BRITAIN’S first black archbishop beat the drums for a new Church of England yesterday — literally and metaphorically.

Dr John Sentamu, or Sentamu Ebor, as the new Archbishop of York will sign his name, beat the bongo drums as his wife, Margaret, and two adult children showed a largely white congregation stiff with cold how to warm themselves up by dancing to African songs. Ebor comes from Eboracum, the Roman name for York.

The two-hour installation of the Archbishop at York Minster began with processions, formularies, articles and orderings, with all the pomp and ceremony synonymous with the traditional Church of England. But the arrival of a troupe of bare-chested Ugandan dancers from St Matthew’s Church in Stratford, East London, sporting ostrich plumes and leopardskin leotards brought a scent of the warm African air of change promised by the Archbishop.

Their Bwola dance of “rejoicing and thanksgiving”, complete with drums and ululations, warmed the souls of a congregation of 3,000 whose chilly condition was aptly evoked by the Gospel reading from St Matthew, “Lord save us, we are perishing”. In a bracing sermon, Dr Sentamu began his battle to put fire back into the belly of the established Church.

Members of the Church of England had become “consumers of religion” and not disciples of Jesus Christ, he said. The vital issue facing Church and nation was “the loss of this country’s tradition of Christian wisdom, which brought to birth the English nation.

“The Church in England must once again be a beacon by which the people can orient themselves in an unknown ocean by offering them the good news of God in Christ in a practical and relevant way. Having shed an empire and lost a missionary zeal, has this great nation, and mother of parliamentary democracy, also lost a noble vision for the future? We are getting richer and richer as a nation, but less and less happy. The Church must rediscover her self-confidence and self-esteem that united and energised the English people those many centuries ago when the disparate fighting groups embraced the Gospel.”

He said that throughout English history the Church had played a socialising and civilising role by uniting the people and conferring nationhood on them. Quoting Michael Ramsey, a former Archbishop of York and Canterbury, he said: “Why have we in England turned this glorious Gospel of life in the Spirit into a cumbersome organisation that repels, and whose people are dull and complacent?”

Christians should befriend Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics and atheists, not to convert them but to create understanding. Their missionary zeal should be directed instead at the 72 per cent of the population who in the last census said that they were Christian.

He said that his priority would be to be a “watchman for the North” and to take a lead by preaching, public address and by informal discussion in sharing the good news. Dr Sentamu’s appointment, radical and hugely popular, is seen as a sign of hope that the Church could at last be turning the corner after decades of decline.

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