'The Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice – Final Report': a discussion. # 190. 18/02/2025.

Out of Many, One People

Welcome, to another discussion of an Anglican document. Thanks to Lord Boating and the Commission for their hard work for the Church over the past three years even if there is much in their approach and conclusions that I dissent from.

‘The Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice – Final Report’: a discussion.

How might we conceive of the mission of the church in a multi-racial society? The Church f England has chosen to view it through the lens of ‘racial justice’, though there are other possible emphases such as evangelism or acts of service. But given its brief of prioritising racial justice, how has the Commission’s hard work over three years reflected in this Final Report enabled the Church of England to engage better with the racially diverse society in which it is set.

What the Commission has seen clearly.

A substantial section of this final report (14 of the 128 pages) is on the handling of ‘complaints’. It is thorough, precise in its recommendations, and draws intelligently from comparative work (notably on handling complaints in the House of Commons). Very clearly, a person’s complaint that they have been mis-treated on account of their ethnicity raises obvious issues of racial justice. Earlier reports on ‘If it wasn’t for God’ and the recently published ‘Behind the Stained Glass’ have brought to the surface grievances of minority ethnic leaders that they have been subject to micro-aggressions, discriminatory treatment or outright racism. But so far we have relied on anecdotal evidence, which may or may not be a justifiable account of the alleged injustice. So to have clearly established procedures by which such complaints can be properly investigated, aware of the wider context of racism and involving a minority ethnic person as part of the investigation, is a firm step towards being an institution where all staff are free from the painful, de-motivating and limiting impact of racist behaviour.

Over time this evaluation of racially discriminating incidents might also give a more objective and public sense of the extent of racism, whether personal or institutional, in the Church of England, instead of relying on subjective and inevitably local assessments. The Commission has led us to solid and common ground.

Another important emphasis is on justice for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, educationally and in other ways the most disadvantaged ethnic group in the country.

The danger of tunnel vision.

The Commission’s concern for justice in minority ethnic representation in church posts is reasonable but can become obsessive. The Commission is disappointed that goals for minority ethnic presence on Bishops’ Councils, Cathedral Chapters or Non-Residential canonries, or TEI staff are unlikely to be attended to, largely because of lack of resource allocation. There is no recognition that many such posts may not be the best way of deploying our still limited cadre of minority ethnic leaders. Instead, the Report makes repeated calls for more funding, yet such funding will inevitably compete with the dire need to provide adequate staffing for parishes. The on-the-ground reality is that, for example, swathes of north-east London currently lack incumbents. Yet I know of one working-class Jamaican background clergyman (they are still alarmingly rare in the Church of England) who is hard-working and able, and yet the diocese is unable to pay him a stipend. The Commission’s desire for a greater budget (p 10, and elsewhere), alongside the appointment of diocesan specialists, when set over against the competing need for greater pastoral cover is symptomatic of the Church’s concern for high level appearance over against pastoral substance. Seeking out more minority ethnic canons may be nice; having better staffed parochial cover is essential.

The tunnel vision may also account for the overall tone of negativity in the report. Yet by far the most significant development in the Church’s life in this area recently is that of those recommend for ordination training the proportion coming from minority ethnic backgrounds has risen from 6% in 2017 to 13% in 2023; that is above what might be expected proportionately given that members of other world faiths form the majority of the minority ethnic population. Yet despite both the encouragement of these statistics, as well as the promising future they suggest, they get only a cursory mention with no discussion of their significance on p 59. By contrast the wholly inadequate and largely negative ‘Behind the Stained Glass’ report is given four pages, along with suggestions of bad faith in its critics.

What the Commission has perceived but struggled to make a clear response.

