The Church of England may impose racial and minority ethnic quotas for its clergy and institute new training to promote anti-racism, according to a leaked report.
The report is slated to be given to the Archbishops’ Council next week by the Church of England’s anti-racism task force, which rolled out after Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby apologized for his denomination’s alleged historical sins last year.
The report is replete with ample recommendations, according to a copy that was leaked to journalist Douglas Murray at The Spectator.
As The Spectator notes of the report in part:
It is very big on quotas. Henceforth there should be ‘One UKME (UK Minority Ethnic) clergy elected from each region’. Something called ‘programme cohorts’ should have a minimum of 30 per cent UKME participation ‘in order to build up pipeline supply’. And in that happy bureaucratese at which the C of E excels, the church should develop an ‘online module for anti–racist learning programme’. All shortlists will include ‘at least one appointable UKME candidate’ and where this does not occur, the ‘recruiter’ should provide ‘valid, publishable reasons for failure’.
The number of confessing Christians in the United Kingdom has plummeted by half in the past three decades, in stark contrast to the country’s rising number of Muslims and atheists. From 2012 to 2014, the Church of England hemorrhaged nearly two million parishioners, prompting Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to predict the institution is “one generation away from extinction.”
Some English churches have gone so far as to install carnival, helter-skelter rides in an attempt to attract visitors in recent years. Regarding what the puerile installations in his country’s greatest cathedrals might portend for its national church, British journalist Peter Hitchens said in 2019: “Portend? The tragedy has already happened. Set beside the C of E’s abandonment of the 1662 Prayer Book and the Authorised Version of the Bible, and its collapse on the issue of lifelong marriage, a helter skelter is really pretty trivial.”
Portend? The tragedy has already happened. Set beside the C of E's abandonment of the 1662 Prayer Book and the Authorised Version of the Bible, and its collapse on the issue of lifelong marriage, a helter skelter is really pretty trivial. https://t.co/1THcWt0iKT
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) August 25, 2019
Last June, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the Western church should rethink its historical depiction of Jesus Christ as a white man, even going so far as to consider removing overly Anglicized artistic representations of him. As The Daily Wire reported:
Justin Welby, who was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral in March 2013, was asked if the “way the western church portrays Jesus needs to be thought about again.” Welby answered, “Yes, of course it does, this sense that God was white . . . ” He noted of churches around the world, “You go into churches and you don’t see a white Jesus. You see a black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Middle Eastern Jesus — which is of course the most accurate — you see a Fijian Jesus.”
Welby continued, “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages, and understandings. And I don’t think that throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it, but I do think saying ‘that’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship,’ it is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”
Related: Not Even Billy Graham’s Alma Mater Is Safe From Pearl-Clutching Cancel Culture