Telling the Truth and Shaming the Devil: Britain's Unpaid Debt for the Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Abstract This paper transcribes a conversation between Anthony Reddie and Michael Banner on their experiences of arguing publicly for reparations as Christian ethicists. The conversation opens examining the pitfalls of defining prophecy, soon moving to questions around the social location of public speech that confronts those in power. This querying of the social location of the ethicist opens up related more general questions about the utility of invoking theological arguments in public discussions. The various experiences of Reddie and Banner as they have spoken publicly about reparations are recounted, and the different routes each of them has travelled towards doing so are critically examined. What emerges is the different stakes for the two men in publicly confronting the moral status quo. Reddie then underlines the depth of racialised listening not only in the academy but also in the church, racialised dynamics that he notes have been ignored by Christian ethicists. After a foray into some of the assumptions about human genetics that Banner thinks underpin racism in the UK, the conversation ends with some reflections on how the church has facilitated the sort of countercultural challenged levied by Reddie and Banner, and the ecclesial solidarity on which it rests.