John Root offers his analysis of the recent report: ‘Behind the Stained Glass: A Report on the participation of UK Minoritised Ethnic People in the Ministry and Leadership of the Church of England’, written for the Racial Justice Commission of the Church of England by Professor Paul Miller and associates of the Institute for Educational and Social Equity.
The report was commissioned to look at four areas relating to minority ethnic people in the Church of England: transition from curacy to first incumbency; appointment of bishops and other senior clergy; discernment of vocations to ordination; and lay ministries and PCC participation. It sought to do this through studying both quantitative statistical data, and through qualitative data—that is, material from 23 one-to-one interviews, and 17 group conversations involving 81 participants.
From the quantitative data one outcome is that the proportion of UKME/GMH ordinands has risen between 2017 and 2023 from 6% to 13%. This is startlingly good news. If one allows for the large proportion of Hindus and Muslims in the population, then the proportion of minority ethnic ordinands heading towards ordination is proportionately above the national minority ethnic population. However, it should not be unexpected since, as the recent national debate on assisted dying showed, ethnic minorities are considerably more religiously minded than the white English population. In this moment, we should expect ethnic minorities to be over-represented in the Church of England.
The other main statistical finding was that of the applicants for 88 clergy appointments in January to April this year, 25% were from ethnic minorities (a disproportionately high percentage) but only 9% were successful. The report raises ‘whether this was a statistical blip or indicative of systemic discrimination’ (p 20). The possibility that there may be differences in the quality of the applicants was not raised. (It is also a remarkable indication of our present situation that there were 24 Black African applicants as opposed to only 4 Black Caribbean applicants).
As regards the qualitative data, participants made some important points:
- several suggested a sense of cultural alienation from ‘mainstream’ Anglicanism, including ‘a lack of cultural competence’ in leaders’ understanding (p 36);
- the lack of transparency in the appointments system and not knowing whether you were ‘in’ or not;
- the importance of mentoring, and especially reverse mentoring of bishops (5.3.6, p 57);
- the value of alternative pathways for training;
- the value of UKME/GMH clergy meeting with bishops (5.3.2, p 55), .
Overall, however, this report is inadequate and disappointing.
The following are its main weaknesses:
1. There is no control group for comparisons. When any group of clergy get together they complain about bishops, about favouritism and unfairness. Many of the significant points above are made by clergy regardless of ethnicity. What we don’t know is how far these complaints are more keenly felt by ethnic minority clergy. ‘Discomfort and feelings of alienation manifest in different ways but often described as a vague sense of being out of place’ is not a quotation from this report but from Gary Jenkins excellent recent Grove booklet A Forgotten People: Mission, Evangelism and the Working Class. Commendably, the Report does recognise ‘the complex interplay of class and cultural dynamics within the Church’ (p 31); the Church of England has yet to do so. But as it is, the Report tends to validate a culture of grievance rather than a culture of agency.
However, whilst discrimination on the basis of class is unacceptable, educational achievement which is clearly related to class and ethnicity is an important and proper factor in choosing senior leaders. It is a reality ignored by those who complained that people with strong qualifications were unfairly favoured.
2. Individual comments can not be the basis of policy. Overall much of the evidence is comments by individuals, including the significant comments I have listed above, but they are a wholly inadequate basis for forming policies. It is good that the ‘Peter’ and ‘Caleb’ streams for ordination training are regarded positively, but one person’s commendation is no basis for a national policy. The grandly titled ‘Typology of churches within the Church of England’ (p 51) is a house built on the sand of the opinions of a small group of participants. It has nothing like the robustness of sociological and ecclesiological analysis, along with a widespread statistical base, which would be needed to be taken seriously.
3. There is very poor understanding of the nature of the Church of England. We are very largely a ‘plateau’ organisation—we exist by having parish clergy spread out across the country. The Report (with a background of advising businesses) finds it hard not to work with a ‘pyramid’ model. So, it expresses concern about ‘a significant barrier for UKME/GMH individual career progression within the structures and hierarchy of the Church of England’ (p 40, italics mine). At the risk of invoking George Herbert, the only proper ‘career progression’ for clergy is learning to serve the population of your parish more effectively. Nor can any clergy be protected from the sometimes dispiriting challenge of ministering in a deeply secularised society.
Deep-seated misunderstanding is also suggested when an impressive quote about initiatives to get greater minority ethnic lay involvement gets misconnected to indicate ‘The findings underscore the need for the Church of England to reform its HR policies and processes’ (p 37)!
