The Church of England has sparked backlash after posting a job for an anti-racism official who will be tasked with the mission of “deconstructing whiteness”.
This week, the Church of England Dioceses in the West Midlands announced that it is looking for an “anti-racism practice officer” who will be paid £36,000 per year.
The posting stated that the position would entail identifying “internal and external resistance to addressing issues of anti-racism in a way that develops understandings of equality and positions everyone to take an equal role”.
Additionally, the job would include developing a consultancy for clergy and others to help “engage in challenging institutional and individual racism and facilitate the development of channels through which this can happen.”
The anti-racist officer would join an 11-person team devoted to ensuring that “structures, practices and behaviours throughout our Church and churches embrace people of GMH (Global Majority Heritage) and UKME (UK Minority Ethnic) backgrounds and enable them to flourish.”
The CoE said that the team will be devoted to “deconstructing whiteness” and “sharing theological insights informed by our cultural origins”.
The Church drew condemnation for the apparently anti-white job posting, with Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox questioning: “Why does ‘Whiteness’ need ‘deconstructing?’ Is there something wrong with white people? Doesn’t the bible say that we are all made in the image of God?”
“Why are the Church of England in league with the other bloke? The one with the horns,” Fox added.
The Church has taken a radical left turn under Archbishop Justin Welby, including on issues surrounding gender, migration, and climate change.
The Church has been increasingly active on racial issues following the re-emergence of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in the United States. For example, while the CoE officially apologised in 2006 for its historic role in the slave trade in 2006, Welby orchestrated a second apology during the height of the BLM protests.
Archbishop Welby has personally protracted himself before the woke movement, previously apologising for having come “from privilege and a place of power as a white person in this country”. However, the Archbishop has yet to vacate his position in favour of an ethnic minority clergyman.