Ryan: Would it be fair to say that some of the pastoral issues you have raised, in our multicultural city of London, are less about White vs. Black and more about white English vs. the World? My argument would be, if so, that preachers of all nationalities, ethnicities, and colours might benefit from Black preaching, for their own souls, but also as a better model of pastoral preaching to follow in multicultural urban ministry than that provided by white preachers in the homogenous setting of their birth. To provide more context to that argument, my family came to the UK as immigrants from America, and we found ourselves wrestling with a kind of grief - having left family, friends, house, homeland, and the familiar comforts of our culture - as well as facing seasons of profound economic need, bereavement from a distance , uncertainty, and anti-American sentiment. My wife similarly is an immigrant, who though white, is from Eastern Europe - not a particularly respected region in Western Europe and even less so in England…sometimes “Eastern European” or some national identifier (“Polish”, “Romanian”, etc) is used as a descriptor but said with all the negativity, venom, and force of an obscenity. I say that to note that the forms, fees, stigma, stresses, irritating questions, microaggressions, snobbery and so forth are familiar to me. While - nationalities and ethnicities aside - I believe there is still a difference between the White and Black/Brown experience of immigration and of England in our racialised society, I nonetheless think that much of what you describe I can empathise with and it has helped me better pastor a congregation of asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants or descendants of immigrants, many and at times most of whom are black, although I myself am not. Does that make sense? Am I completely wrong?
If my thesis is correct, and our white English brethren sometimes have both a White vs. Black issue, and an Us vs. the World issue, how might they be helped? They cannot change their white colour or voice - to do so would be offensive, and would still not do anything about their lack of certain experiences. And yet, they are called to preach and to pastor. Can they learn from and imitate Black preaching and preachers at helpful points?
Wale: Your thesis is spot.
Let me flesh this out a bit and since you’ve asked me, I’ll answer you from my heart. I’ve been a bit cautious not to upset some of those who will read this series and do not want to be seen or read as insensitive, but if the truth be told, then we have to write as it is.
Let me start by addressing and defining an important word: “Tokenism”. Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from under-represented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce. Change “the workforce” to “local church” or “Christian organisation” and you’d understand why this is very offensive. So when we write/talk about inclusion for all in church life, many people throw in the word, “tokenism”. No, we are not asking for tokened inclusion, but biblical and gospel-centred inclusion which is devoid of the nicely guarded insulting undertones!
Now that a few of us are complaining (not a bad thing) just as the Hellenists did in Acts 6, we are beginning to see various inclusions of gifted Black people in church leadership and organisations. I am aware of a British Christian organisation lead by an American immigrant, that is chaired by a black man, himself an immigrant. This organisation has identified, equipped, and empowered other immigrants for ministry - not because they are immigrants, but because they are congregationally identified, spiritually qualified, and God called, but would otherwise be overlooked, neglected, or marginalised in the white English majority spaces of British evangelicalism. This level if inclusion would never have happened if the organisation was led by a White British man. Fact! Please forgive me for stating the obvious.
I know a man who reached the highest levels of academic study, was a university don, studied theology in London, has no moral failures, and has been pastor of the same church for over two decades. What for a long time, and still to some degree, stopped organisations from tapping into his wealth of wisdom and experience? I have and will tell leaders when asked “What are we doing wrong?”, “You need a black man on the board.” No mincing words, just straight for the metaphorical jugular.
Ryan: And you are absolutely right to do so. What you describe is not tokenism, some kind of dehumanising window-dressing to look “inclusive”, and thus to deny (justified) allegations of bias, partiality, and prejudice. This is not one of those, “Do I look racist?” moments online where people who have been critiqued for something or other post happy photos of themselves with smiling black folk all getting along in a misguided effort at deflection. Rather, you are saying there are godly and gifted black men who should be sought out and welcomed to contribute because they are godly and gifted and bring unique and helpful perspectives, but have instead been looked over or not taken seriously because they are black. Of course, some deny that is a factor. “It’s about whether they are interested. It’s about whether they show initiative. Anyone can be nominated and approved etc. etc.” I frankly don’t think there is serious and intentional engagement of specifically identified and gifted black folk, but even if there was, for those of us who have moved in these spaces as immigrants and so “other”, it is not hard to see why black people are not exactly tripping over themselves to get involved.
