hand, there can be many reasons for “disproportionate unemployment rates” that involve no moral breach due to, say, a lack of skills or education on the part of a particular immigrant group. Similarly, the idea that England, a country in Europe, should have a Eurocentric curriculum seems as unavoidable as China having a Sino-centric curriculum or Senegal having an Afro-centric curriculum. Certainly, every country should include lessons in world history which recognize that immigrants from various backgrounds are equal citizens whose contributions should be acknowledged. But redefining morally-charged words like “white supremacy” to refer to morally-neutral phenomena is not a way to encourage discussion.’

I think that Shenki is correct: the term ‘white supremacy’ is usually understood to refer to ‘the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them.’  Indeed, the ‘Acts and Omissions’ diagram on which Lindsay’s ‘Iceberg’ model is based does not refer to ‘white supremacy’ but to ‘racism’.  We can also certainly talk about ‘white privilege’; but to use ‘white supremacy’ in the way he does is unhelpfully inflammatory.

Lindsay’s intended focus on the church in the UK.  However, when he states that…

‘Christians will need to re-examine the stance of some of the most popular and influential biblical scholars. Whether it’s theologians with Donald Trumpesque views on immigration or others dismissing repentance and reparation for past racial injustices towards black people, we have to acknowledge that these views are harmful and help to maintain racist structures in the Church.’

…the two examples he gives are American (Wayne Grudem and John MacArthur).  This only becomes clear when one examines the footnotes.  In any case, I for one don’t appreciate being told, without explanation, why I ‘have to believe’ that certain views are ‘harmful and help to maintain racist structures in the Church.’  Grudem’s article defending the morality of a wall on the US border, may be wrong, but it is not self-evidently racist, given that he believes that the US should welcome even higher numbers of immigrants, only that they should be admitted legally and safely.

Assertion of African origins of civilisation (and of Christianity)

‘Knowing that civilization derived from the continent of Africa … it could be argued that everyone in the Bible is of African descent.’

Response: As Udy remarks, the general consensus is that civilisation began, not in Africa, but in Mesopotamia, with independent developments in China and Mexico.

Lindsay continues:

‘I believe that one of the main reasons Christianity is unappealing to some black people in the UK is that, throughout history – and today – black people have been consistently unmerited by the church. This is the same church that, ironically, came from Africa, was cultivated in African educational institutions and produced African theologians.’

It is simply mistaken to assert that Christianity ‘came from Africa’.  But Abraham and the patriarchs were not from Africa; neither were Christ and the apostles.

Lindsay says that it is ‘important to credit and recognize the African forerunners who have shaped what we know as Christianity today.’

Among those he names as ‘African scholars and theologians from the origins of Christianity Lindsay names ‘Clement of Athens (150-215 CE)’.  He means ‘Clement of Alexandria’ (‘of Athens’ is a rare, if not completely unattested epithet).  But, more importantly (in the light of Lindsay’s discussion) Clement was Greek,not African.

Lindsay also cites Augustine of Hippo as a key black African theologian.  He quotes Keith Augustus Burton (The Blessing of Africa, incorrectly cited by Lindsay as ‘The Blessings of Africa’):

‘This black African man, “born in Tagaste, Numidia and reared in Carthage is heralded by Catholics as the pre-eminent theologian of Christianity.”‘

Actually, this is an understatement.  Augustine is recognised by Catholics and Protestants alike as the foremost theologian of Christianity.  But, in that case, where is the abject neglect that Lindsay complains about?

Lindsay quotes Richard Reddie with approval:

‘Europeans doubtless refused to acknowledge the relevance of African Christianity as it appeared irreconcilable with the continent’s cultural surroundings.’

But African Christianity originated (and the African theologians mentioned by Lindsay lived and worked) in North Africa (dentred mainly on Alexandria and Carthage).  Culturally, these were more akin to the Mediterranean nations than to the bulk of the African continent.

I do not offer these criticisms out of any need to claim the ‘white’ is superior to ‘black’, or to push for a ‘Eurocentric’ view of Christianity.  I happen to think that we in the West ought to be much more aware of Christianity as a global faith.  But I find it a bit ironic that when Ben Lindsay urges that…

‘if the UK Church really wants to go beyond diversity and move towards inclusion, it must present a more accurate and expansive view of its history that is relevant to everyone’…

…his own case is riddled with inaccuracies and misleading assertions.

