A Letter to Fellow ACNA Clergy: On Anti-Racism and a More Diverse and Just Anglicanism

An appeal from the progressive faction within the ACNA

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Editor’s note: To sign the statement please go to the website of Anglican Compass the place of first publication. It has been asked whether readers might confuse the tag line for this article “An appeal from the progressive faction within the ACNA” as being a quote from the appeal. It is not. It is merely a descriptor used by the Anglican Ink to help readers place this article in proper context.

The Appeal states:

Following the lead of bishops Jim Hobby, Todd Hunter, Stewart Ruch III, and Steve Wood, who recently wrote in response to the death of George Floyd, which gained support from a number of other bishops, we offer this open letter to our fellow ACNA clergy and to the churches under our care. Whether you’re ACNA clergy, a layperson, or a Christian leader outside the ACNA, we invite your consideration of the following and your signature in support.

Our Context

Our province, The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), was born as part of a global movement that features diverse leadership and reflects the churches and people of global Anglicanism. It is a manifestation of the universal power and eschatological telos of the Gospel of Jesus: “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9).

Currently, the American population is about 38% non-white. By many projections, over the next 20 years, it will be increasingly composed of ethnic minorities. Our province, however, is far from representative of this emerging reality. The mission on our doorstep is clear: to reach North America, in all of its ethnic diversity, “with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.” We have the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel “to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15) and to be Jesus’ witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We are called to reflect the ethnic diversity of the global movement of which we are a part, as well as the diverse locales in which we are present.

In order to more fully embody our Gospel witness, we must support, encourage, and empower the leadership of brothers and sisters of color in the ACNA to create more hospitable and welcoming spaces for people of color. This includes Black, Latino/a, Native, Asian, and other people groups. We must listen and respond to these voices in our midst and collectively seek to understand and address the historic and ongoing ways in which people of color continue to struggle under various expressions of injustice.

We see and grieve the racism and discrimination that exists and has a deep cultural and structural influence in our society, in our communities, and in our churches. The recent tragedies of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd are simply the latest in a long line of harrowing examples of these deeply embedded systemic realities. We see and grieve that our brothers and sisters of color, including many in our own dioceses and parishes, have been and continue to be profoundly affected by these realities.

Against this backdrop, we offer the following confessions and make the following commitments.

Confessions

We confess that we have failed to see, understand, and address the expressions of racism, both personal and systemic, that plague our society, communities, and churches.

We confess our slowness to listen to the dismay and discouragement of our brothers and sisters of color, especially those in our own province, and have neglected to cultivate hospitable spaces for them to flourish.

We confess that our ignorance, complacency, and silence have undermined our fidelity to the Great Commandment to love God and love our neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40), which fundamentally calls us into disciplines of anti-racism.

Commitments

We commit to listening to, learning from, and supporting leaders of color in their witness to our province.

We commit to partnering with these friends, and with organizations like

that are working to promote, support, and invest in a more diverse and just Anglicanism.

And, in all of our different capacities and platforms, in our churches and in the world, we commit ourselves to investing in the work of anti-racism—in our catechesis, discipleship, preaching, ministry, advocacy, and reform.

The Road Ahead

We are encouraged by the leaders, including the Archbishop, who have spoken out about the recent injustices, and we know that there are places within the province where there is movement toward realizing this vision of a multi-ethnic church, one that is unhindered by racism in all its forms, that can reach the entirety of North America.

However, there is significant work yet to be done. We hope that others will join us in our intentional commitment to partnering with leaders of color and the provincial organizations listed above in order to cultivate a diverse and just Anglicanism in North America.

We are a group of clergy committed to the ACNA and its mission. If you would like either to join us in these confessions and commitments or signal your affirmation of such work, we invite you to add your name to this letter.

Our ultimate goal, however, is not just signatures, but a collective public commitment towards diversity and justice for the sake of the gospel and our Kingdom witness.

