news - Church Times

Transcription

news - Church Times

CHURCH TIMES
No. 7805
LONDON 19 OCTOBER 2012
www.churchtimes.co.uk
£1.80
‘thanks for the room’
tackling homelessness
getting rid of the King
the Archbishop and the abdication
PLUS: Rowan Williams on women bishops
a room for the night
22-23
Funeral clergy: ‘You’ll do it my way’
by Simon Jones
news
funeral music, women bishops,
St Paul’s protest,York Minster
window, cathedrals praised,
food banks, mental health,
ethical investment, benefits
reform, anti-corruption
campaign,Vatican II, Philippines
floods
2-13
real life
10
comment
cathedrals, faith and freedom in
the UK, vote on women bishops,
superstition,Vatican II, Malala
Yousafzai
14-16
letters
diary, cookery, questions
faith
17
18
19
features
Lang and the abdication
20-21
reviews
books
arts
media
gazette
24-26
27, 30
28
29-30
crossword
interview, Ronald Blythe
39
40
next week
an interview with Hans Küng
our cover
A supported-lodgings host
welcomes her young guest.
Photo DePaul UK
CHURCH TIMES
IMAGINE no “Imagine”: it’s easy
if you are a crematorium with a
moratorium on “unsuitable” songs
for funerals.
Alongside its most recent survey
on popular funeral music, the largest
funeral director in the UK, Cooperative Funeralcare, has revealed
that one in four funeral parlours has
had song requests turned down by
clerics. Among them is John Lennon’s
song, with its lyrics “Imagine there’s
no heaven”.
Other inappropriate songs include
“Disco Inferno”, by The Trammps (it
contains the words “Burn baby
burn”), and Meat Loaf ’s “Bat Out
of Hell”. Neither is “Fat-Bottomed
Girls”, by Queen, considered fitting.
Huge numbers continue to ask for
Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way”.
It has received the highest billing in
each of the past seven surveys, and is
requested at 15 per cent of all
funerals. “Time To Say Goodbye”, by
Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli,
is next on the list, followed by Bette
Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings”.
Pop music is becoming more
common. Hymns now constitute just
30 per cent of all funeral music, down
Editor, Paul Handley; Deputy editors, Rachel Boulding, Glyn Paflin;
News, Helen Saxbee; Features, Malcolm Doney, Christine Miles;
Sub, Sue Chisholm; Advertising, Stephen Dutton; Production,
Brian Minter; Marketing, Justine Burrows; Web editor, Dave Walker
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“I’m afraid your minister is a
little old-fashioned with regard
to recorded music at funerals.
Do you have your choices
on 78 rpm?”
from 41 per cent in 2009. Of these,
“Abide With Me” is the most popular,
followed by “The Lord Is My
Shepherd”, and “All Things Bright
and Beautiful.” Only four per cent of
Top ten contemporary songs
1 “My Way” by Frank Sinatra
2 “Time to Say Goodbye” by Sarah
Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
3 “Wind Beneath my Wings” by Bette
Midler
4 “Over the Rainbow” by Eva
Cassidy
5 “Angels” by Robbie Williams
6 “You Raise Me Up” by Westlife
7 “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry
and the Pacemakers
8 “We’ll Meet Again”, by Vera Lynn
9 “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine
Dion
10 “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole
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choices are classical music: Elgar’s
“Nimrod” is the most requested,
followed by Canon in D by Pachelbel,
and Schubert’s Ave Maria.
“Hymns were once the mainstay of
a funeral service, but pop music plays
such an important part in people’s
lives that it now acts as the theme
tune to their passing,” says Lorinda
Robinson, head of marketing at Cooperative Funeralcare. “Song lyrics
now provide the poignant words to
remember a loved one’s life, either to
acknowledge how much they were
loved and will be missed, or as a
reminder of their favourite hobby,
pastime, or humour.”
Some choices do go uncensored.
Eric Idle’s “Always Look on the
Bright Side of Life” featured at
number 13 in the list of popular
music, despite featuring in the
Gospel parody Monty Python’s Life of
Brian. One coffin even disappeared
behind the curtains to the clock
music from TV’s Countdown.
Equally surprising is the news that
those who are mourning want live
music. More than half of all funeral
parlours receive requests for live performances, from pipers and choirs to
steel bands and rock groups.
www.co-operative.coop/funeralcare
Top ten funeral
hymns
Top ten classical
pieces
1 “Abide with me”
2 “The Lord is my shepherd”
3 “All things bright and
beautiful”
4 “The old rugged cross”
5 “How great thou art”
6 “Amazing Grace”
7 “Jerusalem”
8 “Morning has broken”
9 “The day thou gavest,
Lord, is ended”
10 “Make me a channel of
your peace”
1 “Nimrod” by Elgar
2 Canon in D by Pachelbel
3 Ave Maria by Schubert
4 “Nessun dorma” by
Puccini
5 Pie Jesu by Fauré
6 The Four Seasons by Vivaldi
7 Adagio by Albinoni/Bizet
8 “Air on the G string” by
J. S. Bach
9 “Largo” by Handel
10 “Clair de Lune” by
Debussy
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CHURCH TIMES 19 October 2012
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CHURCH TIMES
CT1213
news
Williams urges waverers to back women-bishops Measure
by a staff reporter
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has begun a
campaign to persuade General Synod
members to back the new women-bishops
legislation when it returns to debate it next
month.
Writing in the Church Times this week, he
addresses waverers, those who find the
legislation “not quite good enough, or not
quite simple enough”. To vote against the
legislation, which he admits is “not perfect”,
would be to risk “committing us to a period
of continued and perhaps intensified internal
conflict, with no clearly guaranteed outcome
. . . a period of publicly embarrassing and
internally draining indecision”.
Dr Williams pleads with Synod members to
be clear about what the legislation does and
doesn’t say, ascribing the failure of the
Bishops’ earlier amendment to a mistaken
assumption about the rights that it gave
parishes.
There was now an “equally mistaken
assumption that the word ‘respect’ in the new
amendment [News, 21 September] is little
more than window-dressing.
“The truth is that the word does have legal
content. If you’re required to show ‘respect’,
you need to be able to demonstrate that what
you do takes account in practice of someone’s
conviction. You will need to show that it has
made a difference to how you act; it doesn’t
just recommend an attitude or state of mind
(‘with all due respect . . .’).
“The word leaves enough flexibility for
appropriate responses to different circumstances, but it isn’t so general as to be toothless.”
Dr Williams argues that “rectifying the
anomaly” of having ordained women as
deacons and priests while denying them access
to the episcopate is good news for women,
for men, for the Church, and for the world.
“Our challenge has been, and still is, to try to
make it good news even for those within
our fellowship who have conscientious
doubts.”
Dr Williams was due to fly to Papua New
Guinea and New Zealand on Thursday, for the
forthcoming meeting of the Anglican
Consultative Council. In his absence, Lambeth
Palace is organising a series of YouTube videos
from supporters of the new legislation.
Comment, page 15
FiF asks Synod to
reject legislation
and start to listen
PHOTOS GRAHAM HOWARD
Glyn Paflin reports
from the Forward
in Faith Assembly
in Westminster
IN A unanimous vote, the National
Assembly of Forward in Faith UK,
meeting in the Emmanuel Centre,
Westminster, last Saturday, resolved
that the draft women-bishops
Measure was “unfit for purpose” —
“notwithstanding” recent attempts by
members of the House of Bishops to
improve it.
In a resolution moved on Saturday
afternoon by the Revd Ross Northing,
the Assembly said that the draft
Measure failed to provide “the
promised honoured place in the
Church of England to which our
members are entitled”.
It called on General Synod
members to reject the draft Measure
so that “a more measured approach,
capable of providing for all of Her
Majesty’s subjects in the Church of
England, might be taken by a future
Synod”.
Although the resolution was
carried nem. con., one priest
expressed unease about the wording.
“We haven’t made enough of the fact
that they are taking something away
from us,” the Revd John Hervé said,
referring to the removal of the
existing conscience provision if the
draft Measure was carried: “An
honoured place is not what we are
entitled to, but what we have been
used to.”
The Assembly went on to reiterate,
in a further motion, that a Code of
Practice could not adequately provide
for FiF’s constituency, and offered
the Church of England a reminder
that “acceptable episcopal oversight
incorporating the necessary degree of
sacramental assurance was the
hallmark of a number of proposals
in the past which traditionalists
could have embraced, not least that
set out in the pages of Consecrated
Women?.”
This 2004 book edited by the
present chairman of FiF, the Bishop of
Ebbsfleet, the Rt Revd Jonathan Baker,
set out proposals for a third province.
It had been prepared, the mover of the
motion, the Revd Paul Plumpton,
said, at the behest of an Archbishop of
Canterbury, to shadow the work of
the then Bishop of Rochester’s group.
Its book represented a set of coherent
proposals for dealing with the
problems that women bishops posed
Next FiF director: Dr Podmore
over jurisdiction and sacramental
certainty. “The General Synod did not
even give the courtesy of a perusal to
these proposals — but I should not
complain, because it did not give
much more to poor old Bishop
Michael Nazir-Ali.”
In fact, throughout the process, the
Synod had appeared to be on “caller
display” whenever FiF called, and
didn’t want to pick up the phone; and
he spoke of the “cowardly” withdrawal
by the House of Bishops of its
“somewhat modest” amendment to
the draft Measure this summer once
the amendment had been attacked by
“a group of unreconstructed Sixties
feminists”.
Fr Northing said that the concept
of “respect” in the amended draft was
Catholics gathered: top: youth-club members from St Luke’s, Prittlewell, give
a presentation; above: some of the representatives; right: Stephen Parkinson
of “neither use nor ornament”, since it
had no legal force. “Brothers and
sisters, what a mess of pottage!” he
said. “We cannot give up our
birthright for that. We need
guarantees in the Measure. This is just
going to mean that bishops treat us
with as much or as little respect as
they see fit.”
But one bishop, it was said, had
suggested that the advice was that it
did have legal force; and the Bishop of
Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, told
Continued overleaf
3
news
Dean of St Paul’s
‘regrets abuse’ by
Occupy protesters
by Ed Thornton
THE Dean of St Paul’s, the Very
Revd Dr David Ison, accused Occupy
protesters of abusing the cathedral’s
hospitality, after four protesters
chained themselves to the pulpit
during evensong on Sunday
(pictured).
The evensong incorporated
prayers from members of Occupy
Faith, to mark the anniversary of the
camp’s arriving at St Paul’s (Features,
12 October). But just before Dr Ison
got up to preach, a group of four
women chained themselves to the
pulpit and, a statement from St
Paul’s said, “shouted out a list of
grievances against St Paul’s as well as
reading part of the Bible”. Dr Ison
“allowed them to speak, following
which the rest of the service
continued without interruption”.
Outside the cathedral, protesters
had unfurled a banner on the steps
up to the west door with the slogan:
“Throw the moneychangers out of
the Temple.”
FiF Assembly
Continued from previous page
the Assembly that if the legislation
went through, they would have to
look at what that legal force might be.
But it was “not a very strong basis on
which to go forward”, he said.
The Revd Paul Benfield was sorry
to disagree: the draft Measure was
based on “false principles”, and the
discussion over Clause 5(i)(c) had
been a “dangerous” distraction. “This
Measure doesn’t give us what we need,
and that is the end of the matter.”
And Canon Simon Killwick said
that no lawyer had been able to give
him a legal definition of “respect”; but
if one or two members of the House
of Bishops had tantalisingly said that
they had received such advice, then
the Church needed to “get it out and
publish it”.
“They really want to tie us in
knots,” was the comment by Felicity
Greenfield, a lay representative from
St Hilda’s, Leeds, who said that the
draft Measure would take away lay
people’s rights in law, as enshrined in
Resolutions A and B. “Many of us
have theological reasons why we are
opposed. But how many on a PCC
could articulate them in front of a
bishop or his representative? Many
will freeze.”
Earlier in the afternoon, the
Assembly carried a motion urging the
bishops of the Mission Society of St
Wilfrid and St Hilda to “secure a
continuing ecclesial future for all who
The four women — Siobhan
Grimes, Alison Playford, Josie Reed,
and Tammy Samede — remained
chained to the pulpit during the
organ recital and the communion
service that followed evensong. Ms
Grimes, who worships at St John’s,
Waterloo, is a member of
Christianity Uncut, a network of
anti-capitalist Christians. Ms
Samede, also an Anglican, and Ms
Reed, a Quaker, are part of the
Occupy movement, along with Ms
Playford.
