Discussion of ‘Behind the Stained Glass’. # 185. 17/12/2025
Out of Many, One People.
Welcome, and may you have a godly and joyful Christmas and a new year full of challenging and delightful horizons. This will be my last blog until Tuesday, 21st January.
Discussion of ‘Behind the Stained Glass’.
‘Behind the Stained Glass: A Report on the participation of UK Minoritised Ethnic People in the Ministry and Leadership of the Church of England’, for the Racial Justice Commission of the Church of England by Professor Paul Miller and associates of the Institute for Educational and Social Equity.
The report was commissioned to look at four areas relating to minority ethnic people in the Church of England: transition from curacy to first incumbency, appointment of bishops and other senior clergy, discernment of vocations to ordination, and lay ministries and PCC participation. It sought to do this through studying both quantitative statistical data, and through qualitative data – that is, material from 23 one-to-one interviews, and 17 group conversations involving 81 participants.
From the quantitative data one outcome is that the proportion of UKME/GMH ordinands has risen between 2017 and 2023 from 6% to 13%. This is startlingly good news. If one allows for the large proportion of Hindus and Moslems in the population, then the proportion of minority ethnic ordinands heading towards ordination is proportionately above the national minority ethnic population. However, it should not be unexpected since, as the recent national debate on assisted dying showed, ethnic minorities are considerably more religiously minded than the white English population. In this moment, we should expect ethnic minorities to be over-represented in the Church of England.
The other main statistical finding was that of the applicants for 88 clergy appointments in January to April this year, 25% were from ethnic minorities but only 9% were successful. The report raises ‘whether this was a statistical blip or indicative of systemic discrimination’ (p 20). The possibility that there may be differences in the quality of the applicants was not raised. (It is also a remarkable indication of our present situation that there were 24 Black African applicants as opposed to only 4 Black Caribbean applicants).
As regards the qualitative data, participants made some important points:
* several suggested a sense of cultural alienation from ‘mainstream’ Anglicanism, including ‘a lack of cultural competence’ in leaders’ understanding (p 36);
* the lack of transparency in the appointments system and not know whether you were ‘in’ or not;
*the importance of mentoring, and especially reverse mentoring of bishops (5.3.6, p 57);
* the value of alternative pathways for training;
* the value of UKME/GMH clergy meeting with bishops (5.3.2, p 55), .
Overall, however, this report is inadequate and disappointing.
The following are its main weaknesses:
* There is no control group for comparisons. When any group of clergy get together they complain about bishops, about favouritism and unfairness. Many of the significant points above are made by clergy regardless of ethnicity. What we don’t know is how far these complaints are more keenly felt by ethnic minority clergy. ‘Discomfort and feelings of alienation manifest in different ways but often described as a vague sense of being out of place’ is not a quotation from this report but from Gary Jenkins excellent recent Grove booklet ‘A Forgotten People: Mission, Evangelism and the Working Class’. Commendably, the Report does recognise ‘the complex interplay of class and cultural dynamics within the Church’ (p 31); the Church of England has yet to do so. But as it is, the Report tends to validate a culture of grievance rather than a culture of agency.
However, whilst discrimination on the basis of class is unacceptable, educational achievement which is clearly related to class and ethnicity is an important and proper factor in choosing senior leaders. It is a reality ignored by those who complained that people with strong qualifications were unfairly favoured.
Individual comments can not be the basis of policy. Overall much of the evidence is comments by individuals, including the significant comments I have listed above, but they are a wholly inadequate basis for forming policies. It is good that the ‘Peter’ and ‘Caleb’ streams for ordination training are regarded positively, but one person’s commendation is no basis for a national policy. The grandly titled ‘Typology of churches within the Church of England’ (p 51) is a house built on the sand of the opinions of a small group of participants. It has nothing like the robustness of sociological and ecclesiological analysis, along with a widespread statistical base, which would be needed to be taken seriously.
* There is very poor understanding of the nature of the Church of England. We are very largely a ‘plateau’ organisation – we exist by having parish clergy spread out across the country. The Report (with a background of advising businesses) finds it hard not to work with a ‘pyramid’ model. So, it expresses concern about ‘a significant barrier for UKME/GMH individual career progression within the structures and hierarchy of the Church of England’ (p 40, italics mine). At the risk of invoking George Herbert, the only proper ‘career progression’ for clergy is learning to serve the population of your parish more effectively. Nor can any clergy be protected from the sometimes dispiriting challenge of ministering in a deeply secularised society.
Deep-seated misunderstanding is also suggested when an impressive quote about initiatives to get greater minority ethnic lay involvement gets misconnected to indicate ‘The findings underscore the need for the Church of England to reform its HR policies and processes’! (p 37).
* It is poorly and, I suspect, hastily written. Some sentences only make sense by guessing at the word omitted or wrongly transcribed. The statistical tables seem to have been compiled without understanding. Thus, the category of ‘Deanery Synod Clergy’ in Southwark is one I have never come across before - presumably referring to all clergy, since they are all ex officio on Deanery Synod. But how do they relate to the other fifteen categories of clergy in the diocese (p 25)? The three ethnically mixed clergy in Birmingham are jumbled and double-counted.
