{"id":138649,"date":"2025-07-16T17:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T21:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138649"},"modified":"2025-07-16T18:11:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:11:39","slug":"church-times-historians-call-for-church-commissioners-to-scrap-100-million-slavery-justice-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138649","title":{"rendered":"(Church times) Historians\u00a0call for Church Commissioners to scrap \u00a3100-million slavery justice fund"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-commissioners\">Church Commissioners<\/a>\u00a0risk attracting \u201cwidespread public contempt\u201d if they proceed with Project Spire, a group of historians and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/slavery\">General Synod<\/a>\u00a0members has warned (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2023\/13-january\/news\/uk\/church-commissioners-to-set-aside-100-million-to-compensate-for-slave-trade-links\">News,13 January 2023<\/a>). The project is a \u00a3100-million fund set up to benefit communities affected by the historic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/slavery\">transatlantic slave trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a paper published on the History Reclaimed website on 26 June, the group urges the Church to \u201cpause\u201d the project, and to \u201cseek the advice of other scholars, and reflect. To pay reparations on the basis that \u2018everyone in the eighteenth century was guilty\u2019 will not stand historical and public scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its members include two General Synod members, Jonathan Baird (Salisbury) and the Revd Dr Ian Paul (a member of the Archbishops\u2019 Council), and several historians who have publicly criticised the research behind Project Spire. The paper contains a detailed response to the points made in a document published by the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-commissioners\">&nbsp;Commissioners<\/a>&nbsp;in May,&nbsp;<em>Independent Responses to Claims Criticising the Historical Basis of the Church Commissioners\u2019 Research&nbsp;<\/em>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/6-june\/news\/uk\/church-commissioners-hit-back-at-critics-of-slavery-research\">News, 6 June<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/11-july\/news\/uk\/historians-call-for-church-commissioners-to-scrap-100-million-slavery-justice-fund\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Historians call for Church Commissioners to scrap \u00a3100-million slavery justice fund <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6Fr9T1eSLz\">https:\/\/t.co\/6Fr9T1eSLz<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/1943747275827642818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 11, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Church Commissioners\u00a0risk attracting \u201cwidespread public contempt\u201d if they proceed with Project Spire, a group of historians and\u00a0General Synod\u00a0members has warned (News,13 January 2023). The project is a \u00a3100-million fund set up to benefit communities affected by the historic\u00a0transatlantic slave<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=138649\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,324,199,133,120,108,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-history","category-church-of-england","category-england-uk","category-history","category-racerace-relations","category-religion-culture","category-stewardship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138653,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138649\/revisions\/138653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}