ViaMedia

Category: Politics

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Breathlessness

    by the Rt Revd Philip North, Bishop of Burnley


    Philip


    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Following the lynch-mob style killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, his dying words have become the cry of dispossessed and impoverished BAME communities first in the States and then across the globe. Long decades in which they have suffered on a daily basis from structural racism, inequality of opportunity and the denial of their personhood has exploded into a mighty welling up of anger which has left the Trump administration floundering and governments around the world struggling to keep up.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    That is also the cry of COVID patients, a condition which fills the lungs with fluid such that the breath is forced out of a person. At first we were told this pandemic would be a crisis for everyone. Already it is revealing itself to be a crisis for the poor. Those from urban areas and BAME communities are dying in hugely disproportionate numbers. And as the massive economic impact of lockdown reveals itself, it will inevitably be the poor who pay an unfair share of the cost, for the impact of crisis is always delegated to those who are already deprived.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Unspoken, spoken then hashtagged, this is becoming the cry of all who feel constricted and suffocated by poverty or injustice.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Those are not recorded amongst the last words spoken by Jesus from the cross, but they might have been, for crucifixion, like COVID, works by forcing the air out of a person’s lungs. Every breath becomes such unspeakable agony that eventually the body has to give up trying. On the cross, Jesus identifies himself with all who cry out, ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Yet his breathlessness has purpose, ‘It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you,’ Jesus says at the table of the Last Supper (John 16, 7). By undergoing breathlessness, Jesus unleashes for us the irresistible, life-giving breath of the Spirit who renews all creation.

    The Spirit’s breath, released at Pentecost, is the gift that Jesus gives to his Church. So in a post-COVID world Christians must be utterly single-minded in breathing that breath over a world that cries out, ‘I can’t breathe.’ Nothing else will matter.

    First, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of life. During crisis, through generous service and imaginative use of the online environment, we have made contact with a new fringe. What we need now is a new evangelism in which we live and speak the Gospel with joy, an evangelism motivated not by institutional survival but by the passionate desire that people might breathe.

    And this new evangelism must begin amongst the poor, because that is the place from where renewal always springs. Dioceses are going to have difficult decisions to make about deployment and pastoral organisation in the years ahead, but such decisions must honour our commitment to inner city, outer estate and post-industrial communities. If now becomes the time when we disproportionately withdraw people or buildings from places of poverty, then God is dishonoured and the Gospel is fatally undermined.

    The lesson of history is clear and consistent. An evangelism that prioritises the powerful does not work and cannot last. Instead we need to hear the voice of the breathless. We need to speak good news to the poor. Our best leaders, our richest resources, our finest theologians, our most engaging preachers must be offered to the places where life is hardest. Only then we will re-engage a nation with the person of Jesus.

    Next, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of justice. The COVID pandemic has laid bare the harsh levels of social and economic inequality which so damage our common life, which deny opportunity, which take away hope and which lead to countless costly social ills from poor health to spiralling prison populations.

    The action of local churches in addressing inequality through acts of charity has been heroic in this pandemic. But charity can be a fool without justice. Foodbanks, for example, merely prop up innately unjust structures unless we campaign to change those factors which have rendered them necessary: low pay, unfair benefits, family breakdown. As UK churches, our voice in naming injustice and calling for political and economic reform has for too long been inconsistent and disjointed. We need a united Christian voice: perhaps a new ecumenical body, which can campaign consistently and vigorously.

    But if we are to address injustice nationally we must name it within our own structures. The vast wealth disparities between dioceses cannot be acceptable in the future as some dioceses go to the wall whilst others fall back on eye-watering levels of historic wealth. Harder still will be naming and addressing the deep-seated racism that still exists within our own common life and which prevents so many BAME Christians from breathing. We have no authority to name injustice nationally if we are so wantonly failing to put our own house in order.

    And third, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of peace. The fallout of this crisis is likely to be deep and sustained economic depression with concomitant pressures on relationships at every level. The church, filled with the Spirit, is called to model the new humanity. We are challenged to live differently under the bonds of love, valuing every human person as a child of God. That is the peace that the Spirit breathes.

    If we are to do that effectively, we urgently need to do better at living with difference. We must find ways to conduct debates such that they do not destroy relationships and leave us too exhausted to engage with the world. A nation that is crying out for breath cannot afford the luxury of a divided and quarrelsome church, obsessed only with its own internal wrangles. Those who look to us seeking the breath life should find a community of peace. Without that all our words and prayers will be hollow hypocrisy.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    It is the ultimate cry of despair. As those filled with the Spirit’s breath, if we can hear and respond, then perhaps this terrible crisis can be the dawn of a new age of faith.

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Social Distancing

    by the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester

    Rachel

    I refuse to use the term ‘social distancing’ because it expresses something which is already far too prevalent in our country and world.

    In recent days as I have read social media, listened to the news, spoken with those working in the criminal justice system and those working with victims of domestic abuse, I have been reminded that all the world’s brokenness comes down to relationship. We know what it is to turn our backs and distance ourselves from neighbour, God and creation.

    I have written elsewhere about the theme of ‘returning and remembering’ as we return to a different future treasuring that which we have discovered as life-giving both in the present and the past, and letting go of that which has been diminishing. A word which has been prominent in those reflections is that of solidarity.

    During the Civil War in 1643 Gloucester came under siege. The city had sided with Parliament and managed to hold off the Royalist forces not least because a massive mortar broke on discharge. It is said that the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty refers to this huge gun and marks the failure of a re-membering as ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again’. The event is now commemorated each year on Gloucester Day when we glimpse something of what togetherness might look like in all our diversity. People of all ages, languages, backgrounds and political views parade through the streets of the city and it is a day of solidarity. Unique individuals with different stories and views stand shoulder to shoulder in the parade and in the crowds lining the streets. On the surface there is neither physical distancing nor social distancing.

