Tuesday marks the centenary of the birth of the Rev John Stott, widely acknowledged as one of the most influential Church of England figures of the 20th century. His light did not diminish. In 2005 Time magazine ranked him among the 100 most influential people in the world.Who was John Stott (who died in 2011), and why is he relevant today? It would be easy to pigeon-hole him as a typical product of white, privileged, Oxbridge Anglicanism. His father, Sir Arnold Stott, a self-confessed agnostic and a Harley Street doctor, was appointed physician to George VI’s household in 1946. The Christian influence came through his mother, Emily “Lily” Stott, who attended All Souls Church, Langham Place, opposite the BBC. Stott graduated with a double first in French and theology from Trinity College, Cambridge, before training for ordination. In 1950, aged 29, he was appointed rector of All Souls. In the years that followed, he developed a global reputation as a preacher and Bible teacher. He wrote more than 50 books published in 65 languages.Stott believed that people reject Christianity not because they think it is false, but because they consider it irrelevant. And it was irrelevant because it didn’t listen. “The contemporary world is positively reverberating with cries of anger, frustration and pain. Too often, however, we turn a deaf ear to these anguished voices . . . The better way is to listen before we speak.”Stott’s listening extended beyond his tribe, theological tradition, and culture. He had a global outlook. He listened to the voices of Christians in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, who grew enormously during his lifetime. The experience changed his theology, not least regarding social activism in mission. Stott was the principal author of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant, which served as a rallying call to the evangelical church to engage in social activism.In 2006 he said: “My hope is that in the future, evangelical leaders will ensure that their social agenda includes such vital topics as halting climate change, eradicating poverty, abolishing armouries of mass destruction, responding adequately to the Aids pandemic, and asserting the human rights of women and children in all cultures. I hope our agenda does not remain too narrow.”Stott set out to destroy the myth of the sacred-secular divide, the idea that some parts of life (church services, praying, reading scripture) are important to God, but everything else (work, the arts, science, sport) is “secular”. “We must not marginalise God, or try to squeeze him out of the non-religious section of our life,” he wrote. Similarly, Stott was committed to the “liberation” of the laity, recognising that while clergy had a crucial job to do, so did lawyers, industrialists, politicians, social workers, scriptwriters, journalists, and homemakers.Stott’s appeal lay in his authenticity. He did not want power or status. He was unassuming and lived simply. He gave his wealth away. “Pride is without doubt the greatest temptation of Christian leaders,” Stott said in 2006 during a visit to the US. “I’m very well aware of the dangers of being fêted and don’t enjoy it, and don’t think one should enjoy it.”He delighted in seeing others succeed. In his extensive travels, he encountered outstanding young scholars with no means of continuing their studies. So, back home, he set up the Langham Partnership to help gifted students from the “Global South” to earn doctorates abroad and then return to teach in theological seminaries in their home countries.Towards the end of his life, he was asked by a friend of mine what he would change if he had his time again. Stott considered the question carefully before replying: “I would pray more.” Given that he woke each day at 5am to pray, this might seem like the last thing he needed, but his understanding of prayer reflected his wider understanding of God, the world, and himself. “Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending his will to ours,” he wrote, “but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his."It’s against the spirit of our age to imagine that someone born a century ago can be contemporary, still shaping the culture of the moment. Stott was. And his writing, vision, and authentic life could not be more relevant, or more needed, in the modern age.Paul Woolley is CEO of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity
When George Floyd was murdered last year his last words were: I cannot breathe. Those words echoed around the world, summing up so many peoples experience of not having the space to be themselves, of being second-class citizens in someone else’s world. This is the antithesis of the belonging and the new humanity we have in Christ that the Christian faith declares. It is, therefore, a gospel imperative for the Church of Jesus Christ to oppose racism in all its forms, to prophetically call for racial justice, and to challenge the white hegemony which so often still controls the narratives of the world. Racism is a sin. Like all sin it must be confronted with a call to repentance and with the healing, reconciling promise of the gospel. Therefore, it was sobering and shameful for the Church of England to be confronted by the <em>Panorama</em> documentary last Monday evening with its own institutional racism and a number of shockingly specific instances where sisters and brothers in Christ have experienced racism in the Church of England. As you know, I was interviewed as part of that programme. I also speak as a member of CMEAC, the Committee for Minority Ethnic Concerns, where I have been privileged to work for the past eight years. There are things I said to the <em>Panorama</em> team which I wish had been included in the documentary, not least the clear condemnation of racism that I hope you are hearing clearly now. Nevertheless, I want to thank those who participated in the programme for their honesty and clarity. With Archbishop Justin, I want to emphasise our immediate response to the programme, which is that non-disclosure agreements should not be used except in the most exceptional of circumstances, and then only to protect the victim, not the reputation of the institution. We are sorry that this has not always been the case. You will also know that the Anti-Racism Task Force we set up last autumn published its inspiring, challenging, and – God willing – far reaching report on Stephen Lawrence day this week. It identifies five areas where urgent action is needed, namely – <ul><li>Participation, including appointments and shortlists for appointments</li><li>Education</li><li>Training and mentoring</li><li>Work with young people</li><li>Governance and structures…</li></ul> And some immediate things. Such as this Synod being encouraged to co-opt more ethnic minority members; establishing a Racial Justice Commission to look at our working practices, and hold the two of us to account; replacing CMEAC with a new standing committee of the Archbishops’ Council to oversee the work of the Racial Justice Directorate; and including ethnic minority clergy participant observers in the House of Bishops. In due course there will be a presentation and a discussion of all this at Synod. However, we couldn’t let this group of sessions pass without acknowledging the scale of the challenge and the call to action.So, I’m not standing here to defend our record. Nor am I saying everything will be ok. It won’t be, unless we take action. I’m saying that there is racism in the Church and it must be confronted. But no longer by words. We have to do something. We have to become the change we long to see. Both the Task Force and the Commission are now mandated to help us implement ‘significant cultural and structural change.’ It has our support. As Arun Arora has said: ‘Apologies and lament must now be accompanied by swift actions leading to real change. And as Graham Tomlin pointed out yesterday in a blog <em>Grace and Race</em>, ‘It is the gospel, not a secular agenda that drives the Church’s vison for racial justice so that the Church genuinely reflects and demonstrates the varied and multi-faceted wisdom and grace of God in Christ.’ I say this to you as a white man who has been on a long journey of learning, and still has, I’m sure, some way to go. But let me finish with a little story that radicalised me. Before I went to ordination training I worked at Saint Christopher’s Hospice in South London for a year. I was a ward orderly. I was the only white man on a team of amazing black women. We became good friends. They taught me a great deal. It was the time of the Brixton riots - only a couple of miles down the road. One of the women I worked with, Grace, was my partner on the Monday after the weekend riots. One by one, throughout the day, a succession of white men stopped her in the corridor and made the same demeaning joke, asking her whether she had been throwing bricks or smashing up bus shelters. Each time, she would patiently smile at their inappropriate joke. But in the afternoon, when a senior consultant made the joke for the umpteenth time, she snapped. She told this so-called senior man what she thought of his derisive humour. She stomped off. He turned to me and said – and I quote - “What is it with these people. Can’t they take a joke?” I took a deep breath. The deep breath that I can make as a privileged white man even though I was in a very low position compared to him, and I said that I’d been working with Grace all day and had been given the tiniest glimpse of the horrifying, persistent, degrading drip, drip of demeaning racism and how I was surprised she hadn’t snapped earlier and that he owed her an apology. The Church of England owes some of our sisters and brothers in Christ a much greater apology than this; and for much greater wrongs. But most of all we owe it to the nation we serve and to the God we love, that in this watershed moment – the week when George Floyd’s killer was brought to justice - we will now commit ourselves to change. For any of my own failings in this I am truly sorry. But let me remind you: one of our named strategic objectives is to be a diverse church. I’m determined to make that happen. Because it is a gospel issue. Because it is the theological vision of our belonging to one another in Christ that drives our mission. Because we all need to breathe. And because our facing this issue of racial justice is itself a movement of the Spirit breathing God’s life of unity and glorious God given diversity into God’s Church.
All shortlists for senior Church of England posts must include at least one ethnic minority candidate, a report has said.It is one of 47 recommendations made by the Archbishops' Anti-Racism Taskforce, which was established last year after the Black Lives Matter protests.It said the Church has "an alarmingly retrograde trend" when it comes to ethnic minority senior bishops. Failing to act would have "devastating effects" on the future of the Church.The archbishops of Canterbury and York welcomed the report but did not commit to enforcing the recommendation on shortlists.It comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, this week said the Church should not use non-disclosure agreements, following BBC Panorama revelations that they were being used to silence staff complaining of racism.The taskforce examined 25 previous reports on racial justice over the past 36 years and said that despite hundreds of recommendations, the Church had overseen "decades of inaction" which "carry consequences".It called for annual reporting on recruitment, mandatory training in all dioceses to embed anti-racism practice, and for full-time racial justice officers to be employed in every diocese for a five-year term.It wants to see a plan drawn up to increase representation of minority ethnic people to at least 15% at all levels of governance by 2030, reflecting the proportion of minority ethnic worshippers.Currently, there are just five minority ethnic bishops and nine deans, archdeacons, and senior staff.The most recent figures reveal 93.7% of senior staff in the Church - including bishops, archdeacons and cathedral clergy - were white British. All the proposals have a timetable for action and details of which part of the Church is responsible for delivery."A failure to act now will be seen as another indication, potentially a last straw for many, that the Church is not serious about racial sin," the report said.The taskforce also said statues linked to slavery in churches should be given extra context. "While history should not be hidden, we also do not want to unconditionally celebrate or commemorate people who contributed to or benefitted from the tragedy that was the slave trade," the report said.