Wale: Is there something about migration that helps people have a better, clearer understanding of the gospel? Is the charity leader I mentioned earlier able to do so well at including “the nations” because he’s not White British? Are you, Ryan, able to do this because you are not White British and you’ve been helped by the Lord to marry Uliana, who is also an immigrant? Did Philip, a Hellenist Jew recently appointed to the diaconate to solve a problem involving people like him who were being marginalised, understand the Ethiopian eunuch well hence why he was able to help him? Did Jesus in his humanity, during his formative years as a migrant in Egypt, come to (remember, I said in his humanity!) understand and experience the peculiarities of the African continent in a way that was foundational for the gospel to the Gentiles, even in his pre-crucifixion and resurrection life?
So is it indeed about White English vs. the World? I’m not in any way upset and I don’t want this to come out as being upset. Not at all! But many of us have seen demeaning attitudes from our White English brothers that could have been a stumbling block to the gospel but for Jesus’ work of progressive sanctification by the Holy Spirit. So our White English brothers need to learn. Why? The Lord has opened the doors of the evangelical and reformed churches of England to the Black Christian community and they are coming in, but we are not ready to help them. So I get your import when you write about your dear wife and tears welled in my eyes. She’s a gifted young lady but I don’t believe she would have thrived spiritually if she was a member of a White English led church. Some may disagree with this, but it’s the obvious fact hidden as a big elephant in the room. Even when black other immigrant people do get nominated for certain roles, it is immigrants who themselves are doing the nominating! Do you see the point, dear brother?
Ryan: I do see your point. All too clearly. I got an invitation recently to a conference that is meant to address church life in a changed and changing world, and how “we need to talk”. It is apparently seeking to model such necessary conversation by foregoing the usual format in exchange for discussion panels - in fairness, quite a radical change in itself, considering the audience. Unfortunately the speakers and panellists, fine men to be sure most of whom I know personally and appreciate, do not include a single black or brown man. Are there not extremely important contributions to be made about our ever changing ministry context by men such as yourself? Do not the changes we need to face and discuss include greater depth of thinking about ethnic minorities, immigration, racial justice, the growth of minority-majority churches, and the decline of majority culture churches? We need black voices in the room where these decisions get made, and on the platform providing diverse perspectives. Our changed world is not monochrome. Our conversations about it should not be.
Or, for example, an article I read recently by a significant leader in British evangelicalism. Writing about lessons learned from different ways churches responded to COVID-19, he dismissed nonconformist responses as influenced by “American” thinking (not the first time he has, in public and private, spoken disparagingly of Americans…Replace “American” with any other ethnic or national category and perhaps the problem becomes more apparent). In explaining why black majority churches were still gathering or eager to promptly regather despite COVID-19 regulations, he stereotyped them as elevating corporate praise and music to central importance, having to gather for prayer ministry involving laying on of hands and anointing with oil, and the influence of the prosperity gospel, as well as suspicion of the government coinciding with BLM. What he did get right is the growing divide between Black and ethnic minority evangelicals and white British evangelicals, which is unlikely to improve in the absence of Black and immigrant editors or even friends who can discourage unhelpful and overgeneralised omnicompetent hot-takes. Sadly, at the moment, we feel we can't say anything because they don't want to hear it, don't want to know, don't see the need to change, and it's exhausting. We get categorised and thereby marginalised as "troublemakers", when, if we are troubling the tables of white reformed British evangelicalism, it is simply because Jesus promised "my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations". So we put our heads down and get on with what we are doing in our own local churches and with diverse people who enthusiastically and sincerely love each other and enjoy working together. It's getting to the point that if and when White British evangelicals start reaching out and engaging the Black community, its pastors will regard them as Nehemiah did Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, and say "“I am doing important work and cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?" (Nehemiah 6:3).
Wale: White English pastors have a lot to learn if they really want to engage the Black community well with the gospel. They must come down from their theological high horses of “We know better than you lot” and really learn the culture so that they may be able to pastor well, or we may begin to have White vs Black churches in the UK, and we don’t want that!
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