The statement from St Paul’s
continued: “Although invited to do
so, the protesters refused to give
permission for their chains to be
removed. The normal procedure for
when people refuse to leave places
of worship was then followed: the
police were called to assist in
moving those people on, and after
half an hour of further discussion
the protesters cut themselves free
and left peacefully of their own
accord.”
In the statement, Dr Ison said:
may turn to them, in the event that
the proposed legislation before the
General Synod to attempt the
ordination of women as bishops is
passed”.
The Assembly also received a young
people’s presentation, and encouraged
members of FiF to continue to pray
for and encourage vocations among
men to the priesthood, and among
men and women to the religious life,
if the traditional Catholic witness in
the Church of England was to be
maintained. This was vital, whatever happened in November. The
“new response to the psalm”, it was
told, should be: “No priests: no
future.”
There were presentations to
stalwarts who had bowed out: Sister
Anne Williams CA, and the Rt Revd
Martyn Jarrett and his wife, Betty; and
to the current director of Forward in
Faith, Stephen Parkinson, who was
praised for his “tireless work” since
1993, and who stands down at the end
of the year.
His successor will be the present
Clerk to the General Synod, Dr Colin
Podmore, who is also director of the
Central Secretariat and of Ecumenical
Relations at Church House.
Dr Podmore, an ecclesiastical
historian who has worked at Church
House since 1988 in fields that include
ecumenism, liturgy, and reviews of
appointments processes, appeared on
the platform to make a brief
statement. He said that it had been a
matter of vocation to work at Church
House, as it was now to take up this
new post after Easter. “I can’t wait,” he
said. He will be available for interview
then.
PA
“After working constructively
together with Occupy Faith [a
branch of Occupy] on this act of
worship, we regret the abuse of the
cathedral’s hospitality and its daily
worship.
“We also disagree with the way in
which some protesters are
continuing to pursue the agenda of
conflict with St Paul’s rather than
consulting with us about how
together we might better achieve the
reforms which many people
including Occupy are looking for.”
Speaking on Monday, Dr Ison
said that he had agreed to meet the
protesters, and had asked them to
email him to arrange a date. He said
that, since his installation in May,
he had publicly offered to meet
the Christians who had been
removed from the steps, but had
“received no request [to meet]”
(News, 8 June).
Ms Grimes was one of the five
Christians removed from the steps
of St Paul’s while praying during the
eviction of the Occupy protest
earlier this year (News, 2 March).
She said that she had decided to
take direct action after “lots of
prayer” and as a “last resort”. She
continued: “We were very careful
not to interrupt any acts of worship
as much as we possibly could,
beyond reading our statement.”
She said that several worshippers
had approached the women during
the Peace to thank them for being
there. “There was no conflict
between us and other people in the
church,” she said.
She described the cathedral’s
invitation for Occupy members to
read prayers at the service as
“tokenistic”.
On Saturday, about 400 people
gathered outside St Paul’s for
“GlobalNoise”, which Occupy
London described as “a global day
of protest to highlight the fact that
people are still here, one year on,
united and more determined than
ever”.
Bishop Gregory joins drones protest
DIOCESE OF LICHFIELD
by a staff reporter
THE Bishop of Wolverhampton, the
Rt Revd Clive Gregory, joined
protesters who were complaining
about the use of drones in modern
warfare. They “reduce death to the
level of a computer game”, he said.
Drones, properly known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are
used to attack specific targets without
risk to the operators. But campaigners
question the precision of drones,
whose use, they say, has led to an
increase in civilian deaths.
Bishop Gregory joined protesters
outside the UAV factory in Shenstone,
Staffordshire, which is owned by the
Israeli defence contractor Elbit
Systems, which builds engines for
drones. “Drones are being used not
just in legally recognised conflicts,” he
said, “but to attack and kill suspected
terrorists in other places. Pakistan is
one such place. Somalia, Yemen, and
Palestine are others.
“‘Targeted Killing’ seems to have
seeped into military action without
proper debate, and the evidence from
the ground suggests that many
innocent lives are being lost. I am
Targeting drones: the Rt Revd
Clive Gregory (right), at a drones
peace protest on 6 October
greatly concerned about the secrecy
surrounding the use and impact of
drones, and the detachment of this
form of warfare, where remote robots
controlled from another continent
appear to reduce death to the level of
a computer game.”
The protest began a week-long
march past other armaments factories
to RAF Waddington in Lincoln, from
where a drone known as the “Armed
Reaper”, to be used in Afghanistan, is
soon to be controlled.
This week, the Methodist, United
Reform, and Baptist Churches in the
UK have called on the Foreign
Secretary, William Hague, to distance
the UK from the US government’s use
of drone strikes against people suspected of involvement in terrorism.
In Pakistan, thousands of people,
joined by US activists, have protested
this week against US drone strikes.
The demonstrators, headed by the
former cricketer turned politician
Imran Khan, say that the strikes
violate Pakistani sovereignty and kill
civilians.
Japanese protest. The Bishop of
Chubu, in the Anglican Communion
in Japan, the Rt Revd Peter Ichiro
Shibusawa, has written to the Prime
Minister of Japan to oppose the
introduction of US Osprey aircraft at
a US-run military base on the
southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
Residents have opposed the deployment of the planes, citing safety
fears, after crashes in Morocco.
Bishop Shibusawa said: “This is
nothing but an example of ‘Conclusion first, debate afterwards’. The
government is not listening to the
voice of its people.”
UNHAPPY CHRISTMAS
Be the good news to the poorest
children in England
WWW.CUF.ORG.UK/CHURCHES
4
news
YORK MINSTER REVEALED
On closer
examination:
the Elders
worship God,
in a panel
from the York
east window.
Below: the
Orb, in front
of a full-size
image of the
window
York lowers a glass for spectators
by Paul Wilkinson
FOR the first time in more than
600 years, the public is to get a close
look at a medieval masterpiece. The
great east window of York Minster
has been described as the stainedglass equivalent of Michelangelo’s
Sistine Chapel ceiling, only a century
older.
The 311 panels that make up the
world’s largest expanse of medieval
glass cover 156 m² (1680 sq. ft), almost the size of a tennis court. But it
has always been impossible for the
public to get near enough to examine
them.
From Saturday, however, as part of
the project York Minster Revealed,
visitors will be able to see some of the
glass close up. Conserved panels will
feature in a regularly updated display
in a gallery created inside a futuristic
metallic “Orb” inside the Minster.
The whole project is to cost £23
million, including a £10.5-million
grant from the Heritage Lottery
Fund.
“It is too easy for us to take for
granted the amazing architecture
and painting of the great east
window,” the acting Dean of York,
Canon Glyn Webster, said. “It is
almost impossible to imagine the
effect that this astonishing wall of
glass must have had when it was first
unveiled to the medieval public in
1408.”
The window depicts the story of
the creation, the fall, the redemption,
the apocalypse, the last judgement,
and the glory of God. More than 80 of
the window’s biggest panels illustrate
scenes from Revelation. Historians
believe that the artist, John Thornton
of Coventry, had access to illuminated biblical manuscripts to complete his designs.
Thornton was one of the foremost
glass artists of his time, and the
window took him five years to
complete, at a total cost of £56 —
about £300,000 today. He earned a
£10 bonus for finishing on time.
The orb, which measures 9.7m (32
ft) wide and stands 3m (10 ft) tall,
holds a display of five conserved
panels. Four are on permanent show,
and the fifth will change each month
during the three years that the
restoration is expected to take.
Visitors will be able to see tiny details
for the first time, such as expressions
on the saints’ and angels’ faces, and
the artist’s brush-strokes in the glass
paint.
“Each panel is an undiscovered
masterpiece,” Canon Webster said.
“The window is eloquent proof that,
a century before Michelangelo
painted the Sistine Chapel, works of
extraordinary power and artistic
imagination, far from the centres of
the Italian Renaissance, were being
created by English artists.
“Stained glass — a medium in
decline after the upheavals of Henry
VIII’s reformation of the English
Church a century-and-a-half later —
was at its height, achieving a status
unsurpassed before or since.”
Cathedrals ‘appeal
to non-religious’
by Ed Thornton
CATHEDRALS give non-religious
people a “powerful sense of the
sacred” which they do not experience
elsewhere, a new report suggests.
Spiritual Capital: The present and
future of English cathedrals was
published on Monday by the Grubb
Institute, a consultancy, and Theos,
a theology think tank. It was written
on behalf of the Association of
English Cathedrals and the
Foundation for Church Leadership.
The report draws on data from
two surveys: a national survey of
1749 English adults, carried out by
ComRes; and six smaller surveys,
totalling 1933 people, in
Canterbury, Durham, Leicester,
Lichfield, Manchester, and Wells,
carried out by Theos and the Grubb
Institute.
Of the respondents to the
national survey, 27 per cent, said to
represent 11 million adults, said that
they had visited a cathedral in the
past 12 months. Among those who
said that they had no religion, this
figure stood at 18 per cent. The
number hardly changed for those
who described themselves as not
just non-religious but atheist (17
per cent).
Fifty-nine per cent of
respondents in the local surveys
who said that they rarely or never
attended church agreed with the
phrase: “The cathedral gives me a
greater sense of the sacred than I get
elsewhere.” Ninety-two per cent of
respondents to the same surveys
described the cathedral as “a place
where people can get in touch with
the spiritual or the sacred”.
Speaking at an event to launch
the report at Lambeth Palace on
Monday, Dr Nick Spencer, the
research director of Theos, said that
the distinction between “tourists”
and “worshippers” was “blurred”:
many of the “secular tourists” who
visited cathedrals for historical or
architectural reasons still said they
got “a sense of the sacred” from the
cathedral building. They came to
the cathedral “as a tourist, but . . .
don’t necessarily leave as a tourist”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury,
speaking at the same event, said that
cathedrals were “a stage on which
the most important issues can be
framed and explored”. As for
funding, he said that there needed
to be “a really devoted policy of
keeping the door open; and if you’re
going to keep the door open, you’ve
got to keep the walls up.”
Spiritual Capital says that
cathedrals provide a venue for
“significant occasions” in the
community, such as memorial
services for high-profile local
people, creating “a liturgical space”
in which people can “express and
process the emotions of local and
national crises”.
The report also highlights
tensions between cathedrals and the
wider Church. For example,
researchers encountered the
“misperception” that cathedrals
were funded through the diocese or
parish share. “We note that, in
situations in which there is a lack of
resources . . . cathedrals are
potentially a convenient scapegoat.”
www.theosthinktank.co.uk
Leader comment, page 14
?
The report describes cathedrals as
“a space where people can get in
touch with the spiritual and the
sacred”. Does that description fit
your parish church, too? Vote on
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5
news
Hangings: banners
by Ruth Dent are
currently on show
in Rochester
Cathedral. “Art for
Evensong” runs
until 31 October,
7.30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(5 p.m. on Saturdays). A limited
edition book of
the banners, Celebrating Evensong, is
available for £200.
www.ruthdent.com
Harvest gifts boosts food banks Now church provides
by Madeleine Davies
FOOD BANKS have benefited from
harvest festivals across the country,
as congregations donated produce to
them.
Tuesday was World Food Day.
Chris Mould, the executive chairman
of the Trussell Trust, which is responsible for 201 food banks nationwide, said: “Communities across the
country are pulling out the stops to
start new food banks, and people are
donating more food to help those in
crisis on their doorsteps.”
He warned, however, that many
low-income working families were
living “on a knife edge”. “This rise in
food prices could be enough to tip
them into poverty, especially as
winter approaches and heating costs
increase.”
The trust reported that almost
110,000 people had received emergency food from UK food banks
since April, compared with 128,697
people in total during the 2011-12
financial year.
The trust estimates that three food
banks are opening every week. On
Sunday, St Pancras New Church in
London became a collection point
for the Camden food bank. Among
the offerings were honeycombs produced by the 10,000 bees housed on
the church roof.
In Rochdale, St Andrew’s, Dearnley, has joined other churches and
A COLD START?
All over the country the clocks are soon to change, it may
only be one hour, but with it brings in those darker evenings
to us all. One way to keep smiling is by avoiding car trouble,
the cold and damp weather plays havoc with car batteries
and starting elements, and no one wants to breakdown,
especially in winter.
