Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, the largest seminary in the Anglican Communion, recently announced a plan for reparations, acknowledging the role that slaves played in building the institution.
Churches of the Diocese of Virginia plan endowment fund for reparations The biblical origins of reparations
By the Rev. Cate Anthony
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ast November, the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia—composed of lay representatives and clergy from each church in the diocese—voted to establish an endowment totaling $10.5 million to begin the next phase of the work of racial justice and healing: repair and reparations. These funds will be used for grants and loans that directly benefit communities, organizations, and institutions of color, especially Black and Indigenous communities. This is a very significant step in the process of Episcopalians in Virginia reckoning with the role of the church in perpetuating and benefiting from slavery. If you’ve never heard of reparations before, you may wonder what the point of this new endowment truly is. As a principle, reparations are understood as “material and social repayment made as acknowledgement and restitution by an offending party to an aggrieved party for wrong(s) done in order to repair the injuries, losses and/or disadvantages caused by the wrong” (Thabiti Anyabwile, “Reparations are Biblical” 2019). In many ways reparations parallel restorative justice models. Each have three main goals: acknowledgement of the wrongs done, payment for the wrongs done, and closure for both parties. Beyond a philosophical or political grounding, reparations are actually an ancient practice with biblical foundations in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. In the Hebrew
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Bible, Exodus 21-22 (directly following Moses’ delivery of the Ten Commandments in Chapter 20) outlines a series of laws given by God to the people of Israel to shape their communal life. Among these, people are instructed repeatedly to make material or social repayment to those they harm or whose lives they affect negatively. In Luke’s account of Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19:1-10), Zacchaeus is so moved by his encounter with Jesus that he pledges the following to Jesus: “I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” While none of us own slaves in 2022, the reparations fund acknowledges that the system of slavery used to build and support the diocese in its early years has contributed to the modern-day economic, social, and cultural oppression of people of color (and particularly of Black Americans). The traumas of the past continue to echo in these days. The diocesan reparation fund seeks to address these echoes, even if only through a particular means. Of course, monetary reparation cannot and does not erase the emotional, spiritual, or mental traumas experienced by people of color living under oppressive laws and culture in Virginia. However, establishing these endowments enables the diocese to make real and tangible amends that directly promote flourishing in the lives of people of color. Tangibility is key to
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