Almighty God, you created us in your own image: Grant us grace to contend fearlessly against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and help us to use our freedom rightly in the establishment of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Sincerely in Christ,

Authors

Rev. Ryan Boettcher
Associate Clergy, Resurrection Anglican South Austin

Rev. Dr. Shawn McCain
Rector, Resurrection Anglican South Austin

Rev. Seth Richardson
The Telos Collective

Rev. Dr. J.R. Rozko
National Director, Missio Alliance & Co-Lead Pastor, First Church of the Resurrection

Rev. Ben Sternke
Co-Rector, The Table Indianapolis & Co-Founder, Gravity Leadership

Rev. Matt Tebbe
Co-Rector, The Table Indianapolis & Co-Founder, Gravity Leadership

Rev. Erik Willits
Host of The Intersection Podcast
Special Projects, Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others

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50 COMMENTS

    • I gave up reading before I even got to the midpoint. On the one hand, it seemed to me to be saying “We must remember how important it is to the human body to breathe. We must make sure not to hold our breaths to the point it does harm.” In other words, stating the obvious fact that we should be welcoming of all ethnicities, and to create an environment in which they can thrive.

      Fine.

      But they use language that divides. “People of color”, I hate that term, it divides us into different racial groups. What about “all” or “everyone”?

      I applauded the arrest of the officer in question of George Floyd’s death. I think the other officers there should be arrested as well, if they were close enough to have eyes on what happened. I grieved for the family and friends of Mr. Floyd.

      But the riots that have broken out are an entirely different issue. Those are crimes too, and they are fostering division in this country and a breakdown of respect for law, order, and those that enforce it. And to the degree that we let the idea that it’s virtuous to resist arrest go unchallenged we’re setting young people up for getting themselves killed. We should be telling them NOT to resist arrest, but to get justice in the courts afterwards.

      Those confessions? Anyone who is guilty of those things should do so. I am not, and I will not confess to it. And I won’t respect the virtue signalling that has made language like that a fad.

  2. Next minute you’ll be announcing that you support Bishop Mariann Budd, who had the hide to rebuke the President of her nation because he held up a bible in front of her church. Her reason? She disagrees with his actions. She thinks she owns the Bible. How wrong she is! The President carries the full weight of responsibility on his shoulders and has been placed there by God. The bishop is a church functionary with about as much actual responsibility as a janitor.

    • On the contrary, bishops bear responsibility to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away what contradicts God’s Word. Just because the TEC bishops don’t do their job doesn’t make it irrelevant. Also, nobody in the ACNA has authority over Mariann Budde, or even ties to her. Disagree with what they wrote, but don’t tar them with the same brush as the likes of her.

  3. If these clergy have not treated all people who come to their parishes with the love and respect due to every person, then they should indeed confess that sin. So far, so good. Treating all people of a particular skin color or ancestry as guilty of the sins of some individuals who look vaguely like them is what we’re trying to get away from, isn’t it?

  4. Cities are burning. But hey, everybody, look at me! I’m opposed to racism!

    Absolutely disgusting. Shameful.

    What pathetic self-centered cowardice.

  5. I would also like to take the opportunity in this moment of national crisis to announce that I am one of the good people.

    • It’s very important you are a good person. You may join the church in good standing with full privileges. People should become good before even consider going to church. I have however been on probation for many years. There are some issues.

  6. Ah these are the same folks who used the AMEN group to goad ACNA into sponsoring the “Call and Respond Conference” last year featuring speakers from Black Lives Matter and another speaker who criticized books on Apologetics because they were all written by white mean. It was after the latter incident that I tendered my resignation from the ACNA and predicted they would continue down the path of social activism instead of focusing on the Gospel and Spiritual Formation for Discipleship. Looks like they are right on course!

  8. This unfortunate open letter, driven by the tyranny of the moment, is an example of anguished ignorance or anguished demagoguery.

    The fact is, a police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer. Important context like this is totally absent from the missive.

    Clergy, of all people, should be wary of race agitators on the streets and on the airwaves mindlessly spewing their hatred.

    • Would you care to reveal the source of your “fact” which appears to fly in the face of official statistics?

      • Are you kidding. It does not fly in the face of official statistics. See Heather Mac Donald’s great work on this issue, for example.