4. It is poorly and, I suspect, hastily written. Some sentences only make sense by guessing at the word omitted or wrongly transcribed. The statistical tables seem to have been compiled without understanding. Thus, the category of ‘Deanery Synod Clergy’ in Southwark is one I have never come across before—presumably referring to all clergy, since they are all ex-officio on Deanery Synod. But how do they relate to the other fifteen categories of clergy in the diocese (p 25)? The three ethnically mixed clergy in Birmingham are jumbled and double-counted.
5. It has a questionable theoretical basis. The word ‘Equity’ in the title of the body producing the report indicates an assumption, namely that we should be working towards equal outcomes for all ethnic groups, and anything short of that is indicative of racial injustice in society, and, in this report, the church. But this is a failed assumption. The evidence is overwhelming that ethnic groups always produce different outcomes, simply because their cultures, concerns, choices, and behaviour lead to marked statistical disparities. If minority ethnic applicants are less successful, then that might be racism, or it may be that they are less qualified or less suitable in different ways. If we are now producing above proportion ordination candidates, that might be because they are now receiving institutional favour, or it may be because minorities are now disproportionately more open to the Christian gospel. Whatever the myriad of factors at work in these disparities, to assume that ‘equity’ of outcome should be the desired goal is simply to deny swathes of world-wide statistical evidence that, for proper reasons, it never happens.
So too, the word ‘minoritised’ in the sub-heading needs unpacking. ‘Minoritised’ by whom? The implication is that there can be something malign by society (or the church) assigning people to minorities, and then in some sense treating them unfairly. Yet in various ways people by appearance or culture or history do form discernible minorities, either by choice or by society’s policies, and both for good or for evil. The word is not needed in the title. Its inclusion leads the reader to suspect something unfair has been perpetrated; as, indeed, ‘Behind the Stained Glass’ in the title arouses the expectation that some nefarious secrets are to be unveiled.
6. It threatens to load us with yet more bureaucracy. Reading the Recommendations is dispiriting. At its heart is an Anti-Racism Action Plan, inevitably requiring resourcing and evaluative procedures. This would lead to a Project Oversight Group (POG), with further plans and requirements cascading down into parishes, with the concomitant paperwork and committees. It would involve each diocese appointing (and presumably paying for) a human resources business partner (5.3.5, on p 56). With the POG, alongside CMEAC and ACRJ, to say nothing of voluntary bodies like AMEN and ANIC, and a swathe of diocesan racial justice appointments, it is possible that a racial justice activist could now spend their entire ministry without venturing outside this network.
When ‘From Lament to Action’ was published, Clive Myrie embarrassed Archbishop Stephen Cottrell by grilling him why so many recommendations from previous reports had not been carried out. Hopefully, here are another bundle of recommendations that will never see the light of day.
7. It hasn’t delivered on its brief. There are no clear, direct and specific responses to the (over-ambitious) four questions commissioned by the Racial Justice Commission. None of them are closely examined. Statistics indicate that we seem to be doing well with the discernment of vocations. The transition from curacy to first incumbency, following on from the vital and possibly difficult relationship with the training incumbent, is key. The statistics don’t look good. But close study of specific processes, not surmises from participants, are needed. Studying involvement in lay ministries and PCCs is important but a massive task far beyond the capacity of a short-lived study. The reality is that the Church is little further on in understanding these key areas.
Conclusion: a fundamentally flawed approach.
The above criticisms are not entirely the fault of those drafting the Report. They were given a vast brief to be covered in a very short period of time, and possibly were not helped sufficiently to understand the unique and complex structures of the Church of England. They lamented the lack of a clear and uniform statistical base to work from. And their conceptual framework was accepted too unquestioningly.
To expand, our society’s understanding of ‘race’ (which was followed a few decades later by the church) was shaped during the first phase of large-scale immigration in the 50s and 60s by the high profile drama of the Civil Rights Movement. It focussed on a black/white polarity, marked by the massive racist mistreatment and abuse of black people. Over the decades ‘black’ has been replaced by ‘BAME’ and now ‘UKME/GMH’ but the basic conceptual pattern has continued. It is not by any means entirely obsolete. The participants in this study have important stories to share of not only microaggressions but clearer examples of racism. But that simple polar big picture has been overtaken by a much more complex, fragmented framework—best described as ‘superdiversity’—marked by cross-cutting factors like educational level, specific ethnicity, gender, and several more. The outcome has been described as ‘radical unpredictability’, so that (as I mentioned in a recent blog) the election of Kemi Badenoch was not just a quirk in the processes of party politics, but a marker of a new society where unpredictable outcomes are now the norm, and yet which evoked shrieks of outrage from believers in the old order.
