ViaMedia

Category: Social Justice

  • Walking in Beauty – Contemplation in times of Struggle, Suffering and Exclusion

    by the Very Revd Rogers Govender, Dean of Manchester

    It is an accepted fact that we are currently living in extremely challenging times, especially made more so by Covid-19. We have always had the challenges of human sexuality, poverty, racism and injustice to deal with. What Cov-19 has done is to expose all these issues more starkly. Perhaps because we are more tuned into social media and world news we are experiencing more awareness? The murder of George Floyd hit the news very quickly – I remember following the street protests on a live Facebook feed as it was happening. I was able to post my disgust and anger in seconds.

    During the recent Pride season, I decided to fly the Rainbow Flag on the tower of my Cathedral. It was well received apart from a letter of complaint from a group of clergy. My initial reaction was that it would have been good to receive such a letter when I was speaking prophetically at services and on the news media on the racism being exposed by Black Lives Matter! No such support against racism was offered to me by these clergy colleagues. However, when the issue of human sexuality emerges I suddenly receive a letter of complaint! Is this the Church that I am part of, a Church that wants to grow God’s Kingdom? I think our Lord must weep over his Church and the exclusion and injustice that we often collude with.

    It is a great temptation to become bitter and angry at one another and the world because of the lack of compassion and injustice that we witness on a daily basis, often in the Church of God. And I have only touched on two major issues in our society! As Christians and especially as Christian priests we are called to a life of love and compassionate service. If we are to serve the people of God then it is our life of prayer and contemplation that we need to be immersed in. Without a regular routine of prayer and the practise of a contemplative heart we can easily lose the vision of something greater than our prejudices and our sadness that accompanies it. We can easily lose our vision of Jesus and God’s kingdom.

    So, I want to turn our attention to the writings of Fr Richard Rohr, a Catholic priest in New Mexico and one of my spiritual mentors.

    He once wrote an article ‘Walk in Beauty’ in which he encourages us to recognize the beauty of the world despite its many disfigurations.  In his article he cites a prayer of the Navajo people in New Mexico from decades ago, which I particularly love. I mention it here as I want to suggest that we too need to be anchored to God in the midst of the huge challenges we face by ‘contemplating beauty’.

    In beauty I walk

    With beauty before me I walk

    With beauty behind me I walk

    With beauty above me I walk

    With beauty around me I walk

    It has become beauty again

    It has become beauty again

    It has become beauty again

    It has become beauty again

    There is much beauty in our towns, cities, villages and rural areas. There is much beauty in one another. We simply need to be more aware of the beauty of our surroundings and recognize it in the sounds around us, in drumming, in the voices of people, etc. as we open our hearts and minds to our surroundings. This is how we recognize the divine in all things.

    Michael Cassidy the great South African Evangelist in his book ‘The Politics of Love’ (p.253) cites Job who ‘in the depths of his problems and agonies began to question God and received back a shattering questionnaire from the God in whom all power resides’. The power we need to navigate the challenges of prophetic witness is found in God – cf Job 38:4, 8–11. It is only when we lose our life in and for Christ, that we will find it says Jesus in Matthew 16:25. So the ability to recognise the beauty around us in the midst of so many challenges and crises (not least in Covid-19) is found in the incredible life of Jesus who saw possibilities of healing and wholeness in broken human beings and in a broken and bruised world.  

    Quoting Fr Richard Rohr again:

    ‘’I invite you to return to the Navajo prayer above when you have the space and time to literally move or walk with it. If you’re able to walk, you might take off your shoes and walk barefoot. Move slowly, noticing the sensations in your body—discomfort, surprise, challenge, pleasure, ease. Take in your surroundings with a soft, receptive gaze. What do you see? Listen to whatever there is to hear—your own breathing, birds, traffic. You may choose to pay attention to one sense at a time or try to hold two simultaneously. Be present to what is. Walk or move in this way for several minutes or even half an hour. When you have ended, bow in gratitude for your body, for the beauty surrounding you, and for the beauty that will continue to follow you everywhere you go’’ – Adapted from Richard Rohr, an unpublished talk, February 2018, St. John XXIII Catholic Community, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

    This he says is a form of contemplation! I want to suggest, in the great tradition of our numerous contemplative spiritual writers, scholars, brothers and sisters of old that contemplating the beauty around us will keep us hopeful as fellow pilgrims who strive for the way of God’s Kingdom. For this is the way of Jesus.

  • One for All and All for One?

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

    The words which bind together Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers are also the unofficial motto of Switzerland, and date back at least to Shakespeare. It might well be a Christian motto too, echoing Paul’s reference to Jesus’ cross and resurrection (‘one has died for all’, 2 Corinthians 5.14) and affirming our loyalty to him, and to one another as members of Christ’s body.

    But it’s not a motto which the Church is or has been good at living out. The COVID-19 pandemic, Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and Living in Love and Faith together open a window of opportunity – of necessity – for the Church to do things differently. We are offered the chance to live radically with difference. But will we take it?

    In his September 15th blog on Via Media, Charlie Bell highlighted the importance of ‘intersectionality’ and that the Church has largely ignored it. Most people, including many Christians, will be unaware of the word (I had to look it up!). But nearly all of us, whether Christian or not, are caught up in what it refers to. Formally, it means the interconnection of various forms of oppression. That’s often what people experience: for example, an older black trans working-class person living in poverty suffers in themselves the intersection of multiple discriminations and oppression.

    But as Charlie Bell noted, this also applies to struggles for justice. Solidarity together by those oppressed in different ways is a powerful response, affirming intersectionality. Think of Desmond Tutu’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ and the welcome given to gay people as well as people of all colours – though this isn’t a welcome affirmed by the whole Church. Which is why the Church is perceived as oppressive: because it divides people and makes different rules to apply to them. On ‘theological’ or ‘practical’ grounds we split up those who are discriminated against – by the Church and by others – into different categories. We encourage them to remain in their boxes as individual problems to be solved, rather than taking the risk of helping them come together to work for shared love and justice for all God’s people, of whatever age, sex, gender, race, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, marital status or belief.