          • Responding to you, as well: this is from a July 19, 2016 post by Heather Mac Donald in the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy:

            (The 36 unarmed black male victims of police shootings in 2015 measured against the total black male population [nearly 19 million in mid-2014, per the Census Bureau] amounts to a per capita rate of 0.0000018 unarmed fatalities by police. By comparison, 52 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in 2015 while engaged in such duties as traffic stops and warrant service, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The FBI counted nearly 628,000 full-time law enforcement officers in the United States in 2014. Assuming that the number of officers did not markedly increase in 2015, the per capita rate of officers being feloniously killed is 0.000082, or 45 times the rate at which unarmed black males are killed by cops. The Memorial Fund does not have data on the race of cop-killers in 2015, but applying the historical average over the last decade in which 40 percent of all cop-killers were black would yield 21 cops killed by blacks in 2015. An officer’s chance of getting killed by a black person is 0.000033, which is 18.5 times the chance of an unarmed black person getting killed by a cop. After this year’s 72 percent increase in felonious killings of police officers, these ratios will be even more lopsided.)

          • I’ve read Heather Mac Donald’s book The War on Cops. It is excellently sourced, meaning she doesn’t just quote statistics, she gets government crime statistics, a lot of them, then makes what they mean clear. I mean, a LOT of them. It somewhat bogs down the reading of it. But to say the statistics don’t support the media narrative is a dramatic understatement.

          • Yes. And in my opinion, the writers of the letter need to be availing themselves of Mac Donald’s work, rather than placating a howling, angry mob with a poorly thought out letter.

          • What in MacDonald’s work would make any difference?

            The only point you appear to be taking from it is that comparing the rate of shootings of police by black people with the rate of shootings of black people by police yields a certain ratio.

            What relevance does that have, even if the letter was only referring to blacks?

            Whereas in fact it appears to be saying “This includes Black, Latino/a, Native, Asian, and other people groups.”

          • What makes you think that the letter has been elicited by that delusion (assuming it is what Edgarson identified)?

            I am not trying to be difficult, but it just appears that you are reading a very specific agenda into a letter that covers far broader issues (and in many cases different issues).

          • I wouldn’t use the word ‘delusion’ though I understand what is meant.

            I think that this should be described carefully, because feelings are raw right now, and it’s not good to cause offense where offense wasn’t intended.

            But this situation is being DRAMATICALLY over-simplified, and there are racial stereotypes being used that are not helpful. I am also not seeing any kind of description of what Police departments are already doing to address many of these issues, and I know of them because my daughter IS a cop. The trainings being given (often given by college professors advocating systemic racism), the statistical analysis of departments in general and individual officers in specific, the use of dashboard and uniform cameras, and the penalties for having them turned off during an interaction with the public, the affirmative action programs in hiring, the Internal Affairs investigations… I’ve seen not a word of any of that.

            And don’t get me started on people being compelled to kneel and apologize for something done generations ago, and them DOING it. I draw a hard line at that. I kneel to God and Him only.

            I’m all for throwing the book at someone who acts in a racist manner. But some of what I’m seeing… The motives may be good, but the Law of Unintended Consequences is very much at play.

          • Michael, I’m really not following what you’re saying.

            Mac Donald is basically saying the narrative that there is systemic Police brutality is a myth, statistics do not support it. African Americans are NOT being treated differently because of their race.

            The mass delusion gkissel is referring to is the narrative: “Police are biased against African Americans and treat them differently just because of their race.”

            But that is not true. Just because activists and much of the media say it, it is not true, and statistics bear that out.

            And because of that myth, there is now talk in some municipal governments of either cutting Police funding or disbanding Police departments wholesale. In New York City officers who’ve seen some 300 of there peers wounded by the protesters are considering quitting in large numbers because their mayor has vowed to cut their budget.

            I wonder what impact that will have on crime rates across the country?

          • “Mac Donald is basically saying the narrative that there is systemic Police brutality is a myth”

            That’s great. Would the writers of the letter disagree? Perhaps they would, but it doesn’t appear so on the face of the letter (and that is all I can go on, since I don’t know any of them).

            GKissel is obsessed with the issue of perceptions of police brutality and I am sure that is a very worthy thing to discuss, but the letter appears to only tangentially refer to that. So the police brutality issue seems a rather strange one to use to attack the letter.

            “The mass delusion gkissel is referring to is the narrative: “Police are biased against African Americans and treat them differently just because of their race.””

            Sure. What does that have to do with the letter? That it has some tangential relevance I agree, but the letter really seems to be focussed on different issues.

            Note that doesn’t mean I am saying I agree with everything (or anything) in the letter, but this debate overall appears to be about a different issue.

          • I can understand that. This whole discussion (on the broad scale, not between us) is perplexing to me, and regarding that letter is is the confessions that really rubbed me wrong.