It may be a prudent time to consider upgrading your car for
a newer model.The Christian car supplier Priory Automotive can help you here, not only do they offer the very
best value from £2995 to £29,995, every car has a full
history check, service, MOT and valet before leaving. A full
Winter inspection including battery strength, hoses, tyres
and anti freeze content, is completed so that trouble free
motoring awaits you. Priory are also happy to take your old
car in part exchange at a fair, pre agreed price and of course
your new car is delivered directly to your front door, at no
extra charge.
Priory has supplied many Church Times readers with their
new car, and their customers keep on coming back to them,
with many referring their family and friends too. If you feel
that your current car is a ‘little tired’, why not give the
Priory team a call? They are a very friendly bunch who can
offer honest and impartial advice, and also save you a lot of
money should you choose to change your car.
For further information, please call 0114 2559696,
or visit www.prioryautomotive.com
6
faith groups and plans to open a
food bank in November. In Leicester,
many churches are donating their
harvest gifts to the Welcome Project,
a diocesan voluntary group that
offers emergency food supplies and
advice to asylum-seekers.
In the past year, North Liverpool
Food Bank has fed 3000 people, just
under half of them children, collecting 27 tonnes of food, mainly from
local churches and schools.
The Vicar of Clubmore, Liverpool,
Canon Steve McGanity, said: “Harvest
is a time to remember God’s abundant generosity, yet in 21st-century
Britain we are faced with the
shocking reality of starving families
unable to provide for themselves.”
suits for interviewees
A CHURCH in Coventry is helping parishioners to apply for work
by offering them access to a suit
bank, writes Madeleine Davies.
The Assistant Curate of Walsgrave on Sowe, the Revd Stella
Bailey, believes that the bank is “a
simple idea to solve what is a big
problem”.
“If you are on benefits, you can’t
necessarily afford a suit,” she said on
Tuesday. “There are lots of retired people who just have suits
sitting in wardrobes which they
no longer need, and this is a way
of giving them a new lease of
life.”
The congregation of St Mary
Magdalen’s, Chapelfields, has already collected 20 suits, which
people attending job interviews, or
starting a new job, can borrow.
“They can take a suit away and use
it for as long as they need it,” Ms
Bailey said. “We are also aware that,
sometimes, you start a job and there
is a level of dress that is expected, but
you are not paid for the first month.
The suits can then be recycled back
into the system.”
The bank is attached to the
church’s work club, established
earlier this year to offer support
to parishioners who are seeking
employment. Ten people, most of
whom are retired and have experience in interviewing people, or
in education, are now involved in
helping people to draft CVs and
develop interview skills. The ten also
act as “a listening ear for those who
have been unemployed for quite a
while”.
A “surprising range” of people
had attended so far, Ms Bailey said,
from recent graduates to people
nearing retirement.
Ms Bailey said that staff at the
local Jobcentre had told her that they
expected to deal with about 700
people a week, but were helping 700 a
day.
“On the positive side, about a
year ago they were only receiving
about 250 jobs a week; now, it’s
about 1000; so there are jobs out
there. It’s about dealing with people’s
expectations and helping them see
what transferable skills they might
have.”
The latest official statistics,
released last month, showed that
more than 10,000 people in Coventry
are claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance,
4.8 per cent of those aged 16-64. This
compares with a national rate of 3.9
per cent, but is almost 1000 less than
last year.
SAM ATKINS
news
Sir Stuart Bell
MP dies at 74
by Ed Thornton
Alight: Fountains Abbey, near Ripon, is floodlit each Saturday in October from dusk, accompanied by choral Gregorian chant
Faiths panel discusses mental health
by Madeleine Davies
DENIAL, nervous laughter, and “thinly veiled
contempt” were ways in which people revealed that they felt threatened and uncomfortable when confronted with mental illhealth, the Archbishop of Canterbury said
this week. But the Bible provided examples
of people who had experienced depression,
including Job and Jeremiah; and Jesus himself had “sweated blood”.
Addressing a conference held in Lambeth
Palace on Wednesday to explore how religious communities could work to reduce the
stigma and discrimination associated with
mental illness, Dr Williams said that, while
“massive legal discrimation” might not exist
in the UK, people experiencing mental illhealth continued to face “massive prejudice
and a failure, sometimes refusal, to understand”.
A 2011 survey of 2770 people conducted
by Time to Change, a programme run by
Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, and
funded by the Department of Health and
Comic Relief, which seeks to end the stigma
and discrimination faced by people with
mental-health problems, found that 60 per
cent of respondents said that the stigma that
they faced could be as bad as, or even worse
than, the mental illness. Twenty-seven per
cent said that stigma and discrimination had
made them want to give up on life.
Dr Williams, who admitted that two of his
godchildren had “faced very serious mentalhealth issues” in recent years, said that
simplistic claims that those with a faith
enjoyed better mental health were “an
unhelpful take on the question, as if mental
health was just something which you could
have with the right ingredient mix”.
People in faith communities “face the
challenges of mental health just as much as
others do”; and people of faith had “the
profoundest possible obligation to show our
faith in all those who are part of our community”, including those with mental-health
problems. “If people of faith are not able to
say ‘Don’t be afraid,’ then who is?”
The conference heard from a panel of
speakers: the Care Services Minister, Norman
Lamb MP; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, a
Sikh leader; and Imam Abdul Qaiyum of the
East London Mosque. Bryony Bratchell, a 19year-old diagnosed last year with bipolar
disorder, said that “attitudes have been the
biggest barrier I have had to face.” She now
works with Time to Change.
Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh suggested
that it was important to have “more faith in
faith” (he had never been to the doctor with
his own mental-health problems). Imam
Abdul Qaiyum emphasised that those
suffering from mental ill-health should not
be blamed, but treated with compassion.
“This is a test for us. . . . How do we help
them?”
The director of Time to Change, Sue
Baker, said that having a strong faith, which
could give “purpose and meaning”, was “wellknown to support health and well-being”.
She also spoke about a programme with the
South Asian community in Harrow, where
mental ill-health could be seen as damaging
to marriage prospects and was a source of
“shame” in families. This perpetuated a
“cycle of silence”. Volunteers who had experienced mental ill-health had been recruited to
speak about it, and local faith leaders had
been engaged in an education process.
“There is a very fine line between saying
faith is very important to well-being. . . But
the other side of that is that, if faith leaders
do not understand mental-health issues, and
attach blame to people when they experience
them, then that is going to undermine
people’s ability to cope,” she said.
After addressing the event, Dr Williams
said that it was “absolute nonsense” to suggest that the Bible said that believers did not
get depressed. He spoke of Job, Jeremiah, and
Jesus. It was “very dangerous if you give the
message that you have to be cheerful”. Seeking medical help for mental-health problems
PA
Thrilled: Janis Sharp,
mother of Gary
McKinnon, a computerhacker, celebrates on
Tuesday after the Home
Secretary,Theresa May,
refused an extradition
request by US investigators. Mr McKinnon’s MP,
David Burrowes, praised
the “compassionate”
decision
was “not inconsistent with prayer”. Christians
always assumed that prayer is part of healing, but people found help through many
avenues, “not least through professionals that
know about these kinds of issues”.
Letter, page 17
THE Secretary of the Church Commissioners,
Andrew Brown, expressed “great sadness” at the
death of the former Second Church Estates Commissioner, Sir Stuart Bell MP, on Saturday.
Sir Stuart (below), the Labour MP for
Middlesbrough, served as Second Commissioner
from 1997 to 2010. He died from pancreatic
cancer, aged 74.
Mr Brown said: “Sir Stuart was the longest
serving Second Church Estates Commissioner,
and served both the Church Commissioners and
the Church of England with distinction. Before
stepping down following the last election, he
regularly answered questions on Church matters
in the House of Commons, covering a wide range
of topics. He was a man of wisdom and integrity;
he will be much missed. Sir Stuart’s family remain
in our thoughts and prayers.”
Sir Stuart steered 18 Church of England
Measures through Parliament, and answered
more than 900 parliamentary questions. He
fought for Church Commissioners’ Questions to
be retained when it looked likely to be sidelined
as the parliaPA
mentary timetable
came under pressure.
The Prime Minister said that Sir
Stuart was “one of
Parliament’s great
characters”. The
Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, spoke of his
efforts for many
causes, and called
his death a “huge
blow”.
Obituary to follow.
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7
news
Caught on
camera: Colin
Wilson, a member
of the PCC at St
Mary’s,Woodham
Ferrers, trips over
a gravestone in
the closing frames
of the YouTube
advert
Suddards suspect ‘wanted to kill Archbishop’
THE man accused of the murder of the Revd John Suddards (News, 24
February) considered crucifying his victim, a mental-health nurse has told
Bristol Crown Court. Stephen Farrow said that he had been to Canterbury
several times to work out how to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury, but
decided that there was too much security, Richard Evans, a nurse who has
assessed Mr Farrow, said. Mr Farrow had also talked about the second
coming of Christ. Mr Farrow has admitted the manslaughter of Mr
Suddards, who was Vicar of Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, on the grounds
of diminished responsibility because of his mental state. He denies murder.
Church leaders meet to tackle housing crisis
YouTube vacancy advert goes viral
by Ed Thornton
A PARISH in Chelmsford diocese has
adopted a novel method of finding a
new minister: posting a video on
YouTube.
The parish of Woodham Ferrers
and Bicknacre advertised for a parttime House-for-Duty Associate Minister on the Chelmsford diocesan
website, in July, but has received no
applications. A churchwarden at St
Andrew’s, Bicknacre, Nick Kitchen,
said that someone suggested, almost
as a joke, posting a video advert on
YouTube to raise the profile of the
parish. They then decided to take the
idea more seriously, and recorded a
video.
The humorous video, now seen by
more than 10,000, depicts a wedding,
baptism, and school assembly with a
life-size cardboard cut-out instead of
a priest, and shows scenes from
parish life, such as members of the
youth group playing snooker, and
parishioners meeting to study the
Bible in a home. “We wanted to show
what the area was like: that we are a
young, lively parish,” Mr Kitchen
said.
The post was advertised in last
week’s Church Times, for the first
time. The paper offers an “Until
Filled” offer: on payment of a premium, the Church Times guarantees
to republish the same advert until
the vacancy is filled.
http://tinyurl.com/vicarvacancy
Ethical investment trebles
by Madeleine Davies
INVESTMENT in Britain’s green
and ethical funds has almost trebled
in the past decade, research suggests.
To mark the launch of this week’s
National Ethical Investment Week
(NEIW) (Feature, 12 October),
EIRIS, specialists in sustainableinvestment research, published
figures that showed that about £11
billion had been invested in 80 UKbased green and ethical retail funds,
compared with £4 billion ten years
ago. The company’s head of
communications, Mark Robertson,
said that the increase reflected
“consumer interest in issues like
climate change, fair trade, human
rights, and, more recently, ethical
pay”.
A survey of 2183 people, of which
1291 have investments, conducted by
YouGov this month, found that 24
per cent would be interested in a
green bank account, compared with
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just two per cent last year. Forty-five
per cent of those with savings or
investments said that they wanted at
least some of those to take ethical
considerations into account.
“With the breakdown in trust, and
continuing problems with the banking sector and other sectors, people
are thinking about profit with
principles,” Neville White, an investment analyst for Ecclesiastical
Investment Management, said on
Tuesday. “You don’t neccessarily have
to sacrifice return in order to invest
ethically.”
Research from EIRIS, published
on Wednesday of last week, suggests
that investment in emerging markets
has increased by almost 30 per cent
since 2009, posing challenges for investors concerned about the environment.
Although stock exchanges in
Brazil and South Africa have
“leapfrogged” those in developed
countries by requiring high levels of
disclosure, poor levels of disclosure
remain “the number-one challenge”
for investors interested in these markets. A report produced by the company suggested that most companies
from Brazil, China, India, Russia,
and South Africa were “not doing
enough” to mitigate this.
A financial adviser, Jeremy Newbegin, said on Tuesday that “people
may consider ethical investment, but
unless they see proof of good performance I think that they will be
put off.” Independent financial advisers are accustomed to choosing
from 3000 funds, he said, compared
with about 130 ethical ones. The
number of funds was increasing,
however, and, “if you are going to be
consistent, then money should be
aligned with your faith.”
