Welcome. It’s good to be back. This week, a practical, church-based blog. Please feel free to copy and circulate. Better still forward it to church leaders who you think might find it useful in their situations. And encourage them to subscribe!
An Audit for Churches on Race and Ethnicity.
Audits can be useful tools for seeking to give a fairly objective snapshot of where we are in relation to any particular task. They aim for a wide perspective, drawing attention to areas we may be tempted to neglect or overlook. They can encourage factual, even statistical evidence rather than careless or distorting impressions. And they probably involve some sort of collaboration rather than being locked in one person’s mind.
But that emphasis on objectivity can tip over into a bureaucratic, lifeless assessment, so audits need to come with a ‘health warning’. Multi-ethnic parishes are complex, marked by wide ranging ethnic ‘super-diversity’. Churches are unique institutions, decisively shaped by who just happen to be their members. The Holy Spirit blows where s/he wills. So it is wise to treat our management tool-box with caution. The Sewell Report (p 54) rightly cautions how quotas can be misleading in employment. One writer on Cultural Intelligence warns that ‘to do lists are a don’t’ as they can hinder relational engagement. So too, audits need to be sensitive to local particularities.
Too easily the bureaucratisation of race in both society and church leads to seeing people as faceless, identical tokens in a board game who decision-makers can manoeuvre at will into the appropriate positions, rather than individuals with their particular gifts, flaws and quirks that need to be worked with rather than be shaped by authorities. In the fluidity of multi-ethnic Britain what is required is humility, alert attentiveness to the nuances of both racism and culture, and a Spirit-led ability to improvise. If this audit can provide an evidence base to underlie that approach it will have done its job. If it provides an agenda written in stone, it will mislead.
An Audit for Churches on Race and Ethnicity.
A. Your Context.
(The Church of England Research and Statistics Department has produced an excellent and very useful ‘Interactive Church of England parish map’ which gives statistics for ethnicity, religion and deprivation for each parish. Much of the information is from the 2011 Census but it is still extremely helpful).
1. What are the main ethnic minority groups in your parish?
Be as precise as possible about specific areas (eg Mirpuris, not just Pakistanis).
Can you say in what numbers and proportions?
2. How would you describe their different social and economic status?
3. What are the main religious groups, and possibly sub-groups (eg what type of Hindus)?
4. Where do minority ethnic groups meet up in your area – mosques, temples, churches, community centres, pubs, cafes, political organisations?
How can you develop contacts with them?
5. What are the particular concerns experienced by minority ethnic groups in your area?
How might you find out more?
How might you respond?
6. What contact do people from ethnic minorities have with your
church buildings?
organisations?
church members?
What steps can you take to show that you are welcoming and concerned?
B. Your Church.
1. What are the proportions from different ethnic minorities
In your local community?
Attending your church?
On the Membership/Electoral Roll?
On the PCC?
In active ministry (Sunday schools, home groups, visiting etc)?
In your main leadership group?
2. Where are the significant differences between these proportions?
What might be the reasons for the differences?
3. How can your worship reflect the ethnic diversity of your church?
Through who leads? The music? Prayer and preaching topics?
4. How far do your social events reflect the ethnic diversity of your membership?
Through the food? Music? Ambience?
5. What steps might be taken to hear the real concerns of minority ethnic members of your church?
Are opportunities given for minority groups to meet, share and express concerns?
6. What opportunities are there for all church members to tell their story about living in a multi-ethnic community?
Sharing or testimonies in services?
Through printed literature or websites or on-line groups?
7. How can you be helping all your members to understand race and ethnicity, to recognise the realities of racism and injustice, and to live and relate in a multi-ethnic society?
What Now?
1. Do you need a structure and group to take these issues forward in the planning and policies of the church?
2. What help would you like, and who might be able to help you?
Minority ethnic leaders or ministers? More experienced colleagues?
3. What steps do you intend to take in the next three months?
Who might your church share this with to be accountable?
4. What steps do you intend to take in the next two years?
Who might your church share this with to be accountable?
Add On
Here is the text of a letter I sent to The Times following a critical article on ‘Reparations’ by Douglas Murray (whose polemical ‘The Madness of Crowds’ is well worth reading. Whether it gets published, we wait and see.
(Next week I plan to blog on the topic of Reparations).
Dear Sir,
Douglas Murray rightly draws attention to some of the complexities, inconsistencies and widely forgotten histories that underlay the calls for reparations for slavery (30th April). But he overstates the case when he writes ‘No one alive suffered the consequences’.
Slavery in the Caribbean went beyond physical and sexual brutality and violence to the suppression of religion, culture, language and identity. This left wounds that are not easily healed, and a legacy with continuing consequences. "A race has been freed, but a society has not been formed," wrote Governor Harris of Trinidad in 1848 (in P Curtin 'The Two Jamaicas', p158).
In his Preface to 'The Sociology of Slavery' Orlando Patterson wrote: "Jamaica and the other West Indian islands are unique in world history in that they present one of the rare cases of a human society being artificially created for the satisfaction of one clearly defined goal: that of making money through the production of sugar". As the begetter and beneficiary of those 'artificial' and unique societies Britain has a still incomplete responsibility to contribute to repair.
Whilst reparations to individuals or groups within a society are impractical and probably undesirable, a final settlement of reparations to the island nations of the Caribbean that still carry the wounds of slavery’s totalising impact is reasonable and just.
Yours sincerely
Rev John Root