After the Flood is a feature documentary film from the Movement for Justice and Reconciliation, exploring the roots of (predominantly in this film, Anglican) Church complicity in the slave trade and showing the route to reconciliation.
Dr Joe Aldred, National Church Leaders Forum, former ecumenist at Churches Together in England, said of this film:
As Christiansseekto lead the way in racial reconciliation this film is a critical tool in unpacking important ingredients that made and sustained this cruel,inhumaneand evil enterprise. This is crucial viewing.
This film is an ideal way into discussing issues of reparative justice in your church. Facilitation notes and feedback forms are provided.
While it does not specifically explore the entanglement with enslavement of the Methodist movement, this film illustrates how Scripture was misused to justify and sustain the trafficking, suppression and brutal treatment of enslaved African people. It highlights that the Church benefitted significantly financially in ways that were foundational to today’s prosperity. And it demonstrates that systemic, institutional racism in the Church is a legacy of the Church’s heritage with enslavement and colonialism.
Our supporting resources for discussion illustrate some of the specific ways in which the situation in the Methodist Church was different, but entirely comparable with that in the Church of England, from which Methodism was born. Find out more about the historical truth of Methodism and enslavement from the developing research.