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Scottish Churches call on Gordon Brown to address legacies of the slave trade

Four hundred people from across Scotland and beyond attended the Scottish Churches' National Ecumenical Service at the David Livingstone Centre, Blantyre, on Saturday 16th June. The congregation included members of Scotland's traditional churches and of the increasing number of black majority churches in the country.

Representatives from eight of Scotland's major churches signed a statement on slavery which included a call to the Government to be particularly supportive of the nations in Africa and in the Caribbean which bore the brunt of the effects of the slave trade.

The statement, which was also signed by individual members of the congregation, is to be sent to Gordon Brown on his first day as Prime Minister.

Representing the strong, but rarely publicly acknowledged, connections which the slave trade forged between Scotland and the Caribbean, Rev Marjorie Lewis, a minister of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, invited people to think about whether Jesus was welcome in our homes today.

Rev. Arlington Trotman, formerly of the Churches Commission on Racial Justice, used the words of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr - "Lest we forget" - to encourage the congregation to use the legacies of the slave trade as the starting point for a struggle to create a more just world for all people.

Full story, documents and pictures at Action of Churches Together in Scotland.