What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8)
WORKING with the Episcopal Church in the United States at the time of George Floyd’s murder, I, as someone with African heritage, was confronted not only by the pandemic of systemic racism, but also by the persistence of racism towards Black people. The trail of tears that flowed over this latest entry in the ledger of a racialised history carried the lament of ancestors who longed for freedom, liberty, and justice — a longing only partially realised in the present age.
There was no greater corruption of the gospel than the odious commingling of religion, politics, and wealth-accumulation in the institutionalisation of transatlantic slavery. This great crime against humanity, which enriched nations and individuals alike, and provided the financial and organisational means to develop the UK and our modern world, was devised politically, constructed legally, justified theologically, and accepted socially. The Western Slave Holocaust was not just genocide, but, as noted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, “blasphemy”.
Today, some try to suggest that the Empire and colonialism were benevolent, founded on Christian principles, and providing “civility” and “modernisation”. The racism and ethnicism, however, and the sociocultural, economic, and political privilege that accompanied it, was used to legitimise colonial conquest and the genocide of indigenous peoples — and, subsequently, the Holocaust, apartheid, and many modern-day atrocities.
The 1807 “Slave Bible”, which contains only ten per cent of the Old Testament and 50 per cent of the New Testament, with all references to liberty and freedom redacted, underscores the complicity of the Church with the colonial enterprise (Comment, 3 March 2023).
Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved abolitionist, writer, and statesman in the US, said this about White Christianity during slavery: “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference, so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. . .”
Like Martin Luther King, Jr., I “refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. . . I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
BEING in the US during the Black Lives Matter protests allowed me to participate in a watershed moment, as people of varied races, ages, faiths, and identities campaigned for racial justice. Concomitantly, the Church of England embarked on its journey through the work of the Archbishops’ Anti-Racism Taskforce, and the work on Project Spire.
As we reach the ten-year countdown to the bicentenary of the Slavery Abolition (Emancipation) Act, which came into force on 1 August 1834, I call for Emancipation Day to be commemorated in the UK, as it is in the US, Canada, South Africa, and across the Caribbean. Including this as a day of significance, as with Holocaust Memorial Day, Windrush Day, and Remembrance Day, provides an opportunity for strengthening social cohesion in Britain.
Let us use the next decade to attend to the opportunities and challenges from the superdiversity of Britain’s social landscape. This is increasingly important, given the rapidity of the arrival of migrants from many different countries. This, combined with the presence of established Commonwealth communities, has created an unprecedented variety of cultures, languages, and faiths. Notwithstanding the King’s proclamation that our nation’s “diversity is our greatest strength”, this power is yet to be realised, as our Kingdom remains disunited ethnically.
My multiple heritages — African, Asian, and Mediterranean — make me aware that the quest for racial justice cannot be achieved unless we are all committed, and that this is not a struggle between race groups, but a finding of unity across them.
Ending racism, ethnicism, and all forms of discrimination liberates us all, victim and perpetrator alike. All of us have a part to play, particularly those who control structures and institutions. To place the burden of responsibility for tackling racism on to victims is to expect them, unreasonably, to be the architects of their own liberation.
THE New Testament narrative is the story of reconciliation through Christ, restoring humankind to a favourable relationship with God, and, through him, with one another. Christian reconciliation is an invitation for us to confess the sin of racism, and to acknowledge our past and present complicity in various forms of prejudice and discrimination.
God calls us to “love mercy”, that is, have compassion for those who fall short of the glory. The process of reconciliation depends, however, on the attitude of the offender, as it is difficult to restore a broken relationship if the offender is insincere in his repentance. To seek forgiveness without repentance, or absolution without the confession of sin, is to seek cheap grace.
The work of racial justice is to fulfil God’s Kingdom in a world in which all people have an equal opportunity to develop fully the gifts and talents that he has endowed them with. It goes beyond addressing individual racialised behaviour to the root causes of racial oppression, as it intersects with patriarchy, enslavement, and colonialism, along with related economic and social-inequality issues.
Such a journey of reconciliation will be neither swift nor easy. Generations of marginalisation and injustice cannot be healed overnight. Racism and ethnocultural biases are not stains to be washed away, but, to quote Lord Boateng, who chairs the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice, a “gaping wound in the body of Christ” which needs to be cleansed by truth-telling and restorative justice in order to be healed. But we keep faith, knowing that what is required of us is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
The Revd Guy Hewitt, a former Barbadian High Commissioner in London, is the Church of England’s Racial Justice Director.