The Church of England has made only slow progress in the area of ethnic diversity, and ‘it is clearly lagging behind’ society as a whole and missing a significant theological and missiological opportunity.
That is the key message of Unfinished Business: A Pastoral and Missional Approach for the Next Decade, a report (GS 1844) from the Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns, which is due to be considered by the Church’s General Synod on 11 July. The document is available at:
http://churchofengland.org/media/1283551/gs%201844.pdf
Although the ethnic minority population of England grew from 7.9% in 2001 to 12.6% in 2010, the number of ethnic minority Anglican clergy was only 2.8% in 2010, with 3.4% of those recommended for ordination training in 2006-09. For senior Church leaders (bishops, archdeacons and deans) it was 1.1% in 2010, the same figure as in 2001.
And the ethnic minority proportion of Anglican congregations rose from just 3.2% in 2002 to 4.7% in 2007 (compared with 8.7% in the population in 2005). A report on this 2007 parochial survey of diversity was not published until last year and can be viewed at:
