Why doesn't the Church?

Question

The Archbishop of York has said that Blair should go further with his apology for slavery. Since the Church of England was one of the worst offenders in that heinous trade in both keeping & trading slaves, why don't they apologise and even atone?

Answer 1

Another case of "Do as I say, not as I do."

Answer 2

Isn't this all a bit too long ago for us to do anything about? And I would question - if there wasn't slavery (and we are talking of peoples from other cultures), would those people from other cultures, having won their freedom, now be living where they are?

Apologise? Atone? Why? How can the current Archbishop of York apologise for what hap pend a few centuries ago - and what can Tony Blair do about it, anyway? They weren't good times - but things progress - or do I perhaps mean to say that they regress?

In the same way that there is a real difference between male and female (forget the Sex Discrimination Act!) there is also a difference between black and white - and those with skin colours in between. It has nothing to do with colour - it is about how we were brought up and how we understand things!

Do you really think that the Church of England was one of the worst offenders? I think that you might find that the Puritans and the US were really the worst.

Answer 3

The Archbishop of York seems to forget that it was his fellow Africans who rounded up the slaves for sale in the first place. At first, these slaves were often the captured soldiers from tribal wars. Domestic slavery was common in Africa and well before European slave buyers arrived, there was trading in humans.
Where will this culture of apology end? Will the English, as descendants of the Anglo Saxon and Norman French conquerors, for example, apologise and return the British Isle to the Celts? And has the Archbishop of York's own country, Uganda, made adequate reparation to the Asians whom they dispossessed in the early seventies?

Answer 4

People don't want to remember the pass, the pass is why we have so many problems in this world today. By apologizing for terrible acts in the pass will help heal the wound of today. So many people do not understand that. And to say slavery happened so long ago is an insult to the people who ancestors were slave. You think it was so long ago there should not be an apology? Well there are many people that don't agree and have a lot of hatred in their heart because of the pass. So the Archbishop is right. Blair should go further with his apology for slavery.

Answer 5

It is hard for me to understand why it is necessary for today's society to apologize for behaviors that were found wrong 100 years ago - Most of today's churchs and governments clearly do not support the practice of slavery (and I believe that most people in the Western world do not either, although there ARE exceptions!)
We are allowed to grow ethically as a culture (that is the world culture) - we need to understand the reasons slavery was allowed to florish, but it is now historical fact, like the westward expansion of the US, or the subjegation of colonies by the European powers in the 15-19th centuries. It was wrong, but now it is over, and we cannot let it happen again. Apologies do no service for things that happened before our lifetimes.
To talk about this with a more distant analogy - I come from Celtic stock, should I demand the Italian government apologize for driving my ancestors from eastern Europe to the British Isles during the height of the Roman empire? Hardly likely. Mongol hordes invaded both Europe and China - again displacing vast populations and killing many - a fact of history, but not something to apologize for today.

Answer 6

I think the whole matter is totally ridiculous. How can you give a sincere apology for something that happened so long ago and the principle people were not in any way involved. Should the Americans apologise for stealing Native American land? Should the Spanish apologise for the devastation they caused in South America. Where would you stop. Should Adam apologise to Eve for getting her pregnant and starting this whole mess in the first place. I think one can feel sorry for what took place back then and understand how atrocious it was, but to apologise I think it is so insincere.

Answer 7

It is all getting more than a little stupid, who started all this anyway. How can we possibly be responsible for anything that happened so long ago, we did not do it, tell you what why not take away all the assets gained from slavery while we are at it. Where will all this end, don't we have enough to feel guilty about every day without heaping this one on us? There is only so much quilt a body can take.

Answer 8

Because Churches all over the world have long forgotten that THEY TOO come under the Law of God !! They have, for so long, dictated "God's Law" to others, that somewhere along the way, they have began to see themselves AS the judge OF the Laws of God !!!
The simple statement within the Bible which speaks to someone pointing out the "cinder" in someone else's eye while there is a "mote" (a wooden beam) in your own----should be a sufficient reminder to them (the Church) to be very careful in doleing out "the Word of God" without first being very sure that they themselves are "without blame" !! BUT, alas, this is something that will never be again -- they have become very comfortable with BEING GOD'S WORD instead of following it and leading others BY it !!!!

Answer 9

It's foolish to apologize, or atone, for something you didn't do and had no responsibility for. A father's sins do not pass to his children.

Answer 10

why should they apologize now for something that happened a long time ago and had nothing to do with?
get over it and move on!!!!