Church of England (Anglican) apologizes for its role in the slave trade.

[JohnyCanuck]

Church of England apologizes for role in slave trade

Missionary society owned plantations, slaves before abolition, meeting told
Feb. 8, 2006. 05:00 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON — The Church of England voted today to acknowledge its complicity in the global slave trade and to urge governments to fight its modern equivalent: human trafficking.

The General Synod, a national assembly elected from the laity and clergy of each diocese, voted unanimously to commemorate next year's 200th anniversary of Britain's abolition of slavery by apologizing to the descendants of slaves for its role in the injustice.

"The profits from the slave trade were part of the bedrock of our country's industrial development," Thomas Butler, the bishop of Southwark, said in a speech before the vote. "Many people and institutions in every part of the country were complicit in the transatlantic slave trade; and I have to say that this includes the Church of England."

The Rev. Simon Bessant told the synod before the 238-to-0 vote how the church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts owned slave-holding sugar plantations in Barbados.

He said slaves had the word "society" branded on their chests with a red-hot iron.

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Boggles the mind as to the thought processes of those no doubt God fearing, Christian missionaries when they assumed their God was ok with them. not only owning slaves, but branding their slaves with a red-hot iron.

[lvx35]

1. The problem is that slavery is allowed in the Bible.

It even gives moral guidelines for handling your slaves. If the real, life-giving essense of religion is to survive it has to move beyond the "holy books" (oxymoron if their ever was one) of the world religions.