The major consequence for the church of this new complexity is that it can only be addressed by from the ground responses not top-down policies. We must give up our illusion of control, manifested in an ever-increasing flow of committees, organisations, reports and appointments, addressing an ever-smaller number of substantive injustices. The sudden and welcome upsurge of minority ethnic ordination candidates points us to the unpredictable, uncontrollable new context that has emerged. What has happened? The bureaucrats might claim it is the consequence of church policies. I suspect it is more likely that in a multi-ethnic congregation somewhere someone was happily clapping along to the eighth repetition of an anodyne chorus when they suddenly felt the tug of the Holy Spirit calling them to ministry. Either way, a report on the stories of such candidates would give us invaluable pointers to what is happening now. In this uncontrollable context we need to be constantly asking where the wind of the Spirit is blowing.
More broadly, at a time when the church’s public profile has plummeted disastrously, it ought to be such good stories that we major on. Gary Jenkins booklet on working-class ministry that I have referred to suggests that ‘an apologetic for the church can be a crucial part of reaching working class people for the gospel’ (p 14). In a society still heavily involved in its ‘racial reckoning’, it is the joyful apologetic that internationally and locally we are a multi-ethnic communion producing ethnically diverse leaders which ought to be at the heart of our self-presentation.
John Root was a curate in Harlesden, led an estate church plant in Hackney, and planted two Asian language congregations in Wembley, before enjoying retirement ministry in Tottenham.
Excellent review that seeks to find the truth – and points to looking for what God is doing – surely the most important thing. Anything with ‘Equity’ in it is a massive red flag and no excuse for shoddy research which amounts to not telling the truth – although they say that truth itself is repressive! We should not almost welcome being dictated to by the god of this world, but instead seek our true God. He is always about hope and we need to focus on local gatherings of Christians with any organisational structure being purely supportive of that. As John Root points out “‘career progression’ for clergy is learning to serve the population of your parish more effectively.” and that goes for all of us.
It was a major tragedy in CofE history that in the past immigrants from Africa and the Carribean particularly would come to this country having been members in good standing of Anglican churches back home, and find themselves unwelcome and excluded by Anglican churches in England. This was not universal – it was nevertheless ‘way too much so’.
As in many other areas, there is a split between being a ‘national church’ and being simply ‘The Church’ which by definition is inter- or supra-national. Arguably the most important way to deal with these issues would simply be to have the CofE disestablished to be unambiguously a part of the only ‘Christian nation’ the NT recognises – the Church itself….
The opposite, being established church ensures the C of E has a Parish presence in every city, town and village in England and ensures a greater role for Christianity in national life, including at events with the royal family and a presence in the House of Lords. The C of E should build on that and get the increasing numbers of minority ethnic ordinands who are encouragingly seeking ministry into the C of E into inner city Parishes in particular where the minority ethnic population is highest. They can held develop C of E Parish ministry amongst the minority ethnic Christian population there.
In turn those Vicars from minority ethnic groups who have most success growing inner city churches can then be candidates to become suffragen and ultimately diocesan bishops in our big cities from London to Manchester, Birmingham to Liverpool and Sheffield
T1
Sure in theory “being established church ensures the C of E has a Parish presence in every city, town and village in England and ensures a greater role for Christianity in national life, including at events with the royal family and a presence in the House of Lords”. I get that it seems very plausible that “God must want….” such a situation or even the more coercive positions of the established church in the past.
BUT – suppose that God doesn’t in fact want that kind of situation? Suppose that God wanted/intended a very different way of doing things based on ideas like voluntary faith, new spiritual birth by the power of the Holy Spirit, a kingdom ‘not of/from this world’? And suppose that rather than separate ‘Christian states’ of the regular ‘this world’ kind, what God has set up is a single ‘Christian nation’ in the world, that nation being the Church itself operating somewhat like the Jewish Diaspora, Christians as ‘resident aliens/citizens of the kingdom of heaven ‘living abroad’ in this world?
And that actually isn’t a supposition – it is the situation the NT positively teaches, if you can only get yourself out of the worldly “God must want…” mindset, and listen to the Word of God.
What you suggest might work IF it was what God wanted; since the NT teaches that God really wants something else, surely what God really wants will work a lot better because blessed by Him, while your worldly-minded idea is actually disobeying God and WILL fail…..
Well if you believe God doesn’t want an established church then you should never have been in the C of E in the first place. As the C of E’s core role is to be the established church in England with a church in every Parish and has been since the 16th century.
Even if you ignore the C of E’s established church it also at least keeps Anglo Catholics and evangelicals in the same church. Otherwise there is a world of difference between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist churches for instance in liturgy and worship style
T1
I was nominally a member of the CofE in my youth; then I grew up and realised all the bad things about establishment – including that it isn’t what the Bible teaches – and changed over to Anabaptism.