The UK church’s involvement in the slave trade

Central to Lindsay’s case is the idea that the UK church was complicit with, and involved in, the transatlantic slave trade.  He writes:

‘From the UK Church’s complicity in the transatlantic slave trade to the whitewashing of Christianity throughout history, the Church has a lot to answer for when it comes to race relations.’

Hmm.  Lindsay may be right, and he may be wrong.  There’s no way of telling, from reading his book.  This is because he presents no credible evidence for this assertion.  As the following notes will show, such ‘evidence’ that Lindsay provides is either not true or not relevant.

Lindsay thinks that the UK church has, at best, been a bystander:

‘So often, when it comes to matters of injustice, we fall somewhere on the spectrum of perpetrator, bystander or resister. Their point is that inaction is a form of collusion. Bonhoeffer decided early on, witnessing the evil ideology of Hitler, to be a resister. The question is this: as a white person, are you brave enough to engage with minority culture issues, stand with your black brothers and sisters and create spaces for them to be heard, included and integrated into the life of the Church? In Bonhoeffer’s time it was clear – the Nazi’s (sic) were the perpetrators and the Catholic Church was the bystander.’

Apart from being of no direct relevance to the question of racism in the UK church, this is, once again, historically inaccurate.  As Udy writes:

‘While some stayed silent for pragmatic reasons and others did support the Nazi party, Catholic clergy as a whole were brutally persecuted from the moment the Nazis gained power. Clergy, nuns and lay leaders were targeted following the Nazi takeover, often on trumped up charges of currency smuggling or “immorality”. Priests were watched closely and frequently denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps. From 1940, a dedicated Clergy Barracks had been established at Dachau concentration camp.’

Lindsay complains that the memory of black abolitionists has been suppressed.  He writes:

‘The 32 images of William Wilberforce in comparison to just 4 images of black abolitionists and anti-slavery activists displayed in the National Portrait Gallery in London tell their own story.’

For Lindsay, this ‘story’ is clearly one of neglect of the work of the black abolutionists.  But, again, this shows a profound insensitivity to historical context.  Udy responds:

‘It’s remarkable, given the very few black abolitionists that there were in Britain, that there are any [images]. This is a simply unsupportable accusation that shows no understanding of British 18th/early 19th century history. Portraiture was a luxury for the wealthy. Ben simply does not understand history, in this instance social history, and makes a potentially divisive statement based upon that lack of understanding. Portraiture was not the 1790s equivalent of press photography, which costs nothing today and is indeed a reflection of popular culture interest.’

To test the impact of black abolutionists (Udy suggests) we would need to consider the popularity of their written works, and that

‘Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) went through nine editions. Ottobah Cugoano’s Thoughts and sentiments on the evil and wicked traffic of the slavery went through at least three printings in 1787, was translated into French and was revised in a fourth edition four years later.’

UK industry and commerce funded from the proceeds of the slave trade

According to Lindsay,

‘The UK has and continues to benefit from slavery, whether it’s the innovation of the Industrial Revolution, which was a direct result of the wealth generated from the slave trade, or our current banking system, which can trace its roots to financing and insuring slave ships (the Bank of England, Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays to name a few). Even though the slave trade ended in 1833, the UK, through colonialism and neocolonialism still profited from countries impacted by slavery in the first place. From ordinary UK middle-class families to current well-known UK millionaires, there are scores of people who benefited from UK government compensation at the end of the slave trade, through inherited wealth.’

Udy responds by saying that the notion that the Industrial Revolution was driven by the proceeds of the salve trade is driven by ideology, not by historical evidence.  It was popularised by Marxists writers such as C. L. R. James (The Black Jacobins, 1938) and Eric Williams (Capitalism and Slavery, 1944).  But, writes Udy,

‘As long ago as the 1970s historians Roger Anstey (Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent at Canterbury, author of The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-1810) in England and Seymour Drescher (Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, author of Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition) convincingly refuted James and Williams but their assertions remain in popular thinking.’