NEIW has produced an action
guide for churches, sponsored by
CCLA, a specialist investment manager for charities, churches, and local
authorities, and produced by the UK
Sustainable Investment and Finance
Association in association with the
Ecumenical Council for Corporate
Responsibility.
www.neiw.org/church-guide
MORE than 80 clergy and representatives of churches attended an
“emergency meeting” in London, on Wednesday of last week, to address the
housing shortage in the capital. The meeting was organised by the Christian
homelessness charity Housing Justice, the London Churches Group for
Social Action (LCGSA), and the Methodist Church’s Joint Public Issues
team. Terry Drummond, who chairs the LCGSA, said that the shortage of
affordable housing in London was “now at crisis point”.
Coventry Cathedral ruins added to ‘at risk’ list
THE ruins of the old Coventry Cathedral, which was bombed during the
Second World War, have been added to a national “at risk” list by English
Heritage. A spokeswoman for the cathedral told the BBC that the Grade I
listed ruins were added to the register because areas of exposed walls had
become unstable.
BATH ABBEY
Way round: a new
marker to indicate the
start and end of the
Cotswold Way, by a local
artist, Iain Cotton, is to
be unveiled at Bath Abbey
on 25 October
Hate crime a ‘challenge to dignity’
HATE crime is a “fundamental challenge to an individual’s dignity and
identity”, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said. He was marking Hate
Crime Awareness Week, which is being observed this week. Dr Williams said
that hate crime should have “no possible place in a society that respects the
dignity of all; and it should find no possible justification in any kind of
religious belief ”. At a special service at St Paul’s Cathedral, on Saturday, a
candle was lit by Peggy Moore, the mother of Nik Moore, who was killed in
a bomb attack in Soho in 1999.
Animal-cruelty register receives backing
A PETITION advocating the setting up of a national register for those
convicted of inflicting cruelty on animals has attracted more than 12,000
signatures in less than three weeks. A petition on the Department for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website in support of the register is
growing by about 1000 signatures a day. It is the idea of an Oxford
theologian, the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey (Comment, 28 September).
Bishop Pritchard prays that parents will ‘slow down’
THE Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, has written a prayer for
Parents’ Week, which begins next Monday. The theme of the week is “Make
a Moment”. The prayer asks God to “help us to slow down, to pause and
make a moment; help us to share their [children’s] world and enjoy their
wonder”.
www.parentsweek.org.uk
Norwich clerics oppose EDL march
THE Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham James, and the Dean of
Norwich, the Very Revd Graham Smith, signed a statement opposing a
planned march by the far-right English Defence League (EDL) in Norwich,
in November. The statement says that the EDL’s intention to hold a
demonstration in Norwich is “entirely unwelcome”. The city’s “honourable
tradition” of “welcoming strangers” must not be broken.
Correction: St Aidan was the founder of Lindisfarne, not St Cuthbert, as
stated in a news story last month (News, 28 September).
CHURCHES TOGETHER IN SOUTHALL
Diverse: more
than 500
Christians take
part in “Southall
Praise” on
Sunday of last
week — an event
that involves all
the churches in
Southall, west
London, one of
the most ethnically mixed
areas in the UK
Partnership
offers clergy
healthcare
by a staff reporter
THE charity St Luke’s Healthcare for
the Clergy is to offer hospital care
once again, for the first time since the
forced sale of its hospital.
It has formed a partnership with
Burrswood Christian Hospital in
Tunbridge Wells, Kent, to provide
post-operative care for the clergy, for
up to ten days. It is also looking at
buying into the hospital’s psychological care service.
The trustees of St Luke’s were
forced to sell its hospital in 2009,
owing to a fall in donations and the
impact of the financial crisis. After
the £7-million sale, the charity was
left with just £600,000 in assets.
It later relaunched itself with the
aim of continuing to provide access
for the clergy to its honorary
consultants, but with a new pledge to
improve access for the clergy to
mental-health professionals, to help
them with stress-relief.
Since the loss of its hospital, St
Luke’s has continued to offer
appointments with its honorary
consultants, and more than 100
appointments have been made since
March.
The executive director of St
Luke’s, Neil Stevenson, said that the
partnership with Burrswood was a
“very positive step forward”.
“Historically, St Luke’s provided
post-operative care, and it will be
wonderful to be able to do this again,
as well as taking advantage of all the
other things Burrswood can offer.”
Burrswood is a 40-bed nonsurgical hospital, with more than
100 acres of grounds.
Mr Stevenson said that the partnership had been formed to “try to
meet the needs of our patients”.
“We are getting back to what we
are all about — care for clergy,” he
said.
Mercy for
lorry driver
THE driver of a lorry who killed a
church worker in Oxford has been
spared a prison sentence after the
victim’s parents intervened, writes a
staff reporter.
Joanna Braithwaite, 34, the personal assistant of the Rector of St
Aldate’s, the Revd Charlie Cleverly,
was killed in October last year as she
was cycling to work.
The 75-year-old driver, Stephen
Bateman, had missed a turn and was
reversing his cement mixer into a
road when he ran over Miss
Braithwaite.
The maximum sentence for the
charge is five years, but Mr Bateman
was given an eight-month term,
suspended for a year.
The Recorder, Harold Persaud,
sentencing, said: “There is something
that has impressed me greatly in this
case, and that is the generosity Mr
and Mrs Braithwaite have shown
towards you. They have said they do
not seek retribution. They have also
recognised how this has affected you.
“They are aware nothing I do will
bring back their daughter.”
Mr Cleverly said it was a “terrible
accident” and that he believed justice
had been done. The church congregation missed Miss Braithwaite
“terribly”, he said.
news
Report ‘lifts the lid’ on Universal Credit
GAVIN DRAKE
by Paul Wilkinson
UP TO half-a-million disabled
people and their families will be
worse off under government plans to
replace the benefits system with a
Universal Credit, a new report
suggests.
An inquiry led by Baroness GreyThompson, and supported by the
Children’s Society, Citizens Advice,
and Disability Rights UK, found
evidence that:
• 100,000 disabled children could
lose up to £28 a week;
116,000 working disabled people
•could
lose up to £40 per week;
one in ten families with disabled
•children
fear losing their homes;
four out of five disabled adults
•living
alone, or with a young carer,
would cut back on food, and a
similar number on heating.
The report, Holes in the Safety Net:
The impact of Universal Credit on
disabled people and their families, also
suggests that young carers would
face increased burdens as a result of
changes to the Severe Disability
Premium.
“The findings of this report do
not make easy reading,” Lady GreyThompson said. “The clear message
is that many households with
disabled people are already struggling to keep their heads above
water. Reducing support for families
with disabled children, disabled
people who are living alone, families
with young carers, and disabled
people in work, risks driving many
over the edge in future.”
The chief executive of the Children’s Society, Matthew Reed, said:
Making a splash: the Team GB Paralympian gold-medal-winning swimmer Ellie Simmonds arrives to re-name the
swimming pool at her former school, Cooper and Jordan C of E Primary School, in Walsall, a fortnight ago
“This inquiry has lifted the lid on the
stark reality that many disabled
people will face when the new
benefits system comes into force.
While it is true that some people will
be better off under Universal Credit,
it is shocking that so many disabled
people — including children — will
have to cut back on food, specialist
equipment, and, in some cases, be
forced to move out of their homes or
consider moving their child into fulltime residential care.”
The report makes several recom-
Welsh discuss model
for unified Church
mendations, including protecting
children on the middle-rate care
component of Disability Living Allowance and providing disability
support in the Universal Credit for
disabled people who can work but
are disadvantaged in the workplace.
The new credit comes into effect
next autumn.
The chief executive of Disability
Rights UK, Liz Sayce, said: “We are
fearful that the government aim of
ensuring work always pays appears
to be undermined by some aspects
of Universal Credit proposals which
could price some disabled people
out of work and deeper into
poverty.”
Lady Grey-Thompson told the
BBC on Wednesday: “The Government say people are protected, but
it’s only for current benefit claimants. What we want to do is ask the
Government to think again. The
regulations of the Welfare Reform
Bill are coming to us soon and we
can make changes.”
Letter, page 17
NEW RESOURCES FROM
by Madeleine Davies
A VISION of a United Church in Wales, served by
nine bishops, was presented in Aberystwth on
Saturday at The Gathering, an event attended by
representatives of the five covenanted Churches in
Wales.
Seeking to bring to fruition a covenant for “visible
unity” made in 1975, representatives from the
Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church
(URC), the Presbyterian Church of Wales, the Church
in Wales, and some covenanted Baptist congregations
heard “ground-breaking proposals” set out in two
reports, one on episcopacy and another on church
governance.
The Revd Gethin Abraham-Williams, who chairs the
Commission of Covenanted Churches, said on Tuesday
that the the goal was “a level of understanding between
traditions about oversight, the episcopal and nonepiscopal model, and to see how much they had in
common, and whether that was sufficient to enable
non-episcopal Churches to consider becoming
episcopal”. Church governance would, “in a sense,
follow on from that”.
The model proposed is for the six Anglican dioceses
in Wales to continue, alongside three new “cultural
dioceses” representing the Methodist, United Reformed,
and Presbyterian Churches. Nine bishops would serve
the “United Church”.
An interchange of ordained ministries is envisaged.
“The object of the exercise is to release energy for
mission,” Mr Abraham-Williams said. “How do we
communicate to contemporary Wales?”
In July, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan,
called for “radical change” after the publication of a
review of the Church in Wales by a group chaired by
the Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth, a former
Bishop of Oxford (News, 27 July). It highlighted
challenges including the expected retirement of large
numbers of clergy, the shortage of ordinands, and
declining church membership; and argued that the
parish system, “with a single priest serving a small
community, is no longer sustainable”.
Mr Abraham-Williams said on Tuesday that congregations would have 18 months to reflect on the
proposals presented on Saturday.
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9
real life
margaret duggan
looks around the dioceses
Doing it themselves
THE church was damp, caused by
an all-too-common problem. The
large number of graves had meant
rising ground-levels, which had
blocked the drains in the medieval
churchyard of Holy Trinity, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, a tiny village in the
diocese of Southwell & Nottingham. The Victorians had tried to
contain the damp by rendering the
walls with hard plaster, but that
had simply made matters worse,
Ray State, a local historian and a
member of the PCC, says. “The
walls looked tacky, and the church
smelt damp.”
There are only 35 houses in the
village, and about 100 people, and
large-scale fund-raising was
beyond them. But the son of one
of the churchwardens is “in the
preservation business”, and
suggested that Holy Trinity might
be a case for the Society for the
Protection of Ancient Buildings
(SPAB), on which their volunteers
could practise and develop their
techniques. After negotiation,
SPAB agreed.
Each year, for four years,
a group of SPAB volunteers
would come to the village
for ten days, to be accommodated and fed by their
hosts in the village, and to
work on the church for
free. In fact, Mr State says,
it took a couple of years
longer than expected,
and a group of residents
— known as the Drain
Gang — “caught the restoration bug” and worked
alongside them.
While the SPAB volunteers did
the specialised work of removing
the offending plaster, repointing
the walls, applying lime render
(above), and restoring a couple of
buttresses, the villagers acted as
labourers and dug 14 drains and
lowered the ground level. Each ten
days, Mr State told me, was treated
as one long village party — “a
helluva party” were his actual
words.
The work has now been completed, and the Bishop of
Southwell & Nottingham has
recently joined them for a service
of celebration. And the amazing
thing is that somewhere between
£100,000 and £150,000-worth of
work has been done for about
£5000, plus the hospitality given
by the hosts in the village.
“The way this tiny community
can be mustered to carry out work
that might fox a community
several times its size is worth
studying,” Mr State says; “and
there is no reason why this could
not be repeated elsewhere, with
similar spectacular results.”
From happier days
WHEN Canon Chris Simmons was
preparing for ordination on the
North-East Ordination Course, in
1989, he did his year-long placement
in a Roman Catholic parish. After
working in local government, he
had spent some years as Stewardship Adviser in York diocese, and so
knew most of the York parishes.
Because he wanted his placement to
be in a different context, he finished
up in a friendly Roman Catholic one
— and not only that: he spent one
of the happiest months of that year
in the Dutch-speaking parish of
Tienen, in the Belgian diocese of
Mechelen-Brussel, where memories
of the Malines Conversations were
still strong.
