Potential leaders identified from ‘talent pool’ will be trained and mentored in effort to boost number of non-white bishops, deans and archdeacons

The Church of England is to fast-track black and ethnic minority clergy into senior positions amid accusations of institutional racism.

A “talent pool” of specifically black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) potential leaders will be identified in 2016 for training and mentoring with the aim of increasing representation among bishops, deans and archdeacons.



The church selected its first talent pool this year, but fewer than 7% of those chosen were from ethnic minorities. A second round is currently being selected. The church is to devote a third group specifically to Bame clergy.



However, only 2.8% of C of E clergy are from ethnic minorities, which limits the numbers available for fast-tracking. At senior levels, the sole Bame bishop is John Sentamu, the archbishop of York; there is one Bame dean; and three archdeacons. Only 3% of the members of the last synod – the church parliament – were from ethnic minorities; figures are not yet available for the new synod elected in October.



“[Sentamu’s] rise to the top has almost lulled people into a false sense of security; it’s enabled us to take our eye off the ball,” said Stephen Cottrell, the bishop of Chelmsford, who has pushed for greater Bame representation in the church’s leadership. “It’s embarrassing that we are going backwards on this issue rather than forwards.”



Although the church established its Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns more than 30 years ago, it has recently stepped up efforts to improve Bame representation. An initiative called Turning Up the Volume was set up in 2012 with the aim of doubling the number of Bame clergy in senior positions within 10 years.



But the target was “unchallenging”, given the starting point, said James Langstaff, bishop of Rochester, who chairs the group. There was an urgent need to change attitudes and bias, he added.



“[Some within the church] hesitate to use the language of institutional racism. We also speak of conscious or unconscious bias, which is slightly less emotive. But it is, in my view, undeniable that there is racism within the system, because gifted people have not found their way into senior leadership,” said Langstaff.



The issue was raised at the first meeting of the new synod in November – a gathering that was striking for its overwhelming whiteness. Apart from Sentamu and a handful of minority ethnic members, most non-white faces belonged to security guards and catering staff.



Julie Conalty, the vicar of Christ Church in Erith, Kent, whose congregation is 50% black, asked a question from the synod floor about positive action measures to advance women and Bame clergy through the ranks. “I see a lot of goodwill, but not a systematic top-to-bottom drive to deal with what is institutional racism,” she said later.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Sentamu, the archbishop of York. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

“What’s really scandalous is that, unlike the debate about women priests and bishops, there is no possible theological reasons why Bame clergy cannot hold leadership positions, so there shouldn’t be any negotiations or debate,” she added. “We should be streets ahead.”



Tim Thornton, bishop of Truro, who chairs the development and appointments group, acknowledged that progress had been slow. “We haven’t got any better at it, and we’ve been talking about it for 30 years,” he said.



The church was failing in many ways to reflect society, he added. “This is part of a bigger picture that is something to do with the fact that we’ve become very introspective, and we’re in danger of carrying on a steady road to decline. Somehow we have to look very closely at what we’re doing right back at the beginning – why is it we are not attracting people? That’s a much deeper problem about, metaphorically speaking, how wide our doors are.”



Many point to a lack of welcome by the C of E to immigrants since the 1950s. Anderson Jeremiah, an ordained Anglican priest at Lancaster University’s department of politics, philosophy and religion, said immigrants from south Asia, the Caribbean and Africa had faced “inhospitality” from the C of E, which had “gently and politely diverted them to churches where they might ‘feel more comfortable’.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The general synod gathering in London last month. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Partly as a result, black-majority pentecostal churches “are growing by leaps and bounds. People see others like them at the front of the church in leadership positions, and it gives them a sense of belonging”.



He added: “Until there is a systematic mechanism to ensure there is a visible change at a structural, hierarchical level [in the C of E], it’s hard to see how this can change any time soon.”



Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chaplain to the speaker of the House of Commons, described coming to England from the Caribbean in 1979 as a teenager to find almost no black people leading C of E services. “I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say racism plays a big part of where the church is today in terms of lack of representation in leadership,” she said.



“The church has to wake up. In the same way it has agonised over women, and has eventually seen that it’s right for women to be in leadership within the church, it needs to put the same amount of work when it comes to minority ethnic people. Now, every time the church sits down to make an appointment it asks ‘where are the women?’ I don’t think it’s saying ‘where are the minority ethnic people?’ It has got to right this wrong.”



Jason Roach, a minister at Christ Church Mayfair, said the “woeful under-representation” of minority ethnic people in the church meant a lack of role models. “I’ve spoken to young black people, trying to encourage them to join the church, into vocations, and often what they’ve said is ‘we don’t feel this is a place for us’.”



Although he personally had been encouraged and nurtured, “you are nevertheless always aware that you’re very much in a minority, and at times that can be intimidating,” said Roach.



The church has begun offering those responsible for making appointments training in “unconscious bias”, starting with senior officials in the diocese of Chelmsford. “It has helped to unmask some of the ways we make decisions,” said Cottrell, acknowledging that the C of E was “way behind other organisations” in introducing such training.



Bame members of the church face barriers of “networks and connections” as well as straightforward racism and discrimination, said Elizabeth Henry, national adviser to the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns. The Bame talent pool was a welcome step, she said, but added: “This is not going to be a panacea. It’s one element of addressing these issues within the church.”



Pentecostal experience

At the United Pentecostal Faith church in Lambeth, there is no need to fast-track black and ethnic minority ethnic congregants into senior positions.

The church is led by Bishop Ervin Smith, who came to the UK from Jamaica 60 years ago, and he is supported by four black pastors. Most of his congregation are black, too, though “sometimes three or four white people come along”, he says.



After arriving in London, Smith sought out his nearest church, a C of E establishment in Streatham. “I was welcomed there, but it was a bit different to the Pentecostal worship I was used to. I found a place in Brixton where my people were.”



Pentecostal services are louder and longer, he says, with music, singing, dancing and preaching. “We can go on for two or three hours,” he says. Smith does not prepare his sermons. “You are led by the spirit, you preach the gospel, the word of God.”



In the past, he says, there was more interaction between denominations. “We used to meet up, the Catholics, Church of England, Methodists, Baptists and us. Sometimes we’d swap – I was the first black man ever to preach at the Catholic church in Brixton, in 1964.”



That has fallen away now, he says regretfully. “Names are just labels. All churches should be the same. We should be as one.”