    During this time of viral pandemic we have experienced that same solidarity on Thursday evenings when people have stood outside homes in cities, towns and villages clapping and clanging as an expression of gratitude for care and dedication. Yet something even deeper has been going on – an expression of being in this together even amid the paradox of having to learn to be apart and physically distanced. The recent anger and turbulence around Dominic Cummings is rooted in a sense of this being sorely undermined. Whatever the truth of the detail, solidarity and trust has taken a huge hit.

    And solidarity is not about sameness or even agreement. It is about how we live a shared commitment to particular values and beliefs. We need this in our re-membering and being put back together for the future.

    Part of the mysterious truth about being a follower of Jesus Christ is that it is both intensely personal and yet also about a belonging together – members of one body. It is about a corporate commitment to justice, reconciliation and peace yet lived out amid personal story and unique experiences.

    At present we do not know when we will hear once more those words spoken at the introduction to ordination services: ‘The Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. In baptism the whole Church is summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of his kingdom’. What we do know is that they are words about the whole Church – diverse people of every age and each with a different story. They are words of solidarity in our calling and in our being.

    This traumatic time of Covid-19 has brought that into sharper relief as people have reflected on what it means to be the Church. In the longing for church buildings to be open once again there has been renewed reflection on what it means to gather for worship  – what is inclusive and what is exclusive. And the stories of people expressing Christ’s love and hope in many practical ways in local communities has sharpened reflection on what it means to be ‘sent out’ such that ‘we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world’. This has been particularly inspiring when it has been about a ‘doing with’ rather than a ‘doing for.’

    It’s going to take hard work and intentional action to learn to live with physical distancing on streets and in classrooms; in places of work and places of leisure; and of course within our church buildings. Yet I believe that not returning to social distancing will be even harder work because it’s the work of the heart and we’ve been living social distancing and broken relationship ever since the beginning of time. Indeed it is writ large for us in the creation narratives of Genesis.

    It’s going to take more than a parade on Gloucester Day or a few weeks of clapping on a Thursday night to learn what it means to live a solidarity which is life-giving. And it’s going to take hard work for us to go on discovering what it means for us to be the Body of Christ, the Church, committed to re-membering.

    Repentance and forgiveness will be vital, and anger and challenge will continue to have their place alongside praise and encouragement as we strive to reveal the Kingdom of God. Yet as we ‘return and re-member’ it will be the soil of our hearts which will reveal all those things either as signs of the glorious inclusive Kingdom of God or signs of individualistic human pride and selfishness.

    This Pentecost ‘come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your people and kindle in us the fire of your love.’

    As we emerge into the future, physical distancing will inevitably continue to be required but let us not return to the social distancing of the past.

     

     

     

  • We Can’t Go Back….to Power Games & Inequality

    by the Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, Author, Member of General Synod and Trustee of the Ozanne Foundation

    Rosie Haarper

    In France, apparently, one of the biggest worries about lockdown was how single Parisienne women would cope: all alone in a small flat and no partner. No dates, no secret affairs, no sex. All the assumptions were that these women would go into melt down. The framework of their lives and their relationships had been undone – it would not end well.

    Turns out many young single women in France have loved the shutdown. All the hectic man- (or woman-) pleasing internal drivers had been challenged. They enjoyed freedom from the pressure to have sex, they swapped sophistication for simplicity, they got in touch with how to be self contained and not dependent their partner. To everyone’s surprise it is OK – more than OK, it is very good.

    It is possible that as we emerge from isolation some of this self discovery will remain and the young single French woman will have a better life.

    This tale is an example of what Richard Rohr describes in The Wisdom Pattern as the process we are always experiencing in life, but which is technicolour at the moment: Order, Disorder, Reorder.

    Order is the pattern we thought we knew. The familiar. Some of us loved it, some of us found it had dark and controlling elements that needed change, but it was what we knew. It was life as we had learnt to live it.

    Then came the big Disorder. Present joys became past memories. Of course we fear it. Not just for the physical danger, but because it feels like anarchy. It teeters on the edge of chaos, of total melt down. We fear getting sucked into a vortex of unknowing.

    Let’s be honest here; both in society and within the Church at large we were already struggling. Struggling with the age of Quantum Physics where what we thought was linear and certain was, it transpires, nothing of the sort.

    Mystery, not knowing, holding multiple truths – all this was stretching our religious imagination. Around the edges interesting thinkers were rediscovering ineffable, unknowable layers of faith, whilst at the centre some pretty desperate measures were being taken to sure up the literal against the flow away from certainty .

    Now of course everything is virtual. Even the bread and wine. We shouldn’t be surprised. Pentecost tells us the virtual world is vibrant and powerful. Jesus is very much with us but we can’t see or touch him.

    This period of Disorder might be all sorts of things. It’s too soon to tell. What we can see is that the biggest mistake the church made in its response to Covid-19 was rooted in fear of chaos.

    As a society we have a contract with one another. We elect leaders who make decisions which some like and some dislike, but mostly we obey even the rules we think are mistaken. So our Government tells us what to do, and although we are not all confident that the best decisions are being made we abide by the rules.

    In the Church of England it seems our leaders thought the church worked this way too.

    Mimicking the Government they issued rules and regulations, forgetting that their relationship with their flock is different. They do not rule over us, but rather are shepherds whose calling is to offer hope and inner depth and strength through our faith in God.

