Thoughts on the ‘Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice – Summer 2023 Report. # 134. 17/10/2023.
Out of Many, One People
Welcome. After a few more wide-ranging issues, a blog looking very specifically at the Church of England and where its priorities might lie and what might be appropriate in developing ‘racial justice’. Please comment, correct, commend.
Thoughts on the ‘Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice – Summer 2023 Report.
Phrases that slip easily off the tongue or the keyboard such as ‘racial justice’ eventually become stretched and distorted like a comfortable sweater used too many times. What is it that we are actually talking about? Unreflective answers will tend to hover round concepts like ‘equality’, but ethnic groups and their cultures are too various and undefined to give us any clear take on what ‘equal racial justice’ might look like. As I wrote in a blog last year on ‘What is racial justice?’:
‘Races’ are not set immovable, unchangeable entities. They develop, sub-divide, alter their focus. They are also very amorphous. In that sense any hard definition of ‘racial justice’ is impossible. Strict justice requires the comparing of like with like and can be clearly defined – either you were or were not driving over 30mph. ‘Races’ are not alike, often it is not even clear, or how intensely, a person belongs to or identifies with a group. There are then, no clear rules, and certainly no qualified court or judiciary, to determine in every case what constitutes racial injustice’.
As well as imprecision about ‘races’ there is also a continuum of issues where justice may or may not be a factor. At the ‘hard’ end specifically exclusionary policies towards an ethnic group are clearly unjust; at the ‘soft’ end when does the Macpherson Report’s wording of ‘failing to deliver a professional service’ kick in? Can sung Prayer Book Mattins with traditional English choral music be regarded as a failure to provide appropriate ministry to ethnic minorities. Therefore that continuum ranges from institutional and ethical failures to counter past racist behaviour through to local, pastoral failures of being lethargic in seeking to meet the needs of the groups in your community.
Understandably the Archbishops’ Commission finds it easier to address specific institutional policies rather than amorphous and innumerable issues of congregational practice. Its most recent Report contains two ‘set piece’ treatments of institutional issues: that of ‘contested heritage’ memorials, (discussed in last week’s blog with reference to the Rustat memorial in Jesus College, Cambridge); and the issue of Reparations for the Church of England’s historical profiting from investment in the slave trade, covered in Anthony Reddie’s outline of ‘The Theological Case for Reparations’ (pp 19-23).
But arguably what will have most traction in the Church of England being known to be ‘racially just’ is what happens at the local level. People are most impacted by direct personal encounter. What happens in local congregations in Hackney or Harrow has greater impact than whether or not an offending memorial in Falmouth is removed. But it is easier for central bodies to achieve these ‘trophy’ results, rather than impact the long, slow work of congregational formation, where often positive initiatives can take decades to show significant impact. Developing widespread and diverse ethnic inclusion in local congregations is a more complex and elusive task that removing statues or making financial reparations. Perhaps it is that elusiveness and the very weak coercive powers that the central machinery of the Church of England has over its local manifestations that explains why so little has been done. Despite Racial Justice Units and the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns, initial clergy training for ministry in a multi-ethnic society has been haphazard and uncoordinated; and support for clergy in post, similar.
If the Church of England looks unimpressive as a racially diverse institution then this may partly be a misperception (and now a public narrative strengthened by unduly negative comments from its leaders), but also because after seventy-five years we have always been lackadaisical in training clergy to do this aspect of the job. At the same time as lamenting our output of very few minority ethnic leaders yet we have given so little attention to the input that might have produced them.
But the situation is not all doom and gloom. Judging by the uncertain metric of names, London diocese ordained minority ethnic curates above the 20% benchmark last summer. The launching of the Anglican Network for Intercultural Mission is a very positive development; and, in particular the Report looks forward to ‘a Global Conference that we will be convening in 2024 to provide parishes with the materials and practical aids they need to help them reflect in their worship and practise the fullness and variety that cultural and ethnic diversity can bring’ (p 5).
Here, then, in assessing the Report are some suggestions about how the Global Conference might achieve its aim.
Celebrate progress.