            When the video surfaced of an unarmed African American man restrained with a knee to his neck, knowing that he’d soon be dead, I thought “that can’t be right, that has to be investigated and adjudicated”, and not long after that the officer was arrested, and I understand ultimately the officers who were with him and who could have intervened. My daughter is a cop, and SHE said there was all kind of wrong in what the officers did.

            So how do those confessions apply to me? Is the ACNA oblivious to some kind of general racism that is approved of in this society? IS THERE a generally approved of racism? Given how many people in all strata of public life are falling all over themselves to condemn it, I actually don’t see how there CAN be. Have we not made progress in this nation in this regard?

            Are there still examples of racism? Yes, there are. But to my mind those are committed by individuals, and hopefully they will be punished in some way or another that they would either stop it or be made an example of.

            But some of this is inherently destructive. There seems to be a notion that it is impossible for African Americans to be racist, because they have no power, but Caucasians are racist without even knowing it, or intending it. Now, hypocrisy I get, there are some of those. But all Caucasians are racist, but no African Americans are? REALLY? And some of us are being told to take a knee or else, and folks are proposing disbanding Police departments? Hold on!

            I’ll say it again, I’m glad those officers were arrested, I’m glad that’s going to court. I’m concerned that in the rush to virtue signal the charges may have been increased to something the DA can’t get a conviction on… I’m glad the father and son vigilantes were arrested, citizen arrests are a dangerous thing, and whatever that young man did or didn’t do, he didn’t deserve to die.

            But the way this discussion is being carried out is, in my opinion, not accurate or helpful. Excuses are being made for rioting and destruction, and that cannot be. People have died this past week at the hands of protesters. I’m all for peaceful protest, but a lot of this has not been.

          • Afraid so. You’ve still missed the point.

            Your statistical argument doesn’t appear to have any relevance to “Police brutality against Blacks” as you claim above. It relates to shootings not brutality. Its also not clear how it assists your critique of a letter which says:”This includes Black, Latino/a, Native, Asian, and other people groups.”

      • The statistic cited is found, among other places, in “The War on Cops,” by Heather Mac Donald. She also has op-ed pieces pointing out the same thing, using federal crime statistics. Every unjustified killing is a tragedy. I haven’t read any commentators trying to say that the Floyd killing looks justified. It doesn’t to me. However, the incidence of police killings of unarmed black males is actually quite low.

        • OK- I don’t think I am making my point clear. But I also think folks are reading into my challenge to a “fact” that I am in some way implying police are at fault for something.

          Police do a good job. I have worked with police training presentations and officer graduations over the past 20+ years. Truth be told, given the huge number of violent crimes in the US, it is amazing to me that only about 1000 (armed) criminals die by police gunshot in an average year. Clearly, it requires a commitment to life and safety to apprehend so many suspects with relatively few deaths. Of course there are a few “bad cops” just as there are bad priests, bad college profs, criminal accountants and …. But the vast majority are well trained and serve their communities, and too many have sacrificed their lives.

          Dept of Justice statistics show, over the last 12 years, 51 officers are killed by “felonious causes” (in DoJ- speak) in an average year. Accepting Ms. Mac Donald’s own figure that 42% of those officers are killed by black perpetrators, that yields a total between 21 and 22 per year. Total numbers of black men shot and killed (ie- not including those who may have otherwise died in custody) varies a good deal year to year, but between 2015 and 2018 averaged out to about 20 per year (this from the same Washington Post analysis of federal data that Ms. Mac Donald quotes in some of her articles). (It is notable that these years demonstrate much greater care by police over time, stats for 2018 are much lower than 2015).

          So, my question is simply, what is the “18.5 times” figure based on? Besides the fact that Ms. Mac Donald uses it in articles (the 2 instances I found, neither had a reference or explanation of how this is calculated). What statistic is in the numerator and which in the denominator that results in a ratio of 18.5 times?

          What I would much rather see than distorted statistics is an acknowledgement of the great strides made over the past 20 years which evidence a big decline in number of unarmed people (black, white, and everyone else) killed by police.

          • Since Anglican Ink will not allow links, we can’t talk specifics here very effectively. I believe Ms. MacDonald’s stats talk about killings of unarmed black men — that is, unjustifiable.