    A bewildered nation expected words of lament, of comfort, of inspiration. Alas, although they were there, they got drowned out by the micro-management of Church buildings. We actually only needed to be told to apply the same rules as everyone else!

    So it fell to the local to inhabit the Disorder and it has done so in many wonderful ways. The edges between church and community got lovely and smudgy and people lived their faith by loving and helping one another. Some may think virtual services are a bit naff and amateurish but they are rather gloriously filled with heart and courage.

    Well, one day we will realise that the era of Covid-19 has passed. A Reordering has happened. Most people will want to go back to how it was before but of course that cannot be.

    I can tell you how I would like the new order to look. How I would love the church to be where every human being is loved and valued equally. Where anyone who was in any way different from the majority need never fear rejection or judgement from other Christians. I would love to see the choking tendrils of power, politics, entitlement, the class system to be unwrapped from around the heart of the Church of England. Where those who had been abused received loving care and just restoration. I would love to see us less obsessed by ourselves and more obsessed by our neighbour. As you might imagine I could go on…….

    What I think will happen is that we will make every good effort to carry on as before – and slowly the truth will emerge. The financial model, already strained to breaking point will prove unsustainable. Quite possibly the church in every parish model is bust. The trust of the people in a National Church, already horribly compromised by its internal moral failure to treat LGBTI+ people, women or abuse survivors honourably is gone forever and its place on the national and political stage will be seriously challenged.

    There will need to be a journey, probably accelerated by this crisis, which will involve letting go of a model of the Church of England which was probably always a fantasy anyway.

    I would like to think that a leaner, healthier, more equal community will emerge – a church that is much closer to the poorest, most marginalised in our society. More present in housing estates across the country and less bound up in Bishop’s palaces and London clubs.

    I don’t think this is impossible, indeed God could well be in this new destination. I fear, however, that for many, it will hurt like hell to get there.

  • Who’s Caring for our Nation’s Spiritual Health?

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of ViaMedia, Member of General Synod and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

    Jayne Ozanne new

    We’ve heard much from the government in recent days about the importance of looking after our physical and mental health. It’s one of the reasons we are still able to go outside and exercise and a primary reason why our parks and gardens are being asked to stay open for as much as they can.

    It’s good to know that there are voices at the ‘top table’ speaking out for our well-being in this way. But it has left me wondering who is championing guarding the nation’s spiritual health?

    Maybe it’s not seen as so important. Maybe it’s seen as a “nice to have” amongst those “who think like that”, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be taken as seriously as our mental or physical health.

    I recognise that most of us who are already part of worshipping communities know where we can now go for support and sustenance (even if some miss physical services in their local church), but what of those who don’t? What of those who are going through crises of fear, doubt, anxiety or loss – and just want a place to run to? Where can they find sanctuary? Where can they “find God”?

    A friend told me this week how she had seen an elderly man approach the main door of their local cathedral only to find it locked. He had banged on the heavy wooden door with his fists before putting his head in his hands and wandering off in tears, obviously upset. Had he just lost a loved one? Had he just heard some worrying news? We don’t know. But we do know that his over-riding memory will be of trying to connect with God at a time of need and finding himself “shut out”.

    Research has shown that in times of crises people “retreat” to their places of sanctuary, where they feel safe and secure. For many in our nation, research has also shown, that is still their local (established) church. It is a physical place where they know they can find spiritual sustenance and refuge – a place that has weathered various storms through the ages, from World Wars to Black Death plagues. It is often done at a time of great mental stress and anguish, such as that we are experiencing right now, and is a time when they are keen to reach out and connect with the Divine.

    Now of course we need to be extremely careful about social distancing and indeed of any transmission risks, but surely we can find a way of keeping our larger churches open with clearly marked spaces indicating where people can stand and pray? Rather like our local supermarkets which have clearly marked footprint stickers on the ground showing where people should stand to queue, surely we could mark just as clearly where people can kneel or stand to pray? Could we not then also have volunteers, or indeed paid church staff if we still have them, on hand to wipe down the handrails and pews afterwards to minimise infections. They could also monitor and restrict numbers entering as well as the time spent inside.

    To be clear, I am not suggesting we reinstate church services – that to me is a completely different matter. For those of us who already have a faith know that we can connect with our loving God without the need for walls or pews. No, here I’m talking about a way of enabling the “gateway” to remain open – the lifesaving rescue ring to be still visible on the shore during the heavy storm.

    I personally believe that our spiritual health holds the key to our mental, emotional and indeed physical health. We are body, mind, soul and spirit. To be so dismissive of the latter is, I fear, a tragedy and one that we will learn the impact of over many years to come.

    Please, I pray, may we think again and find a way of creating a sanctuary for people to run to in order to connect – perhaps for the first time – with their Creator God, the source of love and the giver of hope. It is, after all, Easter – where the message of new life is more poignant than ever.

  • Church and State – The State We’re In!

    by Anthony Archer, Central Member of the Crown Nominations Commission, member of General Synod and trustee of the Ozanne Foundation

    anthony-archer

    To be established or not to be established, is that the question?

    The Church of England is having a torrid time, for reasons most will understand and regret. Certainly, at the level of the National Church, including General Synod, few are proud of what is going on.  A Church that increasingly defines itself by those it excludes is hardly a potent missionary symbol.  For all that, at the parish level much good is evident, even without the “missing generations”.  It will be left to church historians to make something of this confused picture.

    Against the background of the issues, including the unmet needs of victims and survivors of non-recent sexual abuse, the injustices towards those who identify as LGBT+ and ongoing discrimination against women in ministry (masked in the name of mutual flourishing), there are calls for the Church of England to justify its privileges and precedence.

