{"id":3269,"date":"2024-03-25T03:16:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T03:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3269"},"modified":"2024-03-25T03:20:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T03:20:56","slug":"the-anglican-church-seems-to-hate-white-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3269","title":{"rendered":"The Anglican Church Seems to Hate White People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anger at Church archdeacon\u2019s call for \u2018anti-whiteness\u2019<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Hayley Dixon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sun, March 24, 2024 at 1:07 PM EDT\u00b74 min read<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes insisted she was ‘not anti-white’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Church of England archdeacon has called for \u201canti-whiteness\u201d, in comments which have been criticised as divisive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, also called for people to \u201csmash the patriarchy\u201d but insisted her comments were \u201cnot anti-white, or anti-men\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her statement prompted an angry reaction, with one person asking if it would be \u201csafe to attend church\u201d if Dr Threlfall-Holmes \u201cholds racial prejudice against white people\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just weeks ago, the church announced it would be hiring a \u201cdeconstructing whiteness\u201d officer<\/a> as part of a new 11-person \u201cracial justice unit\u201d being set up by the Diocese of Birmingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior clergy have also faced criticism for calling for the church\u2019s \u00a3100 million slavery reparations fund to be increased<\/a> to \u00a31 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Threlfall-Holmes wrote on X, formerly Twitter: \u201cI went to a conference on whiteness last autumn. It was very good, very interesting and made me realise: whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo yes, let\u2019s have anti-whiteness, and let\u2019s smash the patriarchy. That\u2019s not anti-white, or anti-men, it\u2019s anti-oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, users of X suggested that if the Cambridge-educated priest wanted \u201canti-whiteness\u201d then she should \u201clead by example and resign\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some described her comments as \u201cracist\u201d and one asked: \u201cWhy do you seek to divide when your job description is literally to bring people together?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her words were criticised as \u201cdivisive\u201d and \u201cnonsensical\u201d and one user said it would appear she had \u201cgiven up Christianity to join a new and sinister cult\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Threlfall-Holmes, who was appointed archdeacon last year, also holds a role advising church leaders on implanting safeguarding reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last October she revealed she was attending a conference on \u201cwaking up to and addressing whiteness in the Anglican church\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day-long \u201cRacial Justice Conference\u201d in Birmingham was organised by Reconciliation Initiatives, a charity working in partnership with Coventry Cathedral to help churches \u201ccontribute to reconciliation in wider society\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aims of the conference included: \u201cTo encourage white participants to take next steps in facing their own whiteness, and in addressing institutional racism within Anglican churches and provinces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The charity also runs a four-week \u201cBeing White\u201d course aimed at clergy and lay members who \u201cidentify racially as white\u201d to help them address \u201cthe ways we are caught up in a system of white superiority and white advantage in UK society\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A way of viewing the world\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When asked about the apparent contradictions in her comments, Dr Threlfall-Holmes told The Telegraph: \u201cI was contributing to a debate about world views, in which \u2018whiteness\u2019 does not refer to skin colour per se, but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as \u2018normal\u2019 and everything else is considered different or lesser.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Threlfall-Holmes, a historian, added: \u201cI do however understand that this is not a definition that is widely shared as yet outside of academic circles, and regret that Twitter [X] was perhaps not the best place for a nuanced argument.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She praised the comments of the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd Dr Michael Volland, who last week defended the decision of his diocese to oppose a \u201cdeconstructing whiteness\u201d officer on the basis that the phrase can be \u201cmisleading\u201d and \u201chas nothing to do with knocking or demeaning people who have white skin\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of such terminology has previously been criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/a>, who said it was similar to language used in the television sitcom W1A, which satirised BBC managerial jargon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rev Dr Ian Paul, who is a member of the General Synod and the Archbishops\u2019 Council, has warned that \u201cimporting\u201d such language from the culture wars in the US risks \u201calienating ordinary members of the Church of England\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anger at Church archdeacon\u2019s call for \u2018anti-whiteness\u2019 Hayley Dixon Sun, March 24, 2024 at 1:07 PM EDT\u00b74 min read The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes insisted she was ‘not anti-white’ A Church of England archdeacon has called for \u201canti-whiteness\u201d, in comments which have been criticised as divisive. The Ven Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, also called for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2386,308,2385,448],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}