Every nation, tribe and people

Every nation, tribe & people

Ruth Garvey-Williams explores racism and inclusion in PCI.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” (Revelation 7:9–10)

Three years ago, I was at a meeting of Presbyterian church leaders discussing the challenges faced by multi-ethnic congregations. Some shared the trauma and pain their church members had experienced. Others talked of the difficulties of helping newcomers to integrate into church life. Still others wondered how Christians from other ethnicities could contribute in meaningful ways.

“Could we do some research to find out more?” one leader asked.

Sitting next to me was Damian Jackson from the Irish Council of Churches. We formed a partnership to carry out this research, not just for PCI but across all Christian denominations in Ireland. We wanted to deepen our understanding of the experience of, and attitudes towards, racism and discrimination in churches. We wanted to explore the potential for unity, integration and inclusion and to examine how the church can lead the way in tackling racial injustice where it occurs.

Damian said, “We believe that every person is a bearer of God’s image and that part of our calling to love our neighbour requires us to have concern for barriers to belonging and flourishing in our churches. We need to respond to racism, discrimination and exclusion in Ireland, and in order to do that effectively and with authenticity, we need to begin by looking at ourselves.”

52% of Presbyterians have never heard a sermon on this topic.

VOX magazine and the Irish Council of Churches launched an all-island survey in 2021 with support from PCI, the Evangelical Alliances of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and Tearfund Ireland. The survey collected over 1,000 responses from a wide spectrum of denominations.

In this special report for the Presbyterian Herald, we look at the 245 responses from people who described themselves as Presbyterian. Of these, 51% were living in Northern Ireland, 38.5% in Dublin or other parts of Leinster, 1.5% in Munster and 9% in Connacht or the border counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal. The majority were over 50 years of age (58%) with 31% aged between 35 and 50 and 11% aged between 18 and 35. 92% of Presbyterian respondents described themselves as committed Christians, with 70.5% “active and fully using my gifts” and 20% “active but not fully using my gifts”.

Headline findings

The research shows there is overwhelming support amongst committed members of Presbyterian churches for intentional engagement in this topic. Significantly 92% think it is important for Presbyterian churches to engage in conversations about race and racism and 80% strongly agree or agree, “Racism and discrimination are real problems in Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

One important theme was the need to engage biblically with the issues. Presbyterians expressed a strong desire to see what the Bible has to say about racism and to follow biblical principles of unity and justice. However, 52% of Presbyterians have never heard a sermon on this topic.

One way in which Presbyterian responses differed from those of other denominations was a small but vocal minority (1–2%) who expressed the opinion that the church should not be involved in any work relating to racial justice.

Experiences of people from ethnic minorities

An important focus of the research was on listening to the experiences of ethnic minorities. Only 30 out of 245 Presbyterians responded to questions specifically directed to ethnic minorities. While a small sampling and not representative, it was encouraging to see that most of these people have not experienced racism (79%) or discrimination (67%) in church.

However, one in five had experienced occasional incidents of racism and one third had experienced occasional instances of discrimination in the church. Almost half of respondents had experienced micro-aggressions, either occasionally or regularly, and a third had heard ‘jokes’ about their ethnicity or culture. Stories and examples reveal a range of difficult experiences alongside a few more positive examples of welcome and inclusion.

“[I am] delighted to be part of a multi-ethnic congregation. The different races/ethnicities have so enriched our fellowship. When the church began to grow with many from African cultures, the leadership set up a meeting to discover what we were doing badly or inadequately so that peoples from different backgrounds would be welcomed and affirmed in our community.”

We are blind to our own world view, but it is the lens through which we interpret others.

“Being Black in Northern Ireland is traumatic. On a daily basis, racist acts such as name-calling, people waving banana skins from cars, people crossing the road to avoid you, are common experiences. The five Black young adult men I know are reluctant to leave their homes and struggle to stay in (all-white) workplaces.”

“I have lived and worked in NI and have experienced the problem there firsthand.”

More work is needed to capture a greater spectrum of feedback to more accurately reflect the experience of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in Presbyterian churches.

Attitudes

The survey explored the attitude of the white majority congregants. 191 Presbyterians engaged with this question. While this gives a strong indication of the attitudes among Presbyterians, there were proportionately more responses from the more ethnically diverse churches in ROI (82) than from those in Northern Ireland (109).

A significant majority value diversity as a gift in their church, and believe people from ethnic minorities should be included fully in church life:

• 96% of all Presbyterian respondents strongly agree or agree that churches are enriched by ethnic diversity.

• 82% of Presbyterians from the (white) majority ethnic community strongly agree or agree, “members from ethnic minorities add vibrancy to the worship in my church.”

• 82% of Presbyterians from the (white) ethnic majority strongly agree or agree that “the leadership of a church should reflect the ethnic diversity of its congregation.”

While there was strong support for leadership diversity, this statement also prompted concerns about tokenism and questions as to why more ethnic minorities do not come forward for leadership. Dozens of thoughtful comments, examples and suggestions illuminate the findings.

“I think our congregations could/ should do more about welcoming and supporting immigrants/refugees/ asylum seekers.”

“We are blind to our own world view, but it is the lens through which we interpret others.”

“We have had several people of African ancestry visit our church but none have stayed. We fear difference and diversity and want to assimilate it, rather than welcoming it as a means of enriching faith... We never get quotes from Black theologians, all our theology is white and this is seen as normal. We tend to use images which suggest all Bible characters were white.”

“Racism isn’t an issue in our church.”

