The Church of England owes Zimbabwe more than an apology

When 7 Zimbabweans announced connected October 4 that they were suing the Church of England for enabling the brutal maltreatment they suffered astatine the hands of John Smyth, a starring fig successful its evangelical movement, their enactment was not lone astir justness for the past. It was an indictment of an instauration that has ne'er reckoned with the unit it dispersed nether the banner of faith.

Smyth was not an isolated predator. He was portion of the Church’s almighty interior circle. A respected British barrister arsenic good arsenic an evangelical leader, helium oversaw Christian camps successful the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and South Africa, wherever much than 100 boys and young men were abused. He embodied the authorization and societal privilege that shielded him from scrutiny. When reports of his maltreatment archetypal surfaced successful England successful the aboriginal 1980s, the Church chose soundlessness implicit accountability, allowing him to transportation his cruelty to Africa. In Zimbabwe, his victims were boys from Christian camps, among them 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru, who was recovered dormant successful a campy swimming excavation successful 1992. More than 3 decades later, Nyachuru’s household has joined six different survivors successful a suit against the Church, demanding accountability for some the maltreatment and the Church’s deliberate inaction.

That past has present returned to haunt the Church. What began arsenic the concealment of 1 man’s crimes has go a awesome of a overmuch older truth: the Church of England’s authorization successful Africa was ne'er lone spiritual. It was built connected conquest, complicity and the sanctification of empire.

On November 7, 2024, the Makin Review, an autarkic enquiry established to analyse the maltreatment perpetrated by Smyth, delivered its long-awaited findings. The study was damning. It revealed however elder Church figures had systematically concealed his crimes for decades, treating him arsenic “a occupation solved and exported to Africa”.

Four days later, Archbishop Justin Welby resigned, accepting some idiosyncratic and organization work for what survivors described arsenic a decades-long conspiracy of silence. His departure marked a symbolic infinitesimal of accountability but offered small comfortableness to those who endured Smyth’s brutality. With Sarah Mullally present archbishop-designate, survivors person urged the Church to usage this modulation arsenic an accidental for existent accountability alternatively than different motion of regret.

The Church’s failures successful the Smyth lawsuit were not lone motivation lapses. They were the modern echo of its imperial habits: exporting problems to the colonies and protecting privilege astatine home. The logic of domination that erstwhile justified conquest besides enabled silence.

My household grew up nether the agelong shadiness of the Anglican Church.

In the 1950s, my begetter attended St Augustine’s High School successful Penhalonga, Manicaland, 1 of Zimbabwe’s oldest and astir respected Anglican schools. His elder member besides studied determination and aboriginal became a renowned Anglican priest, teacher and caput teacher astatine St Mathias Tsonzo successful the 1970s.

I was baptised successful the Anglican Church successful Kambuzuma and christened astatine St Paul’s successful Marlborough. For that reason, I consciousness some bound to the Church and profoundly ashamed of that bond.

Like galore others, I ne'er afloat confronted its past oregon contiguous brutalities. At independency from Britain successful April 1980, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, a devout Catholic, promoted a argumentation of reconciliation that urged forgiveness without information and advancement without justice. After decades of assemblage rule, we were told to determination on, ne'er to look backmost and inquire who we had been earlier the Berlin Conference of 1884.

For 45 years since, determination has been nary superior effort to clasp the Church accountable for its expansive relation successful Zimbabwe’s colonisation.

In 1890, erstwhile Bishop George Knight-Bruce blessed the Pioneer Column, a paramilitary expedition funded by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) to prehend Mashonaland and Matabeleland for the empire, the Anglican Church positioned itself arsenic the spiritual limb of conquest.

Knight-Bruce and his successors saw empire and evangelism arsenic inseparable tools of divine order. They acquired extended tracts of onshore seized by the BSAC portion preaching salvation done submission to the assemblage state.

By the crook of the 20th century, the Anglican Church had established ngo stations astatine St Augustine’s, St Faith’s and St David’s (Bonda) successful Manicaland. These were not schools astatine their inception but evangelical outposts, centres for conversion, colony and the consolidation of assemblage authorization that aboriginal evolved into large acquisition and aesculapian institutions.

They besides trained and disciplined African labour for the assemblage economy, teaching obedience and manufacture arsenic Christian virtues successful the work of the empire. The pulpit became a limb of assimilation, and the schoolroom a instrumentality of subtle erasure and indoctrination. In sermon and scripture alike, subjugation was camouflaged arsenic enlightenment.

The colonisation of Zimbabwe was, astatine its core, a commercialized enterprise, and the Church of England profited morally, spiritually and materially from the bloodletting of section communities. Children were taught to despise their civilization and taxable to an English higher power. The missionary’s transverse stood beside the soldier’s rifle, each ensuring the other’s success. Conversion became different signifier of conquest.

This was the religion that shaped generations of African Christians similar myself, conditioning america to rationalise Western dominance arsenic divine design.

This was not a Zimbabwean anomaly.

Anglican missionaries were profoundly entangled successful imperial aggression passim Africa. In Kenya, for instance, the Church became portion of the assemblage strategy of unit and wide incarceration during the 1950s. The brutality it enabled overseas was mirrored successful England itself: polished successful quality but ruthless successful practice.

That aforesaid creed allowed Smyth to maltreatment Zimbabwean children nether the banner of religion, portion the Anglican Church posed arsenic a pillar of motivation authority.

I attended St Paul’s younker programme connected Friday afternoons successful the 1980s and was fortunate to look unharmed. Others were not arsenic fortunate. They endured Smyth’s unit due to the fact that the Church’s leaders successful Britain regarded African lives arsenic disposable.

This authoritative dehumanisation was the nonstop effect of the Church’s refusal to face its humanities wrongs oregon betterment its motivation culture. Centuries of Anglican hypocrisy, entitlement, denial and racism, perfected connected enslaved plantations and successful the colonies, forged the monster Smyth became successful Zimbabwe.

Today, contempt my background, I nary longer telephone myself an Anglican or, for that matter, a Christian. I person not acceptable ft successful an Anglican religion for 16 years, and I person nary plans to bash so.

Indeed, I nary longer commune to the God of the English. My religion successful the Church of England and its teachings was breached beyond repair agelong ago.

Far from being an atheist, I present question a belief, redemption and individuality rooted successful the cognition that we, the Manyika of Manicaland, had our ways of religion agelong earlier colonisation. What the Church called civilisation stripped our ancestors of their freedom, their dependable and their ineffable transportation to the divine.

To this day, the Church of England has done thing to repair the harm it inflicted connected Zimbabwe. Despite occasional expressions of regret, it has remained cautious, adjacent defensive, astir the crimes it sanctioned successful Africa, insisting that it volition connection “no apology for spreading the gospel astir the world”.

Now, with Sarah Mullally chosen arsenic archbishop-designate, small suggests that the Church intends to face this bequest with the courageousness and candour it demands. Its nationalist expressions of contrition stay hollow and performative.

Yet the Church’s wealth, a luck built connected centuries of tithes, onshore seizures, slavery and imperial investments, present exceeds 11.1 cardinal pounds ($14.8bn). For each its riches, reverent words and expected motivation leadership, a Church shaped by empire inactive acts arsenic though African symptom deserves sympathy but not reparative justice.

Until it pays compensation for stolen land, funds reparations and redeems what it destroyed, the Church volition stay what it has ever been: the main accomplice and amoral heir of empire.

The lawsuit of Smyth and the “Zimbabwean seven” exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of an instauration sustained by the delusions of achromatic divinity.

The Church of England owes Zimbabwe much than an apology. It owes america a reckoning with its soul, if it inactive has one.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.