    Since the Reformation, the Church of England has been described as ‘the church by law established’, a phrase not as precise as it sounds.  The Queen is its Supreme Governor; bishops (and some deans and others) are appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister; General Synod approves Measures (which, on receiving the Royal Assent, have the force and effect of Acts of Parliament), they first having been declared expedient by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament.  Synod legislates itself by making Canons on such issues as worship and doctrine, largely unfettered, save for example by not being able to dispense with the Book of Common Prayer.  In terms of rights and duties, apart from the Church crucially being a visible presence in every parish, a primary duty is that the Archbishop crowns the Sovereign, and that there are prayers in Parliament before every session.

    Significantly and more publicly, 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords, with five places reserved for the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester.  The other 21 go to the remaining diocesan bishops who have served the longest time in office, with recent provision for women bishops to jump the queue for a transitional period of ten years.  Constitutional reform watchers might be forgiven for wondering why there are still so many Lords Spiritual given the efforts of successive Governments to reform the House of Lords, but that is not the subject of this blog post.

    Those who take aim at establishment usually go for the Lords Spiritual and there have been two recent examples in Parliament.  Lord Taverne introduced his House of Lords (Removal of Bishops) Bill in January.  It remains to be seen what progress it might make.  It does not seem to be a swipe at the Church of England per se, but part of the broader agenda of the National Secular Society and its adherents.  The views of peers will become apparent when it receives its second reading.  More pointedly, Ben Bradshaw MP recently engaged with the new Second Church Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, over the House of Bishops’ ill-advised Pastoral Statement on civil partnerships.  He said:

    “It is bad enough that the Church still treats its LGBT+ members as second-class Christians, but to say to the child of a heterosexual couple in a civil partnership that they should not exist because their parents should not have had or be having sex is so hurtful.  Will he tell the bishops that unless this nonsense stops serious questions will be asked in this place about the legitimacy of the established status of the Church of England?” 

    The removal of the bishops from the House of Lords would represent an Exocet strike at establishment.  A less direct strike, but potentially more controversial, would be an attempt by Parliament to remove the right of clergy to solemnize a marriage, until such time as the Church permitted marriage of same-sex couples.  That would create a level playing field, with all couples being required to have a civil marriage and obviate the need for the quadruple lock in the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.

    For all the chatter about establishment over the years, there has been no focused work on the Church/State relationship since the Chadwick Commission, which reported in 1970.  It came at a time when the Church was frustrated at the continued role of Downing Street in appointments to bishoprics, and the fact that matters of worship and doctrine were yet to be reserved to the new General Synod.  The Commission agreed on little, other than that greater distance should be set between Church and State.  There were a wide variety of views, and some dissent from the main report – views which might well be held today.  Is the Church of England’s established status a handicap to mission?  Does it invest the Church with an aura of privilege which impedes missionary work among those who resent privilege on principle or because they lack it?

    Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark, regarded the debate at the time as being empty:

    “Perhaps the next commission on Church and state will produce more helpful recommendations if it bears in mind some deeply disturbing comments of its predecessor. There is talk of “the Church” and of “the rights of the laity” but what is “the Church” and who are “the laity”?  According to the report: “The figure for Easter communicants are a little over four per cent of the population.” As for the laity: “We do not know the present social composition of the House of Laity, but it is a fair guess that it does not, even today, contain the five per cent working class members recommended by the Selbourne Committee in 1918.”  If this is true, then the Church of England might be better employed in finding ways and means of making the Church a reality in the life of the state rather than concerning itself with constitutional proprieties.  Should this happen, the next commission may attract members and testifiers better qualified to represent the interests and outlooks in our national life.”

    Stockwood went on to note that the report gave the list of the members of the commission and those who gave evidence. “Neither list includes a carpenter, a fisherman or even a secretary of a trades union!”

    Chadwick eventually led to the Worship and Doctrine Measure 1974 and more significantly the creation of the Crown Appointments Commission (now CNC) in 1975. Not much developed thereafter, save for Gordon Brown’s Green Paper The Governance of Britain published in 2007 which inter alia included the decision that going forward Downing Street would only request one name for a diocesan bishopric, thereby leaving the decision entirely with the Church – the same convention that has applied for suffragan bishops for ages.

    Where does that history leave the Church of England today?

    When I suggested putting down a Private Member’s Motion in General Synod on establishment some 10 years ago, those I consulted took the view that is was not for the Church to initiate a debate.  Should Parliament wish to do that, that was its clear right.  Given the state of the Church today, despite the recent shots across the bows, it seems that few think a debate on establishment would represent time well spent.

    The Church needs to sort itself out.

    The problem with that thesis is that many are doubtful that it has the capacity to do that, whether in the context of safeguarding or same sex marriage.

    Expect more discussion in the very near future.  Might disestablishment be part of a much needed “pruning of the vine”?

     

  • Restoring Trust….In Church and State

    by the Ven Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight and Chair of One Body One Faith

    peter leonard

    “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
    ?     Friedrich Nietzsche

    I have been reflecting a lot on trust recently after being let down by someone rather badly. It hurts doesn’t it? It is not just the immediate betrayal which stings but the ongoing ripples and impact of what has been done to you.

    The fact that you don’t feel you can believe or trust this person again.

    The issue of trust was a big one in the recent General Election and despite the very clear result I don’t think that the issue has been addressed at all – by any of the political parties.  Neither has anyone addressed why it has been lost within Parliament and between the people and Parliament. A large majority win by one party may cover it up but it doesn’t deal with it and so it rumbles on just not as loudly as it did before the General Election, but it is still clearly there.

