Rough justice
Sir: The Church Commissioners’ plan to establish a £100 million (rising to £1 billion) fund for ‘reparative justice’ is indeed ‘the most egregious example of lanyard Anglicanism’ as your leading article says (‘Laud’s prayer’, 11 October). It is deeply flawed in conception, substance and process – and is especially ill-judged when parish clergy are atrociously paid and many parishes face an existential crisis.
The critique made by the Policy Exchange paper ‘The Case Against Reparations’, written by Professor Lord Biggar, Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and me, is reasonably well known. What is less appreciated is that since at least May last year, the Commissioners have known they have no legal power to deliver the project unless they succeed in persuading the Charity Commission to permit the creation of a new charity and authorise ex gratia payment into it of many millions.
According to the Charity Commission, only 53 per cent of applications for new charities succeed and the success rate for authority to make ex gratia payments is even lower. Here, such an attempt would be unprecedented and strongly opposed.
The Commissioners justify this divisive, contentious project on the basis that they are ‘responsible investors’. How responsible is it to plough on, especially now its multiple flaws have been exposed, raising expectations, committing more money and many hours of staff time, to something that may well be impossible to deliver?
Charles Wide
Glapthorn, Peterborough
Broad church
Sir: I was dismayed to read such a striking example, in Theo Hobson’s article, of the illiberal liberalism that increasingly pervades our national discourse (‘Private rites’, 11 October). Mr Hobson argues that, now the Church of England has nominated a female Archbishop of Canterbury, it is time to expel all traditionalists who do not receive the sacramental ministry of women.
When, after decades of discernment, the C of E decided to ordain women to the priesthood, it also affirmed it remained wholly legitimate for members to continue believing that the priesthood is reserved for men. This was not a compromise but a settlement – one that enabled the majority to proceed with change while ensuring others were not forced to leave.
The vision is one of mutual flourishing: not the quiet strangulation of a minority, but the creation of legal and pastoral provision for both convictions to flourish. One of the many reasons Bishop Sarah’s appointment to the See of Canterbury has been celebrated is that she has led the Diocese of London in modelling this vision.
Ruth Bushyager
Bishop of Horsham, West Sussex
Beer goggles
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s dismissive commentary on my husband, James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, was an infuriating read (Any other business, 11 October). He describes James’s ‘entrepreneurial overreach’ as though it were a flaw rather than the very quality this country should be celebrating. What is Britain without entrepreneurial overreach? Without people who take risks, build from nothing and create jobs by the thousand? Yet instead of applauding that, Vander Weyer and parts of the media caricature James with the sort of lazy cynicism that makes Britain’s business environment feel smaller by the minute.
In the past decade BrewDog has paid more than half a billion pounds in taxes – an extraordinary contribution to our society and economy. I find it deeply ironic that The Spectator, long a champion of free enterprise and ambition, gives space to tearing down the people who embody both.
Georgia Toffolo
London SE1
Back to basics
Sir: Martin Vander Weyer, sadly, is right to advocate small business protection against cyber attacks (Any other business, 4 October). My late parents ran a successful knitwear manufacturing business for many years, employing up to 40. They exported much of what they made and handled their accounts from a tiny office at one end of the factory, employing one lady as a typist and telephonist. They didn’t need a computer as everything was handwritten in notebooks, and banking was done in person once a week. They had no need of spreadsheets, instant cash-flow analysis or HR records. If I were starting a small business today, I’d be tempted to do as they did.
John Gould
Dalrymple, Ayrshire
Bible bashing
Sir: Ian Thomson writes that ‘Islam may lack the powerful theological animus traditionally held by Christianity against Jews as “Christ killers’’’ (Books, 4 October). In fact, the opposite is the case. There are multiple examples of explicit anti-Semitism in Islamic teaching, including in both the Quran and the Hadith. I demonstrated this in open debate with Professor Reza Aslan last year. The Bible, by contrast, contains no anti-Semitic statements. It reports what the crowd said at Jesus’s trial without referencing Jews at all. Paul later expressly denies that the Jews have been rejected by God (Romans 11:1). It is Islam that lacks the theological grounds for rejecting anti-Semitism which are found in the Bible, but not in the Quran.
Tim Dieppe
Head of Public Policy, Christian Concern
London W1
Status driven
Sir: Like Mark Palmer, we have an ‘original’ single-digit number plate (‘Notes On…’, 11 October), which was issued (family history says, so it must be true) to my father in the late 1940s. It now sits proudly on a fairly tatty silver Tiguan, where it serves a vital modern-day purpose: in a car park full of near-identical SUVs in near-identical shades of grey and silver, the ‘vulgar’ plate, even at a distance, is easy to spot.
Charlie Flindt
Hinton Ampner, Hants
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