The Tensions of inter-cultural ministry and living. # 216. 25/11/2025
Out of Many, One People
Welcome. What’s like to live and minister in an ethnically mixed community and church. Below I have tried to set out two of the competing and yet complementary understandings that I have formed. Do let me know if they do or do not ring true for you.
The Tensions of inter-cultural ministry and living.
Inter-cultural societies are complex. Complex not just because they are diverse, but marked by a diversity of diversities. Historical backgrounds, educational levels, family formations, religious convictions and intrinsic personality all throw up a very fractured kaleidoscope of experience in which broad patterns may be discernible but where unpredictability also abounds and where easy generalisations soon run into the sand.
Because ‘race’ has produced gross injustices it means that it also raises important ethical questions, with the concomitant danger that it is tempting to moralise and come to quick, clear judgements where dissent can seem like moral turpitude. But whilst the realities of racism past and present mean that moral discernment is necessary, there is also the need for proper caution and restraint in not indulging in the simplistic identifying of right and wrong moral attitudes.
The outcome is that ‘one size fits all’ judgements often need to give way to recognising that at times we need to be quite nimble in assessing what are the appropriate moral responses we make to particular issues. Below I try to spell out how living in a racially and culturally diverse society means that consistent ‘one direction’ judgements can actually mislead us.
Racially Aware and Colour Blind.
My last blog looked at the survey of Anglican attitudes to race which emphasised the widely recognised importance of being racially aware. Being a racially unaware person is a little like driving a car without mirrors. The driver sees only from one perspective; they have very little awareness of their context. They expect others to adjust to them, and blame those that they crash into. Racial awareness calls on us to identify those amongst whom we move, to recognise the directions they take, and the very different purposes and motivations they have. It calls on us to recognise difference, and indeed to respect and value it, as we hope others will respect our distinctives (our ‘peculiar honours’ in the nice phrase of Isaac Watts’ hymn).
Awareness of difference is particularly important for white westerners. We have played a major role in shaping the world as it is. We have prospered at the cost of the suffering of others. Lacking racial awareness tempts us to think that we meet people of other ethnicities on a level playing field; that differences between us are merely trivial and that focus on them is unnecessarily trouble-making. An attitude that can be justified only by trained indifference, or by ignorance of both historic injustices that others have suffered and the present day legacy of being under-valued or excluded that people still feel. The possibility of creative relationships remains still born.
In her survey of Birmingham clergy in the 1980s RenataWilkinson made the caustic comment that when clergy made the seemingly proper response that they ‘treat everyone the same’ then the outcome was difference. Not allowing for the impact of experiences of racism, for differences in understanding of the world, of the supernatural, of authority and a host of other mindsets meant that those who didn’t share the clergyman’s background simply fell by the wayside.
Yet racial awareness can also be done badly. Some years back I attended a conference where a psychotherapist gave an address on unpacking the issues raised in the film ‘Bullet Boy’ about a young black boy trying to escape the cycle of violence that had led to the murder of his brother. The conferees were mainly late middle-aged, middle-class, female, white counsellors. A black woman made a long and rather incoherent contribution, focussed mainly on her issues with identity. When she sat down people applauded enthusiastically; someone even said ‘Well done’ as you would say to a six year old girl who has just played her Grade 4 piano examination set piece. People were responding as though being ‘racially aware’ was simply being nice and positive about whatever a black person does.
In contrast to the above conference, recently I was pleased to read a report in the Church Times which spoke very positively of the contribution made by the Bishop of Aston, Esther Prior, where the reporter felt no need to tell us that Bishop Esther is black. Her contribution simply excelled in its own right.
Being ‘racially aware’ can tip over into feeling it is in itself morally virtuous to make appointments, invite speakers, publish books simply on the basis of a person’s race. At this point being overly enthusiastic in highlighting ‘race’ snaps back into a damaging undermining of black people. Questions inevitably get raised, both by the person themselves and the wider public, as to whether this choice was merited simply on ability or was also seeking to exhibit racial awareness. When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister the Conservative Party scored a double hit by saying that the important thing about his ethnicity was that it wasn’t important: the reason he held the post was sheerly because of his abilities, and also that the Conservative Party was above letting its judgements be distorted by ‘racially aware’ considerations. Colour blindness ruled.
When I approached Elaine about becoming a lay minister, her first question was whether she was being asked because she was black. She wasn’t. She took on the role. She served the church well. More broadly, I never pursued a policy of achieving ‘racial balance’ in the church. If that meant that in the short term ethnic minorities were less visible, in the long term they came to play a leading and above proportionate role, without any sense of minority ethnic people being unduly favoured.
‘There are some things that you need to know, and then forget that you know them’ were the wise words of a black youth leader when I was a curate. We need racial awareness if we are to navigate living in a multi-racial society without too much blundering, but we need to make that awareness simply a background in the here and now in living encounters with people.
Pessimistic and Optimistic.