    There’s nothing new in this. The New Testament offers the picture of a Church called to live in radical love and justice, preaching the gospel of God’s loving salvation for all equally, living together in mutual love; and at the same time the picture of a Church struggling to make this real in practice. Whether it’s the book of Acts describing Palestinian and Hellenist Jewish believers squabbling over money in Jerusalem, or tensions between Gentiles and Jews in the early churches; or Paul addressing disunity in Corinth and elsewhere; or John writing about God’s love while excluding others from that love – the Church has had to work hard, and often failed, to transcend the social divisions and prejudices of the world around it, and has too often aided and abetted oppression rather than brought justice and love.

    Ask black people about the churches’ role in profiting from slavery and its support for the injustices of the British Empire in the past, and their experiences of racism in churches in the present. Ask working-class people of any colour about how welcome they feel their ministry is to the church. Ask women, gay and trans people how they feel about churches continuing to exercise institutional discrimination against them. Ask the survivors of abuse in the churches how they have been treated by the systems meant to protect them.

    How do we do it differently and together: ‘One for all and all for one’? The Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process in the Church of England is an opportunity to work in an intersectional way, and open up the conversation to include people of disability, people of non-white colour and non-middle class background, women in ministry and those who don’t believe they should be there – and of course LGBTI+ people who have often felt marginalised and excluded. But that requires local churches to not only own and take part in the LLF process, but to use it to listen and respond positively to all who have experienced structural oppression in church life, and look at how to work for justice not only within the church but also in the structures of society.

    In a recent newspaper article the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London wrote of the need for local decision-making, with central authority doing only what it has to do. It was written against the background of disquiet about central Church of England guidance about responding to the coronavirus, to reaffirm the importance of parishes and local Christian communities in living out the Gospel of Christ locally in practical as well as spiritual ways. And if local churches don’t take seriously the issues of oppression and social justice, then whatever archbishops may say, the Church of England as a whole will continue to relinquish its role and mar its commendation of the Christian gospel to the nation.

    The point of being local, and maintaining thriving local churches, isn’t to perpetuate the existence of the church; it’s to transform people’s lives and the life of society – to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with the Lord. Together. One for all and all for one.

  • Secrecy and an Unaccountable Church of England

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

    Honestly, it drives me mad!

    When I first became a member of General Synod over ten years ago I was very taken with the idea that anyone could ask a question and the person responsible for that area of church life would be required to reply both to the question and the supplementary. It looked to me like a way of ensuring accountability. 

    What I quickly discovered is that it’s actually a game of manners in which carefully briefed bishops very effectively shut down any probing or awkward questions. There are basically variants of three answers: ‘This is work in progress’; ‘We don’t collect that data’; ‘It’s confidential.’

    It mirrors the whole world of General Synod which, apart from the odd little rush of blood to the head, is very carefully managed to create the illusion of accountability without the reality.

    So yes!  It makes me mad. So much so that I’m not going to stand again. It has, however, got me thinking about accountability as a Christian concept.

    In February 2020 I asked the following question: “In the light of a figure of £200 million mentioned by Bishop Peter Hancock to survivors, how much money has actually been allocated in the AC or CC budget this year and next, specifically for the care and restorative justice of survivors of clergy abuse?” 

    The reply was that they were working on it and waiting for the IICSA report to tell them what to do! Not even a hint of any figures and zero accountability.

    However…..

    John Spence, the chair of the finance committee was clearly deeply moved and memorably spoke from the floor promising that funds would be found for compensation payments, saying: “This is not about affordability, it is about justice. Justice cannot have a different value depending on the finances of this or that diocese. Whatever we are told is required … for redress, then those funds will be found,”

    So, is this actually happening? Can we hold even the revered John Spence to account?

    In the absence of any figures whatsoever Dr Josephine Stein used her research skills to put together an educated estimate. The opening sentence of the Church Times article about her work says it all: ‘Survivors of abuse in a church context receive about £55,000 in redress in from the Church of England out of an estimated £20 million spent on safeguarding annually.’ (CT 19.08.2020)

    It would seem that John Spence’s pockets were not that deep after all. Survivors are still on the bread line. They are unable to work, have exhausted their life savings and are still given a poxy £500 upper limit for counselling after life changing trauma.

    There are no other ways we lesser mortals can ask the Church of England to follow through with its promises – that’s why it drives me mad.

    The really interesting thing, once you start thinking about it, is that accountability should be an attitude of life – a cast of the heart. There are all sorts of legal backstops to ensure financial accountability. People make it their life’s work and call themselves “accountants” after all! Genuine accountability is far more to do with the nature of the relationship you think you have with others. I hold myself accountable to my husband, to my family, because I love them. We consider one another equal and would not abuse power or money. If one of us messed up we’d try and fix it and be genuinely sorry. This requires truth telling and openness and transparency not secrecy and silence.

    Whilst writing this blog a rather excellent MA thesis landed on my desk. It’s about the use of Non Disclosure Agreements in Religious Institutions. Ben Nicholson successfully demonstrates that: ‘NDAs actively prevent transparency, truthfulness, accountability, reconciliation and restored relationships through a combination of intimidation and enforced silence.’ They also, he continues: ‘discriminate in favour of the powerful, enabling them to avoid being held accountable for wrongdoing and require the complicity of other powerful people.’

    I recognise that. When I asked about the Church of England’s use of NDAs the reply was: “We can’t tell you that – it’s secret!”

    So yes!  It drives me mad!

    It doesn’t need to be like that! As Bishop’s chaplain I have been to more licensing services than I care to remember, when a new person is legally made the vicar of a parish. To this day I am struck afresh by a particular moment, after the bishop has read out the terms of the license, when the piece of paper is handed over from the bishop to the priest with the words ‘receive the cure of souls which is both yours and mine….’ And Bishop Alan always says: ‘I hold myself as accountable to you as you are to me. The scripture teaches mutual accountability…….’ 