Two big issues have been central to the Commission’s concerns over the past three years: reparations for slavery in the Caribbean and memorials in churches celebrating those in some ways related to slavery. As regards reparations for slavery we are on uncharted ground (see last week’s blog). Reparations for here and now injustices (as in Pentateuchal laws, or Zacchaeus’s reparations) which have tended to dominate discussion, don’t take us far in assessing what might be just repair for evils committed two centuries ago outside any framework of then existing international or even local civil law. Or of enabling us to value the adequacy of reparatory responses that have already been made. Or assessing the harm to the present day descendants of the victims, alongside identifying who are the present day specific beneficiaries. On a broad moral canvas, it can be well argued that justice loosely requires ‘something should be done’ is reasonable. Deciding where that justice lies across an extremely wide range of suggested responses is a rather subjective response without any clear guidelines.

As regards memorials, again making clear judgements is slippery. At one end there is clear justice in removing memorials celebrating people who used force to put down slave rebellions, or who were directly involved in the slave trade. But how far do we track down and then remove the memorials of those who indirectly benefitted from slavery, for example by investment .

Both reparations and monuments raise public, national issues. They deserve attention. But not only are they contentious in seeking to evaluate how they may justly be responded to, but their overall importance can be exaggerated when approached from a public, ‘establishment’ vantage point as the Commission does. In discussing memorials much is made of the ‘harm’ they do to the descendants of the enslaved. But how much harm? How often and to what degree are people of Caribbean background actually vexed at the sight of such memorials, especially as a very large majority live or worship in areas where the churches are less than 150 years old and such memorials unknown?

What the Commission doesn’t see.

The above point indicates the distorting effect of the Commission’s racial justice lens. It takes seriously issues seen as important from an ‘establishment’ vantage point, it doesn’t focus on what matters at ground level, which it can patronisingly dismiss as parochial when in reality it is here that the Church of England succeeds or fails in becoming a racially diverse body. Symptomatically, the question: ‘Do you want help thinking through how your church can bring people of different cultural backgrounds together in worship and fellowship?’, which is actually the central question facing the Church of England today, only gets the briefest of nods on p 104 with a pointer to the Anglican Network for Intercultural Churches.

The blindness is manifested in various ways. Firstly, it continues the illusion - which goes back at least four decades to the founding of the ill-fated Simon of Cyrene Theological Institute – of over-estimating and misjudging our minority ethnic strength at parish level. Yes, there are quite good numbers, but mostly elderly and with distressingly few likely to become future leaders – as illustrated by the fact that all bar one of our minority ethnic bishops were born, and for the most part nurtured, overseas. So, for example, the Commission’s rebuke to Theological Education Institutions (TEI) ignores the fact that there are precious few minority ethnic people at present able to fill such posts. TEIs now usually expect staff to have a Ph D, and their teaching load is rightly (and arguably should be more so) in biblical or doctrinal studies. How many eligible minority ethnic candidates are there? (Oak Hill has one such appointment). I suspect the Commission is asking TEIs, and probably other church departments, to make bricks without straw. (The Commission’s tendency to grievance leads to the error: ‘There has never been such a [GMH] leader heading up a TEI’. In fact, George Kovoor was principal of Trinity, Bristol from 2005-2013).

A significant illumination of misplaced focus is found in the helpful analysis of ‘Racial justice work by diocese’ (pp 81-85). At the top there is evidence of substantial racial justice bureaucratic activity, with over twenty (though still less than half) of all dioceses having some sort of racial justice board and offering intercultural awareness training, particularly to officials. Seventeen have some sort of racial justice document, and fourteen a ‘Racial Justice Officer’. Yet what is alarming is - despite this large investment in time, manpower and money – the paucity of appropriate activity at ground level which would foster thriving multi-ethnic congregations. Only three dioceses are developing mother tongue initiatives, only two have theological ‘access courses’ for those disadvantaged by social class or ethnicity. Only two are producing culturally relevant discipleship resources. (Why is the excellent Leicester diocese course not more widely known?). Only one has ‘racial justice’ training for curates and new clergy.