One of the big problems of establishment – seen in similar churches too, eg Putin’s Russian Orthodoxy – is nationalism and so a tendency to racism. Another problem is for church unity – we other Christians want unity, but with Christian churches, not with state and church mish-mashes
The Russian Orthodox church is not an established church, even if the largest church in Russia. The only other established church in Europe other than the C of E is the Lutheran church of Denmark which is certainly not nationalist
T1
From Wikipedia
Canon Michael Bourdeaux, former president of the Keston Institute, said in January 2008 that “the Moscow Patriarchate acts as though it heads a state church, while the few Orthodox clergy who oppose the church-state symbiosis face severe criticism, even loss of livelihood.”[104] Such a view is backed up by other observers of Russian political life.[105] Clifford J. Levy of The New York Times wrote in April 2008: “Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. […] This close alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church has become a defining characteristic of Mr. Putin’s tenure, a mutually reinforcing choreography that is usually described here as working ‘in symphony’.”[106]
Danish Lutherans – quick check suggests that as with the CofE, serious membership indicated by regular attendance is only about 2% of the population.
And you are still dodging the question of whether the scriptures teach establishment or a different model for church/state relations. And that if scripture does teach a different model, then the esrablishment is disobedience to God which God is unlikely to bless in the long term even if He has been rather generous about it hitherto…. And there is in fact no NT evidence for establishment and a great deal for a very deliberate alternative. As I’ve repeatedly said, the only ‘Christian nation’ the NT recognises is the international Church itself.
Yes but the Russian Orthodox church is still not the established church in Russia and hasn’t been since the Russian revolution.
71% of Danes are members of the Lutheran Church of Denmark
https://www.folkekirken.dk/om-folkekirken/statistik-om-folkekirken/medlemmer
There is no monopoly on Christianity, otherwise the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and Methodist churches would all be united. However they aren’t and never will be, at least as established church the C of E includes Christians from the highest church Catholics to lowest church evangelicals who would never be in the same denomination otherwise
If you count all baptised infants as members you will get a high figure for membership of an established church; few of them will bother as adults to positively cancel their ‘membership’. Weekly attendance shows meaningful membership and a serious attempt at Christian fellowship – though even that can be distorted by other factors when establishment is involved. The CofE has similar issues – and currently also barely has 2% of population as regular attenders.
Organisational unity can be overrated. I’m not sure this was typical but at my uni the ‘denominational’ Christian societies apart from Cathsoc had low memberships and furthermore tended to represent the liberal wings of their churches. They therefore did NOT represent what CS Lewis would have called ‘Mere Christianity’ (the common ground) and their differences got much in the way of ecumenical efforts. Whereas the interdenominational evangelical Christian Union had a high membership spread over all denominations (we even had some RC and Orthodox members!!) and were able to work together because our emphasis was on the common ground and not on denominational distinctives.
And you are still dodging the issue of whether the NT teaches establishment or a better form of church/world relations…..
The problem with that is? We should be encouraging as many members of the population to define themselves as Christian not just those who attend church every Sunday. Obviously the Christian Union will be cross denominational at university level, even if mostly evangelical, doesn’t mean those Roman Catholics, Orthodox or High Church Anglicans have any intention of ever attending an evangelical Christian church service once they leave university. They will attend a church of their denomination (though in the case of High Church Anglicans and rural Roman Catholics in England that can still be the local church of the established C of E).
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Whether the NT teaches establishment or not (and in reality it neither supports nor prohibits it) the Church of England is the only denomination in England that does and ever would include the broad spectrum of Christians from high church Catholics to low church evangelicals. The only reason for that being is it is the established church
T1
“We should be encouraging as many members of the population to define themselves as Christian not just those who attend church every Sunday”.
No we should not be encouraging people to ‘define themselves as Christian’ – we should be leading them to actually BE Christian and to be involved regularly in Christian fellowship. It is a problem of establishment that it can lead to all kinds of mistaken or nominal identifying as Christian that may not involve actual repentance and faith.
Indeed there’s an irony here – in interdenominational youth work we’d often have CofE clergy acting as camp or house-party ‘padres’, or giving talks to teen fellowships. And they’d have to make the point that “You’re not a Christian just because you’re born in a ‘Christian country’ like Britain, or because you were baptised as a baby – personal faith is needed”. And of course if you think about it, the reason such a caution was needed was precisely because an awful lot of the CofE was implying just that kind of thing….
“Whether the NT teaches establishment or not (and in reality it neither supports nor prohibits it) ….”
