Race & Class in the Church of England

Reference: Kenneth Leech, Struggle in Babylon, Sheldon Press, 1988  

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1. About Class

It was during the 19th century that the term class came to be widely used, replacing the earlier language of rank and order. But the term has been used in conflicting ways. Marx saw class as related to the system of production. To him, there are just two classes within capitalist society - the ruling class which controls the means of production, wealth and resources, and the working class dependent on wages and have little wealth and property. The growth of new and 'transitional' classes - middle class, affluent working class, bureaucratic and managerial classes - has presented classical Marxism with some awkward problems. [Michael Albert of ZNet www.zmag.org introduced the notion of coordinator class within his model of participatory economics, which he has elaborated in detail.]

The industrial working class began to emerge during the first stage of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1830) and in the 19th century segregation by class developed within cities. Today the working class is in a state of flux. Some say that working class solidarity is declining and shifting towards 'middle class values'. While the Labour Party has traditionally been seen as the party of the working class, the parliamentary wing has since the 1940s been dominated by Oxford educated elites. Since the 1980s, a new middle class has been dominating party thinking. Perhaps we are witnessing the disappearance of the working class as an identifiable entity.

But the likelihood of a 'classless' society is more apparent than real. When Thatcher came into power in 1979, her Tory party felt there had been too much shift towards equality and her first move was to wind up the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income & Wealth. The top 2-5% of wealth holders had stayed much the same since the 1920s. Thatcher set out to change all this. Tax cuts in 1979 led to a 5-fold increase in those with incomes of £20,000 and over after tax, and an 11-fold of those with £50,000 and over. By 1983, 1% of the population owned 23% of marketable wealth, and 5% owned 43%, while the bottom 50% owned only 6% of the total.

The conditions of life of working class people have certainly improved in general, but Britain remains disfigured by inequality and poverty. The principal determinants of inequality are property, profit and access to the market.

2. The Church of England and class

At the heart of the church's role is the church-state alliance. The interests of the C of E lie in preserving the present social and economic order - the monarchy, together with the establishment and capitalist structures.
The C of E as an institution is an integral part of the ruling class, administered and maintained by the middle classes and seeking to minister to the working class and the poor. The underlying problem is that Church does not relate in any fundamental way to the needs of working class people. Yet it seeks to minister to a community it does not understand and with it has never really identified. The C of E grew in parochial terms during the 19th century epoch of church building as a middle class agency in areas which were entirely working class. Between 1824 and 1880 over 600 new churches were built in urban areas. Areas such as the east end were virtually colonised by the C of E, and the pattern was repeated elsewhere. The church's entanglement with the value system of the ruling classes is a major obstacle to its being taken seriously.

The urban church grew up using the rural model. Of the 104 bishops between 1783 and 1852, only 17 had any experience in urban ministry. While village communities often grew around the church and the pub, in the cities it was the pub rather than the church which became the focal point of working class life. Repeated reports point to the failure of the C of E to make any significant impact on the urban scene. The C of E  in the East was first and foremost an instrument of social control. the poor were worthy of care and compassion, but they had to be kept in their places. Nowhere did the C of E become an indigenous part of working class culture. Its true home has always been among the upper and middle classes in the wealthier parts of town and more recently in the growth areas of suburbia.

the 1980 Synod, not surprisingly, was found to be 'still essentially a bastion of male, middle-aged and middle class Anglicans'. By 1980, 96% of lay members had professional or managerial backgrounds. The public school and Oxbridge backgrounds of the bishops are well known. It was this Church of the wealthy and the genteel that was exported to the US, resulting in a largely white church, with influential business connections.

. Its concern, represented in the property world by the Church Commissioners, is to make as much money of its land as possible. It has not hesitated to sell property for luxury flats in areas of acute housing shortage and deprivation. The excuse is that the Church is able to minister to the poor elsewhere.

In a society that sanctions hierarchy and inequality, the C of E is bound to be a class church, a racist church - one that reinforces the inequalities in the dominant society. It is therefore surprising that church documents contain calls for an attack on inequality and racism when its own structures suggest otherwise.

3. Black Christian encounter racism within the C of E

In June 1948, the ship Empire Windrush touched at Tilbury docks carrying 492 Jamaicans, the first batch of post-war non-European immigrants. By 1952, some 6000 Caribbean migrants had arrived and by 1958 this rose to 125,000. Many of these immigrants, particularly Barbados, often had solid Anglican backgrounds and they began to fill the pews left unoccupied by white working class people. The hard core of the white membership was most uncomfortable and resentful with the new comers. Black parishioners found themselves experiencing rejection and racism. In addition, the leadership remained firmly in white hands.

As a result, large numbers of black Christians abandoned the church of their upbringing and formed their own churches. The majority of Afro-Caribbeans now belong to the black-led churches, some of which originate in the US. But most of the black people remain outside the churches altogether. Meanwhile, the C of E and other mainstream churches were not prepared to accommodate to the black presence and found more  promising territory in the suburbs. Since 1945, over half the churches in east London have closed. So Christianity flourishes as a white religion, a religion of the status quo, a white institution within a multiracial society. The Church. always an alien institution in working class areas, now manifests itself as a racist institution.

The church is deeply implicated in the ideology of capitalism. There can be no real attack on racism without a corresponding attack  on the structures of capitalism.