“The killer was from Libya.” These words referred to a knife attack in Reading, which left three dead.

Is that a racist statement?

Maybe not, but it does contribute to a national supremacy agenda.

Let me explain.

Numerous awful crimes are reported in our media. Murders, rapes, people trafficking. Very often we are told the nationality of the perpetrator(s). for example, a Nigerian man killed this person; a group of Pakistani men raped these women, etc, etc.

But, when Ian Huntly (Soham), Thomas Hamilton (Dunblane), Michael Ryan (Hungerford) are referred to, there is no reference to their British heritage. When Jo Cox, MP, was killed, her murderer, Thomas Mair was referred to as a ‘far-right terrorist,’ not a ‘British Man.’

This subtle difference has a drip-drip effect on our thinking.

We already believe Britain to be ‘great.’ Its even in our name. We are ‘Great Britain.’ Other countries have names, France, India, Brazil – none are ‘great.’ So we have inherited a tendency to national superiority. And we had an empire! The sun never set on our empire.

The reporting of awful crimes by ‘foreigners’ in this way reinforces our sense of superiority. And, when a British man is identified as a killer, he is ‘far-right.’ The contrast is significant. It normalises evil behaviour in the foreigner in contrast to the behaviours of British people.

Our thinking becomes, ‘I am better than him.’ This leads to ‘we are better than they.’ And that is racism.

Who likes the book?

There’s far too many books to read. So, in most cases, I look comments from others. The reviews for We Need to Talk about Race are from Justin Welby, Krish Kandiah, Andrew Wilson, Les Isaac, and Guvna B, amongst others. These reviews carry weight.

An uncomfortable history

In an ear of ‘cancel or don’t cancel,’ Ben Lindsay honestly looks at the relationship between Churches and slavery (chapter 3). This makes for uncomfortable, yet essential, reading. Although there were Christian abolitionists from the seventeenth century (page 40), this was not unanimous.

More modern history refers to events in the 1950s and 1960s. At the time the vast majority of Churches in the UK were white majority and white-led. And, quoting Justin Welby, Lindsay comments that many arrivals from the British Commonwealth did not receive anything like a warm welcome.  Many from African and the Caribbean started their own Churches.

Lindsay carefully explains why economic reparations are unwise (see Jer 31.29-30). He suggests ‘biblical race reparations’ in our thinking and in our Churches. Following Rev Duke Kwon, four elements of such reparations are suggested:

1. Changing our vocabulary – look beyond our own ‘white’ understanding and start looking at the Church through the lens of black experience.
2. Reckoning with our history – the UK Church must have regular and honest conversations about what has happened in its own history.
3. Repentant imagination – the challenge is for white-led, white-majority Churches to have conversations with black members. Imagine, together, who the Church would look like if black people were involved in decision making.
4. Less talk, more action – Repair the Church’s view on social and economic issues that affect the black community. And repair broken leadership structures such that they joyfully centre on the gifts of black leaders.

Lessons from Acts 8

Pages 88 & 89 provide a clear explanation of the lessons of this incident in the early Church, where dominant majority culture (Hebrews) ceded authority and decision making to the minority Greek culture. They appointed Greek deacons to make decisions to support the Greek widows in their midst. There was no lowering of standards. The seven chosen were “known to he full of the Spirit and wisdom” (Acts 6.3).

In is important to note that Stephen and Philip, two of ‘the seven,’ developed much wider evangelistic ministry (Acts 7 & 8). The decision by the Hebrew majority to honour the Greek minority in this way had no negative result. Rather it promoted the further growth and expansion of the Church.

Ben Lindsay gives some specific examples which he has witnessed; at Newday (page 89) and the wedding of Harry & Meghan (page 91). Single events may (or may not) make a huge cultural difference; but they are evidence of those seeking to re-balance the inequity and more towards a proper Biblical solution.

I am a white man, born in the UK. That is a statement of fact. I am not ‘proud’ of it.

But, that fact gives me enormous privilege. The comforts and conveniences of our country are huge. Too easily we can find ourselves blind to this reality. We can be wilfully ignorant of the huge imbalance in access to resources in today’s world. In 2020, the UK instigated several schemes to help provide for workers unable to work due to the coronavirus-lockdown. Whilst there are gaps, the contrast to Ghana and Malawi, for example, is enormous. A friend in Kenya commented that, in the rural areas, the main problem is not covid-19 nor locusts, but starvation.

(I know a little about Africa, so will comment on it. I know less about other parts of the world.)

We have well-equipped hospitals; staffed by well-trained doctors and nurses. We even clapped them weekly to express our gratitude. African nations, for the most part, have very basic health provision. It is God’s mercy that most African nations have not seen huge numbers of infections.

The wealth of the UK has been built upon the enforced labour of millions of black Africans. That is not the whole story, but it is a large part of it. Events in Bristol, with the removal of the statue of Edward Colston, highlighted the issue.

One of my heroes is David Livingstone. He was one of the first British travellers to highlight the scourge of slavery, the running sore on the face of Africa. He witnessed the slave trade in eastern Africa, which supplied Arabia and India. We are more familiar with the equally appalling west African slave trade, which more directly benefitted the UK.

British history was massively changed by the industrial revolution. Whilst there is debate about exactly where it started and by whom, the UK and Europe were certainly at the heart of the raft of technological developments. And the UK and Europe enjoyed huge increases in living standards. But that new-found wealth was not shared with poorer nations. Indeed, alongside foreign and trade policies, this actually exacerbated the inequalities.

Colonisation from the UK and several other European states is often referred to as the ‘scramble’ for Africa. We claimed territory and raised our flags over Africa. Borders were drawn on maps of Africa by politicians in London and Paris and Berlin. No reference was made to the interests of local people; no counsel was sought from local tribal leaders.

Some respond by arguing that, since all are made in the image of God, all lives matter. That is strictly true. But such sentimentalism merely perpetuates the injustice.

Time to start to put things right. Black Lives Matter.