    Experience tell me that is not a common attitude.

    What’s more Scripture  teaches us that we are accountable to God through one another. The way we treat one another is the litmus test of the authenticity of our faith.

    As we hold our breath for the “Living in Love and Faith” document whose genesis has also been shrouded in secrecy, can we expect something different? Will the authors hold themselves as accountable to the LGBTI+ members of our Church as they do the powerful conservative lobby!?

    Unaccountable power is dangerous. To sustain it there needs to be secrecy. However, it won’t last forever for: ‘Things hidden will become clear and every secret thing will be made known.’ (Luke 8.17)  

    Secrecy and accountability can’t co-exist.

  • Solidarity, Oppression and the Church of England

    by Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow in Medicine at Girton College Cambridge and ordinand at St Augustine’s College of Theology


    ‘But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’ (Amos 5:24)

    Justice is a fundamental facet of the Christian life, and the past summer has once again brought injustice into the light of day. As Black Lives Matter protests spread across the globe, the Church of England did, indeed, make its voice heard – recognising not only the chronic injustice done by white people to black people for generations, including in our churches, but also calling for real change within society and within institutions. Whilst it is shameful that it took these protests to call too many white people to action, this is a narrative that neither will nor should go away, and one that is not optional for Christians to engage in. On the surface, then, it is quite right for our bishops and other leaders to highlight the BLM campaign – yet something doesn’t quite feel right.

    A key thing about Black Lives Matter, and many other organisations that stand up for the oppressed, is that they understand not only the role of structural oppression, but also the importance of intersectionality. These two concepts should sit at the heart of what we as Christians believe – the former well studied and lived out in liberation theologies, and the latter a key example of living the Christian life in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. Yet intersectionality barely gets a mention in church discourse, and likewise the Church of England routinely misrepresents structural oppression in its own dialogues.

    The Church, of course, is exempt from the Equality Act. Yet this very simple fact seems to be overlooked by many church leaders who constantly complain that nobody is taking them, or the church, seriously. Black Lives Matter is unashamedly pro-women, pro-queer, pro-disabled, pro-black. Organisations like it understand the reason that the protected characteristics in the Equality Act exist, and rather than pitting one group against another, recognise the complex interplay between them and the interconnectedness of privileged oppression.  The substantial moral strength of BLM as opposed to the Church is that there is no ‘but’ involved in their struggle for justice. Oppressed groups work together to liberate each other – it is a struggle together, not a struggle in opposition.

    This is where the Church of England falls very short indeed.  A good example of this would be the dialogue on LGBT inclusion. Countless times, when pushing for equality in the Church, I have been told ‘but Africa’ – a blithe, yet despicable remark, which suggests that Church hierarchs would delight to have more LGBT inclusion but can’t because it would upset ‘the communion’ (or sometimes, more crassly and revealingly, ‘the Africans’). Not only is this offensive and simplistic, but it is an insidious attempt to silence one oppressed group by reference to another. We might seriously reconsider the imperial origins and character of the Anglican Communion and review its effective working in the twenty-first century. We most certainly should not sanction a narrative of blaming black people for white laws imposed during imperial conquest (and encouraged to this day by white conservatives) and consequently point the finger of blame for LGBT exclusion at ‘Africans’, as though that is a homogenous group of people. Yet ‘but Africa’ is the go-to response by far too many bishops.  Putting it bluntly, black Africans should not be the bishops’ shields.

    Yet when church leaders promote Black Lives Matter, they either don’t bother to find out what they are supporting, or they are hypocritical. As Christians, we are called to stand up against oppression, not against some types of oppression. We are most certainly not called to oppress. When Church leaders spoke up against the Orlando killings in an LGBT nightclub, they appeared surprised when very few people bothered to listen, particularly within the LGBT community. That might just be because LGBT people don’t want pity – they want solidarity. A Church with an ambivalence on equality is not a church of solidarity.

    Similarly, the furore over the recent participation of  Church Society in the Church of England’s Sunday worship shows quite how deep the problem is. Much was made of how difficult it is for those of ‘conservative’ mindset to find their place in the church. Likewise, in a theological college discussion on equal marriage, we were told that ‘both sides’ needed a safe space – these ‘sides’ being LGBT people and those with a theological opposition to LGBT rights. This is absolute nonsense – these two are not equivalent! For someone to disagree with your theological position is, of course, difficult – but if you truly believe it, then you should be able to defend it. This is self-evidently not the same as being attacked for simply being who you are – for expressing love towards another individual of the same sex, being told that ‘pride comes before destruction’ and that those who merely support LGBT people are ‘surrendering Christianity in favour of a completely different gospel, which is divisive…and endangering to the soul’ (as the Director of Church Society stated). This is not theological disagreement – this is a direct attack, prejudice against and persecution of LGBT people. Not to see this is to show a wilful disregard for the reality of power dynamics.

    The scary reality is that victim-blaming forms a fundamental part of church dialogue, including ‘good disagreement’. In the facilitated conversations a few years ago, even mention of the word ‘homophobic’ to describe actual oppression was considered ‘hurtful’ – quite literally silencing the voice and experience of the oppressed. The word ‘painful’ has been grossly overused by those in positions of power when their theology is challenged, yet all the while, LGBT people are expected to just take their vilification as part of ‘theological discourse’. It smells of the same attitude that led the British state to pay compensation to slave owners and not slaves. It is the height of hypocrisy and the apogee of privilege used for repression.

    This is why the Church of England is structurally oppressive.

    Bishops and clergy who cannot see this do not need more air-time – they need education. Our theological colleges should be giving voice to the oppressed, not the oppressor – yet how many of our colleges take liberation theology, black theology or queer theology seriously? Our entire religion is based on solidarity with the people on the margins, yet our entire institution is prejudiced, structurally, against those who remain on these very margins.