Perhaps most indicative of the Church of England’s myopic lack of vision for a truly intercultural Christianity is that only four dioceses are involved in ‘strategic ecumenism’ and partnerships with black led or minority ethnic churches. But by far the most significant challenge facing world Christianity in the twenty-first century is whether the impressively rapid growth of ‘majority world’ Christianity will eventually be snuffed out by the spread of western secularism (which secularists tend to take as read), or whether majority world Christian vitality will so rejuvenate the old western ‘Christendom’ that it is able to effectively push-back against the suffocating secular blanket - sometimes called ‘reverse mission’. (See my blog ‘One River, Two Streams: Global Christianity in Britain’ # 53, 09/11/2021). Britain is a prime venue for these ‘old’ and ‘new’ Christianities to mutually engage, learn from each other, supplement each other, and work side by side for the glory of God. That the Commission, those it influences, and behind them the senior leaders of the Church of England, are so little animated and inspired by such a challenge indicates severe lack of vision, most likely induced by the limitations of the ‘racial justice’ lens.

Appendix: Three ‘Signs of Hope’ (pp 99-103).

Case studies are an important means of encouragement and learning. Whilst it is good that the report includes three, none of them are ordinary local churches, and two – a civic city-centre Minster and a Cathedral – fit with the Commission’s establishment rather than grass-roots orientation.

The more typical example is St George’s Leeds, which helpfully highlights several replicable approaches: a church conversation about race and diversity; inclusiveness in visuals; alertness to references in sermons; prayers related to peoples’ country of origin; occasional multi-lingual prayers; and translation into Farsi. (I plan to report some case studies of intercultural churches in the future).

Related Blogs:

‘What is Racial Justice’ # 98,

‘Racial Justice or Make Disciples of All Nations’ # 129,

‘Race and Justice, Race and Evangelism’ # 162,

‘Discussion of ‘Behind the Stained Glass’’# 185.

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Add Ons

* What’s the Aim of DEI?

The value of DEI has been up for debate recently, especially with Donald Trump’s closing departments in USA government with immediate effect. A Times article (17/02/2025) suggested an increase in spending at British universities of 125% between 2022-2024. I was fascinated by how the universities’ aims seemed to differ:

Edinburgh: ‘The university promotes a positive culture for working and studying, one which celebrates difference, challenges prejudice and ensures fairness’. Excellent!

Manchester: ‘There are still significant attainment gaps between different groups of students that we need to close, and we want our academic and professional staff workforce to better reflect the communities we serve’. Nonsense! 1) Attainment gaps between different [ethnic] groups will always vary because the culture and aspirations of those groups vary. University is far too late in the day to seek to re-engineer those cultures. 2) Why on earth should the staff of an astro-physics department be appointed to reflect the diversity of ‘the communities we serve’ rather than simply be the best astro-physicists available?

Note the sleight of hand by which the words in the acronym have shifted, with the ‘E’ once standing for ‘Equality’ (of Opportunity), now morphed to the very different ‘Equity’ (of Outcome). As I read them, the Edinburgh proposals represent a just and reasonable aspiration for equal opportunities; the Manchester proposals aspire to an academically damaging, costly and inevitably ineffective attempt to force equal outcomes on the university.

* Spot the Elephant.

Recent research (reported by the Guardian 31/01/2025) by Durham and Birmingham universities has indicated that the rates of school exclusions is not primarily shaped by ethnicity but by poverty, and special educational needs. The Runnymede Trust has, perhaps predictably, pushed back saying that the intertwining of class and ethnicity makes it more complex. But why look only at the ethnicity, class and special needs variables. Prima facie, one would guess that a significant factor in having difficulties with school (and police) authority would be growing up without paternal authority in the home.

In ‘The Two-Parent Privilege’ Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Maryland (reviewed at blog # 173, 24/09/2025), wrote: ‘The conventional mores in the United States today are to treat matters of family and family formation with a dedicated agnosticism, avoiding any suggestion that one type of family might be somehow preferable to another family type’ (p 168). Kearney’s first chapter is entitled ‘The Elephant in the Room’. In the UK the elephant is probably even bigger, yet family formation, especially absent fathering, is apparently excluded from serious consideration of the very consequential reasons as to why some pupils, especially boys, struggle with accepting their school’s authority.