THE Church of England (C of E) has dismissed a plan to appoint 42 ‘racial justice officers’ (RJOs) after archbishops said they could not afford to create the roles, it was reported last weekend.
The proposal for RJOs was a key recommendation in a report, From Lament to Action, which said the church had to take urgent action to tackle “racial sin” in its ranks.
The report recommended creating posts of RJOs in every diocese and suggested it be funded centrally for five years.
The analysis, published in April, warned further inaction would force many black and ethnic minority worshippers to leave for other churches.
However, the C of E has now said the proposal is too expensive. The Archbishops’ Council, one of the C of E’s main executive bodies, argued the “need to reduce costs in diocesan and national administration” meant it could not implement RJOs across dioceses.
The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, said: “The Archbishops’ Council has concluded it cannot support this recommendation in this formulation at this time, given the need to reduce costs in diocesan and national administration.”
“The aspiration for a full-time RJO in every diocese is something the national church would have liked to support. But we think more work is needed to think through how to drive change at all levels of church life and what role dedicated diocesan officers might have.”
Campaigners who wanted to tackle racism within the church expressed their “shock and disappointment” at the news.
Rev Arun Arora, co-chairman of the anti-racism taskforce, also lamented the decision. “It’s rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find that before the first ball is bowled, their bats have been broken by the team captain,” he told The Times.
“It was something of a shock and disappointment to learn … that there are no plans to implement one of our key proposals … The failure to resource this work and these recommendations will inevitably lead to conclusions as to how much or little this matters to decision-makers in the church.”
Elizabeth Henry, former C of E race adviser until last year, described the outcome as “a slap in the face”.
“To say it’s too costly is a gross insult,” Henry remarked. “It’s to say racial justice is too expensive when it is a foundation of our faith. This decision is a disgrace.”
In response, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, admitted ethnic minorities had been “bullied, overlooked, undermined and excluded” within the church and promised to take action.
Alongside their suggestion to implement RJOs, the report set out an array of other recommendations across five “priority” areas: participation, governance, training, education, and young people.
Among the additional suggestions put forward were shortlists for jobs in the church to include at least one appointable UKME (United Kingdom Minority Ethnic) candidate and recruitment bodies to provide “valid, publishable reasons” for failure to include UKME candidates on shortlists.
The anti-racism taskforce was set up last year by the archbishops of Canterbury and York to ensure changes were made to achieve greater racial justice and equality in the C of E.
Damian Talbot