BYM contributes to new book on race relations in churches
'BYM has also created a page listing resources to support Quakers’ new commitment to making reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and other economic exploitations.'
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has contributed to a new book examining race relations within British churches over the past quarter of a century.
Race for Justice: The struggle for equality and inclusion in British and Irish Churches brings together racial justice and diversity officers and senior church figures from across Christian denominations, including Anglicans, Baptists and the Church of Scotland. It also explores their hopes for the future.
Edwina Peart, diversity and inclusion co-ordinator for BYM, and Paul Parker, BYM’s recording clerk, both contribute. According to the Quakers in Britain website – which describes the project in more detail – the book marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Racial Justice Sunday, established when the UK was facing up to overt and subversive racism, characterised by the killing of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham in 1993.
The book is published by Monarch Books and edited by Richard Reddie, director of justice and inclusion at Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
BYM has also created a page listing resources to support Quakers’ new commitment to making reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and other economic exploitations. The decision was agreed at Yearly Meeting in May.
The page, on the Quakers in Britain website, features events and courses, as well as links to a special series of the podcast ‘A Quaker Take’ which explores reparations.
This is ‘not a new idea, but a new commitment’, the page reads. ‘We will be working together to make this commitment real over the next weeks, months, and probably years. But here are some early steps you could take.’
