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Earlier this week the Church Commissioners, (who manage the Church of England’s finances) published a Report that revealed the Church of England invested in, and made money from, the slave trade; at least 1 billion pounds in today’s money. The majority of the income came from South Sea Company who were providing enslaved Africans to the new world between 1714 and 1739. The report suggests that investors in the South Sea Company would have known that it was trading in enslaved people. On this week’s Start The Week, author Kenan Malik described the paradox of Enlightenment Europe, which promoted ideas of universality and equality on the one hand while maintaining - and even celebrating - the abhorrent social practice of slavery on the other. In response to these findings the Church Commissioners’ Board has committed to trying to address past wrongs by investing in a better future. It has committed £100 million over the next 9 years, including an investment fund, grants for projects improving communities impacted by historic slavery, further research and resources to address modern day slavery and human rights. In relation to the report Archbishop Justin Welby quotes verses from the New Testament’s first letter of John: ‘If we say that we have fellowship with God while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin’. John in his letter emphasises coming out of darkness (sin) into light, as it were, into truth and integrity. It seems that many organisations are lifting the lid on injustices and misconduct at the moment. A few days ago Mark Rowley the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police explained that “systemic failings have been laid bare”, and acknowledged the importance of delivering, as he put it, “more trust, less crime and higher standards”, an indication that more practically needs to be done. The Historian David Olusoga in an interview on Radio 4 about an appropriate response to the findings of the Church Commissioners report said ‘It’s not guilt or shame which are very immature emotions to enter into a debate about history, but responsibility is the right word’. So who is responsible if discrimination and injustice persist in our institutions today? Good leaders can and should address the climate that people work in and shape how those institutions treat people. And we can all play our part by supporting them in that task (and by holding them to account). Because taking responsibility and ending discrimination, both structural and individual, within the governance of our existing institutions’ will build a better future for us all.