    Those of us in oppressed groups need to model this solidarity. Those of us who have privilege need to acknowledge it. We must call out lazy and false thinking, and we must change. The secular world is leagues ahead of us already, once again. Until we recognise our institutional prejudice, we would do better not to bother with the warm words, thoughts and prayers far too easily sprinkled.

    Acts of omission of solidarity are acts nonetheless – and until our actions reflect out words, we will remain a church all too silent in mission, silent in ministry and silent in letting the oppressed go free.

  • A Tribute to Colin Blakely, Co-Founder of Via Media

    RIP Colin Blakely (Jan 7th 1960 – Sept 7th 2020)

    Words mattered to Colin.  Words said in the right way, to the right people, with the right tone could, he believed, change the world.  That is why he was so committed to accurate and sensitive reporting, sharing people’s stories and giving people a voice.  He dedicated his life to doing this, and inspired others to do the same.  What is more, he was one of the most respected and longest serving journalists in the Christian world.  He was fiercely loyal, totally confidential, and utterly dependable. 

    He was also one of my best friends, who I am proud to have known for over 20 years.

    Colin believed passionately that it was always better to be part of a conversation rather than on the outside shouting in.  That is why he encouraged me to get back involved with the discussions in the church on sexuality and stood with me every step of the way – at some cost to himself.  Together we launched Via Media, a blog now read by thousands with contributors from across the full spectrum of the Church.  Together we set-up my Foundation, for which he kindly agreed to be an office holder.  Together we worked on every speech, press release, blog and article – hoping that it would win hearts and challenge minds, and always, always allow the love of God to shine through.

    For truth and justice were critical foundation stones for Colin.  He felt the pain keenly of those who were outcast and sought to give them a voice.  In our catch-up sessions he would often reach out and take my hand, in tears, asking why people were so cruel and full of such hate.  This would often be after reading his postbag – there were no words, so we would just sit and silently weep.

    Colin bore the pain of being right at the sharp end of wanting to champion LGBT+ matters, which he did magnificently, and yet working in a world that he thought often caused the trauma he felt compelled to report on.  It was not an easy place to be, and he did not do it for money – but love.

    For above all, Colin’s most remarkable quality was his ability to love.  He embodied unconditional love of all – as his friends and family will testify.  His loving kindness touched everyone around him, as did his infectious laugh, which emanated in his eyes.  His soft Scottish long drawn out “yeeees” was the answer to most things, always positive – always keen to encourage and spur people on. 

    Colin will be missed by so many, across the full breadth of the Church of England and far beyond.  As Bishop Paul Bayes, a mutual friend, has said: “Colin was a really significant influencer in the Christian community over many years, and that he combined this with a quiet and self-effacing personal style.”

    His proudest achievement though was his family.  He was a deeply private man, utterly devoted to his wife, Libby, and their children, Mikey and Naomi.  They were his life and his rock.  He lived for them, and will I know continue through them – for the love they shared is unquenchable.

  • Worldly Weddings – To Bless or Not to Bless?

    by the Very Revd Nicholas Henshall, Dean of Chelmsford

    On 14 February a former Bishop of Jarrow used to stand at the feet of the Angel of the North in Gateshead, and bless any couples who came along. Kitsch and worldly certainly. But it might tell us something important about marriage and the church as we seek to respond to Government proposals to change the rules on where people can get married and who can officiate at weddings.

    The history of marriage and the church is clear enough. For almost the whole of the first 1,000 years of Christian history there is simply no such thing as ‘Christian’ marriage. Christians get married, certainly. But they get married according to the laws and traditions of ‘secular’ culture. Christian clergy play no role. Indeed, there is nothing resembling a Christian marriage service, a liturgy, until at least the 8th century.

    Even then weddings remain firmly under civil jurisdiction for another 400 years. It is only in the post-Reformation period that, by canon law and custom, it becomes a requirement in both Catholic and Anglican traditions that a priest officiates at a wedding. Always of course the actual ministers of the sacrament are the couple themselves and not the priest.

    Marriage does not fit easily into Aquinas’ Aristotelian sacramental system. But the sacramentaliisation of marriage in the Middle Ages – rather like the monasticisation of the clergy – is a fascinating power grab by the medieval church, more to do with control than blessing.

    Marriage is robustly secular. Though often missed, this is precisely what informs Paul’s teaching on marriage. Getting married is what people do, and that is part of its ‘worldly’ nature. In the teaching of both Jesus and Paul, marriage is part of the “the present form of this world which is passing away (1 Corinthians 7.31) and Jesus is specific that in the resurrection “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22.30). These would not be comfortable texts to us at the funeral of a deeply loved spouse but this is not intended as a moral condemnation. Rather it reflects the eschatology of the New Testament writers.

    Christians have had to recognise for most of the last 2,000 years that marriage has taken a variety of forms and that these have largely been dictated and developed by ‘secular’ culture rather than by the church. Christopher Brooke’s classic, The Medieval Idea of Marriage, is hugely enjoyable in its own right, but leaves the reader in no doubt.

    The history of marriage and the church has not been helped by a deeply unbiblical  pessimism about sex. Rowan Williams notes that Gregory the Great had to reassure Augustine of Canterbury that someone who had had sex on a Saturday could still receive communion on Sunday. By contrast, in the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath is a specially favoured day for making love. Whilst the very positive statements of modern church leaders about marriage and the family are welcome, these have little resonance in the tradition, and often unintentionally echo the church’s earlier attempts to control marriage rather than demonstrating a desire to bless human relationships.

    When I was a vicar in North Yorkshire, I officiated at a minimum of at least 30 a year. It was a pretty church in a stunning location, and with a huge parish centre where we could even offer wedding receptions. This was a place where people still got married in large numbers, even though the registry office was just stone’s throw away. Wedding preparation in large groups on Saturday mornings was an excellent opportunity to get to know couples well and do some straight teaching and reflection. But although I was completely confident that we had wonderful good news to share – that we knew about love, sacrifice, life intention, vows, for better for worse – I also realised in those precious encounters that they were inviting me onto their sacred ground, not the other way round.