You’re half right – the NT definitely doesn’t support establishment!! But it does effectively prohibit establishment, and in the words of Jesus himself when he told Pilate that his kingdom/kingship is not of/from this world. A ‘Messiah’ who would ‘establish’ a religion is exactly what Pilate was supposed to stop – and the interesting thing is that what Jesus said resulted in Pilate declaring his innocence of such things. If Pilate – of all people – could believe Jesus on that, why do Anglican Christians have so much trouble believing their Lord…??
And the other way the NT forbids establishment is by offering an alternative – the idea of a ‘Christian nation’ which is the Church itself, an international ‘diaspora’ of God’s followers calling people out of ‘the world’ and into God’s kingdom. A peaceable kingdom that does not coerce membership or persecute dissenters or wage holy war on those who follow other beliefs – very unlike the CofE…..
Yes we should, we are Anglicans not some purist evangelical sect. Yes you are in the broad church of Christianity if you are baptised. Roman Catholics for instance believe if you are baptised Catholic you stay Catholic for life even if you never set foot in a church again and correctly so. You remain linked to the church by that very baptism even if not as active and drawn to faith as more regular churchgoers.
The fact Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world has nothing whatsoever to do with prohibiting established churches in the world as it is. The C of E has not persecuted dissenters for centuries and nor does it wage holy war, that was the Pope centuries ago too. Indeed the Church of England has not fined those who did not attend a C of E church every Sunday and demanded tithes from its Parishioners since the early 19th century.
T1
You wrote above – “Whether the NT teaches establishment or not (and in reality it neither supports nor prohibits it) ….”
Which amounts to conceding that ‘establishment’ even in your view is not exactly of the essence of Christianity – so why is it so important to you, when even in your view it is unimportant in God’s Word??
I think you miss the point that to Pilate an ‘established’ church would be very much a ‘kingdom of this world’ of a kind that as governor he was meant to stamp on – a Jesus aiming at established churches would be guilty in Pilate’s eyes; and a Jesus guilty in that way would have been justly executed and so not an innocent victim as a sacrifice for the sins of others. Your desire for establishment threatens the validity of the atonement for our salvation. Pilate finding Jesus innocent is quite important to that issue.
But the big way the Bible rejects establishment is that it offers an alternative which is incompatible with establishment, a very different way to do church/world relations.
It is true that the original totalitarianism of Anglicanism has been eroded over the years and they no longer behave as they did when Henry VIII’s church executed Anabaptists and the Stuart establishment imprisoned John Bunyan.
Thing is – there are people who aren’t Christians, there are people who hold heretical versions of Christianity. Both are properly excluded from the Church though in the independent Church the NT envisages they should not face any penalty in the state. Establishment creates a different kind of dissenter – people who are otherwise totally orthodox but dissent about the one doctrine of ‘establishment’ – which Anglicans like yourself (and incidentally also evangelical JI Packer) admit is a matter of indifference in the Bible. The past persecution of such dissent by Anglicanism was massively improper. Doubly so when it is realised that it is not a matter of indifference but a case where the NT positively advocates a better peaceable and non-coercive option as a pattern for the Church in the world.
As I already said establishment is the only thing which keeps Catholics and Evangelicals in the same denomination. If the C of E was not established Catholics and Evangelicals would go there own way in their own churches and rarely mix with each other.
T1
Another reason why establishment is a bad thing! The basic problem of ‘serving two masters’ (state and God) produces all kinds of inconsistencies and undesirable pressures which detract from the primary mission….
What is the meaning of ‘Global Majority Heritage’ (GMH) and why is this term used?
There is NO ethnic or racial group that constitutes a ‘global majority’. There are an estimated 8.1 billion people in the world, of whom about 1.4 bn are Indian, 1.3 bn are Chinese, 1.2 bn sub-Saharan Africans – as well as the vast populations of Central Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SE Asia etc etc.
So what does the term ‘Global Majority Heritage’ refer to?
Non White ethnicity
The global majority of animals are non-mandrills.
In short, I suspect that it refers to the heritages to be found in cultures other than the Western cluture. One problem the world has is the hegemony which that culture has in many ways around the world. A trivial example is the way Chinese politicians wear standard Western business suits.
This issue is being explored. This article gives a glimpse of the work of Joseph Henrich in how what seems natural to us in the West is ‘WIERD’.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/09/joseph-henrich-explores-weird-societies/
Here is a taste from the start of the article:
“If you measure people’s psychology using the tools that psychologists and economists do, you’ll find substantial variation around the world. Societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic often anchor the extremes of these global distributions. Among the most prominent features that make people WEIRD is prioritizing impersonal pro-sociality over interpersonal relationships. Impersonal psychology includes inclinations to trust strangers or cooperating with anonymous others. Another big one is having high levels of individualism, meaning a focus on the self and one’s attributes. This is often accompanied by tendencies toward self-enhancement and overconfidence. WEIRD people also rely heavily on analytic thinking over more holistic approaches to problems.”
