Holy Apostles Church Hosts Groundbreaking Dialogue on Reparations

hen the subject of reparations to descendants of slavery is brought up in the white community, all too often it’s met with fear, anger, or outright denial. That’s why it’s so refreshing to see Holy Apostles Episcopal Church out there on the cutting edge, attempting to grapple honestly with this subject.

On the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. – who was a staunch supporter of reparations – the church’s Social & Economic Justice Committee invited Brother Reginald Martin Crenshaw, Chair of the New York Diocesan Reparations Task Force, and me, in my capacity as Communications Director for Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation, to speak about reparations.

One of the most gripping aspects of the presentation was Bro. Crenshaw’s discussion of slavery and its aftermath specifically in relation to the Episcopal Church.

He began by highlighting the Episcopal baptismal covenant, during which a person is asked, "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?" The response is, "I will, with God's help." "So it is very clear," Crenshaw noted, "that in our liturgy, the Episcopal Church makes a strong commitment to the idea that our spiritual practice is involved with justice and equality."

He also quoted Isaiah 58:11–12, which speaks of the fulfillment of God’s promises to His people, while it also spells out some particular requirements for that to be: "You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in." This too, Crenshaw pointed out, shows that God requires us to be in a just relationship not only with Him, but with each other. "If we truly believe that all of us are part of God's creation and made in the divine image, our first responsibility is to challenge society’s conduct that threatens the sanctity of human life, even when there are social, political, and economic consequences," he stated. "This is not an abstraction."

Crenshaw went on to say that one of the things Christians need to acknowledge is that slavery was essentially a Christian enterprise, with Christians engineering almost every aspect of the slave trade. "If we want to be repairers of the breach, we must own up to the role of the Christian Church both institutionally and theologically, a role it played to such a degree that there were no effective church interventions in the process of slavery at all," Crenshaw said. "During the 19^th century, the Episcopal bishops’ pastoral letters never mentioned the words slavery or abolition. It was as though these subjects didn’t exist."

Bro. Crenshaw also touched on the fact that during the Civil War, there was an unacknowledged separation of the southern bishops from the rest of the Episcopal Church. At the first General Convention following the Civil War, it was merely indicated that the southern bishops had been absent, and they were welcomed back with open arms. "There was no censure, no acknowledgment that anything had happened," he observed. "It was just business as usual."

As Crenshaw also explained, evangelizing among Blacks also brought up a very interesting theological issue concerning the meaning of baptism. In the English church, it meant that one was not only baptized into the community of faith, but that they were members of civil society as well; a baptized person was automatically free and equal, both in terms of participating in church governance and in society at large.

With that understanding, the planters were completely opposed to the introduction of Christianity to enslaved Africans. Therefore, it was decreed that baptism was only a spiritual transformation that had no effect on the individual’s standing either in the church or in society. "Once it was clear that baptism did not give you any power, privileges, or rights within the church or society," Bro. Crenshaw declared, "slaves were permitted to be baptized. Throughout the 19^th century, there were several Presiding Bishops who said that slavery was decreed by God and that slaves and freed Blacks were to be administered to, but they were not really a part of the church with any legal or ecclesiastical standing."

As there came to be more Black Episcopal Churches and congregations, there was the sticky problem of how to consecrate Black bishops while, at the same time, restricting their authority to other Blacks. This problem, Crenshaw revealed, was solved by creating Suffragan (subordinate) Bishops whose Episcopal authority was valid only for their particular group of people. They had no authority whatsoever in General Conventions or over any white clergy or congregations. Well into the 20^th century, many Black congregations in the South were still excluded from their Diocesan Conventions. They were relegated instead to conventions for "colored parishes," which had no legal or canonical authority. Into the early 1960s, most southern Black parishes still had no vote in Diocesan Conventions.

As to where things stand now, Bro. Reginald Crenshaw stated that there are segments of the Episcopal Church that want to tackle the issue of reparations, "but the church at large isn't much different now than it was during the period I've been describing." He said that’s why it’s so important that the Diocese of New York passed its groundbreaking resolution regarding the study of reparations within its own diocese and that it and several other dioceses across the country will be calling on the next General Convention to establish a commission to research the history of any complicity in slavery of the Episcopal Church and its several dioceses throughout the United States, as well as the continuing legacy of any complicity.

Meanwhile, members of Holy Apostles Church can certainly hold their heads high because they’re the first parish to begin implementing their diocese’s reparations resolution. Hopefully, many others will soon follow in their footsteps.

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