The parish priest, Fr Pol Oberge,
was a great Anglophile, and would
occasionally celebrate the eucharist
in English using the Alternative
Service Book, and watched
Songs of Praise on the BBC
every Sunday. The relationship between his diocese and
York was strong, and he
prayed every day for the
Archbishop and the diocese
of York.
When, in later years, Archbishop David Hope and the
Dean of York, Raymond
Furnell, visited St Germanus’s,
Fr Oberge installed a commemorative plaque to record the ecumenical
prayers that had been offered.
Fr Oberge has recently died, and
in his will he requested that the
chalice and paten given to him by
his parents at his ordination, in the
late 1950s, should be passed on to
an Anglican priest in York diocese.
And so they have come to Canon
Simmons.
Toon Osaer, the former press
secretary to Cardinal Danneels, and
Rainbow shopping
RAINBOW’S END, I am told, sprang
from “the shared passions of members
of local churches for two things:
community and clothes shopping”.
The charity shop is now a hub for the
community around Spital Hill, in
Burngreave, an area of Sheffield which
has had its fair share of urban challenges over the years.
Rainbow’s End is more than just a
shop, however. The two sofas in the
window are not for sale, but for sitting
on. Yvonne Hayes, who manages the
shop together with her team of volunteers, always has the kettle on, and
it has become a meeting place for
passers-by. One shopper was heard to
say: “I like to come in and listen to the
banter. People are always laughing in
here.”
Like all charity shops, it sometimes
has a battle to stay afloat, but it has just
celebrated its third anniversary with a
fashion show in Pitsmoor Church
(above), in which models from the area
displayed some of the donated clothes.
It was attended by more than 100
people, and at the end of the evening
everything displayed was put on sale.
Most of the profits are given away, but
its welcoming spirit is probably its
largest gift to the community.
Fire bell
IT IS a story we have told before,
about the terrible fire in a Jesuit
church in Santiago in 1863 which
killed 2500 people, mostly women
and children. The bells from the
devastated church were shipped to
Swansea to be melted down, but
were rescued by the Vivian family
and donated to local churches.
Three of them, from All Saints’,
Oystermouth, were returned to
Santiago in 2010 to form part of a
memorial to all those who had lost
their lives. Another, which had been
given to St Thomas’s, Neath, in
Llandaff diocese, had never been
hung, and had largely been forgotten about, as St Thomas’s already had six bells. Now, however, it
has found a proper home with the
Chilean Fire Service, to be part of a
memorial to the volunteers who
have lost their lives fighting fires in
Chile.
It was handed over at a recent
ceremony attended by the Earl
of Wessex, who is an honorary
member of the British and
Commonwealth Fire Company
Foundation of Chile. Also at the
service were the Chilean Ambassador, Tomas Muller Sproat, the
Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry
Morgan, and 20 firemen from
Chile, who formed a guard of
honour (above).
“I would like to thank the community of Neath,” Prince Edward
said, “and in particular St Thomas’s
Church, for looking after this bell
and agreeing to part with it after all
this time. It is a token of friendship
between our two countries.” He said
that the doors of the bell’s new
home at the fire company would
always be open to Welsh visitors.
“Will you be the key
to my future?”
A gift in your will can help disabled
children live “life to the full.”
Livability (formerly John Grooms and the
Shaftesbury Society) is the UK’s largest
Christian disability charity.
Telephone: 0207 452 2000
www.livability.org.uk
10
his wife, Maria, both old friends
of both Fr Oberge and Canon
Simmons, brought the gifts to England, and Canon Simmons received
them (above) and used them for the
first time since Fr Oberge’s death at
a eucharist in St Margaret’s, Long
Riston — “a moment of deep-felt
emotion”.
As Canon Simmons now says, it
was a reminder of a friendship from
happier ecumenical days which
perhaps would not happen now.
Teaching aids
THE children seemed entranced when the
Vicar of Romsey, in Winchester diocese, the
Revd Tim Sledge, explained about the
services of baptism and marriage by using a
variety of soft toys. It was one of the many
attractions on Romsey Abbey’s open day,
which drew some 650 people to take part in
a range of activities, including crafts, music,
science, storytelling, video-mixing, tours of
the tower, and bell-ringing.
Lunches were served by “nuns”, recalling
the origins of the Abbey Church of St Mary
and St Elflaeda, and the order of Benedictine
nuns that had made it their home for nearly
600 years. It had been the favoured place of
education for the daughters of kings.
Now, it is a people’s church, and most
popular of all — as they seem to be on all
such open days — were the airborne teddies,
on this occasion sliding down a zip wire
from the triforium.
REUTERS
news
Malala symbolises worldwide
struggle, says C of E bishop
AP
by Ed Thornton
Campaigner: an undated file photo of Malala Yousufzai, who has come to the
UK for treatment after being shot by the Taliban in Pakistan last week
US film questions the
idea of eternal torment
A DOCUMENTARY film that questions a traditional understanding of
hell has been released in the United
States, writes Ed Thornton.
Hellbound?, directed by the
Christian film-maker Kevin Miller, is
described in promotional material as
“a provocative, feature-length documentary that looks at why we are so
bound to the idea of hell, and how our
beliefs about hell affect the world we
are creating today” (stills from the
film below).
Mr Miller said that he decided to
make the documentary after the
megachurch pastor Rob Bell provoked the ire of many Evangelicals by
questioning their received understanding of hell in his book Love Wins
(Feature, 5 August 2011; News, 1 April
2011).
Hellbound? includes interviews
with those who defend the view of
hell as eternal punishment, such as
the Calvinist pastor Mark Driscoll,
and with those who question that
view, such as Brian McLaren, the
author and writer associated with the
Emerging Church movement.
“Hellbound? is my attempt to get to
the bottom of the current debate over
hell. Why is it happening right now?
And . . . why are Christians so hot and
bothered about hell?”, Mr Miller said.
He suggested that a battle was
taking place between “universalists
who argue that the Christian message
should be reframed to include redemption for anyone and everyone”
and the Evangelical “Establishment”,
which “is holding the line on an
exclusive gospel, where those who fail
to pass the test of faith are condemned to an eternity of torment and
isolation from all that is good”.
He continued: “While hell is the
current flashpoint, I believe this
debate is merely a warning tremor
signalling a potential seismic shift in
the religious landscape.”
Dr Robin Parry, author of The
Evangelical Universalist, which he
wrote under the pseudonym Gregory
MacDonald (News, 18 February
2011), wrote on his blog that
Hellbound? was “a beautifully made
and fascinating introduction to a
debate within the contemporary
Church about the nature and
duration of hell. . .
“The documentary is not a neutral
guide that treats all views as equally
plausible. It offers a clear critique of
the traditional view of hell as eternal
torment, and it recommends, at very
least, an openness towards universalism as a neglected view within the
tradition.”
KEVIN MILLER XI PRODUCTIONS INC.
THE Bishop of Pontefract, the Rt
Revd Tony Robinson, has said that the
shooting of a 15-year-old Pakistani
girl, Malala Yousafzai, by the Taliban
last week “highlights the worldwide
struggle between hope and hate”.
Bishop Robinson, who chairs the
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pakistan
Focus Group, said on Tuesday that
Malala, who campaigned for education for girls, was “fighting for her
life after being shot in the head by
the Taliban”. She was flown to the
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham on Monday.
Bishop Robinson said that Malala
should be a “symbol of resistance”,
and urged people to sign an online
“get-well book” on the website of the
anti-fascist campaign group Hope
not Hate (action.hopenothate.org.
uk/malala-yousafzai).
“This attempted assassination”,
Bishop Robinson said, “highlights
the worldwide struggle between
hope and hate, from the persecution
and harassment of minorities in the
UK to the killing fields of East Africa
and the religious extremists who are
trying to impose their world-view on
believers and non-believers alike —
there is just too much hate in this
world.
Supporters: students pray for Malala
“Let us show those who committed this killing — and those who
approve of it — that this sort of
behaviour is totally unacceptable.”
Dr Williams said on Tuesday that
he was “profoundly shocked and
saddened” by news of the attack on
Malala. “It is all the more shocking
that she was deliberately targeted
because she bravely spoke out on her
love of learning, and on the right of
all children — girls and boys — to
education.
“Our prayers are with Malala, her
family and community, as we all
await the outcome of her treatment
and pray that she will make a full
recovery. We stand in solidarity with
communities in Pakistan and around
the world as we all express our
horror at this terrible act of violence
on a young girl, and demonstrate
our commitment to overcome acts of
hatred with love and justice.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said
on Thursday of last week that he was
“devastated” by the shooting. “I can’t
imagine how anyone can justify
maiming a child for what they
consider political reasons, because
they want women to be subjugated,”
he told a United Nations press conference. Dr Tutu saluted the UN for
holding the inaugural International
Girl Day (October 11).
Asylum denial. The Norwegian Embassy in Islamabad issued a statement last week denying reports that
Rimsha Masih, the young Pakistani
girl accused of desecrating the
Qur’an (News, 14 and 21 September), and her family had claimed
asylum in Norway. “The Embassy
would like to inform that neither the
Embassy nor any other Norwegian
authority has had any contact with
the girl or her family, and there has
been no initiative to bring her out of
Pakistan,” the statement said.
The BBC reported last Friday that
a 16-year-old Christian boy, Ryan
Stanten, was being held in Karachi
on blasphemy charges. Ryan was said
to have forwarded a text message
that allegedly contained offensive
material.
Comment, page 16
Anti-corruption drive launched
by Madeleine Davies
A GLOBAL anti-corruption campaign was launched on Thursday of
last week to tackle the “devastating
consequences” of illicit practices in
financial and political systems.
The 12-month campaign by
Exposed, an international coalition
of Christian organisations which
includes the Bible Society, the Salvation Army, and Micah Challenge
International, began with an event at
Central Hall, Westminster. Faith
leaders called on members of
communities across the world to
“shine a light on corruption”.
An online petition that seeks 100
million signatures has been
launched, and, during the next 12
months, individuals, the Government, businesses, and Churches will
all be challenged to take steps to
root out corruption. A vigil against
corruption will take place in one
year’s time, and the petition will be
handed to the G20 gathering in
Australia in 2014.
The campaign chairman and
International Director of Micah
Challenge, the Revd Joel Edwards,
said: “This current economic crisis
means that greed, the excesses of
corporate cultures, dishonesty, and
unaccountable behaviour have
touched us where it hurts. Exposed
is here to join an increasing chorus
of concern which says ‘enough is
enough’. It is an opportunity for the
Church to do what we are called to
do: raise our voice in holy outrage
and provide practical offerings of
hope.”
Three thousand churches signed
up to take part in the event organised by Micah Challenge, “Light
For My Feet”, which took place on
Sunday. Prayer, sermons, and
activities were used to explore
biblical passages about poverty and
corruption.
A report published by the
campaign group Global Financial
Integrity in December 2011 suggests
that “illicit financial flows” from
developing countries in 2009
totalled $903 billion. In 2004, the
World Bank estimated that $1
trillion is paid in bribes every year.
The organisation, which provided
13.4 per cent of its lending to help
countries “improve the performance
and accountability of their core
public-sector institutions and rule
of law” in the first two quarters of
2012, launched a revised strategy on
governance and anti-corruption this
year.
More than 150 states have signed
the UN Convention Against
Corruption, but Tearfund has
warned that many states are “simply
ignoring” their commitments.
www.exposed2013.com/
B
NOOO
WK
!
Calling all leaders
lea
–
conferences to stimulate
stimu
the passion of leadership
from the heart of Le
Lee Abbey
Leaders
aders – are you looking
lookin to reignite your faith and passion for
God? Be inspired
spired to lead others to deeper spiritual growth and
develop a hunger for quality relationships in the church.
Human Dignity and faithful discipleship
– is there a common Christian vision?
A dialogue on Christian ethics between two leading theologians
within the setting of an international Christian Community.
KEITH WARD & ANDREW GODDARD
19-23 November
Also coming up at Lee Abbey:
Transforming Lives: An Education Retreat
2-4 November
DAVID ROWE & HOWARD WORSLEY
Advent Retreat: Fall face forwards
BECKY WIDDOWS
SILENT RETREAT
Much of this retreat
will be in silence
Tolkein’s ‘The Hobbit’ anniversary weekend
JEANETTE SEARS
26-30 November
30 November - 2 December
Visit our website for details of further
conferences or ring for a brochure
www.leeabbey.org.uk 01598 752621
Lynton, North Devon EX35 6JJ
11
news
Dr Sentamu visits Lonmin mine
THE Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, visited the site in Marikana, South
Africa, on Sunday, where 34 striking miners were killed over the summer.