I am haunted by the stories that Sri Lankan friends tell me of how Sinhalese and Tamil children played happily together until the sudden emergence of civil strife in the 1980s (initially over the choice of Sinhala as the national language) led to rapid polarisation and people who had lived as neighbours became fearful for their lives. There are similar stories from the Balkans before the eruption of ethnic conflict and violence.
Could that happen here? Being part of an inter-ethnic family, the question is serious for me. Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, has spoken from her own experience how racism is getting worse, hearing explicit anti ‘Paki’ remarks, that once were disappearing but now occurring with greater frequency. We can not underestimate how unsettling and distressing it is for people to find themselves being abused for nothing more than the colour of their skin. Complacency can be callousness. It is disturbing that migrants’ positivity about living in Britain decreases the longer that they have lived here.
Nonetheless the big picture over the past 75 years is that Britain’s response to becoming a multi-ethnic society is positive rather than negative and that pessimistic prognostications have continuously found to be unfounded. Writers such as Matthew Said (of mixed ethnic background) have celebrated the progress, as did Tony Sewell, both in his Report, and follow-up book ‘Black Success’ (blogs 25 & 152).
It is damaging to allow a narrative to prevail that ethnic diversity is a source of social misery. I was struck some years back when several Christian young people came to London to be involved in a variety of mission projects how many of them had fearful expectations of living in London. The reality is that in my own experience, as a now elderly white man, is that over the years multi-ethnic London has become considerably safer and more harmonious. (I concur with the journalist Matthew Parris’s observation that ethnic minority young people are over-represented in those who offer you a seat on the Underground).
The church is not immune from pessimism. Reports from the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice, or earlier from the Committee for Minority Ethnic Concerns, have lamented slow progress towards the Church becoming a truly multi-ethnic church marked by equal treatment and respect.
Pessimism can become a habit-forming mind-set. Hans Rosling’s book ‘Factfulness’ (see my comments at blogs 193 &194) notes how well-educated people nonetheless constantly made inaccurately negative assessments of global situations: when asked to choose one of three statistical answers to a question they frequently made more wrong and pessimistic responses than would even a monkey who tapped the key at random. (Though, as I note, writing in 2017 Rosling acknowledged the possibility of future down-turns, which have in fact materialised).
The default response of gloomy assessments of race should be resisted, generating what Professor Doug Stokes has called a ‘perma-crisis of catastrophisation’ (see Blog 131). Nor can it be ignored that both in the church and the wider society there are a growing number of jobs that depend on sustaining a negative narrative, which in turn is self-sustaining. Archbishop Justin Welby’s statement that the Church of England was ‘deeply institutionally racist’ has been frequently repeated and so treated as a firm fact; but ‘institutional racism’ is a slippery concept which only has meaning through the identifying the institution’s procedural mechanisms. Pointing to unequal outcomes is of itself no evidence. Yet such an approach creates a presumption of failure, and can lead to a damaging inattention to success. What has caused the sudden upsurge in minority ethnic ordinands in recent years? It would be a helpful guide to good practice to know. A culture of pessimism has led to disregard for positives. Some churches thrive as multi-ethnic communities. By now, we ought to have learned if there are transferable characteristics that might be replicated.
One factor, I would suggest, is optimism itself; or, put more appropriately, faith that generates the conviction that the creation of intercultural congregations is close to the heart and the mind of God, and therefore we can pray, plan, explore, improvise and work towards that end. What that might be (indeed, is) very different according to the nature and contexts of different congregations, but certainly the conviction and optimism stemming from faith in God’s purposes is a common element.
Conclusions.
Avoid dogmatism.
We live in a country of around 65 million people from a very wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, and in a world that is increasingly unstable climatically, economically and militarily. Who knows what the future might bring? Perhaps the overall direction will continue to flow towards greater harmony, cohesion and justice, even whilst making allowance for a few unsteadying eddies on the way. Or perhaps not. Either because of an unanticipated calamity, or just because of humanity’s capacity to periodically foul things up, we will undergo the distress of serious inter-ethnic conflict and polarisation. Therefore we need the twin attitudes of cautious watchfulness and concern, and bright hope that we are moving closer to a society of just and joyful interaction across several diversities. But dogmatically predicting what is likely to happen, and aggressively dismissing those who think otherwise is simply inviting history to make fools of us.
Live in hope.
God is good. We have the awesome privilege of relating with people whose life experience and outlook is very different from our own. For Christians, that means the bonds of faith draw us to people who have the same love for Jesus Christ alongside considerable difference in what that means to them and how they express it. Whatever twists and turns the future might bring, that faith and unity provide both an anchor and a joy that sustains us.
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Add On.
Sad to report this week of the death of Jimmy Cliff, reggae singer and actor, age 81. Perhaps it may prompt a tv station for another showing of his starring role in Perry Henzell’s 1972 classic Jamaican film ‘The Harder They Come’: compulsory viewing for all ministers in multi-ethnic areas.