By George Conger, Anglican Ink.
The Church of England’s response to Henry Nowak’s murder exposes an uncomfortable truth: its bishops know how to speak loudly when the moral script is supplied by progressive opinion, but become cautious, abstract, and evasive when the facts disturb that script.
In 2020, after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a statement declaring that “systemic racism continues to cause incalculable harm across the world” and that “racism is an affront to God”. The Diocese of Gloucester’s bishops commended that archbishops’ statement and urged Christians to examine “our own actions and inaction, our words and our behaviour, what we challenge and what we fail to challenge”.
That was not a local English case. It occurred in the United States. Yet the Church of England had no difficulty finding theological language for grief, injustice, race, repentance, and public witness.
Henry Nowak was murdered in Southampton. He was 18. He was a University of Southampton student. He told police he had been stabbed and could not breathe before he was handcuffed, arrested, and read his rights after his killer falsely accused him of racism. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the officers’ contact with Mr Nowak, including “the use of handcuffs by officers and the first aid provided”.
If George Floyd’s death demanded episcopal moral clarity, why does Henry Nowak’s death receive episcopal caution?
The Bishop of Southampton’s statement is not wrong. It is decent, pastoral, and carefully phrased. Bishop Rhiannon King rightly says Southampton is grieving and that Henry’s family must not see his death used “to create division or hatred”. But the statement is also an example of the Church of England’s institutional weakness: it speaks warmly about grief and community, while stepping around the harder words the public can already see are needed: justice, truth, failure, accountability, and courage.
The Home Secretary managed to say what the bishops have not. Shabana Mahmood told Parliament that Digwa “murdered Henry and then lied about him, as he lay dying, falsely accusing him of racism”. She also said the case was “not a case about Sikhism” and “not a case about racism,” but “a case about murder”. That is the moral distinction the Church ought to have made with confidence: condemn the murder, reject collective blame, defend the innocent, demand accountability, and refuse to let lies govern public life.