Dr Sentamu, accompanied by his wife, Margaret, prayed with the families
and friends of those who were killed when police opened fire on a crowd of
several hundred striking miners (News, 24 August). Dr Sentamu criticised
Lonmin, the company that owns the mine, for making large profits while
expecting its workers to live in bad conditions.
Occupy camp causes Trinity Hallowe’en trouble
THE Rector of Trinity, Wall Street, New York, the Revd Dr James Cooper,
said on Sunday that the church had cancelled its Hallowe’en activities this
year because of “escalating illegal and abusive activity” at the Occupy camp
in front of the church. He expressed “regret” at the decision.
Bishop Bennison to stand down
THE Bishop of Pennsylvania, the Rt Revd Charles Bennison, announced last
week that he would retire at the end of the year. In 2010, the US House of
Bishops called on Bishop Bennison to resign (News, 24 September 2010). In
2008, Bishop Bennison was suspended and removed from office after he
was found guilty of failing to act when his brother abused a 14-year-old girl
from his congregation. The decision was reversed by an appeals court, and
Bishop Bennison returned to work. A statement from the diocese of Pennsylvania said that it would be seeking the “prompt election” of a provisional bishop to serve while it elects a new permanent diocesan bishop.
Dr Tveit congratulates EU on Nobel Peace Prize
THE General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr Olav Fykse
Tveit, has congratulated the European Union after it was awarded the 2012
Nobel Peace Prize last Friday. “After two world wars that killed millions of
people and destroyed entire regions, it has been at the heart of the project of
the European Union to bring peace and stability to the war-torn continent,”
he said.
REUTERS
Compass Rose anthem sung
“ADVENT CALENDAR”, an anthem
on a poem by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and composed by the US
Episcopalian composer Peter Hallock,
was performed last week, for the first
time, by Canterbury Cathedral Choir
at the annual meeting of the Compass
Rose Society. Canon John Peterson was
elected the new president.
Up-ended: Evgeny Chalenko competes
in an amateur parkour tournament, in
Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, last year.The
Russian Orthodox Church’s St Basil
the Great centre for teenage boys, in
St Petersburg, is encouraging
participation in the urban sport
FAITH IN HEALTH
AND HEALING
Integrating the church with health services
CONFERENCE 24-25 APRIL 2013 BIRMINGHAM UK
In a changing health landscape,
landsscape, there are clear signs that churches
c
healing.
are engaging afresh with
h health promotion and heali
ng. The
conference will reflect on
n this trend and seek practical ways
w
to
integrate the church in clinical
clin
nical care, public health and social
socia
al care.
CONFERENCE
THE CONFERE
NCE PROGRAMME WILL
EXAMINE
EXAMIN
NE THREE THEMES:
THEMES
Health, dying
g and human flourishing
ministries
amongstt
The healing mini
stries of the church amongs
individuals
als and communities
individua
The church in the governance and
deliveryy of health services
INCLUDE:
A WIDE RANGE OF UK AND IINTERNATIONAL
NTERNATIONAL
AT
SPEAKERS WILL IN
NCLUDE:
DAVIE,
PROFESSOR GRACE DAV
AVIE,
Sociology,
Emeritus Professor of Sociolog
gy,
y,
University of Exeter
RT
T. REVD JAMES NEWCOM
ME,
RT.
NEWCOME,
Bishop of Carlisle, lead bisho
op
bishop
on health issues for the C off E
DR. DAV
AVID FINE, CEO St. Luke
’s
DAVID
Luke’s
ston
Episcopal Health System, Hous
Houston
REVD DR KJELL NORDSTOK
KKE,
NORDSTOKKE,
Professor of Theology, Oslo
DR. JIM MCMANUS, Director of
o
Public Health, Hertfordshire
RT
T. REVD JOHN PRITCHARD
D,
RT.
PRITCHARD,
Bishop of Oxford, presidentt
of the Guild of Health
REVD DAME SARAH MULLAL
LLY
LY,
Y,
MULLALLY,
Rector of Sutton team ministry
y,
ministry,
former Chief Nurse
TODD,
CANON DR. ANDREW TOD
DD,
Director, Cardiff Centre for
Chaplaincy Studies
www.anglicanhealth.org/ConferenceHome.aspx
12
Croft addresses Roman synod
by Madeleine Davies
IN AN address heard by Pope
Benedict XVI at the Synod of
Bishops in Rome (News, 12 October)
on Tuesday, the Bishop of Sheffield,
Dr Steven Croft, suggested that the
Roman Catholic Church could learn
from the Fresh Expressions movement.
Invited, with other fraternal
delegates, to address the synod for
four minutes, Dr Croft encouraged
the bishops to “reflect further on the
formation of new ecclesial communities for the transmission of the faith
to those who are no longer part of
any Church”. The fruit of Fresh Expressions was often “a new community of young people, or families,
or the elderly”, who could then begin
to offer prayers and worship.
Dr Croft also spoke of the part
played by the diaconate. In the
Church of England, he said, deacons
were described as “heralds of Christ’s
kingdom and . . . agents of God’s
service”.
He suggested that the new
evangelisation, the theme of the
synod, was a call to “the formation of
mature disciples able to live in the
rhythm of worship, community, and
mission”. In a blog written on
Wednesday of last week, he suggested
that “the idea of discipleship and of
making disciples” was “the most
striking absentee” from the discussion at the synod. He would return
to Sheffield with the insight that the
Church required “Christians who
will not melt in the heat of the day,
but endure and be sustained and
grow stronger in their witness”.
Writing online, Dr Croft described the synod as “formal but not
Rural bishop
denounced
by Sydney
by Muriel Porter
Australia Correspondent
SYDNEY diocesan synod has denounced a bishop in rural Victoria for
appointing a priest with a same-sex
partner, and for his public support of
gay people.
The Bishop of Gippsland, the Rt
Revd John McIntyre, told his diocesan synod in May that he believed
that, for too long, the Church had
asked same-sex-attracted people to
wait outside the church “while we
decide the basis on which they can be
a part of the Church’s life”.
He said that he would continue to
appoint to office “those whom I
believe God is calling to minister
among us, and I will continue to do
so with a grateful heart to God for the
gifts and skills they bring us”.
The Sydney synod’s resolution expressed “grave concern” at Bishop
McIntyre’s appointment of the priest,
and its “dismay” over his comments
to his synod. It also asked its Standing
Committee to “look for ways to
recognise, encourage, and support
those faithful Anglicans who are
disenfranchised by such actions, and
to reach those elements of society denied a faithful presentation of the
gospel”.
It asked Australian bishops to
appoint clergy and church workers
“in line with the expectations for
elders as set forth in Scripture” and in
accordance with Lambeth Conference
Resolution 1.10 of 1998.
AP
which had “spectacular numbers” of bishops and priests,
was “much more positive”.
Presentations from North
American and Western
Europe had been united by “a
willingness to ask a series of
more difficult questions”
about abuse scandals and the
situation of the divorced.
Dr Croft observed “two
different kinds of contribuVeiled: nuns take part in a candlelit pro- tions” from bishops: those
cession to mark the 50th anniversary of
that “argue that to go forward
Vatican II in St Peter’s Square last week
the Church must return to
fundamentals and do them
better”, and those that
stuffy”, and said that the speeches suggested that it must “listen more
delivered by bishops were “mostly deeply to culture, understand it
very interesting”. There was “a deep better, and be prepared to comsense of something stirring”. The municate the gospel in new ways. . .
picture painted by bishops from Just occasionally there is a glimpse of
Europe was “bleaker . . . than I a contribution which suggests that
recognise from Britain”, while Africa, both are essential.”
Work out a peace plan,
urges Dr Jefferts Schori
by Ed Thornton
THE Presiding Bishop of the
Episcopal Church in the United
States, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori,
wrote to the candidates for the US
presidency last week, urging them to
set out a clear plan for bringing
peace to the Middle East.
In the letter to President Obama
and the Republican candidate, Mitt
Romney, last Friday, Dr Jefferts
Schori said that it would be “vital
for the next President to prioritise
the relaunch of the peace process,
and to articulate a clear vision for
how American diplomatic leadership can assist and encourage
negotiations. . .
“I urge you to discuss specifically
how you would work with our
nation’s partners in the Quartet for
Middle East Peace to support the
resumption and successful completion of negotiations.”
Speaking to the Episcopal News
Service (ENS) last week, Dr Jefferts
Schori said that “Jesus was deeply
concerned with political processes
in his own day, challenging people
around him, as well as the Roman
and religious governments, about
injustice, violence, and exploitation. . .
“Our task as Christians is always
to explore how the political
processes and decisions before us
can help or hinder the coming of the
reign of God in our midst. Does a
tax proposal seem to care for ‘the
least of these’? Does a policy
decision mean greater justice for the
‘little ones’? Does one candidate
seem to have a greater interest than
another in the primary issues of
justice that Jesus spoke most
about?”
The Bishop of Iowa, the Rt Revd
Alan Scarfe, told ENS that a priest in
his diocese said that the presidential
race was “the most divisive she’s
ever experienced in her congregation”.
He went on: “We can use the
church as the place where people
live a reconciled life, and, through
the safety of that reconciled life,
they can talk to each other about
these things that are most
important.
“We can put some human face on
issues, because it is your neighbour;
and hopefully there is some way you
can humanly appreciate the other
person just beyond their politics.”
Episcopal figures. Membership of
the Episcopal Church in the United
States was just under 2.1 million in
2011, figures issued by the Episcopal
Church Office of Public Affairs last
week show. Of those, 1.9 million are
in Episcopal churches in domestic
dioceses; and just over 173,000 are
in dioceses not in US states.
www.episcopalchurch.org/research
AP
On song: Mitt
Romney and
President
Obama debate
at Hofstra
University,
Hempstead,
NY, on Tuesday
news
Priest calls time on
urban development
by Madeleine Davies
HUMAN folly lies behind the devastating rains that have forced tens
of thousands of families to flee their
homes in the Philippines, but
human ingenuity and solidarity can
mitigate against its impact. This is
the message of a new film produced
by Christian Aid, Red River Rising,
which documents how scientists are
helping Filipino slum-dwellers cope
with flooding. It was shot during
the August monsoon deluge that
claimed more than 100 lives this
year (News, 17 August).
Fr Jose Ramon Villarin, a Jesuit
scientist known as “Fr Jett”, who is
President of the Manila Observatory
and a specialist in atmospheric
science for the Independent Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), explains in the film that it is “no
longer enough” to attribute the
rainfall during monsoon season to
nature. Human actions have
“warmed up the earth”, and the
country’s imitation of growth in the
First World is actually imperilling
growth and development because
money that could be spent on food
and education is diverted to repairing and rebuilding in the wake of
flooding.
“Certainly, urban development
. . . in Manila, it is helter-skelter,
haphazard,” Fr Jett said on Monday.
“There is no logic, really; it is
dominated by economic interest
largely.” Rapid, unplanned develop-
ment is leading to increased risk of
disaster as a lack of vegetation, poor
drainage, a growing population,
and the occupancy of riverbeds
precipitates flooding.
Red River Rising explores the
challenges of finding equitable
solutions to flooding, including the
problems that could be created by
simply relocating the two million
informal settlers who have made
their home along the fragile riverbanks of Metro Manila, an area of
16 cities and 20 million people.
Current relocation strategies often
require these people to move back
to the countryside, to places without
employment or basic services.
Fr Jett said that it was “desperation” that drove people to live along
the riverbank. “People don’t want
to live that way . . . but there is no
other place. It’s close to work; so it’s
really the provision of space for
housing and shelter that needs to be
addressed. . . I think this government understands that, but it is not
an ideal world and you have to find
land right now, and one way is just
to decongest the metropolis because
it is really crowded, a mega city,
which is an Asian phenomenon.”
The film shows how scientists at
the University of the Philippines
National Institute of Geological
Sciences are helping poor communities to understand and respond to their environment. This
includes monitoring flood markers,
planning evacuation procedures,
CHRISTIAN AID/MATTHEW GONZALEZ NODA
Watching the waters rise: boys huddle together in a street close to the Marikina River, in Quezon City
and using text messages to warn
communities further downstream
of rising water-levels. Long-term
solutions include widening parts of
the river, reforestation, and prohibiting the building of certain
structures within a certain distance
of river banks.
