THE General Synod affirmed the Church’s racial-justice strategy on the Tuesday after a debate on the ultimate report and suggestions of the Archbishops’ Commission on Racial Justice.
The Commission has accomplished the work that it was mandated to do after the Archbishop of Canterbury told the Synod in February 2020 that the Church remained “deeply institutionally racist”. Informed by the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC), the Commission produced the report From Lament to Action in 2021, which beneficial 47 motion points over five priority areas.
Introducing the talk, its chair, Lord Boateng, said that he suspected that some Synod members would breathe a sigh of relief at the ultimate report, “because for them it couldn’t come a moment too soon. They didn’t want it in the primary place and there was some recrimination, resistance, anger and occasional grievance.”
But the Commission had also found engagement, co-operation, real motion, and alter along the way in which, for which he was thankful. “Ethnicity just isn’t a marginal concern. It isn’t a genuflection to worldly political correctness. It is, quite, to reaffirm the entire basis of our relationship with God the Father,” he said.
The Church now needed to create space to construct on what all of the research and diverse reports had demonstrated: “Too often the Church of England takes refuge and even pride in its conversations, despite the fact that those conversations don’t at all times involve listening, particularly to the affected or afflicted,” he said.
“There have been occasions in the course of the lifetime of this Commission in your highest councils when people of color have been invited to input into a gathering and having served this purpose, have then literally been sent out of the room where discussions and decisions directly affecting them happen.”
Structural anomalies that may be intolerable in another institution had been compounded within the Church by “a culture that’s unwilling to share information and guards it with a fierce protectiveness that defies any explanation aside from blatant self-interest. . . Synod, this can be a matter for you to handle in your legislative role, because, in the event you don’t, it is going to be forced upon you by external forces and statutory agencies. The selection is yours.”
The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin (Canterbury), spoke, she said, from a lifetime of experience, quoting Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier: “We’re still fighting for survival”.
“Our lack of information about our competing histories, our inability to recognise each other as made within the image of God, and due to this fact a part of the entire human race, mean that we fail to spot the unifying bonds that may hold us together,” she said. “All we’re left with are the cries of those that are still attempting to separate us from each other, often for political gains.”
Geoff Crawford/Church TimesThe Revd Andrew Mumby (Southwark)
She continued: “Racial justice can’t be seen as responding to sheer political pressure. It must be integrated into the life and fabric of the Church and the nation. It must be woven into its governance seamlessly, and it have to be appropriately resourced. Otherwise, it is going to go nowhere and, some ten or 20 years down the road, we’ll simply see history repeating itself. And then we’re wringing our hands and saying we’re sorry. Let’s not be sorry. Let’s just get on with what we want to do.”
Michelle Obende (Chelmsford) said that racism didn’t exist in isolation throughout the Church: its struggles overlapped with others around age, disability, gender. “One journey shouldn’t trump one other. The journeys are entwined,” she said.
“I even have been ‘othered’. I’ve been dismissed by some and belittled by others, all the way in which as much as here in Synod. I sadly can say I do know what it looks like to be the change you desire to see.”
The Revd Andrew Mumby (Southwark) described slavery as “a genocidal holocaust”. He was fiercely against money from Queen Anne’s Bounty “supporting our thriving parish, without reparatory justice”, he said, referring to “the blood money of my enslaved great-great-grandparents in Jamaica”. Several members responded to his invitation to face with hand on heart to support that decision for reparatory justice.
In a maiden speech, Christine Burgess (Carlisle) was frank about her initial nervousness when talking about race to UKME/GMH people. “As a white ally, I often speak from a spot of ignorance, but my GMH siblings help me. I look ahead to a time when all can flourish like a ravishing garment of many colors.”
Peter Adams (St Albans) desired to see racism called out each time it was seen. He told the Synod: “What we saw in Southport in the summertime was pure racism. As Christians, you may don’t have any truck with it. There can also be no place for us to toy with white-supremacy rhetoric. This just isn’t about me being ‘woke’, but me responding to continuing pain.”