    As the recent revelations about sexual abuse in the Church and the Peter Ball case in particular remind us the Church is place where trust should exist in abundance but sadly many victims of abuse have found it to be lacking and indeed to be a place where no one can be trusted to keep them safe.

    Many LGBT+ people have lost trust in the Church having heard time and time again how sorry the Church is for the way they have been treated and yet then to be treated exactly the same again. Too many times they have been greeted by a smile and a warm welcome to a Church ‘which welcomes all’ only to be stung by finding themselves at worst the victims of damaging conversion therapy thinly disguised as ‘prayer ministry’ or at best tolerated but not being allowed to have any significant role in the Church community.

    When my appointment as Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight was announced a number of people who were unhappy about it sought to see what they could find out about me and use against me, others took pictures of my partner and I on the day of our Civil Partnership and used them in a negative way. It has made me jumpy and I am now much more conscious of anything I write or say or do or indeed anything I post on social media. That might not be a bad thing and I am sure there is plenty I could have expressed in a better way or not at all over the years but the negative effect of this is that when someone contacts me or sends me a friend request I am no longer happy to accept it but always assume the worst. What do they want? What are they trying to find out about me? I do not like the fact that my lack of trust has made me a suspicious person.

    So how do you restore trust?

    How do you once again achieve some sort of equilibrium in any institution, organisation or indeed between individuals when trust has been damaged or lost entirely. I wish I had the answer! It does strike me however that restoring trust requires the same steps as establishing it in the first place.

    Relationship. This is fundamental to trust. You have to know someone to trust them. There are of course some obvious exceptions. People tend to trust police officers or nurses or vicars (although this may well no longer be true) but this is because there is some innate relationship with the role formed over many years and indeed generations. When trust is gone so is the relationship and we saw that only too clearly towards the end of the last Parliament. Attention must be given to how those relationships can be restored. Shouting across a chamber, sending angry emails or ignoring someone will never do that. Only dialogue and understanding and hard work will do it.

    Risk. To know if you can trust someone you have to trust them. At some point there is the leap of faith that you have to take.

    Evidence. For trust to build that risk has to result in hard evidence that the person of organisation or institution can indeed be trusted.

    The one area which is perhaps different when rebuilding lost trust to establishing it in the first place is a genuine and authentic sense of remorse that an action has led to anyone being hurt or to trust being destroyed. Remorse which isn’t a series of ‘hand-wringing’ statements but a genuine wish it had not happened and a clear attempt to ensure it doesn’t happen again. So far I have not seen that from the person who let me down, from anyone in politics or indeed from the Church.

    So why do I still vote and engage in politics as an interested citizen? Why do I still not only worship within the Church of England but indeed work within it as an ordained minister?

    Because my faith has led me to a God who can be trusted. That doesn’t mean I always get what I want and it certainly doesn’t mean that life is all rainbows and butterflies. But having started with a somewhat negative quote perhaps I could finish with a more positive one:

    “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
    ? Corrie ten Boom

    I don’t know what the future of the UK is outside of the EU. I don’t know whether we will remain as the United Kingdom or break down into a series of smaller independent states. I don’t know whether my relationship with the person I alluded to earlier will be restored or not and I certainly don’t know if as a partnered gay man I will ever be truly accepted and affirmed by the Church.

    But I hope and that hope is based on my experience of a God who I firmly believe can be trusted.

     

  • What Will Happen to the Church of England and Anglicans in 2020?

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

    Jayne Ozanne (3)

    In a word or two – not very much!

    For the vast majority of Anglicans both here in England and further abroad, the year ahead is likely to be one that is focused on the daily challenges of witnessing Christ to a world that needs to hear the Good News of Jesus more than ever before.  It’s a task with which we Christians have been grappling with for many years, and this year is likely to be no different to any other.

    Unlike the Revd David Baker in his article that responds to this precise question in Christian Today (Jan 2nd 2020), I do not believe 2020 will be shaped by answers to questions relating to Church discussions on sexuality.  Instead, I believe it will be shaped by whether we, the Church – in all our various denominational forms – can become known for the love that we profess to preach.

    Interestingly, I doubt that very few churchgoers across the Anglican Communion have actually ever heard of the Church of England’s Evangelical Council or indeed of GAFCON.  They will, however, have heard of the challenges their vicar faces in meeting the needs of the poor in their area and the growing inequality that exists between those who “have” and “have not” in their neighbourhood.

    If they are in England, they will most likely know that their church has much in common with the other public services in their area that have been starved of investment and are struggling to cope with increased demand.  Many will be concerned at the aging nature of their congregations and their diminishing ability to pay their parish share.  Some will feel they have been raising this problem for many years with a central structure that they feel is not listening to their predicament, or who are ignoring their difficulties because they do not want to face the reality that the “system is broken”.  Others will be excited about the calling that God has placed on their hearts but will be struggling to see how they can follow it with all the other demands that are being placed on them.

    What I believe will unite the majority is a deep frustration with church politics that seems to “get in the way” of their mission.  Many have no idea why the Church of England doesn’t practice what it preaches and allow its doors to be open wide enough for everyone to feel welcomed and celebrated.

    If there is one thing that I do foresee happening in 2020, it is a major show down between the hither-to-silent laity and their leaders, particularly in conservative churches.  Personally, I think many clergy are likely to be in for quite a shock – particularly in terms of the reactions from their younger members – when they finally come clean about where they stand on certain issues.

    (As an aside, do you know where your own vicar stands on the issues that matter to you most?  Why not resolve to ask them directly this year if you haven’t already done so?)

    So, what will happen to the Church of England in 2020?