So, our culture is both WEIRD and weird, the latter in the sense that it is at odds with other cultures around the world.
I might suggest that this ‘weirdness’ affects theology.
One of the ‘findings’: ‘The Church often values how one can confirm [sic] to ‘English culture’, including speech, mannerisms, UK qualifications and backgrounds over diverse experiences and routes into the ministry.’
And what’s wrong with that? ‘To the Jews I became a Jew …’ (1 Cor 9.20). When I worked in a parish and diocese very different from what I had grown up in, I had to identify as much as I could with that world. Every missionary should understand this point.
Expecting the world to conform to oneself is a quick route to conflict and failure.
Teo other strange or at least politically charged and biased expressions used in this flimsy report are “lived experience” and “minoritised”.
“Lived experience” just means “personal experience”, and really there is no other kind: you either experience sonething or you don’t. I know the expression has become quite privileged in contemporary social science, and it seems to carry the implication that an individual’s account of what he or she has experienced is authoritative and true, when it is really just another data point to be assessed and evaluated with other statistics.
“Minoritised” is a strange word thst is now being pushed by the left as a replacement for “ethnic minority” or “people of colour”, now that “BAME” is falling out of favour. My quick check of Wikipedia and other internet sites tells me the word means “a non-white person racially oppressed by white people” – so it is hardly a neutral term, it is already freighted with moral condemnation and a leftwing narrative about history. It is also a rather stupid word, like a lot of neologisms in political sociology, because it implies that persons who are a “majority” (where?) have been made into a “minority” by the local indigenous white people. That is weird. If I emigrated to practically anywhere in tbe world, I would be in a minority – and I would have “minoritised ” myself by my decision to move there.
A little more reading on the odd expression “Global Majority Heritage” has confirmed to me that it’s a recent leftwing coinage intended to stigmatise white people as being “only” 15% of the world’s population while non-white people make up 85%. To which I can only say: so what? Everyone is a minority outside their own home (and sometimes within it): Turkic people in China, Rohingyas in Bangladesh, Christians in Pakistan, Japanese in Brazil. That’s what immigration does, and if white Britons suddenly decided they wanted to emigrate to Africa in large numbers (which they will not do – why not?), they would not find it easy or welcoming. And why not?
There is no such thing as a “Global Majority Heritage”. It is an anti-white neologism and it is disappointing to see it in a Church of England report.
James, your excellent critique is impaired by only one term, ‘left / leftwing’, though you do avoid ‘woke’. In the broad public mind ‘left’ suggests anything neither conservative nor liberal
in political or social thought. ‘Left’ should be seen as a descriptive, not as a perjorative, and so lacks useful definition.
Turn now to the CofE. It holds a perceptibly large minority of commited identitarian and CRT constituents, lay, clerical and episcopal, driving towards their ideal of majority control. Anglican or historic catholic doctrine (Nicene / Trinitarian) is suppressed or ignored by them, as of importance secondary to outcomes of immigration from the former empire. Christian faith as understood in the official formularies is being replaced by new synchretists within, and an incoming collective of minoritarians purposed to become a leading majority.
In due course, aided by opportunists, secularists, radical American feminists and critical theorists, these inspecifically Christian elements will destroy the Established Church or re- organise it as a culture far different from its legitimate ancient roots.
James, let the respectable ‘left’ allow church and state to remain democratic and orthodox.
Alan, I don’t see my use of “leftwing” as pejorative per se. This is what the modern left believes, so calling it leftwing is just being accurate. My own views as a young man were moderately leftish and that was how I voted, but that was before the sexual revolution, secular feminism and identity politics captured the left.
More woke twaddle from a church that is doing its best to commit suicide. What matters is what is inside a man, i.e. his beliefs, not what amount of melanin is in his physical interface with the world. I want more ordinands who reject liberal theology, and I don’t care what colour they are.
“Global Majority Heritage” is a racist term invented to stigmatise white people. There are seven (or eight) major “races” in the world (depending on one’s crude and individual categorisation). Every one of them is a MINORITY in the world because no “race” makes up 50% of the world’s population. If white people are excluded from ‘Global Majority Heritage’, then that is simply a racist decision by the American university Marxists who invented these Newspeak terms.
Along with “Minoritised”.
The Church of England should disown this garbage report and its anti-white language.
But, James, what if the context for the expression “Global Majority Heritage” is the UK and not the world? Does that affect what it ‘means’?