For Lindsay, the UK church is deeply implicated in the transatlantic slave trade.  It should repent and make reparations for its historic and contemporary failings.

Lindsay writes:

‘The UK Church must also acknowledge the crucial and significant role it played in starting the barbaric transatlantic slave trade in the first place.’

‘It’s the propagation of slavery by the Church that receives minimal scrutiny in comparison to the contribution of the abolitionists…For every Anglican bishop who stood up against the atrocities of slavery, there were others who were complicit in keeping it going.’

As Udy remarks,

‘These are very grave accusations. Given that Lindsay demands their acceptance as essential if the church is to move forward towards racial harmony, they must be supported by the facts.’

One of the problems here is that Lindsay never defines what he means by ‘the Church’.  Does he implicate the Methodist Church, for example, whose founder, John Wesley, bitterly opposed the slave trade?  Does he include the Baptists, whose missionaries, along with the Methodists’,

‘worked tirelessly among slaves in the West Indies, treating slaves as equals, planting congregations and raising up Black leaders to head them. White Baptist and Methodist missionaries were persecuted by planters, had their churches burned down and in some cases were killed.’

Lindsay provides no evidence for his central thesis that the UK Church had a ‘crucial and significant’ role in ‘starting’ and ‘propagating’ the Atlantic slave trade.

According to Udy,

‘The sole involvement of the Anglican church in slavery was when its missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), was left a plantation [the Codrington plantation) in Barbados in 1711 in the will of a man who wanted to found an order of medical missionaries to alleviate the plight of slaves, funded by plantation profits. It was bound by the will to maintain the plantation and slaves. If it had closed the plantation down the slaves would have been seized by other planters. The SPG got excited by the prospect of being able to create a new more humane model of a slave-run plantation. But if ever there was a poisoned chalice, this was it. It was mistaken, morally questionable, and ultimately a failure.’

But even this failure, though indefensible, must be seen in its historical context.  For,

‘Until Christians in the third quarter of the 18th Century investigated and publicised the conditions in which slaves were transported and then held, virtually no one in England knew much of their plight. This was why the famous print of slaves stacked on the ‘Brookes’ slave ship (1787) created such a stir, was printed in thousands of copies, and was hung in inns and private houses throughout the country. People did not know what slave conditions were until then. They were appalled when they found out.’

Moreover, in terms of numbers, it should be noted that the Codrington plantation, at the time of emancipation, had 400 slaves out of a total of 83,000 in Barbados, and 750,000 throughout the West Indies.  On these figures, the Church of England can hardly be said to have had a central role in the slave trade.

Lindsay repeats the oft-heard accusation that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel branded its slaves.  This, too, is deeply misleading.  The truth is that

‘the SPG were absentee landlords and put local managers in place to run the plantation who did brand some slaves. This was discovered by the resident SPG chaplain who was utterly horrified and put an immediate stop to it.’

It is often said that C of E clergy benefitted financially from compensation when the slaves were emancipated.  This is true, but once again, the scale and context must be noted.  As Udy points out:

‘Fewer than 100 out of the 6500 [or more] Anglican clergy serving in 1833 received compensation for slaves at emancipation…47,000 compensation payments were made on emancipation. 97 payments were made to clergy (not all of whom were direct owners of slaves, in that some had inherited shares in plantations). Those 97 represent just 0.2% of the total.’

Although not mentioned by Lindsay (who suggests, without evidence, that more C of E bishops supported, than opposed, slavery), Udy notes the charge made in Synod in 2006 that the Bishop of Exeter ‘was paid for slaves he owned’ and that this has ‘ever since held up as the ‘smoking gun’ of wider CofE guilt.’

The claim continues to be cited in popular sources, as, for example, by Nigel Pocock and Victoria Cook:

‘Phillpotts and three business associates invested in slave plantations in Jamaica, and when slavery was abolished they were paid compensation for the loss of 665 slaves. A bishop personally owning slaves must have been a powerful legitimating tool for Caribbean interests in Britain.’

