Welcome. This week a personal tribute to Joel Edwards; plus some comments on developments of the ‘From Lament to Action’ Report
Joel Edwards – A Tribute
I can’t remember when I first met Joel, but it was sometime in the 1970s working with the Evangelical Race Relations Group, and our paths have crossed regularly since then.
What do I especially remember and thank God for about Joel?
Warmth.
This was the most immediately obvious characteristic about Joel. He loved and accepted people and exuded a joy and delight in the gift of life. Spending time with him somehow always gave me a sense of well-being. His personal warmth meant that he was widely trusted and able to gather people together. As General Director of the Evangelical Alliance he was instrumental in drawing many black majority churches into what had been a predominantly white organisation. He was honoured widely throughout the breadth of British Christianity. He became a lay canon of St Paul’s cathedral, and received an award from the Archbishop of Canterbury. His standing was recognised in his being invited to preach at the Windrush 70th Anniversary service at Westminster Abbey.
Conviction.
Whilst he was a person of wide sympathies, Joel was also clear about his beliefs and stayed loyal to his Pentecostal roots. But he also strongly believed that the voice of Christian faith should be heard much more clearly in the public square, and contributed on Thought for the Day and Question Time. I valued working with him in encouraging the churches to take seriously issues of racial justice. He also worked for Micah Challenge, addressing issues of global poverty, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide, addressing the persecution of Christians.
Intelligence.
On a formal level, Joel achieved a Ph D in his sixties; at a more informal level I was constantly struck by the shrewdness of his judgements, plus the enviable fluency with which he could express them. I particularly remember a meeting last year where he strongly criticised British evangelical leaders for failing to distance themselves from the shame brought on the word ‘evangelical’ by Trump’s supporters in the USA.
Faith.
Joel travelled a long way from his childhood in Jamaica, then becoming his school head boy, being a probation officer, studying at London School of Theology, being a pastor; and then on through serving in various Christian organisations, to working with Tony Blair and being awarded a CBE. But he was always someone whose faith was centred on the risen Jesus as his saviour and friend, and whose faith was the bedrock of his friendship and his work.
People often say that we get the leaders we deserve, but sometimes in his mercy God gives us better leaders than we deserve. Such was Joel.
(Before he died, Joel left the following prayer: My earnest prayer is that your faith and tenacity on my behalf will not be considered a pointless religious exercise, but that it will have strengthened your faith in a God who is marvellous, mysterious and majestic in all that He does: The Faithful One. I commend my family to you).
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Update on the ‘From Lament to Action’ Report.
Two important developments this week.
1. Lord Paul Boateng has been appointed as chair of the Archbishops’ Racial Justice Commission; having been, amongst other honours, MP for Brent South, as well as the UK’s first black Cabinet minister, and also a Methodist lay preacher. His remark that “This is a grave responsibility that can only be taken up and guided by prayer” should be responded to by all of us praying for him, the work of the Commission, and the witness of the Church of England.
2. The Archbishop’s Council has decided not to fund a full-time racial-justice officer for each diocese, because of financial pressures. The Report made several wise and not particularly expensive recommendations: involvement of minority ethnic people in appointments; greater focus on race and ethnicity in theological training; resourcing churches with materials on race and racial justice. By contrast appointing a racial justice officers for all forty-two dioceses was a cumbersome and costly addition to bureaucracy.
Apart from finance there were always a number of question marks against the Recommendation.
a) Reports often have a tendency to flex their muscles and over-bid. Was this a ‘trophy’ demand for recognition rather than a seriously thought through and costed initiative with clear long-term benefit and impact?
b) ‘Racial-justice’ is an important but over-used term, and can be understood in very different ways. (See next week’s Blog on ‘Runnymede vs Sewell?’) It can seem impious to resist or question its demands, but if the imprecise concept is misunderstood then it can lead to wasteful and ineffective initiatives.
c) What important jobs could the forty-two officers be doing instead? People with a motivated heart and an informed mind are badly needed in parishes. Is it wise to take them away from front-line ministries into a new layer of diocesan bureaucracy?
So, what were they intended to do (see Lament to Action, p 49)?
a) ‘Implement the recommendations of the Taskforce and the Commission at local level’. But that is what the Commission and its staff exist to do. Does the creation of an expensive additional level of officials to implement the recommendations indicate lack of trust in diocesan authorities? It could be argued that such suspicion is justified, but the past year alone has seen the issue of how we respond to a racially diverse society given greater seriousness. There is a greater level of commitment to address the issue of racial justice. Further, the recommendation that bishops have minority ethnic advisers to consult with helps give focussed attention to the issue.
b) ‘To support the diocese and parishes in devising and implementing racial justice strategies’. An inventive and imaginative central Commission, making full use of the potential of communication technologies, can effectively resource both diocesan committees on racial justice, input into theological training, and offer resources to mission-minded parishes. There are already resources around, and more will emerge. A resourceful central Commission and the growth parish cultures that are confident in exploring mission in a multi-ethnic society should be a sufficient catalyst.
Given the differing levels of competence and commitment amongst the clergy it is always tempting to resort to the stick rather than the carrot. In its early days CMEAC carried out a series of Ofsted-type inspections of dioceses intending to get them to improve their delivery as multi-ethnic institutions. I see no evidence that they were effective; certainly it left very few ripples in the case of London diocese. Instead clergy and parishes need to be presented with ‘carrots’ – ways of developing their stance and their ministry to ethnic minorities in their particular localities that will diversify, enrich and actually enlarge participation in worship. As I have argued before, we are too coy about sharing good practice. (Alpha spread, and also influenced courses with different theologies, not because of centralised authorisation, but because churches were hungry for what seemed to work).
Too often the Church of England seems embarrassed about taking seriously the sheer banality of parish life, yet ultimately our calling to witness to our society as a culturally diverse yet lovingly united community can only be realised by taking seriously those banalities (the ministries of sidespeople, the training of children’s workers, the songs we sing, how we pray together). Through such ordinary ways, with inter-cultural sophistication, it can be that ‘through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms’ (Eph 3:10).
c) ‘RJOs should take up the work vacated by the abolition of Race Equality Councils in seeking to serve local communities with regard to racial justice’. A Church Times article (16/07/2021) by members of the Anti-Racism Taskforce particularly lamented the loss of a ‘prophetic opportunity’ for the church to give a national lead on issues of racial justice in taking up such work. But over the decades bodies with this sort of brief have had a chequered history, and have not gained widespread ownership or support from ethnic minority people. It may well be that in particular places and times people of any or no faith may come together over specific issues of racial injustice. But the likelihood of a co-ordinated, national, diocesan-based initiative gaining traction is not sufficiently convincing to warrant wholescale investment by the church.
Multi-ethnic England is a complex patchwork of very different ethnic and social formations. Resourcing dioceses and particularly parishes to respond creatively and faithfully to those contexts is a noble challenge for the new Commission. But it is unlikely that large-scale programmes will justify the time and finance expended. ‘From Lament to Action’s more modest, incremental recommendations are more likely to be of effect.