The Archbishop of York quoted a saying from a Ghanaian man which gave food for thought in the sunshine of the rise of far-Right rhetoric: “Until the lion has told his story, the hunter will at all times be the hero.” Archbishop Cottrell said: “We are starting to listen to that story of racism within the Church.”
Prebendary Amatu Christian-Iwuagwu (London) described the Church’s history of complicity within the slave trade as dehumanising. “As someone who grew up in Africa and is now serving as clergy within the Church of England, the injuries of the past proceed to shape lives today. We cannot afford to let the momentum slide. Let’s embrace diversity as a blessing.”
Geoff Crawford/Church TimesThe Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin
The Revd Sonia Barron (Lincoln), a member of the Commission, said: “Culture change takes time and resolve. It will mean hearing hard truths, but scripture tells us the reality will set you free.” She was saddened that “there are some on this chamber who still think we want to ‘recover from it’.”
The Principal of The Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, the Rt Revd Anne Hollinghurst (Southern Suffragans), spoke of the Foundation’s long history of encouraging diversity and of the positive ongoing work amongst her counterparts in other institutions. “I even have real hope for the long run, especially whenever you take a look at the brand new and younger leaders coming through who will shape and reshape the theology and faith of our churches, present and future.”
Professor Joyce Hill (Leeds), a member of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission, wanted to guarantee the Synod, within the context of slavery-linked monuments, that, if there was a battle with heritage bodies, it was not throughout the Church of England. “Our remit is to take care of our heritage buildings as living and evolving centres of worship. Important work has already begun.”
Sammi Tooze (York) said that worship, transformational worship, should reflect the wealthy diversity of the Church. “Embodying lively racial justice becomes what we’re,” she said. “Authorising liturgical materials doesn’t make them any less precious than those authorised by canon. The Liturgical Commission recognises there’s wider work to be done here.”
Canon Judith Maltby (Universities and TEIs) said that, when she worked in a theological college after completing her Ph.D., her students had taught her “rather a lot” in regards to the issues.
Alison Coulter (Winchester) said: “We need this work to run through every area of the Church.” A governance framework had been agreed for a racial-justice panel. “We need practical motion and a transparent, deliverable plan, and we also need a champion.” She looked forward to the appointment of a lead bishop on racial justice.
Geoff Crawford/Church TimesThe Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, stands together with his hand on his heart in solidarity with a call for reparatory justice
The Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Revd Jonathan Frost, who chairs the Church of England’s education office, the National Society, recognised the positive outcomes that the team had worked hard to deliver, and commended the partnerships with diocesan educational teams. In the autumn, a recent RE curriculum highlighting Christianity as a world world faith could be launched.
The Dean of Manchester, the Ven. Rogers Govender (Northern Deans), thought the report “an amazing piece of labor and a superb report”. CMEAC’s “great cry” over 4 many years had been a scarcity of resources. More UKME women needs to be in senior posts, he said: “We shall be watching this and wanting to encourage it.”
The motion was carried by 311-1 with six recorded abstentions. It read:
That this Synod:
(a) noting that the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice has accomplished its mandated three-year term to watch the implementation of the recommendations in From Lament To Action and that the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC) is to get replaced, commend the members of the ACRJ for his or her exemplary service to the Church, and people dedicated members of CMEAC, past and present;
(b) recognise the positive outcomes so far on the implementation of the recommendations in From Lament To Action but affirm the necessity for further effort as a way to embed racial justice within the life and practice of the Church;
(c) recommend that the national Church gives full consideration to the ACRJ’s Appeal, Key Findings and Recommendations; ensuring crucial resources remain available including an efficient governance framework comprising a Racial Justice Board, Panel, and Lead Bishop; that funding for the following triennium and the staffing be made available on the national and diocesan levels;
(d) recommend that Dioceses share good practices and provides priority to the gathering and measuring of relevant data; and that deaneries and parishes are encouraged to take part in the racial justice programmes;
(e) request that the NCIs through the Racial Justice Unit, undertake the crucial evaluations, including of From Lament To Action, in order that General Synod by 2027 can review the further progress made by Dioceses, the NCIs, TEIs and other related institutions and stakeholders on From Lament To Action.