But, as Udy says, the claim

‘is totally without foundation. He was one of a number of executors of an aristocrat’s will, and had nothing to do with slavery (he even presented petitions to parliament for its abolition). It is deeply regrettable that the clergyman who raised was not better informed and that there has never been a retraction.’

The UCL ‘Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery’ agrees that this claim is unfounded:

‘Ever since Eric Williams discovered the bishop’s name in the compensation records, several authors have claimed that the bishop was a slave owner, but there is no evidence of this.’

In this paper, Peter Wingfield-Digby adds some detail:

‘Several respected writers in Devon have stated that, because the bishop’s name appears in the LBS database, he must have been a slave-owner. But this is not true. The compensation that he and three other people received in 1835 was in their role as executors and trustees of the will of a person who had died two years earlier. That person was John William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, who owned large industrial enterprises in the Midlands as well as three plantations in Jamaica. He had had a short spell as Foreign Secretary in 1827. Since he was unmarried, he had set up a comprehensive trusteeship in his will to look after his extensive estate after his death, so that the estate would pass to William Ward, his second cousin once removed, then aged only 16. It is most unlikely that any of the four executors would have benefited financially from this compensation payment. Also, I want to make it quite clear that, so far, no evidence has been found that the bishop ever owned slaves.’

Use of Biblical texts

Lindsay claims that ‘early Europeans’ appealed to biblical texts – particularly Genesis 9:24-27 (the so-called ‘curse of Ham’) – to underpin their idea that human bondage was divinely-instituted and of perpetual validity.  He writes:

On arriving in Africa, early European explorers looked to the Bible to find an explanation for the differences in ethnicity and culture they observed, having encountered the already established trans-Saharan slave trade, sanctioned by Islam. They concluded that the enslavement of Africans was a consequence of sin, with Genesis 9.24–27 a key text to hang this belief on…

Europeans took these verses and others to justify treating those from a different ethnicity (black people) in the most inhumane ways. First, ‘the curse of Ham’ gave license to white Europeans to teach that God had created the ‘institution of human bondage, and that this arrangement was to be perpetuated through all time’. Second, white Europeans argued that the curse singled out dark-skinned Africans ‘for perpetual service to the white race’.

Once again, Lindsay’s two footnotes, while giving the impression of validity, do not support this assertion.  Both point to the same page in Anthony B. Bradley’s 2010 work Liberating Black Theology: The Bible and Black Experience in America.  Bradley (who is himself quoting from Michael Cartwright) is not referring to ‘early European explorers’ at all, but rather to white clergymen in the Deep South, ‘especially after the American Civil War’.  It is possible that Lindsay has noticed that the relevant section in Bradley’s book is headed, ‘Objections to “Eurocentric” Conservative Hermeneutics’and has jumped to an entirely mistaken conclusion.

Curiously, Michael Taylor, in his much more scholarly robust work The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the the Abolition of Slavery states that

‘Indeed, for the Jamaican clergyman Cynric Williams, any inquiry into Christianity’s relationship with slavery could stop here: ‘Have they never read of the curses pronounced on Canaan?’ The Curse of Ham was also thought to justify the specific enslavement of Africans, who were regarded as the sons of Canaan. Although nothing in the Bible defined Ham’s progeny by their skin colour, certain genealogies traced Ham’s eldest son, Cush, to the Kingdom of Cush in ancient Ethiopia. The word “cush” also meant “black”.’

However, I do not know where the idea that Cynric Williams was a clergyman comes from.  According to the UCL’s Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery ‘Cynric R. Williams’ was possibly a pseudonym for ‘Charles White Williams’, 1769 – Feb 1832, a planter and owner of the Duckworth Plantation, Jamaica.

What is clear to me from Taylor’s work, however, is that it is quite misleading to think of the ‘church in the UK’ as a single and undivided entity.

‘The typical slaveholder was more likely to be conservative and Tory than liberal and Whig: as The Times reported of a West Indian meeting in 1833, there were few present who were ‘not generally staunch Tories, or who would not resolutely oppose the existing [Whig] Administration on any other given question’. That same slaveholder was more likely to be Anglican than a Dissenter: although many prominent abolitionists were evangelical members of the Church, Anglican slaveholders had been the backbone of the pro-slavery Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of Negro Slaves, and more than 150 clergymen were slaveholders themselves. For good reason, one historian has written about the ‘strong evidence of Anglicanism [which] runs through the compensation recipients’.’