            I agree that great strides have been made, and that the overwhelming number of American police officers are decent people doing a difficult job, and that the vast majority treat minority persons fairly. Ms. MacDonald’s stats indicate, in fact, that given the higher proportion of police contacts with black people (because of the higher crime rate in that demographic), officers are LESS likely to shoot blacks than other people.

            I can see police reforms are called for around the country. Qualified immunity, police unions protecting officers who are in the wrong, and no-knock raids and other swat-style policing come to mind.

          • This is from a July 19, 2016 post by Heather Mac Donald in the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy:

            (The 36 unarmed black male victims of police shootings in 2015 measured against the total black male population [nearly 19 million in mid-2014, per the Census Bureau] amounts to a per capita rate of 0.0000018 unarmed fatalities by police. By comparison, 52 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in 2015 while engaged in such duties as traffic stops and warrant service, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The FBI counted nearly 628,000 full-time law enforcement officers in the United States in 2014. Assuming that the number of officers did not markedly increase in 2015, the per capita rate of officers being feloniously killed is 0.000082, or 45 times the rate at which unarmed black males are killed by cops. The Memorial Fund does not have data on the race of cop-killers in 2015, but applying the historical average over the last decade in which 40 percent of all cop-killers were black would yield 21 cops killed by blacks in 2015. An officer’s chance of getting killed by a black person is 0.000033, which is 18.5 times the chance of an unarmed black person getting killed by a cop. After this year’s 72 percent increase in felonious killings of police officers, these ratios will be even more lopsided.)

          • If that is the way you are comparing it, what is the point of such an analysis?

            No doubt there will be a similar “imbalance” for whites and hispanics also. After all, police officers are a very small proportion of the population, so it is likely that the “rate” will be far higher for every segment of your population.

            And in any case, you appear to be guessing: “The Memorial Fund does not have data on the race of cop-killers in 2015”. What is the point of all this?

          • It is to put the lie to the hideous claptrap of the letter, like “long line of harrowing examples of these deeply embedded systemic realities.” It is claptrap that flows either from ignorance or demagoguery. This statistic, and others Mac Donald discusses, shows there has been a “War on Cops,” not a “War on Blacks” as one would assume from this ridiculous letter.

          • Assuming that is claptrap (which I happy to assume it is for the purposes of this conversation) your use of statistics doesn’t show it.

            You could use the same methodology to show that police in Australia have a greater rate of deaths from white people than vice versa. Its simply the inevitable result of there being far less in one group (police) than in the other (white people).

            Everything you say may well be correct, but these stats don’t shed any light on the issue.

          • Of course they do. It puts the lie to the “police brutality against Blacks” mantra that so many buy into.

          • Of course they don’t. All your stats prove is exactly what we would expect. When category A is very small and category B very large, and there are a small amount of killings by each, the comparison will always be larger for the larger group.

            Your statistical analysis has no relevant to “police brutality against Blacks” at all.

          • Michael,
            I considered using their data above to “prove” the opposite conclusion, the simplified version being that there are 6 million black males in the US, of whom 20 kill a police officer in a given year (1 occurrence per 300,000 individuals) , and there are 600,000 police, of whom 20 kill an unarmed black man in a given year (1 occurrence per 30,000 individuals). Therefore, a policeman is 10 times more likely to kill an unarmed black man as a black man is to kill a police officer.

            Of course, that is not a valid statistic, and suffers from the same basic error as the calculation “proving” the “18.5 times” in the posts above. But frankly, I don’t think there is enough time and space to go through the statistics courses.

            As a sidebar, it is a surprise to me that so many Anglicans read and cite a famous atheist (Ms. Mac Donald) in theological arguments about a letter written by and to clergy.

          • Is she an atheist? I don’t cite her for theological arguments.

            Either way, your way or her way, police killings of unarmed Americans, black or not, are really quite rare. Fortunately. And that’s the point. These ACNA clergy are, it seems to me, advocating some sort of group white guilt for something that rarely happens and of which only this officer was guilty. And we don’t even have any evidence that he did it for racial reasons.

            These ACNA clergy are saying that their churches are racist places where black Americans are not made welcome, and they imply that my church is, too. That will be a surprise to our black parishioners and Vestry member. A call for every Christian to treat every person with justice and compassion would be good. This statement is, rather, not focused on individual repentance for actual sins and appears to be mere virtue signaling.

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