As both a nation and a church we are making strides to becoming much more ethnically inclusive. Under its heading ‘Participation’ the Report comments: ‘While noting the considerable improvements in ministry formation, there was a need to measure effectiveness’ (p 41). This is an important step in developing corporate understanding about strategically helpful directions for the Church to move in.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that the Report is unfairly negative about race and ethnicity in Britain. To say we live in ‘a time of . . . deepening disadvantage, inequality and racial injustice’ (p 7) or that ‘our [United] Kingdom remains largely disunited ethnically’ (p 31) is surely misleading. The growth of ethnically mixed marriages, the increasingly high profile of minority ethnic people – obvious in government but across a much wider range of public positions lie behind the general perception that race relations in Britain have improved considerably. For a review that often has one eye on how our society perceives the church this is simply out of step with the public understanding of race in Britain today. Gaining traction in the church by generating guilt is not a good way forward; attending to what is working well diffuses hopefullness and initiative.
Identify complexity.
It is good that ‘the fullness and variety that cultural and ethnic diversity can bring’ is a focussed aim of the Conference. This means being explicit about the different trajectories of the various ethnic minorities in Britain. Too often the Report still works with the discredited assumption of a strong UKME/GMH commonality. Reference to the ‘continuing disadvantage of many UKME pupils in [the] education system’ (p 11), ignores the fact that Chinese and Indian pupils considerably outperform white children, whilst Bangladeshi children have shown impressive improvement. Here and elsewhere the report avoids being more specific. To speak of ‘those of UKME/GMH communities still wrestling with the wounds and trauma inflicted by aspects of a past that is not experienced or understood as shared’ (p 28) is, as above, a veiled and obscured reference to the African Caribbean population. Yet if the Conference is to achieve anything significant it needs to specifically address the problems we have in developing effective ministry to African Caribbean people, especially men; as is clearly evidenced by their absence from senior posts in the Church. A sharper analysis will, of course, connect this to the far larger contextual problem of our extremely limited impact on working class men generally.
If this is one area we struggle with, in other areas (surprisingly at times) we flourish, as with Iranians. Given the ethnic, social and other levels of diversity in Britain, we need to be developing appropriate mission strategies for the very varied groups in our society.
It is good that the Report recognises a further aspect of ‘super-diversity’ by identifying the startling and alarming fact that 95% of current minority ethnic ordinands were born abroad. Here the serious impact of racism is intertwined with the much wider question of the impact that the deeply embedded secularisation of British society has on all ethnic groups.
Working with culture.
If recognising ‘the fullness and variety that cultural and ethnic diversity can bring’ is to be taken seriously then it means taking seriously the reality that deep-seated cultural differences pose challenging questions for a Church of England that initially was consciously orientated towards ‘Englishness’. An orientation that has meant that large swathes of inwardly migrating Anglicans have transferred allegiance to more culturally congruent Pentecostal churches.
It is inaccurate for the Report to infer (p 5) that this transference is simply due to ‘a far from welcoming reception’. Certainly that drove some people away, but alongside the defection was the greater spiritual warmth and evangelistic zeal of the Pentecostal churches; and, especially latterly, their greater affinity with the expressive cultures of most minorities.
For the Commission ‘to prioritise the issue of liturgy and welcome the constructive engagement we are having with the Liturgical Commission’ (p 5) requires going to deeper issues than the provision of texts (which is all that seems to be implied in the paragraph on p 33), and moving on to foundational questions of the place of set liturgy over against the informality, spontaneity and expressiveness found in diasporic Pentecostal churches, and increasingly in Anglican churches.
At this point it is good to note the Report’s positive account of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches initiative (pp 44-45), but mention should be made of the great impact of Pentecostalism’s impact on these communities. In ‘Beyond Belief’, a rather sceptical account of global Pentecostalism, the journalist Elle Hardy writes warmly and positively about Gypsy Pentecostals in Britain. More broadly, it is a reminder that a Conference providing ‘parishes with the materials and practical aids they need’ will need to explore how we work with and especially learn from diasporic and Pentecostal churches.
For the past six months work, the Report covers a very impressive amount of ground. It contains several nuggets that need attention (eg ‘Greater care must be taken in the selection of training incumbents’ – that is, for minority ethnic curates, p 43), as well as addressing big issues like contested heritage and reparations.
They deserve our thanks. They seem to have set themselves an even more daunting agenda of conferences and initiatives for the year ahead. Hopefully the goal to ‘provide parishes with the materials and practical aids they need to help them reflect in their worship and practise the fullness and variety that cultural and ethnic diversity can bring’ will be a central focus that enables parish churches to become more ‘racially just’ in ministering effectively to the wide range of ethnic groups within their remit.
Related Previous Blogs:
75 Reparations – A Sighting Shot.
97 What is Racial Justice.
104 The Church Commissioners £100 million.
127 Pentecostalism and Englishness.
133 Considering ‘Contested Heritage’.