culture watch
Towards a post-racial UK
James Paul
George Bernard Shaw wrote: ‘You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.’
These past weeks I have been pondering the way the films honoured at the recent Academy Awards reflect the soul of contemporary society. Nomadland (Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director) explores the fallout of the 2008 economic crisis for a generation of ‘houseless’ Americans who are too old to find re-employment but too poor to retire. The Father (Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay) looks at the growing epidemic of dementia from within the mind of a sufferer. And Shaka King’s historical drama, Judas and the Black Messiah (Best Supporting Actor), although set during the late 1960s, brings us to reflect on the continuing fight against racial injustice as highlighted by the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd a year ago.
Talking about race
Date posted: 1 Jan 2021
Dear Editor,
I was saddened to see Paul Lusk’s letter
(en December 2020) and Duncan Forbes’
article (en October 2020) promoting the
book We Need to Talk About Race (SPCK
2019) by Ben Lindsay. While his title is not
wrong, the content of this book is partisan
and less than Biblical.
What the early church teaches about racial harmony
Recently, I have been reading Acts chapter 6 in an effort to understand how the early church overcame ethnic tensions which would so easily have fractured our modern-day multi-ethnic communities.
The apostles’ approach, as described below, can still impart important wisdom which can inform modern methods of dealing with and dissipating racial tension.