    And I think that’s why over recent years, I have learnt most from non-church weddings, especially a family wedding in a youth hostel in Derbyshire. Some non-church weddings have left me feeling empty and frustrated, to be sure. But so have some church weddings. This Derbyshire youth hostel wedding genuinely engaged and excited me. Location was determined by the bride and groom’s passion for rock climbing, and the ceremony itself – not just the party afterwards in a tent where the heating had failed – was a genuine opportunity for people to speak serious words about love and commitment, and make unique personal contributions. It seemed extraordinary to all of us that although there were several ordained ministers present, and the bride and groom would have loved to have their participation, the legalities prohibited any such religious content. But I realised through that day that I was learning at a ‘secular’ wedding things I thought I already knew.

    This is important. For many of us as Christian parents our children may well not make the same choices as us about marriage. Even devout Christians are sometimes opting for non-church weddings, because the rules we make exclude them or because what we offer seems to restrain rather than to bless.

    The experience of going to civil weddings has raised my game. If I were getting married now, it certainly would still be in a church, with full Nuptial Mass and all the trimmings. But we would seek to learn from non-church weddings, where the personal is often better honoured, the world better understood and the context better embraced. If Aquinas is right, these civil events are (at least in part) still sacraments, and the doctrine of the Incarnation tells us that Christ is there, just as he was at the similarly non-church wedding at Canaan in Galilee.

    The incarnation invites us to a recognise that it is the world in all its glorious variety that is the arena of God’s activity, the arena into which God sends us to serve, the context to which God invites us to pay attention.

    So, alongside welcoming the government’s long-overdue consultation on opening up the conversation about where people can get married and who can officiate at a wedding, let’s be bold enough – as confident missionary-minded churches have always been – to engage with the kitsch and the worldly next Valentine’s Day and do some serious blessing.

  • We Can’t Go Back….But We Will, Unless…

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media, Director of the Ozanne Foundation and a Member of General Synod

    Jayne Ozanne new

    “Real power lies in the people!”

    Earlier this week I was privileged to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu say these powerful words during a characteristically direct address ahead of a private screening of an epic new film about Africa, climate change and migration, The Great Green Wall.

    He was keen to draw on the words of Thomas Sankara, that set the tone of the film:

    “We must dare to invent the future – everything humanity can imagine we can create”

    For the last three months on Via Media we have had 24 vastly different and yet uniquely personal blogs from a range of contributors addressing the subject “We Can’t Go Back…” They have touched on a truly diverse set of topics from power and inequality to social care and justice, and from topics relating to our buildings to those relating to our well-being and mental health.

    For all their differences, they have each dared to invent a new future, to imagine things as they could be.  Indeed, the series itself found its genesis in words spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury during his Easter Day sermon, televised to the nation from his kitchen at the start of the lockdown, where he shared his own vision of a future filled with resurrection hope, saying:

    “After so much suffering, so much heroism from key workers and the NHS, so much effort, once this epidemic is conquered here and round the world, we cannot be content to go back to what was before as if all is normal.  There needs to be a resurrection of our common life, something that links to the old, but is different and more beautiful.  We must dream it because it is the gift of God. Then we must build it in partnership with God.”

    But the million-dollar question of course is – will things actually really change?

    Or perhaps more importantly – what will it take to bring about the change so many long for, write for, march for and in some cases, even die for?

    I suggest that there are three things that we can each do to help bring about the change we seek.  For power truly does “rest with the people” – we just need to understand how much power we have and how it can be harnessed, released and used to transform our Church, and our world.

    The first is, we need to pledge to always “call things out”.  We need to name the elephants in the room.  We need to stop admiring the “emperor’s new clothes”, and instead have the humanity and the decency to tell the emperors that they are in fact naked, that we will not go along with their charades any longer.  It takes courage and wisdom, and it requires a tone that is full of love rather than accusation – a balance that is not easy to strike.  In essence we need to stop colluding.  We need to stop colluding with the lies that have kept us all bound and which have often left us feeling that we have no option but to conform.

    What sort of lies?

    Well those that say our Church is not rich.  We are rich.  It is just that the money is locked up in ways few can access, and it is this that needs challenging.  It is the lies that say we, the Church, are united, when we all know that we are deeply divided and that it is those without power and influence who end up leaving by the back door, with few seeming to notice or care.  It is the lies that say we, the Church, have a respected voice in our nation, when in fact few are listening and frankly many no longer care as we lost their respect the moment we started preaching love to them and abjectly failing to show it to some of the most vulnerable in our midst.

    The second, which is closely related to the first, is that we need to stop being so deferential.  This does not mean that we stop showing respect to people, that is quite a different matter – mutual respect is healthy and essential.  However, there is an unhealthy level of deference in our Church that seems to put senior religious leaders on pedestals from which they can only fall.  They are human beings just like the rest of us.  They bleed, just like the rest of us.  They make mistakes, just like the rest of us.

    If we are honest, deference can act both ways – it can be as much about people in power expecting it as well as those “in the pews” kowtowing to it.  It may well have been an unspoken norm from our past, but it is not the model that Jesus shows us as he interacts with people around him – in fact quite the opposite.  The religious leaders of the day may have expected it, but He modelled something quite different – much to their frustration – and the people loved Him for it!

    Thirdly, we have to believe in ourselves. “There can be miracles, when you believe..” is not just a song sung by Mariah Carey.  It is something we each have to embrace and hold on to.  Right now there is so much that could happen, if only there were people willing to step forward and lead change.  We are in the midst of a major “reset” – there is a “reboot” that is happening not just in our Church, but in our nation and in the world itself.

