Justin Welby defends £100m fund to address C of E’s past links to slavery

The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has used his Easter sermon to say that £100m pledged by the Church of England to compensate for its complicity in the international slave trade is not “postcolonial guilt” but “the presence of the risen Christ alive in the church”.

Welby said the social impact investment fund announced in January was the right thing to do because the C of E “had done actions that denied the reality of God’s universal power and love”, which the church was “meant to live”.

Researchers found the church’s £9bn-plus “perpetual endowment fund” originated partly in something called the Queen Anne’s Bounty, a financial scheme established in 1704 based on transatlantic slavery.

In his Easter sermon at Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday, Welby said: “Even in that old institution, the Church of England, we find the power of the living Christ.

“For example, why in January did the church commissioners – the people who handle our money and stop us wasting it – commit to set aside a £100m for a social impact investment fund, to invest in communities that have been affected by the historic scandal of slavery?

“Of course it was because investigation showed that part of its money came from that source. But the reality of the living Christ who we pray to and meet every day made it impossible not to respond when we see that we had done actions that denied the reality of God’s universal power and love which the church is meant to live.

“Every institution will respond to history in its own way, but in our case it is not something like postcolonial guilt; it is the presence of the risen Christ alive in the church.”

The £100m has been criticised by some within the church. The Rev Marcus Walker, the founder of the movement Save the Parish, said: “Suddenly, the church has money. After decades of telling us there is no money to fund churches and ministers who keep the church alive on the frontline, suddenly they have found £100m behind the back of the sofa.”

The funding should go instead “directly to the frontline”, protecting clergy from cuts and parishes from mergers, Walker said.

Giving his Easter greetings on Twitter, Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, thanked churches for “providing a sense of unity and hope”, particularly when times were “tough”. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, tweeted: “Happy #Easter to everyone in the UK and around the world celebrating today!”