CofE to hire ‘deconstructing whiteness’ officer

The Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover, said Anglicans needed to ‘further embed racial justice’ – Julian Simmonds

The Church of England is hiring a “deconstructing whiteness” officer to combat racial injustice.

The £36,000-a-year role is part of a new 11-person “racial justice unit” being set up by the Diocese of Birmingham to work across the West Midlands.

The job advertisement comes just a week after the General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, approved a motion that told all parishes to draw up “race action plans”.

The Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover, told Synod on Feb 25 that Anglicans needed to “further embed racial justice” and should not be afraid of being called “woke”.

But critics of the new racial justice unit – which will work across the dioceses of Birmingham, Coventry, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield and Worcester – accused the Church of “drinking the critical race Kool Aid” and indulging in “student politics”.

“The irony of many of these projects is they are importing American perspectives and overlaying them on a country that is incredibly tolerant,” the Rev Daniel French, vicar of Salcombe, Cornwall, and co-host of the Irreverend podcast, told The Telegraph.

“No less than 80 per cent of the worldwide Anglican Communion is black, and their black theology is very conservative. But you never see the Church paying any attention to that.”

Attempt to end racism

Proponents of “deconstructing whiteness” argue that white people are more privileged than those of other ethnicities, that there are characteristics and habits which are distinctly “white” and that these are deemed by society to be the norm.

They argue that “deconstructing”, or dismantling, these ideas is the only way to end racism.

The job, whose advertisement does not itself define “deconstructing whiteness”, is one of 11 being funded by the Church of England’s national “racial justice unit”.

That unit is part of the Archbishops’ Council, an executive body which is led by the archbishops of Canterbury and York.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, has previously called the Church, which he has led since 2013, “institutionally racist”.

The Rev Marcus Walker, rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London and chairman of the Save the Parish campaign group, said: “It’s hard to overestimate how shocking this is.

“This is the Church, whose scripture tells us ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek but all are one in Christ Jesus’, telling a whole category of person that one of their intrinsic characteristics – their ethnicity – needs to be deconstructed.”

He added: “When yet another round of figures show that yet again the CofE has lost an even greater portion of the population, I wonder if any of those in charge will ask themselves what part they played in telling so many Anglicans that they are no longer welcome in their church.”

‘A Photoshop joke’

The Rev Leonard Payne said he thought the advert was a “joke, a Photoshop job” when he first saw it and that the Church should spend the funds on overstretched parish ministry instead.

“There does seem to be some theological illiteracy and I’m afraid the key players here are the bench of bishops who in their efforts to balance the books, over-reach in their destruction of parishes,” he said.

The national racial justice unit was set up by the Church of England after it was recommended in its From Lament To Action race report, which was commissioned in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May 2020.

It is led by the Rev Guy Hewitt, Britain’s former high commissioner to Barbados, who was a prominent campaigner for the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Birmingham said: “The CofE Birmingham is seeking to respond to the Lament to Action report. The strong relationships between neighbouring dioceses in the Midlands have led to a collaborative joint response to the report.

“This approach has enabled the larger regionally deployed team you have identified, enabling a far stronger response to the Lament to Action report across the Midlands dioceses.”

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