Researchers to look into role of Dutch Protestant churches in slavery

Church and art historians, and theologians at Amsterdam’s VU university are to carry out a major research project into the involvement of Protestant churches in slavery and colonialism, Trouw reported on Tuesday. The Protestant church organisation PKN is cooperating with the investigation to ‘come clean’ about its past, the paper said. Churches benefited enormously from slavery, via donations from slave and plantation owners, and sometimes missionaries to Suriname were paid in enslaved people. Visible signs of slavery in churches include...