Institutional Racism and the Church of England - 2.
Out of Many , One People 11 b (last week's blog was misnumbered)
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Institutional Racism and the Church of England – 2
A few years ago I attended a training day for church planters in the Nigerian-originated, fast growing Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). The quality of the seventy-five or so people in the room was breath-taking. If they were all to join the Church of England overnight the impact would be transformative. But it won’t happen.
Is this because of ‘institutional racism’ in the Church of England? Some years ago the Nigerian chaplain in Britain referred to those Nigerians who carried over to England their continuing involvement in the Church of England as ‘the remnant’: so many had moved into mainly African Pentecostal churches such as the RCCG. The Report of the McPherson Enquiry into the Death of Stephen Lawrence, the document which can be seen as formative in our understanding of institutional racism, spoke of “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin” (6.34). Are we failing to provide appropriately for people of different cultures?
Last week’s blog explored that in terms of ‘thick’ institutional racism: firstly, our failure to foreground the reality of being in a multi-ethnic society, and then secondly to make provision for that reality by equipping our church leaders. The oft emphasised failure to produce leaders from minority ethnic backgrounds is in many ways secondary to these foundational failures. Thick institutional racism is a failure of what we do.
By contrast ‘thin’ institutional racism raises the question of who we are. I doubt if any of the RCCG church planters I described above would have seen themselves as ‘victims’ of Church of England racism, or felt excluded. They simply didn’t see good enough reasons to be a part of it. ‘Thin’ institutional racism, then, explores what the Church of England is, and what it should become, if it is to provide a more effective ministry to and with people from ethnic minorities (not just, of course, Nigerians); and whether or not, in McPherson’s terms, it is being ‘unprofessional’ in failing to evolve in response to cultural diversity.
So, two issues regarding how we might provide a culturally appropriately service.
1.How we could change.
a) More expressive worship.
‘Expressiveness’ is a difficult term to define, but it is generally agreed that it highlights expressing feelings more readily and doing so with greater intensity and more display. In this respect most (though not all) ethnic minority cultures differ from the more reserved English norm. This becomes particularly clear when we gather to worship (see my Grove Booklet W236 ‘Worship in a Multi-Ethnic Socierty’).
As examples, in a survey of several multi-ethnic churches, David Baldwin, lecturer in Mission at Oak Hill College, identified how in several instances disappointment at the more restrained style of musical worship led to tensions, even leading to the withdrawal of minority ethnic members. In a survey of black men’s attitudes to the Church of England amongst her acquaintances, a black member of our church identified a significant contrast. Whilst for the older men experiences of racist rejection by the churches in the early days of settlement here left a legacy of disengagement and distrust; for the younger men the problem was simply the same as with younger white men of similar social and educational background: church was ‘boring’. So it is that churches with more ‘expressive’ worship, such as Hillsong, draw young people from a wide range of ethnic groups. This confirms American evidence that flourishing multi-ethnic churches tend to be charismatic.
b) More entrepreneurial ministry.
Several of the RCCG church planters mentioned above were doctoral students living where there was no nearby RCCG church and using spare time in their window of three years or so here to plant a church. It is ‘travelling light’ ministry. After being given authorisation from the centre, there is only the cost of renting a building. The training that the leader gets (as at the meeting I attended) is on the job. If the church takes root, then praise God, a new congregation! If not, then very little has been lost.
The contrast with ministry in the Church of England is stark. The process from first raising the question of ordination through selection, training and a curacy can be eight years before a person has responsibility for a parish, during which there has been considerable investment of money and expertise by the church.
More broadly there is significant difference between what is required Anglican incumbents in contrast to leaders (quite often also founders) of diaspora congregations. The latter usually minister to people not only of similar ethnicity, but also age, social background and spiritual/theological formation. By contrast the Church of England’s parochial vision ideally involves ministry across widespread ethnic diversity, different ages and educational backgrounds, and usually with a range of spirituality and theological outlook. In this respect leadership is a more demanding task. It also means the church needs to be more circumspect in whom it selects. A bad decision can mean the church is encumbered with ineffective personnel, at a time when both ‘undemanding’ posts and money are increasingly hard to find. So the Church of England is structured to move cautiously and slowly.
c) More authoritarian leadership.
The members at that church planters meeting that I described had been told to be there by the denomination’s central leadership. People had travelled down from Aberdeen. Failure to attend would have put at risk their authorisation to minister. Expectations of leadership vary substantially across cultures; stemming back, of course, to how children relate to parents and other older adults. English church leaders can be taken aback by the dictatorial approach of their counterparts in Africa; who in turn can view with scorn the weakness of the authorities in England, whether in churches or education. If the RCCG leadership calls a fast, then all the members are expected to fast.
