Well-known Church of England social activist and theologian the Rev. Kenneth Leech presented a pair of lectures at Colgate Rochester Divinity School June 3-4.

In the first lecture, Fr. Leech used Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa as examples, saying that "racial inequality, segregation and oppression" were often widely supported legally and socially. In the Britain of the 1950s and '60s, he said, the labor but not the presence of West Indian immigrants was needed. He described a Christian oxymoron wherein racism was both defended and attacked on the basis of theology and interpretation of scripture. The church's tendency to promote stability and "a state of harmony" rather than disturb the social order served to perpetuate racism.

Fr. Leech listed "five truths" of combating racism:

• Racism cannot be fought simply by

rhetoric. Intentions and feelings must

be transformed into powerful actions.

• Racism can't be combated purely by

education. The true problem is not that people do not understand, but that they

understand all too well and are on the

other side of the issue.

• Racism cannot be fought nicely.

Combating racism will make a lot of

people uncomfortable - especially

those who have a vested interest in it.

• Racism cannot be opposed at the

level of generalities. "The beast" must

be identified and rooted out where it

exists in, for example, immigration and

housing policies.

• Racism cannot be fought vicariously

on someone else's behalf. All people

are implicated, and racism dehumanizes

the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

The second evening's lecture concerned the resurgence of Neo-Nazism in Europe. Following the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, Fr. Leech said, "the demonization of Islam took the place of communism." The development of the European Union, he said, is in some ways a "racist, xenophobic basis for community."

Today's victims of persecution, he said, are refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers —"the untouchables." The anti-Islamic movement exacerbates problems.