In 2009, the Working Group on
Mining in the Philippines published a report accusing British and
American mining companies of
wilfully destroying indigenous
people’s homelands and causing
environmental pollution in the
Philippines (News, 11 February,
2009). Fr Jett suggested on Monday
that some progress had been made
since this time. The President,
Benigno (Noynoy) Aquino, had
released an executive order, “which
is a strong signal to the private
sector that it cannot be business as
usual, that things will be reviewed.
There is a moratorium on new
mining projects until a new revenue
sharing scheme is devised.”
He also said, however, that
governments alone would not be
able to drive forward the environmental agenda: “It is really economics that drives this whole train
. . . We need to look at other values.
Civil society and grassroots move-
ments, churches and schools can do
a lot, where other values are brought
to the table.”
Social media had been “very
important” in giving people a voice,
he said, although a new law that
“threatens to stifle online expression” was cause for concern.
The Roman Catholic Church had
adopted the environment agenda
“quite late” compared with other
churches, he suggested, but “there
are elements of Christian Catholic
spirituality where we can recover a
lot,” including Franciscan spirituality, which “celebrates . . . living
lightly on the earth, simplicity”.
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13
comment
CHURCH TIMES
What cathedrals
are good at
CATHEDRALS have been the flavour of the past decade, to such
an extent that parish churches cannot be blamed for finding them
a touch irritating. Attendance at cathedral services began rising at
the turn of the millennium, and those working in C of E public
relations have been more than happy to quote figures that buck
the downward trend. Viewed as a whole, cathedrals have become
much more professional in welcoming visitors and nurturing the
spiritual yearning that lurks in many. Government grants have
contributed to this, and new statistics — that more than a quarter
of the adult population of England visited a cathedral in the past
year, including one fifth of those who said that they belonged to
no religion — will support the present level of funding, however
inadequately it meets the demand.
There are elements of this week’s report by the Grubb Institute
and Theos, Spiritual Capital: The present and future of English
cathedrals, which have the potential to irritate further, however.
The report talks, for example, about a cathedral’s being “a beacon
of faith”, “a space where people can get in touch with the spiritual
and the sacred”, and “a hub to engage the life of the wider
community”. It would be a poor parish church that could not lay
claim to these attributes. Furthermore, the report describes the
cathedrals’ “unique ability to bring together members of the
community in response to local distress”. St Peter’s, Machynlleth,
could have done with being bigger when it held a service of prayer
for the missing five-year-old, April Jones, a fortnight ago; but
could a service in a cathedral in a distant town have better served
the grieving community in any other respect?
It is unfair, however, to criticise a report too much for what it
does not say. Further research is needed to question those who, for
example, choose never to attend worship in a cathedral even when
they live near by. Anecdotal evidence suggests that discouraging
factors include the very things that attract what the report calls
“peripheral” visitors: size, architectural grandeur, services that are
less participative, and a respect for personal space that borders on
neglect. The fact that most Chapters are aware of such hazards to
belief and fellowship, and have taken steps to counter them, is a
key reason for congregational growth. Closer examination is
needed, however, to discover whether a pattern exists for the
conversion of people from visitors to pilgrims to believers. Much,
too, can be learnt from the parish-church cathedrals — more
diocesan centres than tourist attractions — and from the greater
churches, such as Bath Abbey and Beverley Minster, which have
also experienced growth.
Parish churches can learn many lessons from the success of
cathedrals, not least the need to be open, well maintained, and
provide excellent worship; but cathedrals need to remember, too,
that they work best in partnership with the parishes of the
diocese.
Balkan War: fighting talk
The Church Times.
October 18th, 1912.
DIPLOMACY has clearly failed in
its efforts to prevent a war between
Turkey and the Balkan States, and it
is now regarded as inevitable that
the war must ensue. The Great
Powers now have nothing left to
them but to consider among themselves what will have to be done
when the war is ended, for it is then
that they will find themselves face
to face with a host of complicated
problems, in the attempted solution
of which the general peace of
Europe will be seriously endangered. Meanwhile, the position
of Turkey has been vastly improved
by the settlement of her quarrel
with Italy and the cession of Tripoli.
The Balkan League chose the
moment for striking while Turkey
had on her hands a war on the
14
South of the Mediterranean. But,
this being ended, Turkey is able to
concentrate the whole of her forces
in Thrace and Macedonia. We cannot doubt that the new feature in
the case will seriously affect the
chances of victory for the Balkan
States, and we do not disguise our
regret that this should be. Nothing
would be more to our mind than to
see completed the process of the
shrinkage of Turkey’s territory in
Europe, and crowned with the
restoration of Christian worship in
the Church of St Sophia. To the East
the Turk belongs, and to the East
he ought long since to have been
driven back by the Christian
Powers. We shall watch with profound sympathy the heroic effort of
the Balkan States to emancipate
themselves from the control of a
Mohammedan Power, and to advance the day when the faith of
Islam shall no longer have a foothold on the soil of Europe.
Britain is the lab to test
faith and freedom in
The UK’s experience can be a model, argues Joseph Weiler
WHO would have thought, even ten
or 15 years ago, that matters of
Church and State, having seemed
long settled and even boring, would
take centre-stage, often acerbic and
worse, in our public discourse? Part of
the new urgency concerns the more
robust acknowledgment of the multicultural nature of our societies: it is
not just Church and State; it is
Mosque and State, and Synagogue
and State, too.
There is also a surge in the culture
of human rights, with the concomitant Copernican revolution in
the status of the individual’s becoming not simply an object of the state
(or subject of the realm), but sovereign: as a British or French or US
citizen, I do not belong to the state —
the state belongs to me. So traditional
arrangements do not have quite the
same persuasive power as before, and
contestation abounds.
The classical freedom of religion,
to be found in all constitutions, is
now acknowledged by all courts to be
ontologically accompanied by freedom from religion. Freedom from
religion is not only, or even primarily,
populated by the lapsed and indifferent, but by those for whom nonreligion is a form of religion itself,
which deserves the utmost respect.
The seemingly simple formula
that seemed to serve so well in the
past — we respect freedom of religion
and freedom from religion — now
constitutes a contested battle-line. If I
have a right to freedom from religion,
can we still adorn our streets with
Christmas decorations — even
neighbourhoods with a predominantly non-Christian population?
The list of examples is endless.
IT SEEMS to me that the UK is by far
the best place to serve as the civil
laboratory in which these issues can
be discussed and resolved, in a way
that may even offer examples to
others beyond.
This is because, first, it has historically avoided the easy Laïque French
solution, banishing religion to the
private sphere. It has acknowledged
that religion may be so inextricably
linked with national identity that to
opt for that Laïque solution is to do
violence to the very identity of the
nation.
So the more challenging option
of having a full commitment to the
liberal pluralist democratic state,
and yet affirming the principle
and practice of an Established
Church, with the head of state
serving as the Supreme Governor
of the Church — this is, in and
of itself, an example of tolerance
and accommodation in practice.
What is so impressive and typical
of the British experience is that,
although the Queen is indeed the
Supreme Governor of the Church of
England, she clearly is perceived to be
monarch of all British citizens, religious and secular, Christian, Muslim,
and Jewish — as evidenced most
recently last year in the royal
wedding, and this year in the
Diamond Jubilee.
It is an illustration that religion,
even as part of the very identity and
artefact of the state, need not compromise its democratic and liberal
identity, and need not alienate its
non-religious or other-religious citizens. It is a salutary lesson for many
regions of the world that may be
looking for models to reconcile democracy, human rights, and the
religious artefacts of the State.
SECOND, and only somewhat more
nebulously, is the British panache for
“commonsense” accommodation, a
virtue of a tradition that eschewed a
formal constitution, where the common law was “written on the hearts of
the judges”. Compromise comes into
play rather than “principled” determination of a “winner wins all and a
loser loses all” character. This has its
weaknesses, but in this context it has
great virtues, too.
Some principles might be categorical — one can never, for example, not insist on the ability of the
individual freely to leave a religious
community. Like most other rights,
the freedom of religion is never absolute.
If someone — let’s call him Abraham — were to announce one day
that he had had a vision, and that he
was to take his son to the Lake
District and sacrifice him as an
offering to God, then we would
rightly call the police and discuss
kindly with such an individual the
concept of infanticide. We will not
accept that the mere mention of
“religion” is enough to displace other
cherished values.
Likewise, however, Britain has
never bought into the canard that for
the state to be “neutral” in matters of
religion, it had to be secular. So, for
example, as in the Netherlands, but
‘The “muddlingthrough” spirit may
be what one can
humbly offer’
unlike in, say, France or Italy, it practises both respect for religion and true
neutrality — agnosticism, one might
say — in funding denominational
schools alongside secular ones. Unashamedly, such funding comes with
some strings — the curriculum of all
schools has to teach the civic virtues
necessary for respectful co-existence
in a multicultural society.
SOME issues are particularly fraught,
such as adoption agencies and samesex couples. Would I really object to a
Jewish adoption agency that received
children from observant Jews whose
circumstances sadly did not allow
them to keep the children, and insisted that they find a loving home
that observed the rules of kosher and
shabbat, so that they could grow up
faithful to their heritage?
I would, perhaps, be suspicious of
an adoption agency that singled out
an aversion to same-sex couples, but
what if it insisted on placing children
in families that followed a Catholic
life in a holistic way — traditional
marriage (not cohabiting partners)
and church attendance, so that that
child could grow up faithful to his or
her heritage?
This is a more complex question,
especially in a society where there
were no shortages of adoption agencies corresponding to some principal
world-views, religious or otherwise. I
give these as examples of pragmatic,
commonsensical attempts at accommodation rather than doctrinaire
drawing of lines in the sand.
There will be many who will rage
at any of these accommodations;
there will be others who will find
them examples of muddling through.
Others still will find them attempts at
mutual respect for incommensurable
moral positions.
Europe leads by example, not by
force. We know that in many parts of
the world, the concern for religion is
the reason given for rejecting values
of pluralist democracy and human
rights. In some deep way, the British
approach — with its Established
Church, its dual-role monarch, its
multidenominational state schools,
and its “muddling-through” spirit
of respectful accommodation —
may just be the kind of example one
can humbly offer to an angry
world.
Professor Weiler is Director of the
Straus Institute for the Advanced
Study of Law & Justice at New
York University. He is lecturing on
this subject at Westminster Abbey
on 24 October (www.westminsterabbey. org/faith).
comment
What is at stake in the Synod vote
The women-bishops debate says much about the nature of the Church, argues Rowan Williams
Giles Fraser
Superstition
— can it
seep in?
“I DON’T believe in star signs,” a
friend once told me,“but that may be
because I am a Sagittarius and therefore naturally sceptical.” Good joke, I
thought. But I know there are
Christians who get terribly anxious
about horoscopes and that sort of
thing. They see them as a portal to
wickedness, and not a laughing
matter.
I shrug at all this, and walk away. I
have no interest in those who defend
it or those who attack it — both sides
seem silly to me. Here, my daughter’s
favourite line — “Whatever” —
seems apposite.
Yet there are serious issues here.
My part of south London is terribly
superstitious. Down in the market,
you can buy from a Rastafarian chap
incense pots that you are supposed to
burn for various problems. They
have names such as “Break up”,
“Court case”, “Money drawing”, and
“Fast luck”.
What I think about when I see
these pots is not primarily superstition created by foolishness, but
superstition created by desperation.
Opposite my church is a woman who
has a shop for tarot readings, or some
such. I can’t say I see many people
going in. But the very fact that she is
there is indicative of a market for the
supernatural imagination.
In a fascinating book, The Magical
Imagination: Magic and modernity
in urban England 1780-1914 (CUP,
2012), Karl Bell argues that superstitious beliefs were not mere
hangovers of a previous age, and not
simply ways of escaping from reality,
but also ways of negotiating reality.
Magic, he says, is a practice that can
help ordinary people navigate the
problems of urbanisation.
The dark alleys and narrow streets
of 19th-century cities were often
frightening and dangerous. The
magical imagination, with its tales of
ghosts and ghoulies, named that fear.
And naming and discussing is the
start of how we manage it.