    It will continue much as it has always done to live in the grey world of compromise, otherwise known as trying to hold in tension as broad a set of views on any particular topic as possible.  Some may feel they have to leave as they cannot accept that others hold differing views to them with just as much sincerity and depth of belief.  They will not be the first to leave nor the last, for this is a trait that has been going on for centuries.  However, the vast majority will continue “like a mighty tortoise” (as the parody of Onward Christian Soldiers states) “…treading where we’ve often trod”.

    Tortoise or no tortoise, the direction of travel on various issues is clear.

    We will continue to speak out for the poor and the marginalised, challenging those “who have” to open their hearts and their wallets to those “who have not”.  We will continue to be the hands, ears and feet that seek to serve and support those around us who need practical help, or someone to talk to.  We will continue to use our considerable investment power to influence large multinationals and hold them to account over their climate change commitments.  We will continue to try and hold those in power to account, including in our own internal church structures.

    Most of all, we will continue to love without question – without caveats or exception clauses.  And we will move to ensure that no one is ever excluded from celebrating the love that they have found and wish to commit to with regards to their significant other.

    And what of the Anglican Communion in 2020?

    God quite literally knows.

    Institutions by their very nature are man-made, and the Anglican Communion is no exception.  It is out of most of our hands as to what happens.

    But whatever does happen two things are certain – the God of Love will continue to be worshipped and the Good News of Jesus will continue to be shared.

    Happy New Year!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • A ‘Low & Dishonest’ Decade?

    by the Rt Revd Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool and Chair of the Ozanne Foundation 

    my-name-is-paul

    Just over 80 years ago W H Auden, in New York, wrote his poem “September 1 1939”:

    I sit in one of the dives
    On Fifty-second Street
    Uncertain and afraid
    As the clever hopes expire
    Of a low dishonest decade:
    Waves of anger and fear
    Circulate over the bright
    And darkened lands of the earth…

    That was then; but is it also now?

    The decade just gone was certainly full of clever hopes – getting Brexit done, spending billions of pounds at no cost to you – which have not yet expired. They continue to be spun, and to dazzle many. And whether the last ten years formed ‘a low and dishonest decade’ depends on your view of what high life and truthfulness might look like. For me, overall, ‘low and dishonest’ says it pretty well.

    Once again, though, just as in 1939 (or still earlier, in 1914) the complacent assumptions of a sunny liberalism have been shaken out. The shadows are in focus once again.

    Clever hopes shine more brightly against a dark background; for this reason President Trump in his 2017 inaugural address referred to the “American carnage” from which only he could save his nation. The trouble with speaking like this is that the evocation of carnage, the summoning of dark spirits, can become unholy flesh, as we see almost weekly in the US, most recently in the shootings in a Texan church which ended when worshippers pulled their own guns and shot the shooter. Carnage indeed.

    But it is not only in the USA that the evocations of darkness can be heard. And wherever they are heard the question follows: in such a time, a time of untruth, a time marked by anger and sudden violence, how can we live truthfully?

    It is at least reassuring that this is not a new question.

    When Pilate asked “What is truth? ” he spoke as a representative of Empire, and over the years Empires have learned that if they cannot define truth, they can at least devalue it. The New Testament can be read as the building of a community in the teeth of Empire, or to use its own imagery in the face of the Beast . The bright hope of the Eucharistic meal shines against the dark background of Judas leading the authorities, seeking the One whose table once included even him. How did our friends live truthfully, they who shared our faith in the crucified God; how did they live in a time of untruth? And for us, as one decade folds itself away and a new one begins, how should we live?

    Living by a Rule

    Here in Liverpool Diocese we aim to shape ourselves by the truth of Jesus Christ, by means of a Rule of Life. It is as simple as we can make it; we say that we are called by God and sent by God; called to pray, read and learn; sent to tell, serve and give. We speak of the inner journey of calling, and the outer journey of sending. We say that praying and reading and learning equip us to tell and serve and give, but we also say that speaking our faith, and struggling to see justice done, and offering and spending our lives, that these things deepen our prayer and our reading and our learning too. Public witness and private devotion form one undivided discipleship.

    My colleagues and I hope that this Rule of Life produces a certain disposition in us, and in all those who seek to follow it, in a time of untruth. We know that our Rule is lived out by each disciple in very specific and concrete ways, but we hope that these ways have a family likeness; the likeness of the siblings of Jesus, together.

    What are some of the marks of this family likeness? I only have space in this small piece to speak of two: of truthfulness and the courage it requires, and of gladness and the discipline it demands.

    Truthfully and Gently

    Several times in this piece I have spoken of “a time of untruth”. I do not only mean by this that our political leaders lie to us. They do, but this is not the worst of it. Worse than lying is the shamelessness that sees no sin in lying, that knows there will be no penalty to being caught lying, that pays no penalty, that systematically devalues truth in the pursuit of popular power.

    In the face of this it is still possible to live as if truth matters. To do so is to live a life of resistance, which needs to be resourced.

    A Rule of Life is merely a spiritual bauble if it does not resource God’s people in truthfulness. To choose to pray to the true God, and read truthfully, and learn the truth together; to tell the truth and to act with truth and if necessary to pay the price of telling the truth; these things matter when the gale of lies is blowing. As the new decade begins I honour those who live, or wish to live, as though these things matter.

    In a time of untruth Christianity itself can be weaponised and distorted like everything else, made into a tool of national populism. The pictures below show how this is being done in our own nation.