    Never has there been such an opportune time for people to stand up and say “enough, I want to do things differently!”  What is stopping them?  Mostly, although I appreciate not always, it is their own levels of self-confidence and sense of self-worth.

    We are the key – we are also the barrier.  Change lies with us!

    So, in the words of Archbishop Tutu, who closed his address to us with the following challenge:

    “Let us not forget the transformative power of hope and imagination – we must dare to invent the future!”

    We must “dare”, and we must “do” – for real power lies with us!

  • #BlackLivesMatter: Protest & Prayer

    by the Very Revd Rogers Govender, Dean of Manchester

    Rogers Govender

    This was a reflection shared by the Dean of Manchester at the Protest and Prayer event organised for the Diocese of Manchester

    I want to begin by reminding us that we need to be very aware, very conscious that these issues are very painful experiences for the black community.

    Prayer meetings in the context of protests can sometimes seem a little dubious. It is very important that we pray – we should pray for the victims; we should pray for all those in the black BAME community struggling with racism in our society, in our world.

    However, if you – like me – have your origins in Africa, you’ll know that we have a saying that goes something like this:

    “When the white settlers came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land… they said ‘let us close our eyes to pray’ and we prayed… and when we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the land”

    And that is the truth of so much of our African experience of colonialism.

    I have a little photograph which I keep on my telephone.  It’s from the city of Durban where I come from and it reads: “The city of Durban, under section 37 of the Durban Beach Bye-laws, this bathing area is reserved for the sole use of members of the white race group.”  It’s a very sharp reminder, to me again, and to all of us, of the legislated discrimination and racism that so many have lived with, and I certainly have lived with.

    This form of legislated discrimination continued right up until 1994 when freedom came to us black South Africans after Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years incarceration. So, keep in mind that as we pray we are reflecting on very painful realities today, and our praying must not attempt to mask that, and that we are also being reminded of historic racism that exists in the world and that continues in our minds today.

    Let me continue by reflecting on what’s going on right now…

    George Floyd

    The senseless killing of George Floyd in Minnesota USA has rightly caused deep anger  in that country and indeed in much of the world. I was absolutely horrified and outraged when I saw the video of George pleading for the chance to breathe as the officer had his knee on his neck and his hands in his pockets looking smug and powerful while George was literally dying on the street.  When bystanders protested and asked that this be stopped they were prevented by the other officers who stood by. I have to confess that I have not in a long time seen such awful cruelty in public; it will be a picture forever etched in my mind.

    Floyd’s killing has become the image that reflects the pain and distress that black people suffer on a daily basis in the United States and around the world. It brings to mind for me the pain and struggle for equality, respect and inclusion in virtually every sphere of life. The United Kingdom and the USA may have ended legislation regarding racism and discrimination as far as I know, as we did in South Africa, but BAME folk still experience it on a daily basis.

    Racism in the Church

    Ask any person of colour even in a liberal city like Manchester and they will tell you that it is difficult to find equal opportunities, and that we have to work doubly hard to get into senior jobs and positions of leadership. In the Church of England too this is very common, and I shall say something about that in a short while. Part of the challenge of racism and discrimination that we as BAME people experience, also hinges on the fact that we have experienced so much discrimination in the past that we have tended to internalise our oppression. So, we often do not apply for senior jobs because we know we won’t get it.

    There is a serious notion amongst many of us in the BAME community who believe that in the church white bishops already know who they want in senior vacancies and it is generally not a black or BAME candidate. The fact that BAME deaths to the coronavirus is higher in the BAME community says a lot. Even the government is reluctant to discuss this at the moment citing research that is ongoing around this subject.  The issues of poor health, diet, poor opportunities, high levels of poverty etc are reasons that add to these increased numbers of deaths in the BAME community. This has since been highlighted again with the issues of poverty in Leicester where a further period of lockdown and isolation has been put in place.

    I have done numerous interviews and radio broadcasts and postings on social media over the last two weeks at least on racism. And I have to say George Floyd’s death has made my blood boil because he brought back all the painful memories of my time when I lived in my native South Africa throughout all those apartheid years. As a young student I came to understand and then experienced the pain of discrimination and the violence that was used by the white minority government in South Africa to enforce racism. As an ordinand in training and later as a priest I witnessed overt blatant racism in my country where the lives of black folk were treated with a disdain, disrespect and even hate as they were treated worse than dirt. I have seen the abject poverty, lack of state provision in education, housing, job reservations, and the like, experienced by the black citizens of our country. I was not surprised when the Soweto uprising took place in 1976 and engulfed the country. Rather sadly it was the counter violence of the African National Congress to the violence of government that eventually brought the white minority government to the negotiating table. Moreover, economic sanctions that was encouraged by Archbishop Desmond Tutu brought the government to its knees. I am a supporter of on non-violent direct action to oppose racism and discrimination. That was the reality that I grew up in and George Floyd’s death has brought all of that once again to the surface in a very painful and stark way.

    The Cries of BAME Clergy

    Over these past 20 years that I’ve lived in England, I’ve heard the cries and pleas of many BAME clergy and laity in the Church of England who have experienced discrimination and exclusion because of the colour of their skin or their cultural backgrounds. I’ve listened to BAME clergy tell me that they are only offered junior positions as assistant curates and are rarely offered incumbencies in local parishes. I’ve heard the complaints of BAME clergy who say they were never considered for senior posts because they were deemed unsuitable culturally or even racially; you’ve seen some of that on social media in the last week or two.

    I have a very good friend who is a priest formerly from South Africa now living in the United States; keeping in mind that we’re talking about apartheid South Africa, he once wrote to a local newspaper in South Africa suggesting that perhaps the Holy Spirit was racist, which is why the leading of the Holy Spirit seemed not to lead to the appointment of black clergy to so called white parishes or to senior posts; he was severely reprimanded for that, however, I think it did seem to suggest a very moot point.

