Michael Banner

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.

In this critical examination of recent accounts of the nature of science and of its justification given by Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Laudan, and Newton-Smith, Banner contends that models of scientific rationality which are used in criticism of religious beliefs are in fact often inadequate as accounts of the nature of science. He argues that a realist philosophy of science both reflects the character of science and scientific justifications, and suggests that religious belief could be given a justification of the same sort.

First, in the section ‘Telling Lies’, this article attempts to illustrate recent everyday racism. Racism has a history and takes many different forms. I describe a particular practice of racism (found in Britain, circa 1970), which relied, for its doctrine, on supposedly scientific assumptions about biology and breeding—and received a confirming fillip through the celebration of monarchy, empire and rose-tinted history. Second, in ‘Telling Tales’, the story of Zacchaeus is taken as exemplifying a form of moral repair in which telling and doing the truth are intimately related. Third, in ‘Telling and Doing the Truth’, I contend that telling and doing the truth in relation to racism requires not only a clear naming of racism’s lies but also the making of reparations, for the reason that the lies of racism subtended manifold injustices, of which Atlantic slavery and the exploitation of colonies are notable instances. I take the history of the West Indies as providing a clear case where moral repair is (over)due, and I consider the form that reparations might take.

Believers and non-believers often take it for granted that traditional religious faith is, in principle, incapable of the sort of justification which might be given to a scientific theory. Yet how are scientific theories justified and is it the case that religious belief cannot satisfy the same standards of rationality? Based on a critical examination of recent accounts of the nature of science and of its justification given by Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Laudan, and Newton-Smith, this book contends that models of scientific rationality which are used in criticism of religious belief are in fact often inadequate as accounts of the nature of science. It is argued that a realist philosophy of science both reflects the character of science and scientific justification, and also suggests that religious belief could be given a justification of the same sort.