We never get quotes from Black theologians, all our theology is white and this is seen as normal…

“I personally have visited the International Meeting Point in Belfast… and it really did help me to see the scale of the need for folk from other ethnic groups and encouraged us to do other things to help. The work of the people there is immense and a fantastic outreach. This helped me to see this problem in a different light and removed some blind spots I might even have had.”

“We need to hear more of what the Bible teaches on racial inclusivity. We have spent so much time, for example, talking about Adam and Eve in terms of evolution or sexuality, that we often forget the utterly radical lesson that their creation teaches us about race. We are all descended from the same forebears. We are all the one race. Comparing the ethnic make-up of the area in which our church operates to the ethnic mix (or lack of) in our congregation could also be helpful. A more controversial measure might also be to turn away from the dependence/ fixation that many churches and church leaders have with the USA. A greater, more international, diversity of role models, mission partners and conference/training speakers would help us to appreciate more the gifts that God has given the world church and not just one, very white dominated nation.”

Strong reactions

A few questions provoked stronger reactions, particularly when the systemic and structural nature of racism was explored.

8% of Presbyterian participants strongly disagree or disagree that “Racism and discrimination are real problems in Ireland/Northern Ireland.” (This compares to 7% of all 1,059 survey respondents.)

62% strongly agree or agree, “White privilege makes life so much easier for white people in Ireland/Northern Ireland” and that therefore life is harder if you are not white. This is surprising because there is a common misconception that white privilege can’t be real because many white people have significant struggles. The term ‘white privilege’ simply means that if you are white, your skin colour does not contribute to your disadvantage. Many respondents seemed to have a clear understanding of this distinction. However, 22% disagree or strongly disagree with the statement.

The responses about ‘Black Lives Matter’ were polarised. One third (32%) of Presbyterians from the majority ethnic community strongly agree or agree with the statement “the Black Lives Matter movement has gone too far” with many pointing to the BLM organisation in America as reason for shunning the movement. Just over one third (38%) disagree or strongly disagree and the remaining 29% respondents describe themselves as “unsure”.

Comments ranged from strong categorical rejections of BLM to more nuanced questioning of the links between a protest movement and the BLM organisation.

“BLM is not simply about racial equality and justice. Its political standpoint, and attempt to rewrite history, is one I could not support, but [I] totally agree with a desire to end racism today.”

“BLM is openly Marxist and holds a variety of views that are wholly incompatible with the Christian faith. It incites violence and stokes racial division. The church has nothing to learn from the poison of Critical Race Theory.”

Final comments

Three open questions provoked a strong and largely positive response from Presbyterians.

1. How can we make the church more inclusive?

Over 50% responded and the top five themes by frequency mentioned were: • Welcome/openness (15%) –

“Make people welcome no matter who they are. Sometimes it is fear of the unknown that leads to racism.”

• Inclusion (13%) – “The gospel makes us more inclusive. If a church is not inclusive it is not gospel based.”

• Leadership diversity/involvement (11%) – “By having different ethnicities part of the leadership teams. By not expecting those who are different from us to become like us, but rather we should be willing to set aside our rights and privileges to incorporate aspects of others’ cultures and liturgies.”

• Be Christ-like/focus [only] on the gospel and gospel preaching (10.5%) – “If churches are Christian and treat everyone with respect then nothing needs to change, we should already be inclusive.”

• Bible teaching on the issue (7%) – “Preach about it, people need to realise this is an issue that everyone has a part to engage in even if there is no ethnic community in their church.”

2. How can churches in Ireland/NI tackle racial injustice?

Most comments in this section fit into two major themes:

• Talk about it/speak out (28%) – “We need to speak out on these issues clearly and nationally. Too often the church nationally is seen as only caring about the ethics of the bedroom or the classroom. Internally we need to take on the growth within churches of the early seeds of white nationalism and the disturbing use of right-wing media by church leaders… I am horrified by how many of our clergy share racist or dog whistle material by papers such as the Daily Mail, Belfast Newsletter or even Breitbart or other far right media on social media. The radical individualism of the present age allows us to say, ‘I’m not personally racist, so everything is fine, and I’m not responsible for whatever privileges I might have accrued in a racist society.’”

• Lead by example (11%) – “The church must show diversity and oneness of the body of Christ first, irrespective of ethnicity or status or privileges, before she can do the talk about racial injustice in the wider society.”

3. Dreams and longings

Over half of Presbyterian (53%) respondents answered the question “What do you long to see happen in your church?” Five main themes emerged –

• Unity in diversity/one in Christ (19%): Many expressed a desire to see unity in diversity with many quoting directly from Revelation 7:9 and others referenced Galatians 3:22 and Acts 2. “All colours and races worshipping together. That’s the biblical dream and we need to make it happen as much as we can before it is going to gloriously happen!”

• A welcoming church (10.5%)

• An inclusive church (10%)

• Leadership diversity (7.5%)

• We are doing fine/no racism in my church (4.5%)

Closing remarks

There is still much work to do to progress from welcome to inclusion, but we can be encouraged that, despite vocal objections from a small minority, the overwhelming majority of committed Christians in the Presbyterian Church are supportive of this work and recognise our responsibility to foster and model a counter-cultural community of grace in which all can flourish.

One important role for Christian leaders will be to understand and address the key touch points, especially where controversy has been imported from other parts of the world. Introducing these topics into sermons and Bible teaching will be a key area for growth for the Presbyterian Church, especially as society becomes more diverse.

However, perhaps the most important next step is a more intentional listening exercise to unpack the experiences of ethnic minorities that were not adequately captured in this research.

Ruth Garvey-Williams is a journalist, author and researcher who has served in Christian ministry for over 30 years. As VOX magazine editor, she travels extensively, sharing what God is doing in Ireland.