But the simple fact is that almost everybody in the country subscribed at least nominally to the Christian faith (and, of course, Anglicanism was the established faith), and so both sides of the debate – pro-slavery and anti-slavery – sought to justify their approaches from the Bible.

It is difficult to see how any modern Christian can be expected to take responsibility for the activities of Anglican George Wilson Bridges or for the Colonial Church Union Society whose formation he had encouraged.  Taylor records that

In late January 1832, lusting for revenge against the alleged authors of the late rebellion, the Jamaican colonists founded the Colonial Church Union in the parish of St Ann. Electing James Hilton and Henry Cox as joint presidents, the CCU embraced two main principles: the ‘purest loyalty for the King’, and ‘attachment to the doctrines and tenets of the established Churches of England and Scotland’. According to its manifesto, the CCU would seek to “collect within the [Union] the whole strength of the island’ and ‘to preserve the remnant of property left to us, and to prevent this island becoming a second St Domingo”.

It is clear enough that the CCU was much less interested in ‘the doctrines and tenents of the established Churches of England and Scotland’ and much more interested protecting the property and profits of the plantation owners.  The CCU waged a ‘campaign of terror’ against missionaries who were suspected of fomenting rebellion.  Wesleyans, Baptists, and even Moravians (who were ambivalent towards slave-keeping) were attacked, along with their churches.  On many occasions, it was ‘the coloured friends of the missionaries’ who gave protection from violence.

With regard to the role of the UK in this matter, Udy states that he expended much time reviewing

’18th/early 19th Century SPG annual sermons, Christian tracts, and Bishops’ speeches in the House of Lords and nowhere (beyond a few exceptional and totally unrepresentative opponents of abolition in the late 18th Century)’ [without finding] any mention of the ‘curse of Ham’ thesis or sympathy with its core idea—quite the reverse.’

Quoting Richard Reddie (and following Black liberation theologians such as James Cone), Lindsay claims that

‘”Religion was also a driving force during slavery in the Americas. Once they arrived at their new locales the enslaved Africans were subjected to various processes to make them more compliant, and Christianity formed part of this” … minimal evangelism actually took place in the early days of slavery.’

The mention of ‘slavery in the Americas’ is much too broad-brush.  The only region which is relevant to British invovement in the slave trade is the Caribbean.  Here (writes Udy) the planters were deeply obstructive to Christian mission and missionaries.  ‘Minimal evangelism’ was certainly due in part to worldliness on the part of some of the clergy (a fact bemoaned back in England), but much more to the resistance of the planters.  According to Udy, it is fair to say that

‘in seeking to overcome planter hostility, clergy said that converted slaves were less likely to be involved in violent uprisings. They said this in order to gain more access to slaves. But this fact has got twisted into the opposite – the accusation that Christianity was used to suppress African resistance. It wasn’t.’

Lindsay appeals to Acts 6:1-7 and the appointment of the first deacons as an instance of the breaking down of power structures:

‘The Hebrew Jews were the dominant, majority culture, but it was the minority culture that was given authority and responsibility to lead and act in this area of distributing food to the widows. Majority power and control were relinquished. Racial hierarchies were being demolished. This is one of the key solutions to dealing with racial conflict and demonstrating radical solidarity in churches: dismantle existing power structures that cause inequality and injustice.’

But this is reading too much left-wing political theory into the text.  For, as Shenvi remarks:

‘Although the apostles did appoint Hellenistic deacons to care for the Hellenistic widows who were being overlooked, this action was not about “power dynamics” or “racial hierarchies.” All of the apostles were Hebraic Jews and, even after this incident, they felt no need to “disrupt their cultural hegemony” and “center Hellenistic Christians” by appointing Hellenistic apostles.’

None of the above is to claim that the UK as a whole, and parts of the UK church in particular, is without fault in this regard.  But it is vital that accusations of racism and of involvement in the slave trade be supported by solid historical evidence.  If an appeal is made to history, then the appeal must be backed up by strong evidence and coherent argumentation.