    The attempts of populist politicians to appropriate the Bible and the cross, for example in the USA, in Italy, in Hungary, are seen here also with increasing frequency. But this is not an inevitable thing. The excellent work of the group led by the Bishop of Truro on the world-wide persecution of Christians points to the reality of that persecution while resolutely turning its back on the sort of defensive Christian supremacy that is being used to stir up fear of the other, of other faiths, of other lives, of other human beings. Instead, Bishop Philip and his group had a quieter and more demanding aim: to tell the truth.

    There is a price to be paid in telling the truth.

    This applies to telling the truth within the family of God as well as “speaking truth to power”. The remarkable courage shown by victims and survivors of abuse in the Church exemplify this costly price, and I continue to honour their example of truthfulness.

    The last thing that the world needs is a harrumphing self-righteousness from Christians who do not see the glass house in which they live. In its wider life – not only its treatment of victims and survivors – the Church has absolutely no reason to boast, except only to boast of the God of truth under whose judgement and mercy we all stand.

    The Church is a fallen and a broken community, all too often caught up in its own contentions, treating living human beings as “issues” or as the objects of “debate”. This has been the fate of the marginal in the Church to this day. And it will remain so into the New Year unless the truth of human lives – living and breathing human beings – is honoured with the utmost vigilance.

    To prefer abstract words to human breath is to give insufficient attention to the real world, and insufficient devotion to the true God. It is the true God in the real world whom we are to serve, the true God who loved the real world so much as to give the true God’s only begotten One – Jesus – for the real world’s life. To live courageously in a time of untruth is therefore to speak for truth from a place emptied of pride and defensiveness; a place of utter dependence on the Truth which is beyond us and will always be.

    Gladly and Securely

    Speaking the truth can be a hard thing, and too easily a hardening one. This is true for me. The last thing that the world needs is my own harrumphing self-righteousness, adding to and increasing the volume of noise instead of communicating the sound of the One who speaks softly in silence, the One whose yoke is easy and whose burden ls light.

    The God whose truth is beyond us, and always will be, is the same God whose love sustains us, who will love us and the world into wholeness in the end. To live well as a Christian in a time of untruth is therefore to live truthfully and gently; but also to seek another gift from God – not only courage, then, but also an unquenchable gladness – a gladness which has, indeed, been promised.

    Psalm 45 contains a vision of what it is for authority to be truthful and glad:

    Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.
    Your royal sceptre is a sceptre of equity;
    you love righteousness and hate wickedness.
    Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
    with the oil of gladness beyond your companions…

    This image is taken by the writer to the Hebrews and applied specifically and directly to the Lord Jesus . This same Jesus has breathed the Holy Spirit on his friends; this same Jesus has told us that we will know the truth and that the truth will make us free . In the spirit of this Jesus then, understanding who it is that holds and rules the Universe, we are to be glad, even as we speak the truth clearly and resist evil strongly.

    There is no place in this Way for refusing the real world. There is no place in this Way for a furious and impotent anger that so easily turns inward and consumes our friends and ourselves. In short it is good to be clear-eyed, and with clear eyes to be glad.

    In a world marked by a wilful embracing of lies and fantasy on the one hand, and an angry and self-righteousness shrilling of truth on the other, the Gospel of gentle gladness weaves its way. It is easily missed, and its insistence that we live without corrosive anger is easily refused. But to live as a Christian is to trust that the Gospel’s shuttle is weaving our lives too, making it possible for us to be an honest and gentle community in a time of untruth.

    My hope then at the turn of the decade is that the Church will see this today, as Auden saw it 80 years ago:

    … Defenceless under the night
    Our world in stupor lies;
    Yet, dotted everywhere,
    Ironic points of light
    Flash out wherever the Just
    Exchange their messages:
    May I, composed like them
    Of Eros and of dust,
    Beleaguered by the same
    Negation and despair,
    Show an affirming flame.

    A blessed, truthful, glad and happy New Year to all.

     

     

     

  • A Tale of Two Kitties

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

    Jayne Ozanne new

    I have recently been adopted by two kittens – brothers born on September 27th.  I decided to resist the temptation of calling them Boris and Jeremy – to be fair, neither are good names for a cat – and have instead called them Oscar and Louie. One after my paternal grandfather, in memory of my late father who died in September, and the other after a giant LGBT+ hero of the faith, Louie Crew Clay, who died on November 27th – the day I brought them home.

    Despite being born just minutes apart they are strikingly different – just as I’m sure both Oscar Ozanne and Louie Crew Clay would have found themselves to be.  These two kittens may be brothers, but that’s where the similarities end.  They play with different toys, rest in different places, like different food.  They chase each other endlessly around the house, lie in wait for each other, fight and go for each other’s jugulars.  And then, when it’s all over, they lie down together, snuggle up and go to sleep. They won’t be separated – you see, they’re brothers.

    Curled up together

    Of course, it’s got me thinking.

    They each seem to see the world very differently.  Louie – who was taken away from his mother a little too early and was then returned because the owner decided she wanted a female rather than a male cat – is very cautious.  He spent his first few days finding the best places to hide and wouldn’t let me anywhere near him.  He’s come around, of course, as it’s amazing what love can do – along with a continual supply of his favourite cat food.  Oscar on the other hand couldn’t have felt more at home from the moment he came out of the cat box – confident, strong and with a sense of entitled privilege, he immediately requisitioned my armchair and pillow.

    So why am I sharing all this?

    It strikes me that after a week which has torn so many within our nation apart, which has shocked and scared and wounded and surprised so many, it’s time we learnt how to live with each other a bit better – especially those who see things rather differently to the way we do.

    It may be too soon to be reflecting on all of this, but I for one have been saddened at the way that people have jumped to see the worst rather than the best in each other.  They have been quick to pass judgement, to impugn the motives of those they hardly know – on all sides.  They have gone for the jugular, bitten deep and hard, with a hope that it would wound and hurt – and frequently it does.  They have lain in wait ready to jump and pounce, but without the expectation that at the end of the day they will curl up together, finding support from each other as they share the same bed, our nation.

