Bristol church swaps Edward Colston window with one showing Jesus in multiple ethnicities

A Bristol church has replaced a stained glass window of slave trader Edward Colston with one featuring Jesus ‘in multiple ethnicities’ and refugees in a boat.

St Mary Redcliffe church removed four stained-glass panels dedicated to Colston following the toppling of his statue. The window was temporarily replaced with plain panels and the church invited the public to submit new designs in a competition.

Ealish Swift won the contest with a series of images showing a ‘non-white’ Jesus in a variety of situations. Permission for the windows to be replaced was granted by the Church of England’s court in Bristol - and they have now been fitted.

They show a ‘non-white’ Jesus in a boat with refugees and with the Bristol Bus Boycott campaigners. The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ black or Asian bus crews in the city.

A spokesperson for St Mary Redcliffe Church said the new designs referred to Bristol’s ‘rich multicultural past and present’.

Earlier this year, Vicar of St Mary Redcliffe, Canon Dan Tyndall, said: “The toppling of Edward Colston turned an international spotlight onto Bristol and its entangled history profiting, as it most certainly did, from human trafficking.

“The opportunity to reimagine how we can tell the story of the Good Samaritan was grasped enthusiastically by the church.”