You used ‘minoritised’ in your story about ‘white Britons’ in ‘Africa’. Was this also a ‘racist decision?’
By all means, argue against the report. But I don’t think your language/linguistic arguments help you.
Sorry James, I should have said ‘you COULD HAVE used “minoritised” in your story…’. My question then is: Would this have changed how you expected us to read your story?
That’s because you don’t understand how language works.
Are all modern day Minotaurs of western constructions, watershed sources?
With downstream deconstruction yet with adoption and cultural appropriation?
I confess that I had never consciously come across the word ‘minoritised’ (more usually ‘minoritized’] until I read this report and it set me on a rabbit trail to find out who coined it and what it means. The Cambridge University Press gives this definition:
“to consider people as a minority (= any small group in society that is different from others because of their race, religion, political beliefs, etc.) or make them feel as though they are a minority, in a way that is harmful or unfair”;
and the word is commonly used in the sociology departments of American universities with meanings of “oppression, persecution” etc (by white people against blacks, of course). IOW, it’s already freighted with neo-Marxist race conflict rhetoric. It does not mean ‘minority’, which is a simple statement of mathematical fact but is a political value judgment and an allegation of sinful behaviour. Why does the C of E allow these allegations in its reports?
Sociological- cultural- titration.
A product of the ‘social gospel’ of secular infiltration, and descendants of ‘liberation theology’.
It is so far from the sweep of the whole of the Biblical canon.
And it is so very far from the actuality of the Good News in Jesus for all people groups.
James 1Jan 9.50pm: ‘I don’t see my use of “leftwing” as pejorative per se. This is what the modern left believes, so calling it leftwing is just being accurate.’
James 2Jan 9.02am: ‘IOW, it’s already freighted with neo-Marxist race conflict rhetoric. … a political value judgment and an allegation of sinful behaviour.’
So, as I said, your argument about language ‘per se’ 🙂 doesn’t help you!
That’s because you don’t understand how language works.
The first quotation refers to my use of “leftwing” as an objective statement of what the modern political left believes. There is no real argument about this.
The second quotation concerns my criticisms of the neologism “minoritised” which the report used to refer to ethnic or racial minorities in the Church of England. I pointed out that “minoritised” does NOT mean “minority” but “persecuted and ill-treated (by another group)”.
These are two different words. Reading carefully helps us to understand how language works. Dictionaries are also useful.
James, can you help me understand here please?
Your argument here seems to be that your use of ‘leftwing’ is ok when questioned because in your utterance it is _what you say about it_ that shows your meaning. Yet your argument against ‘minoritise’ (‘strange word’, ‘stupid word’) seems to be only its origin not the use that the report made of it — so NOT about the meaning of any UTTERANCE in the report.
Is this what you are saying?
So three questions: (1) isn’t this inconsistent? (2) isn’t the use of a word in context much more useful than its etymology in understanding ‘its meaning’? (3) where can we talk sensibly about ‘truth claims’? Isn’t it at the level of whole utterances rather than individual words? (Isn’t that one of the things that James Barr was talking about?)
So, I agree 100% with your linguistic claim about using ‘leftwing’ (sic.) but your discussion about ‘minoritise’ etc. seems to be another illustration of an argument that is simply mistaken about how ‘utterances’ MEAN.
Dictionaries are more useful to philologists than to linguists 🙂 Which of these look at how language works?
My note on use of ‘left’ and political cognates was inadequate, but much use of the term is pejorative, leading only to uninformed prejudice. As used frequently (e.g. Spectator), left means ‘anything l don’t vote for’.
In a stricter universe of discourse, regarding the CofE’s wokeward drift, l commend to those unaware of deeper studies into victim and racial justice studies:
Pluckrose & Lindsay, “Cynical Theories” (2020) and
Shenvi & Sawyer, “Critical Dilemma” (2023).
Good reading, not for bed-time!
Some broad paradigms or ‘left’ and ‘right’ are still useful.
A general leftish view is that human beings are basically good but the political organisation of mankind is rather stuffed up, and with the right and persistent application of “scientific socialism”, a more perfect social order will arise in which there is more peace, more fairness and more prosperity. Broadly speaking, religion is about false consciousness and the projection of our hopes onto a mythical afterlife. There are religious socialists, but the left is generally secular or anti-religious. (The current alliance between Labour and Islam in Britain today is entirely pragmatic, because most British Pakistanis are poor and 70%+ vote Labour. This is why Jess Phillips doesn’t want to investigate Pakistani ‘grooming’ (rape) gangs. The rise of Islamism threatens this alliance.) The answer to society’s ills lies in Statism, and in the dangerous world of today, that means censorship and control of movement become more necessary. Security and equality of outcome are more important than abstract talk of ‘freedom’. (Notice that in this way, the contemporary left has become the polar opposite of the anti-authoritarian left I knew and broadly supported, growing up in the 1970s.)
