City activist Paul Stephenson and journalist Marvin Rees, have joined forces in calling on the Bishop of Bristol to invite faith groups to take moral leadership in a service of Reconciliation, prompted by  the issue of African enslavement and Bristol.

 

In a letter sent jointly, the pair have enlisted support for a service of Remembrance and Reconciliation to be held in the Cathedral in 2007. Recent debate in the city is cited in the letter as showing signs of an underlying racial fracture in the city, which is only lightly plastered over by colourful brochure-style  'diversity'. 

 

They place the church with the responsibility and position to guide on 'right and wrong' for it constituents, where  politicians seemed to have shied away in fear of a popular backlash.

 

The cathedral is the defining icon of a 'city' and the pair see this as an important place for the city to begin a large scale reparation of the wrongs and enduring legacy of 'slavery'.

 

 

The Letter is LEAKED below...> 

 

 

Marvin Rees/Paul Stephenson

... 

 

 

Bishop Mike Hill

Church House, 23 Great George Street, Bristol

BS1 5QT, Tel: 0117 906 0100

 

The Very Reverend Robert Grimley, MA., The Dean Bristol Cathedral

College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TJ, Tel: 0117 9264879

 

Dear

 

Re: Bristol Cathedral Service of Remembrance and Reconciliation for 2007

 

The way in which many people in our city conducted themselves during the recent arguments over the naming of the Broadmead Expansion and the Bristol Slavery Apology exposed the racial fracture than runs through the heart of Bristol. We recognise that there has been a significant amount of progress over the last 50 years. Open racial hostility and conflict are no longer the norm and our diversity is something that’s publicly celebrated. But a racial fracture remains, just below the surface, waiting to be agitated. It left us unable to cope with the rigorous challenge the Broadmead and Apology debates brought us. And we fear it will leave us unable to cope with the challenge of Bristol taking its full and proper place alongside Liverpool, London and Hull in leading the country through 2007 bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade.

 

And so we write to you. We believe that as a city, we need to engage in a process of racial reconciliation. We are asking if we might join together  - beginning that process in the church – in planning a service of Remembrance and Reconciliation to be held at Bristol Cathedral in 2007. It’s a service of remembrance because slavery is our story – all Bristolians. It must be fully acknowledged. It’s a service of reconciliation because that must be the end game of all people of faith and the legacies of the racial hierarchy created to justify and subsequently powered by the institution of slavery are still evident today. And it’s a service that through prayer and action will commit our city to racial healing.

 

We come to you as church leaders in particular because Christianity is the faith of temporal and eternal reconciliation. It runs to the heart of the Luke 4 Messianic Manifesto, to proclaim the “year of the LORD’s favour”. We believe that if the church searches hard it will find it has the tools to offer the city a genuine vision of reconciliation that does not mistake the free nature of the grace involved in such a process with a cheap grace.

 

We come to you because we have seen little evidence that Bristol’s party political structure has the will or ability to lead on this. It’s the church that can offer an understanding of a right and wrong that goes beyond individual actions and attitudes to deal with structural realities and dare we say the principalities and powers that show themselves in public institutions and political ideologies. For us this is not simply about equality among human beings but unity among human beings.

 

And so we urgently request a meeting with you to discuss the current climate, search for a vision for 2007 and the city’s future beyond that and make plans for a service at the Cathedral to claim our city and build the foundations of a united future. 

 

Yours Faithfully,