A new children’s book written by Church of England officials portrays St. Augustine as a black man as part of an effort to highlight diversity in Christian history.
The book, titled Heroes of Hope, is intended to provide 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,” according to the Daily Mail.
Aurelius Augustinus, was born in 345 AD in what is now Algeria and went on to serve as bishop in the North African city of Hippo. Traditional depictions of Augustine have typically shown him as white, as the region was a Roman province at the time, and he and his mother may have originated from the North African Berber ethnic group.
Despite traditional portrayals of him as white, some institutions have pushed to depict Augustine as black. The Catholic University of Villanova in Pennsylvania has done so, with one official writing in 2023 that “depicting St. Augustine as a Black man actively decentres whiteness.”
Heroes of Hope was co-authored by the Rev. Dr. Sharon Prentis, deputy director of the Church of England’s Racial Justice Unit, and Lysia-Lara Ayonrinde, the Church’s national education lead for racial justice. The unit was established in 2022 amid Black Lives Matter protests and tasked with advancing racial justice within the church.
The book states it “celebrates the achievements of Christians of global majority heritage” and introduces children to 22 inspirational figures from diverse backgrounds. It is being published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the largest independent Christian publisher in the UK.
