The Diocese of Leeds’ Racial Justice Board held its inaugural meeting at St Peter’s Huddersfield on Monday, February 9, launching a commitment to build racial justice into the fabric of the diocese.
The Board has a mandate to ensure that strategy remains rooted in scripture in pursuing equity and greater inclusion of people of Global Majority Heritage in our structures and systems, in order that all people may flourish in God-given diversity.
Using dedicated funding received from the national Racial Justice Unit, the Racial Justice Board will focus its energy over the next three years on three strategic strands designed to create lasting cultural shifts in the diocese:
- Advancing Ministry: Cultivating a diverse leadership that reflects the vibrant communities of West Yorkshire.
- Advancing Learning: Educating and equipping people to understand historical contexts and modern-day systemic challenges through work in churches and schools.
- Advancing Engagement: Building deeper, more equitable relationships with communities affected by the legacy of exclusion and systemic discrimination.
The Rt Revd Smitha Prasadam, Bishop of Huddersfield, said: “This work will require compassionate listening to historic hurt, committed action towards reconciliation and courageous love shown in the biblical call to 'love God and love neighbour' without partiality or limit.
“With members representing vocation and formation, education, parishes and cathedrals, community engagement and intersectionality, the Racial Justice Board is a leap towards visible, active, never-failing justice.
“It is a commitment to tangible, transformative, life-giving work across all aspects of our common life.
“The path ahead is joyful and challenging, liberating and purposeful and is underpinned by the prophet Amos to ‘let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream’ to ensure that this covenantal work restores hope and brings meaningful change.”
At the first meeting, Dr Milton Brown, Board member, said: "The biblical arc of justice teaches us that true reparations must begin with healing, followed by rebuilding."
Another, Professor Mustapha Sheikh, urged everyone to look wider into our communities for the “local and global injustices are intimately linked in our part of Yorkshire.
The theft of human life, labour, and generational potential demands a faithful response that goes beyond words, all members noted.