The division and debate in the Church of England over homosexuality is significant in this context. For many from ethnic minorities the Church’s failure to maintain a clear, orthodox position is cause in itself to be outside it.
d) More supernatural theology.
For some years I taught a one-week course on Urban Mission at an informal Pentecostal bible college in North London; around three-quarters of the participants would be African. At the prayer time at the end of one morning I said I was driving off to see my mother who had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. The students were very concerned and compassionate; prayed together fervently; and at the end said I should not be concerned, my mother was definitely healed. Should I believe my spirit-filled African brothers and sisters, or the rather ungracious cancer specialist? As a child of the European Enlightenment I believed the latter; preferring to cherish a last few loving weeks with my mother, rather than hold to a fervent, tense hope that she would be healed. (After a few years the college stopped inviting me; suspecting, I think, that I was insufficiently illuminist).
Books such as Philip Jenkins ‘The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South’ (Oxford 2006) chart the growth of ‘southern’ churches with a strong, literal biblical emphasis, usually allied with a strong emphasis on healing and victory over evil spirits. As with the other characteristics listed here, the differences between minority ethnic Chritians and the range to be found in the Church of England are not absolute, but they are nonetheless clearly marked.
e) More overt evangelism.
Why do churches like RCCG grow? Because they make evangelism front and centre in the life of the whole congregation. More than they perhaps realise, at the moment they benefit from ministering to a still religiously responsive culture. Though also a numerically bounded one; there aren’t many more than a million Africans in Britain. Nor have their hopes for successful ‘reverse mission’ in spreading the gospel to secularised white English people born significant fruit.
But amongst their respective ethnic groups, diasporic congregations (or multi-ethnic mega-churches) have effectively evangelised, and constitute a challenge to the Church of England. By contrast, Southwark Diocese’s ‘Ouseley Report’ on its ministry in a multi-ethnic context spoke only in the weakest terms of evangelism of any sort. Yet the Church of England will only become a vigorous multi-ethnic body if it is committed to boldly sharing a life-transforming faith in Jesus with people of all backgrounds. Failing that we become – despite our good intentions - what we too often are: elderly, white, middle-class.
2. Whether we should change.
The above menu of possible altered emphases is suggested as ways to ‘provide an appropriate and professional service’ to people of minority ethnic cultures. ‘Thin’ institutional racism raises the question of how far the institution itself needs to change in order to become a more credible spiritual home to more than 10 million people whose cultures have shades of difference from the culture of the English people, and of their inherited Church.
However, what is the responsibility of the Church of England here: to become a widely acceptable spiritual home; or to hold faithfully to a specific Anglican identity? The Church of England (contrary to widespread assumptions) is not a monopoly national institution, unlike Parliament or the Judiciary. You can’t decide what sort of law you get tried under; you can decide what sort of church you go to. So churches, whilst under a responsibility to be welcoming, don’t have a responsibility to so change their identity that they cease to be the sort of institution that they believe themselves called to be.
The question highlights the issue of what may be termed the ‘dual vocation’ of the Church of England:
* is it called to be ‘Anglican’; that is a particular Christian tradition that has emerged in England, and is characterised by, for example, a tradition of liturgical and sacramental worship; or a theology which is always ready to bring to scripture serious questions raised for us by our surrounding intellectual and social context?
* and is it called to be the church for the people living in England, and seeking to live out the Christian faith in response to the cultural context in which it lives, including when that context sees massive change in its ethnic composition?
Once these two vocations were in harness. In a traditional prescriptive society people received the religious tradition that was given to them, but we are well past that situation. ‘Church’ has ceased to be prescriptive – receiving what you were given; and has become voluntary – joining a group with whom you feel cultural affinity. Today we have to decide how far we hold to a traditional Anglican identity (which can claim to represent the accumulated wisdom that sources long-term, resilient, faithful obedience); and how far we change to acculturate ourselves to the considerable diversity that marks England today. One might argue that cathedrals hold to a fairly stable continuing Anglican base, whilst parish churches, and even more plants, do respond creatively to a wide, diverse range of contexts.
Not responding to the range of choices offered in section 1 above could be seen as a form of institutional racism – a ‘failure to provide’ by holding on to what you believe is vital to your identity. Indeed, virtually all minority ethnic churches can also be classed as institutionally racist, since they have no intention of adapting their ways of doing things so as to provide an ‘appropriate service’ to people of other ethnicities.
But I believe a stronger logic requires that the church seeks here and now to manifest the vision of Revelation 7:9 of people ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb’. That means scrutinising, and being ready to change not only what the church does but also what the church is, in order to be an institution that can gather together in worship people across the whole spectrum envisaged in Revelation.
That does not prescribe how we respond to the five possible ways of change listed above, but it does mean we need to be seriously and thoroughly exploring them.