A general conservative (Burkean) view is that human beings are a mixture of good and evil, and tendencies toward oppression, domination and theft are found in every level and department of human life. The traditional conservative is more sceptical about the power of the state to eradicate evil, and thinks that life is better served by the “small battalions” of free association: the family, Church, clubs, schools etc. The conservative has a general respect for tradition as embodying the wisdom of multiple generations that may not be obvious to the present generation. The conservative thinks that life is not about victories but trade-offs because human existence will always be imperfect. Freedom of speech, religion, movement, association and personal decision making are valorised by the conservative as a better route to happiness than a controlling state and bureaucracy.
In theological terms, the left tends to Pelagianism the right to Augustinianism.
Perhaps the biggest problem with socialism is that it doesn’t understand the nature of human beings and the nature of work. It may be true theologically that all work done honestly is of equal value to God, but that is not how things work in the sublunary world. If burger-flippers and brain surgeons were paid the same, only the brightest and saintliest (rarely the same people) would become brain surgeons.
If black people in Britain were predominantly lawyers, doctors, accountants and business people, we would hear nothing about being “minoritised”. British Indians rarely complain about racial discrimination because they are largely professional people in well-remunerated work. British Pakistanis are a different matter, being less educated and having low levels of participation in the workforce. They are also the most politically volatile.
In other words, these discussions are once again about culture more than melanin. It is interesting that more people of African origin than Afro-Caribbean have sought ordination in the Church of England. That suggests that Caribbean heritage Christians may be more focused on their own (often Pentecostal) churches. There are also plenty of African Pentecostal (and ‘Prosperity’) churches in London and elsewhere, which this report doesn’t seem to acknowledge.
Some years ago whilst we were living in Gloucester I was the Reader at an inner city Anglican church. A significant number of the congregation were Windrush generation folk from various of the Carribean islands. They were quite comfortable with the rather informal character of our services. Their children and grandchildren however attended the ever-growing black-led churches in the city.
It’s this reality that provoked then and especially now a resigned sigh when Anglican luminaries get into fevered angst about race and ethnicity. Now in our retirement we live just outside Oxford. Our congregatioin are local white (what does that word mean??) with numerous Europeans and a few West Africans. These non-brits are mostly involved with the university or in business. We all relate well and are mutually nutured.
It is not how James uses left or right, with neat observations about’generally the left’. That may well be. But the term left tars everyone voting left in UK with the same brush. Please talk about specific beliefs or preferences which are not exlusively left or other. I still commend the two in-depth studies cited in my last comment.
Left and Right in Britain used to relate to the polarities in society introduced by the Industrial Revolution. Currently the terms are undergoing change to have wider cultural meanings (although ‘conservative’ with a small ‘c’ is meaningful in both contexts). This change is essentially due to Marxists giving up on violent revolution, because industrialisation has actually meant that even the poor in Europe have a higher standard of living today than mediaeval kings. Rather than rejoice at this success and evaporate, these wreckers have changed tactic and become the Woke in their ‘long march through the institutions’ (a phrase due to Rudi Dutschke, not Antonio Gramsci although Gramsci had the idea). It seems that the finest generation – that won WW2 – begat the worst generation.
Anton,
your comment about the Industrial Revolution as the defining event in modern politics is apposite; from that we date the creation of the working class which would eclipse the 19th century paradigm of liberalism vs. conservatism, a division often marked out as well by confessionalism (non-conformity and free church vs. Church of England).
Labour then eclipsed Liberalism by 1924 as suffrage was extended. I was born into a poor, Labour-voting family toward the end of that period, which was marked by growing wealth, greatly extended educational opportunities and the de-industrialisation of western economies. Old political paradigms couldn’t survive those changes, hence the switch of the left to embrace racial and sexual identity politics and internationalism.
At the same time, the left became the party of big government, especially in education, the health service and local government, an alliance which British Conservatism has never seriously challenged. The watch cry is “Services!”, with the expectation that the capitalist economy will keep growing to pay for all this.
The end of the Soviet Bloc, the collapse of birth rates and the massive rise of immigration have contributed to upend familiar ideas of what a nation-state is, making a strange alliance between global capitalism and leftist identity politics – a new chapter in Paradigms Lost.
Gavin Ashenden thankfully (since he swam the Tiber) concentrates on what good British Christians of all denominations should unite about in his insightful, sobering and excoriating analysis of the King’s Christmas speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2bYUIJ9wTA