The Church of England is still “deeply institutionally racist”, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod on Tuesday.
During a debate on the Empire Windrush legacy (Features, 29 June 2018), Archbishop Welby said: “Personally, I am sorry and ashamed. I’m ashamed of our history, and I’m ashamed of our failure. I’m ashamed of our lack of witness to Christ. I’m ashamed at my lack of urgent voice to the Church. . . It is shaming as well as shocking.”
The debate was triggered by a private member’s motion tabled by the Revd Andrew Moughtin-Mumby (Southwark) which called for the Synod to “lament, on behalf of Christ’s Church, the conscious and unconscious racism experienced by countless BAME Anglicans in 1948 and subsequent years”, and to “stamp out all forms of conscious or unconscious racism”.
The motion — subsequently amended to add an apology to the lament, and to commission further research — was carried unanimously.
In his introduction to the debate, Mr Moughtin-Mumby, a priest of British-Jamaican heritage, said that he did not have a personal connection to the Windrush generation; but he was raising the motion as “a matter of simple Christian solidarity with a group of people who have fallen victim to the injustice of discrimination at the hands of our Government and our Church”.
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NEW Synod apologises to Windrush generation for C of E racism
The Church of England is still “deeply institutional racist”, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the General Synod on Tuesdayhttps://t.co/zROv055aLe
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 11, 2020