* It has a questionable theoretical basis. The word ‘Equity’ in the title of the body producing the report indicates an assumption, namely that we should be working towards equal outcomes for all ethnic groups, and anything short of that is indicative of racial injustice in society, and, in this report, the church. But this is a failed assumption. The evidence is overwhelming that ethnic groups always produce different outcomes, simply because their cultures, concerns, choices, and behaviour lead to marked statistical disparities. If minority ethnic applicants are less successful, then that may be racism, or it may be that they are less qualified or less suitable in different ways. If we are now producing above proportion ordination candidates, that may be because they are now receiving institutional favour, or it may be because minorities are now disproportionately more open to the Christian gospel. Whatever the myriad of factors at work in these disparities, to assume that ‘equity’ of outcome should be the desired goal is simply to deny swathes of world-wide statistical evidence that, for proper reasons, it never happens.
So too, the word ‘minoritised’ in the sub-heading needs unpacking. ‘Minoritised’ by whom? The implication is that there can be something malign by society (or the church) assigning people to minorities, and then in some sense treating them unfairly. Yet in various ways people by appearance or culture or history do form discernible minorities, either by choice or by society’s policies, and both for good or for evil. The word is not needed in the title. Its inclusion leads the reader to suspect something unfair has been perpetrated; as, indeed, ‘Behind the Stained Glass’ in the title arouses the expectation that some nefarious secrets are to be unveiled.
It threatens to load us with yet more bureaucracy. Reading the Recommendations is dispiriting. At its heart is an Anti-Racism Action Plan, inevitably requiring resourcing and evaluative procedures. This would lead to a Project Oversight Group (POG), with further plans and requirements cascading down into parishes, with the concomitant paperwork and committees. It would involve each diocese appointing (and presumably paying for) a human resources business partner (5.3.5, on p 56). With the POG, alongside CMEAC and ACRJ, to say nothing of voluntary bodies like AMEN and ANIC, and a swathe of diocesan racial justice appointments, it is possible that a racial justice activist could now spend their entire ministry without venturing outside this network.
When ‘From Lament to Action’ was published, Clive Myrie embarrassed Archbishop Stephen Cottrell by grilling him why so many recommendations from previous reports had not been carried out. Hopefully, here are another bundle of recommendations that will never see the light of day.
It hasn’t delivered on its brief. There are no clear, direct and specific responses to the (over-ambitious) four questions commissioned by the Racial Justice Commission. None of them are closely examined. Statistics indicate that we seem to be doing well with the discernment of vocations. The transition from curacy to first incumbency, following on from the vital and possibly difficult relationship with the training incumbent, is key. The statistics don’t look good. But close study of specific processes, not surmises from participants, are needed. Studying involvement in lay ministries and PCCs is important but a massive task far beyond the capacity of a short-lived study. The reality is that the Church is little further on in understanding these key areas.
Conclusion, a fundamentally flawed approach.
The above criticisms are not entirely the fault of those drafting the Report. They were given a vast brief to be covered in a very short period of time, and possibly were not helped sufficiently to understand the unique and complex structures of the Church of England. They lamented the lack of a clear and uniform statistical base to work from. And their conceptual framework was accepted too unquestioningly.
To expand, our society’s understanding of ‘race’ (which was followed a few decades later by the church) was shaped during the first phase of large-scale immigration in the 50s and 60s by the high profile drama of the Civil Rights Movement. It focussed on a black/white polarity, marked by the massive racist mistreatment and abuse of black people. Over the decades ‘black’ has been replaced by ‘BAME’ and now ‘UKME/GMH’ but the basic conceptual pattern has continued. It is not by any means entirely obsolete. The participants in this study have important stories to share of not only microaggressions but clearer examples of racism. But that simple polar big picture has been overtaken by a much more complex, fragmented framework – best described as ‘superdiversity’ – marked by cross-cutting factors like educational level, specific ethnicity, gender, and several more. The outcome has been described as ‘radical unpredictability’, so that (as I mentioned in a recent blog) the election of Kemi Badenoch was not just a quirk in the processes of party politics, but a marker of a new society where unpredictable outcomes are now the norm, and yet which evoked shrieks of outrage from believers in the old order.
The major consequence for the church of this new complexity is that it can only be addressed by from the ground responses not top-down policies. We must give up our illusion of control, manifested in an ever-increasing flow of committees, organisations, reports and appointments, addressing an ever-smaller number of substantive injustices. The sudden and welcome upsurge of minority ethnic ordination candidates points us to the unpredictable, uncontrollable new context that has emerged. What has happened? The bureaucrats may claim it is the consequence of church policies. I suspect it is more likely that in a multi-ethnic congregation somewhere someone was happily clapping along to the eighth repetition of an anodyne chorus when they suddenly felt the tug of the Holy Spirit calling them to ministry. Either way, a report on the stories of such candidates would give us invaluable pointers to what is happening now. In this uncontrollable context we need to be constantly asking where the wind of the Spirit is blowing.
More broadly, at a time when the church’s public profile has plummeted disastrously, it ought to be such good stories that we major on. Gary Jenkins booklet on working-class ministry that I have referred to suggests that ‘an apologetic for the church can be a crucial part of reaching working class people for the gospel’ (p 14). In a society still heavily involved in its ‘racial reckoning’, it is the joyful apologetic that internationally and locally we are a multi-ethnic communion producing ethnically diverse leaders which ought to be at the heart of our self-presentation.