Slavery, reparations and the church

Today we’re considering the painful question of how the church should reckon with its historic links to slavery. Every year, the entanglement of churches with the slave trade in the past is becoming clearer and clearer. Some Christians owned slaves, others profited from their labour, and sometimes this money was used to build churches or endow institutions. Does this matter? Is it worthwhile digging up centuries-old links nobody today would defend? And are financial reparations to the descendants of those enslaved by our predecessors a good Christian response to these revelations?