    Personal Experience in the Church of England

    At the February 2020 sessions of General Synod I shared a personal story of how a retired Bishop told me not to put my name forward for a diocesan bishop post because he said that that diocese did not, to quote his words, ‘’did not have lots of BAME people…’’ so I speak  from personal experience. I can tell you numerous experiences of being a parish priest and being mistaken for the local gardener or cleaner, especially when I was without my dog collar. This is not to disparage in any way the work of cleaners or gardeners! Its just the notion that a black person could not possibly be the vicar of the parish!

    I have so much more to say to you about the experiences of BAME people in this country, never mind the United States and South Africa.  Many of you who are on this zoom call or on Facebook perhaps have had similar experiences where you have been overlooked for positions of leadership or seniority in the church or in society.

    Speaking up against racism

    There is also a conversation that I had with a white friend, who now lives overseas –  who complained that I was pushing the racism issue very strongly over these last few weeks on social media; this is this is what he said to me, and this is what we often face as BAME clergy and laity; he said: ‘’Rogers you seem to be pushing the race issue a lot recently on Facebook, which is not the Rogers I remember from South Africa…you were always a rational unbiased person I admired but you don’t seem to be like that these days’’.  My response to him was as follows: we have a major racism problem; I chair a national committee that deals with this for the church; it is my responsibility to challenge racism today as I did in South Africa; it is a shame that this makes you uncomfortable; if you experience some of the things that I and my black colleagues do then you too would feel as passionate about it as I do… and that is the kind of typical things that we hear from many of our white colleagues and in my case friends. And this chap and his family are regular Anglican worshippers. I have since asked him to block me on social media if he didn’t like my posts. He has now blocked me!

    I believe that there ought to be a radical shift in our thinking about people of colour. This includes colour prejudice in places like India where dark-skinned people are regarded as less important and inferior.  We need to teach the history of slavery, racism and discrimination in our schools and in our universities; as priests and theologians we need to include African and BAME history in our theological colleges and universities.

    Addressing Racism in Sermons

    We must not be shy to speak about racism in our sermons. I once preached about this in my parish sermon and later that week a white member of my congregations shared with me that she suffered terrible racism from fellow white people in her community for going out with a black man in the 1960’s. Racist and vile language was regularly used towards her. She did marry her black Beau and they both have wonderful children and grandchildren. I had the joy of ministering to this mixed race family! However, she suffered terribly and never spoke about her pain for decades, until I preached about it. Suddenly she felt that she had ‘permission’ to speak about this terrible time in her life.

    Solidarity to Action

    We need to see change and we need to move from statements of solidarity to action.  And I’m very grateful to Bishop David Walker (Manchester) for his stance on inclusion in our diocese.  He’s always seeking to ensure that diversity is visible in our public events and services.  It makes a huge difference because this models a different way to be and to serve our community. I plead, let us not wait for the next murder of another black person for us to get our act together to provide leadership and an alternate vision of inclusion for all people and especially of black people in our very divided world that is crying out for respect, equality and justice.

    A Prayer by Desmond Tutu

    Let me end with a short prayer offered by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

    ‘’Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death. Victory is ours, victory is ours through God who loves us. Victory is ours, victory is ours through God who loves us’’.

    God bless you as you pick up the fight for equality; for an end to racism in our society and in the Church of England. Thank you very much for listening to me.

     

  • We Can’t Go Back…Even When We Do!

    by the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

    david-walker

    From this weekend, churches have the option, subject to a risk assessment, of reopening their premises for public acts of worship. Over the next few weekends I expect, and indeed hope, that we will be able to undertake simple, practical measures that will reduce the risks of infection at such gatherings, sufficiently to comply with the government requirement that our buildings be Covid secure. Congregation members may stagger their return over a number of Sundays, there will be no grand reopening ceremonies, but physically we will have indeed “gone back”.

    Except, there is never any true going back.

    The past, even the very recent past, is always a different country. Whilst separated from public worship in our buildings, we have continued the mission of Christ’s Church in different ways. We have proclaimed the Gospel from virtual pulpits we never knew existed, and many have responded in joy. We have nurtured one another in faith, using every technique of telecommunication to deepen our fellowship, share our tears, console our bereavement and relieve our loneliness. We have served the poor and hungry in our communities. We have been stirred to pray and act for justice, so that hungry children will be fed over the summer holidays, the homeless will not be cast back onto the streets, and Black Lives will Matter, both more and to more of us, in the time to come. We have shrunk our carbon footprint, travelling less, buying fewer disposable commodities, and enjoying the sights and sounds of a nature beginning to breathe more easily as many of us have been able to do also.

    We are not who we were four months ago. We have lost, lamented, learned, longed and loved. We cannot be squeezed back into our former shape.

    When I first began to work with parishes on recruiting new priests, I quickly discovered the huge value of “the vacancy”. It was only when the previous incumbent had left that a parish profile could be drawn up that didn’t simply say, “Same again please, bishop, only 20 years younger”. It was only after eight or nine further months had lapsed that a new vicar could arrive and not be expected to take on every single duty that had accrued to their predecessor. Time needed to pass for things to stop happening, for other practices to cease being unthinkingly presumed; only thus can we make room for the new.

    If I were inventing a liturgy for the return to our buildings, it would be to invite each worshipper, new or returning, to make the baptismal renunciations and professions of faith before crossing the church threshold the first time. We enter anew, casting off unsustainable or unwanted habits, discarding long hoarded prejudices, released from behaviours that exhaust and drain our energies. Ready for the future.

    My hope and my yearning is that these months of lockdown have readied us to be a Church that treasures its people and its resources enough to release them to where the opportunities and challenges for mission are the greatest; not a Church that seeks to do everything just as we have always done, but to do it more frantically and with fewer assets available than ever. I hope for patterns of ministry that do not tire our clergy and lay leaders to exhaustion, but equip them to expend their energies building the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed; for ways of meeting and ministering that do not tie up so much of our energies in maintaining the wrong buildings in the wrong places; for radical simplification of the bureaucratic hoops we so often have to go through on the way to achieving any significant change.

