For one reason or another, I’ve been thinking about the idea of reparations for some time over the last year.
I’m one of the chaplains at the University of Glasgow and it made me think a bit when the University started to implement concrete policies in recent times by way of trying to make reparations for actions that were taken long ago in the past.
Like many institutions in Glasgow, including many of the churches, the University benefited from the slave trade and has embarked on a programme of reparations to acknowledge that its current existence was built on something that was evil. There’s various partnerships with University institutions in the West Indies and attempts to research the history of the local involvement in the trade alongside innovative ways of telling the stories that for so long have gone untold. This means that money is changing hands – the University is aiming to use £20 million of its resources in connection with this. It is about money but it isn’t just about money – it is about relationships too. And it is fundamentally about facing the fact that something very wrong was done.
More recently, whilst I’ve been on sabbatical, I’ve been spending time in the American South. In particular, I’ve been a guest of the Virginia Theological Seminary and again, a reparations programme is underway.
It does focus the mind to be a guest in a place where enslaved people actually built some of the buildings.
Part of the telling of these stories in Virginia has meant researching as much as can be known about these people.
Although this might seem a very long way from Scotland, the stories uncovered by researching the history bring us together. There are personal stories of people who are long dead being owned and exploited by Scots traders. And there are people around who are the descendants of liaisons between such traders and the people whom they owned. Indeed, one such is a seminarian in the place that I’ve been staying and I was much moved to learn that his ancestor came from Port Glasgow.
All of which means that I’ve been thinking about slavery and reparations rather a lot.
For the question of reparations is one that churches ought to have something to say about. If the story of Zacchaeus in the bible means anything, it means that taking steps to make reparations, is part of who we are.
I think that Scotland is very far from coming to terms with its past in this area. Glasgow in particular still has much work to do.
When I was a child I was taught that Glasgow’s fortune was built on tobacco and we were taught as 10 year olds about the riches and wealth of the Tobacco Lords.
And no-one mentioned the S word at all.
I’ve no doubt that my experience in the USA recently is going to keep needling away at me when I return to Scotland for a long time.
But it has me thinking about other injustices too and asking whether we should be talking about reparations for other crimes.
And I find myself asking in particular, should we be talking about the church making reparations for its actions against LGBT people?
One of the tragedies of reparations in connection to the slave trade is that they are being made so long after the events that no-one who was actually enslaved themselves is around to hear the apologies and to learn of attempts to face this horror. What can be done to those who are descended from those people should be done. But the fact that it has taken so long to try to face such things is part of the crime.
Most people that I know in the church could point towards people who were victims of the church’s disordered attitudes towards LGBT people. I can easily think of people whose relationships have been spoiled, who have lost their homes and livings and who have suffered mental health breakdown. And that is to say nothing of those whose personal faith in all that is holy, has been ruined.
I can think of particular dioceses where particular bishops had policies that were particularly cruel. One such diocese in the C of E comes particularly to mind but I’m aware that the stories that I know will just be part of a much bigger picture.
I am pleased that there are churches like my own which now offer to marry same-sex couples and who ordain clergy in such relationships. However, we underestimate our capacity to put right that which is wrong if we think this is enough.
I could name people who are still alive to whom terrible things have happened. Some of them are my friends and they are still in the church. Some are not and many have left the faith that once nourished them far behind them.
Most will not have descendants to whom apologies will ever be able to be made.
Shall we wait until all are dead before facing up to what has been done?
And what other injustices should the churches turn and face?
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