St Augustine has been depicted as a black man in a children’s book written by Church of England officials as part of its diversity drive.
The saint, one of the most influential figures in Christian history, has been illustrated as black in a new book called Heroes of Hope.
This book says it seeks to inspire children with examples of ‘Black and brown saints, often erased and whitewashed from history, who formed the church and therefore modern society as we know it today’.
Aurelius Augustinus was born in 345 AD in a Mediterranean coastal town now in modern-day Algeria, going on to become a bishop of the North African settlement of Hippo.
Over the years, most depictions of St Augustine have been of a white man.
At that time in history, the area was a Roman province, although Augustine and his mother Saint Monica may have originated from the North African Berber ethnic group.
Although this would not make him black, there have been efforts to apply this identity to him by some groups, including at the Catholic University of Villanova in Pennsylvania.
An official at the university wrote in 2023 that it was important to depict the saint as black because ‘depicting St. Augustine as a Black man actively decentres whiteness’.
Heroes of Hope was co-authored by The Rev Dr Sharon Prentis, who was appointed the deputy director of the Church of England’s Racial Justice Unit in January 2023.
The unit was set up in 2022, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, to help meet the Church’s commitments to achieving racial justice.
Dr Prentis’s co-writer was Alysia-Lara Ayonrinde, the Church’s national education lead for racial justice.
The Church’s previous work on racial justice has included efforts to make Christian artwork more diverse, while clergy have declared that ‘God is not a white man’.
Although the CofE is based in white-majority England, around 80 per cent of the worldwide Anglican Communion is black.
Heroes of Hope describes itself as a book that ‘celebrates the achievements of Christians of global majority heritage’, where kids will discover 22 inspirational people from different backgrounds and cultures.
The book is being published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the biggest independent Christian publisher in the UK.
The publisher wrote: ‘From the cities of Europe to the deserts of Africa, from the wild open spaces of America to the busy streets of China, and from the green, tropical Solomon Islands to the mines of Bolivia, each person featured in this book has made a difference in their local communities in their own unique way.’
The Church will have a limited number of free copies to distribute to schools, according to the Telegraph.
The foreword of the book was written by Lord Paul Boateng, a Labour peer who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent South from 1987 to 2005.
He was the UK’s first Black Cabinet Minister in May 2002, when he was appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
The depiction of St Augustine as black comes as children’s books are placing a greater focus on diversity.
An illustrated children’s book entitled Brilliant Black British History raised eyebrows in 2023 when it claimed that ‘the very first Britons were black’ and that Stonehenge was built while Britain was ‘a black country’.
It was written by Atinuke, a Nigerian-born British author, with the introduction stating that Britain has been ‘mostly a white country for a lot less time than it has been mostly a black country’.
The CoE’s St Augustine portrayal comes in the wake of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, calling the church ‘deeply institutionally racist’ in 2020.
He has led the church from 2013 until January 2025, and in the aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd protests set up a taskforce which produced the Lament to Action report.
The report reviewed 36 years of racial justice history in the church and made 47 proposals to end a ‘rut of inaction’ spanning several decades.
Meanwhile, it was revealed in 2023 that Church of England schools were being taught the ‘pyramid of white supremacy’ anti-racism theory.
The theory was displayed to schools in a graphic put together by the US-based Equality Institute, which describes itself as a ‘global feminist agency working to advance gender equality and end violence against women and girls’.
The document explicitly told teachers to use ‘visuals’ including the pyramid to ‘help pupils understand how bias, stereotypes and prejudice can lead to racist words and actions, leading to physical harm and death’.
And in March 2024 the Church hired a £36,000-a-year ‘deconstructing whiteness’ officer to combat racial injustice.
The role works to address monuments and artworks linked to the slave trade.
It is part of the 11-person team from the church’s Racial Justice Unit and includes a director, programme manager, theologian, communications catalyst and six development workers.
Although some Reverends disapproved of the spending and accused the Church of ‘drinking the critical race Kool Aid’ and indulging in ‘student politics’.
