Racial Justice Blog 2021
Welcome to the 2021 Baptists Together Racial Justice Blog, continuing our commitment to hear from and reflect on a range of Christian voices on issues of racial justice.
The idea for last year's series of reflections was conceived by our Racial Justice Hub in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the worldwide protests that followed.
This year's blogs build on that series, and ask what happens next. How can we develop an anti-racist church? What does it mean to be genuinely multicultural?
Faith and Society Team Leader Diane Watts has authored the first reflection:
'I write this introduction from a place of deep discomfort. Discomfort because I am challenged to ask why is change so long in coming? No, more than that, discomfort because I must ask why I have taken so long and what I have done to change my thoughts and actions?
'I feel discomfort as I wonder what difference all the conversations, the debates, the reading and the story-sharing have had over the last year since the murder of George Floyd? I look back to the BU Council apology for slavery in November 2007, since voices have cried out to tell us of discrimination and I am uncomfortable that things are taking so long to change.
'The blogs that follow in this series will help to ask these questions more specifically and then guide us as we learn how to recognise what everyday racism might look like. They will help us to reflect on and learn what it means to be actively listening and be actively conscious about our motivations when we speak or act.
'It is a privilege to introduce these blogs to you and I invite you to come with me on this journey of discomfort together. May our discomfort bring us all to the place where the peace of God which passes all our understanding fills us all, not just some of us and perhaps then, in love, our discomfort will turn to joy and to peace for all.'
Read Diane's longer introductory piece here.
New blogs will be published every Thursday throughout Autumn 2021. Each will be listed below, and there is an opportunity to comment at the end of each:
 | | An anti-racist church | | Practically speaking, I think of my church as being an anti-racist one. This is who we are. We are not fully there yet, but we are working on it. Here are some of the ways we are doing this, writes Gerard Goshawk
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 | | Inclusive worship | | There is an untapped seam of wonderful worship resources very easily and freely available to all if we widen our cultural horizons, writes Margaret Gibbs
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 | | Developing leaders | | Real and creative transformation only comes when people from differing cultural backgrounds are empowered to sit at the top table.
So where do we start? Let’s ask three questions, writes Malcolm Patten
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Click here if you have questions or would like to
contact our Racial Justice Hub.