    As it happens this is the first time in a long time that I’ve found myself in a mothering role, otherwise known as the “responsible adult”.  I have reflected that it’s impossible to choose who I prefer between my two little men – I love them both equally.  Yes, they show their love and affection to me in very differing ways – one will sit on my lap, the other will show me his tummy – but love me they undoubtedly do.  To be honest, I don’t really mind how they choose to express this, the important thing is that it is completely natural and not forced – for the moment I try and make them do something they are unhappy with is the moment their purring ceases. The connection is lost.

    Just like us – from Stanford in C to Matt Redmond’s Heart of Worship – we each connect differently with the way we seek to worship our Creator God.  We all know this, but why are we so (excuse the pun) catty about it?  Why do we take it out on those who prefer a different way of expressing their love and adoration for our God?

    Wouldn’t it make life so much easier if we could just learn to accept that we are intrinsically different?  That we see the world differently.  That we interact with the world differently. That we worship and express our love for our Creator differently.

    Could we not find a way of recognising the good in those around us, rather than lying in wait to jump on those who hold – in all good conscience – a different understanding of how we can each just “be”?  Yes, we can of course disagree, we can argue, we can even go for the jugular at times. But at the end of the day, wouldn’t it be so much more peaceful if we all just could curl up together and go to sleep?

    For we’ve brothers (well, and sisters of course) – born of the same flesh and sharing the same lineage.

    And perhaps most importantly, loved equally and unconditionally by our Father/Mother God.

     

  • Nationalism, Patriotism and Glory…

    by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, Member of General Synod and Vice-Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

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    ‘Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism is when hate of people other than your own comes first.’

    So wrote the Lithuanian and French Jewish novelist Romain Gary, who knew about nationalism and being an outsider.  We can patriotically love and support our country without hating or dominating others; which means that in times of election fever and division we can put the demands or promises of parties and leaders in their places.

    100 years ago the Dean of St Paul’s, Dean Inge, wrote in his diary about a speech he gave in December 1917, in which he warned of the dangers of a post-war international settlement that would create ongoing conflict. His perceptive comments were met with a torrent of abusive news reports and letters; he wrote that ‘one good lady says: I am praying for your death; I have been very successful in two other cases.’ This time the lady was unsuccessful; but Dean Inge ruefully noted at the end of his diary for 1917 that ‘our people, slow and reluctant to enter the war, are now mad with rage and hatred… It is indeed a terrible time.’

    Nearly every day I worship in St Paul’s Cathedral, surrounded by statues and memorials intended to focus, not on the suffering and damage of war, but on national and individual glory.  These monuments to men like Nelson, Wellington, Collingwood and Abercrombie, who lived or died ‘gloriously’ for their country, were erected at public expense so that their glory will be remembered by our nation, exalted heroes who built the Empire or defended the realm, held up as examples both of self-sacrifice for the nation and of the glory to be earned as a result.

    But the lives of these heroes were more like ours than their monumental statues suggest. These were men with families, loves and betrayals, pride and anger, courage, vanity and endurance. They killed other people, and were responsible for the deaths of many under their command, as part of the human cost and moral ambiguity of war. Each one was a human being doing their duty as they understood it – but not peaceful martyrs for their faith, or humanitarians like Florence Nightingale whose memorial is downstairs in the Cathedral crypt.

    Their memorials were erected by men like them who held power in uncertain and revolutionary times; men who wanted to avoid rebellion against themselves, men for whom gaining glory in the service of the nation was a useful distraction from the question of who and what the nation is for at all –  and from the cost of the pursuit of national glory, the mentally and physically battle-scarred veterans, and the victims of conflict who are so often women and children and those unlike ‘us’, airbrushed out of the nationalistic narrative.

    Like a promise of glory in time of conflict, Christian faith has been used to bolster those in power and keep the discontented masses quiet by promising future rewards for present suffering, as Karl Marx recognised. But true faith is subversive, because worship of God and allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ comes first.

    As Christians we have to put into their place the nation, our political or religious party, even our own self-interest, with our highest loyalties being to God and to the well-being of all humanity. Such subversion isn’t a destructive threat to a nation, but a threat to nationalism, which is the creed of those who use national loyalty in order to capture or keep hold of power. Having Christian values that can judge whether what we’re told is in truth for the good of the nation, and having a population able to reflect on politics and hold national leaders to account, is a sign of a nation’s maturity, not of disloyalty, recognising that populism and nationalism are perversions of something better.

    In a febrile, binary and intolerant world we need to see ourselves from God’s perspective.

    Surrounded by statues extolling human glory, I remember the words from John’s Gospel (12.23-33) where Jesus speaks about his glory and honour coming, not from victories on behalf of the nation, but from the glory God reveals in Jesus being nailed high on a cross. The glory of God is in self-giving, in loving, in dying that others might live. God’s glory doesn’t mean power for great men, but honour for those whom the world sees as weak and disposable. The glory of Christ is the cross, where Jesus carries our sorrows and suffers for us.

    Empires and nations and their glories come and go, but God’s love for each one of us endures. Although some of their memorials remain, the ‘glorious dead’ are long gone; we remember their limitations, and our own, and see true glory in those who bear the mental and physical damage of conflict, whether due to war, or to the divisions and hatreds of our own society.

    As Christians, we glory not in self or in power, but in loving service and working for the good of all; we long, not for glory, but for the day when war and conflict will be no more, when nations will serve each other, and love will have the final word.