    It would be foolish to pretend that most of us have not been impacted by the stress and strain of these last months. I can hear the siren voice within myself, the voice that wants to go back to things as they were. Maybe just for a year or two, it whispers, a time to rest and regain impetus for the future. And yet I know that to do so would be fatal. Indeed, it would simply add to the burden of exhaustion without offering new hope. Developing new vision and purpose, and doing it now, will bring not only fresh energy but refreshment and renewal. When we are clear how we are going to be different, we will find rest in release from the things we have stopped tiring ourselves out with.

    So, I welcome the fact that we will be publishing the Living in Love and Faith resources, and commending them for study and engagement, this autumn. I dare to hope that reading them in the light of our emerging from lockdown will provide fresh insights into who we are, and how we might be the Church better. I welcome the work I see being done to help us focus on what the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion might mean for us both as individuals and as church communities over the next five to ten years. I welcome the fresh energy that lies behind what should be the self-evident phrase that Black Lives Matter.

    The next few weeks and months will not only be a time to fling open the doors of our buildings to welcome our people, but a time to fling open our hearts and minds to welcome with equal enthusiasm what the Holy Spirit is yearning to breathe into us.

  • We Can’t Go Back…To Looking After No 1!

    by the Ven Malcolm Chamberlain, Archdeacon of Sheffield & Rotherham and Member of General Synod

    Malcolm

    On Monday 4th May, six weeks into the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, The Guardian newspaper published an article by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett under the heading ‘Why coronavirus might just create a more equal society in Britain.’ In it they wrote about how the present crisis “has given rise to more neighbourliness, sociability and a desire to take care of each other.”

    It would be a fascinating study, well beyond the scope of this blog post, to put that statement to the test. Perhaps even more fascinating to chart a journey from how we were as a nation to what we may have become. At a superficial level, I can’t be the only one to have noticed how the initial selfish stockpiling of loo-rolls and pasta soon gave way to wonderful acts of human kindness. Indeed, in the midst of much tragic loss and disturbing uncertainty, time and time again we’ve been reminded of the human capacity for great generosity.

    I was particularly moved, for example, when, right at the beginning of the lockdown, the carers at Bridgedale House care home, not far from where I live in Sheffield, made the sacrificial decision to isolate with the residents in order to minimise the risk of transmitting the disease to those vulnerable people. For some this meant leaving behind partners and young children for several weeks, at a time when their lives were being affected too.

    We’ve heard stories of people spending their time and money to shop for and deliver groceries to those unable to leave their homes; of generous donations to foodbanks at a time of unprecedented demand; of holiday cottage owners housing NHS and other frontline workers free of charge; of café and restaurant owners providing food and refreshments for essential workers at heavily discounted prices or even for free; and, of course, there was Captain Tom’s incredible 100th birthday walk. As a fan of David Bowie, I still wish the army had given him an honorary promotion, so we could have sung about ‘Major Tom’!

    And I haven’t even mentioned the countless small, but no less significant, acts of generosity carried out by ordinary people day after day after day. If one positive effect of the Coronavirus pandemic is the much-needed reminder of the power of human generosity in overcoming adversity, we simply cannot go back to the self-obsessed ‘look after number one’ culture we have previously inhabited.

    We are not lone islands, even if economic policy has at times seduced us to such self-centredness. We are co-members of the human race, lovingly created by the same God who calls us into relationship with our Creator and with one another. The COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the awful consequences of poverty, institutional racism and injustice, as evidence suggests that the virus has a more devastating impact on the poor and on BAME communities. More positively, the COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the benefits of cleaner air, with enforced travel restrictions reducing global carbon emissions by some 17%. We cannot go back.

    But let’s be honest. We can go back and, sadly, we probably will.

    When we eventually return to a new normality free from restrictions, it will be all too easy for us to forget that feeling of sharing in a common crisis, and return again to simply looking after number one. I’m writing this in the week that non-essential shops were allowed to open again, and was gobsmacked (not in a good way) by images of one such store where eager shoppers were literally wrestling with each other to get in the door as it opened – no thoughts of social distancing or, it seems, of anyone else’s needs. Faced with such images, it can seem as though nothing has really changed.

    So how can we live differently? How might we emerge from the lockdown as more generous and caring people? And how might such generosity demonstrate our oneness both as members of the human race and, for those of us who might call ourselves ‘Christian’, as followers of Jesus Christ?

    There may be a clue in the letters of the New Testament. As the Church began to spread across Asia Minor, St Paul regarded generously giving to meet the needs of others as a key sign of commitment to Christ and a powerful demonstration of unity. Tom Wright comments that, having realised just how poor the Jerusalem Church had become, Paul started to imagine “what an impact it would have if the churches of which Jerusalem had been so suspicious … were to band together and send real and lasting financial help.”[1]

    And so, Paul closes his first letter to the Corinthian church by explaining how they were to go about collecting gifts for their fellow believers in Jerusalem. And it wasn’t only the wealthy that gave generously. In chapter 8 of his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul points to the example of the Macedonian Christians, who, by the grace of God, had been giving voluntarily out of their relative poverty, begging earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry. I love that! These materially poor followers of Jesus were literally begging for the chance to enjoy the privilege of giving!

    As we potentially begin to slip back into old habits and power structures that advantage some over others, I wonder, do you, do I, regard generous giving as ‘a privilege’? Might we have more to learn from God about this essential mark of Christian discipleship. Whatever our financial means, however much spare time we have, whatever our gifts and abilities, might we have room to more fully reflect the generosity and abundance of the God who created us? Or what about our church or our diocese or our other networks – can we see ways of working together to better embody the kind of generosity that reflects our shared humanity?

    If the coronavirus pandemic has caused us to live more generously and pursue the common good in the face of adversity, surely we cannot go back.

    [1] Wright, Tom, Paul A Biography, SPCK: London, 2018, p257