None of this can be said without
recognition of the real shadow side of
the magical imagination. There are
undoubtedly people in my parish
who share beliefs in demon possession and forms of witchcraft
which do an enormous amount of
harm, often to children. Remember
eight-year-old Victoria Climbié,
whose guardians repeatedly tortured
her and eventually beat her to death
in an attempt to remove the devil.
The question for me is the extent
to which the woman reading palms
across the road from the church is
doing something that is continuous
with child-beating wickedness. Are
they quite different things? And to
what extent does all this superstition
bleed into our churches, even Anglican ones? I cannot prove it. But I
worry that it does.
Canon Giles Fraser is Priest-inCharge of St Mary’s, Newington, in
the diocese of Southwark.
NO ONE is likely to underrate the
significance of the debate on women
bishops in the General Synod next
month. It will shape the character of
the Church of England for generations — and I’m not talking only
about the decision we shall take, but
about the way in which we discuss it
and deal with the outcome of it.
Those who, like me, long to see a
positive vote will want this for a
range of reasons, which have to do
with both the essential health of the
Church and its credibility in our
society. They are keenly aware of
living with a degree of theological
inconsistency.
As Anglicans, we believe that
there is one priesthood and one only
in the Church, and that is the
priesthood of Jesus Christ: his
eternal offering of himself — crucified, risen, and ascended — to the
Father to secure everlasting “covenanted” peace between heaven and
earth. To live as “very members
incorporate in his Body” on earth is
to be alive with his Spirit, and so to
be taken up in his action of praise
and self-offering, so that we may
reflect something of it in our lives
and relationships.
To recall the Church to its true
character in this connection, God
calls individuals to gather the community, animate its worship, and
preside at its sacramental acts, where
we learn afresh who we are. The
priestly calling of all who are in
Christ is thus focused in particular
lives, lived in service to the community and its well-being, integrity, and
holiness. These are lives that express,
in visible and symbolic terms, the
calling of a “priestly people”.
THE commitment of most Anglicans to the ordained ministry of
women rests on the conviction that
what I have just summarised makes
it inconsistent to exclude in principle
any baptised person from the possib-
GEOFF CRAWFORD
From on high: the General Synod meets in London earlier this year
ility of ordained ministry. And to
take the further step of advocating
the ordination or consecration of
women as bishops is to recognise
that the public role of embodying
the priestly vocation of the Church
cannot be subdivided into selfcontained jobs, but is in some sense
organically unified, in time and
space. Ordained ministry is one
connected reality, realised in diverse
ways.
The earliest Christian generations
reserved the Latin and Greek words
for “priest” to refer to bishops,
because they saw bishops as the
human source and focus for this
ministry of reminding the Church
about what it is. The idea that there
is a class of presbyters (or indeed
deacons) who cannot be bishops is
an odd one in this context, and one
that is hard to rationalise exclusively
on biblical or patristic grounds.
If that is correct, a Church that
ordains women as priests, but not as
bishops, is stuck with a real anomaly,
one that introduces an unclarity into
what we are saying about baptism
and about the absorption of the
Church in the priestly self-giving of
Jesus Christ.
Wanting to move beyond this
anomaly is not a sign of giving in to
secular egalitarianism — although
we must be honest, and admit that,
without secular feminism, we might
never have seen the urgency of this,
or the inconsistency of our previous
position.
‘Rectifying the anomaly is, we believe,
good news in a range of ways’
RECTIFYING the anomaly is, we believe, good news in a range of ways. It
is good news for women, who are at
last assured in more than words
alone that their baptismal relationship with Jesus Christ is not different
from or inferior to that of men, as
regards their fitness for public
ministry exercised in Christ’s name
and power.
It is good news for men, who may
now receive more freely the spiritual
gifts God gives to women, because
women are recognised among those
who can, at every level, animate and
inspire the Church in their presidency at worship. So it is good news
for the whole Church, in the liberating of fresh gifts for all.
It is good news for the world we
live in, which needs the unequivocal
affirmation of a dignity given equally
to all by God in creation and redemption — and can now, we hope,
see more clearly that the Church is
not speaking a language completely
remote from its own most generous
and just instincts.
But our challenge has been, and
still is, to try to make it good news
even for those within our fellowship
who have conscientious doubts. The
various attempts to find a formula to
secure the conscientious position of
those who are not convinced about
the implications of the theology
summarised earlier are not a matter
of horse-trading, or doing deals.
They are a search for ways of expressing that mutual patience and
gratitude that are just as much a part
of life in the Body of Christ, according to St Paul — trying to do the
right thing for the Body, even if this
leaves loose ends.
In this context, it is important to
be clear about what the wording of
the legislation does and does not say.
In a culture of instant comment, it is
all too easy for a version of what is
Continued overleaf
The genie is out of the bottle
MUCH of the recent debate on the anniversary of
the Second Vatican
Council has centred on
whether it constituted a
break or a continuation
in the tradition of the
Roman Catholic Church.
Conservatives have
spoken of a “hermeneutic
of continuity”. Those who
reject that view have been
characterised as advocates of a “hermeneutic of
rupture”. But neither of these is very helpful.
It is easy to see how this polarisation has
arisen. The bishops who assembled in Rome in
1962 tossed aside papers that Curia bureaucrats
had prepared. In three years of meetings, they
produced more than a dozen seminal documents,
which hurled the Church into the 20th century.
A bold manifesto for modernisation and renewal
called for a new engagement between the Church
and other faiths, between it and the secular
world, and between Pope and bishops, clergy and
laity, men and women, rich and poor.
Those, such as Professor Hans Küng, who feel
that those pledges have been comprehensively
broken, have called for the 50th anniversary of
the Council to be marked by an act of penance,
or even a funeral. Those of an ultra-traditionalist
mindset — who feel that the world has been
allowed to infect the Church with a silent apostasy — rejoice at the turning of the tide, which
is installing a new generation of conservative
bishops, priests concerned with outward piety,
The shifts in church culture
from Vatican II cannot be
reversed, says Paul Vallely
and the suppression of parish councils by clerics
reverting to dictatorial mode.
Tides go in and out in church affairs. But,
although many in the pews feel that they have,
like followers of the Grand Old Duke of York,
been marched pointlessly up and down the hill,
the Church has been moved in a trajectory that
is probably irreversible.
Consider the following: religious freedom,
which was described by a previous pontiff as an
“absurd and erroneous proposition”, has been
endorsed. The ban on Roman Catholics’ participating in the funerals and weddings of other denominations has gone. So have centuries of
Christian teaching that branded the Jews as an
accursed race and laid the ground for the
Holocaust.
The Church has turned to address all men and
women of good will, whether believers or not.
Protestant baptism has been recognised. The laity
‘Vatican II has brought
the Bible to the centre
of Roman teaching’
have been given new status, as eucharistic ministers administer communion in the hand under
both species. And they have been appointed parish
co-ordinators, financial managers, tribunal
judges, assessors, and more.
For all the anachronistic fiddling with the text
of the mass, it remains in the language of ordinary people: the handful of priests reverting to
Latin with their backs to the congregation are
seen as quaint eccentrics. Vatican II has brought
the Bible to the centre of Roman teaching in a
way of which Luther would have approved. It has
redefined the Church as the people of God, a
mystery rather than an institution, inseparably
bound to other Christian Churches. It has replaced a vocabulary of anathema, denunciation,
alienation, and disdain with one of brotherhood,
partnership, dialogue, conscience, and collegiality.
The genie is out of the bottle, and, in this
world of instant global communication between
ordinary people, there is no way back from this
underlying shift in values. Institutionally, the
Church may have embarked on a plan to roll back
the concept of collegiality, retreating into a form
of hierarchical authoritarian clericalism. But the
scandal of sex-abuse by priests, and its lamentable
cover-up by the institutional Church, has shown
up the inherent flaws in the old system.
The psychology of the faithful has shifted.
Infantilism and submission have gone. Large
majorities of Catholic lay people have found a
way to live with the cognitive dissonance of
dissent, loyalty, and love. What has developed is a
hermeneutic of reform.
Paul Vallely is associate editor of The Independent.
15
comment
Synod vote
Continued from previous page
being said to dominate the discussion, even when it doesn’t represent
what is actually there. We saw this in
the widespread but mistaken assumption that the amendment
proposed by the Bishops in May gave
parishes the right to choose their
own bishop. We are seeing it now in
the equally mistaken assumption
that the word “respect” in the new
amendment is little more than
window-dressing.
The truth is that the word does
have legal content. If you are required to show “respect”, you need to
be able to demonstrate that what you
do takes account in practice of someone’s conviction. You will need to
show that it has made a difference to
how you act; it doesn’t just recommend an attitude or state of mind
(“with all due respect . . .”). The word
leaves enough flexibility for appropriate responses to different circumstances, but it is not so general as
to be toothless.
THE legislation is not perfect; all
legislation for complex communities
embodies compromise and unfinished business. The tough question, for those who are still undecided, is whether delay would
produce anything better.
For those who think the legislation has compromised too far, it may
be important to note that conscientious opposition has not grown
noticeably weaker; it cannot be taken
for granted that any delay would
guarantee a smoother passage.
And those who think that the
provision for dissent is inadequate
have to reckon with the extreme
unlikelihood, given the way things
have gone in the past few years,
that any future legislation will be
able to find a more acceptable
framework. The chances are that
there will in fact be greater pressure
from some quarters for a “singleclause” Measure.
In other words, voting against the
legislation risks committing us to a
period of continued and perhaps
intensified internal conflict, with no
clearly guaranteed outcome. Of
course, those who believe that the
episcopal ministry of women is
simply contrary to God’s will for the
Church of England will vote against,
and there should be no unfair
pressure on clear consciences. They
are voting for what they truly believe
is God’s purpose for his Church.
But, for those who find it not
quite good enough, or not quite
simple enough, the question must
be: “What are you voting for, if you
vote against this Measure?” And what
if you decide that the answer is,
uncomfortably, a period of publicly
embarrassing and internally draining indecision?
My hope for the debate next
month is that it will tackle what is
really before us, not what it is
assumed or even suspected to mean.
I hope that it will give us grounds for
trusting one another more rather
than less; that it will be rooted in a
serious theological engagement with
what makes for the good of the
Church and its mission — a serious
attempt to be obedient to God’s
leading; and, perhaps most soberingly, that it will not ignore the
sense of urgency about resolving
this, which is felt inside and outside
the Church, often with pain and bewilderment.
As a Synod, we are asked to act
not only as a legislature, but as a
body that serves the Kingdom of
God, and takes a spiritual and
pastoral responsibility for its actions.
I know that Synod members, myself
among them, will be praying hard
about what this entails.
16
Let the visitors simply ponder
Cathedrals should not try to explain too much to spiritual seekers, argues Nick Spencer
THAT cathedrals have been one of
the Church of England’s success
stories over the past ten years is well
known. Research commissioned in
2004 reported that there were about
8.8 million visitors to Anglican
cathedrals in England each year. New
research, conducted by ComRes and
published this week, suggests that
this figure is now 11 million.
Visitors are not necessarily worshippers, however.Yet Spiritual Capital,
a new project that explores the future
of English cathedrals, conducted by
the think tank Theos and the research foundation the Grubb Institute,
also suggests that the boundary between the two categories is more
permeable than we might think. Of
course, there are people who are
tourists, but they are not so
numerous. Only a quarter of those
polled, for example, say that they
would go to a cathedral “only for a
cultural event”. The rest are not, of
course, committed believers, but
rather occupy a growing space in
which, to paraphrase Philip Larkin,
people are forever surprising a
hunger in themselves to be more
serious.
This became clear in the project
through a series of six case studies, in
which about 2000 people were asked
for their views about a named
cathedral. The majority of this
sample reported some sense of the
spiritual, irrespective of their
personal beliefs or the nature of their
connection with the cathedral.
Nearly a third of this “local”
sample said that they came “to appreciate the history and architecture
of the cathedral, not for any religious/sacred experience”. Nevertheless, even among this non-religious
group, 84 per cent said that they got
a sense of the sacred from the
cathedral building, 79 per cent from
the cathedral music, and 56 per cent
said that they experienced God
through the quiet of the space.
Tourists might not set out as
spiritual seekers, but that does not
mean that they won’t end up as
them.
Open to interpretation:
Lichfield Cathedral,
which was studied in
new research
DISTINCT as these two categories
are, they may, in fact, feed off one
another. In his recent book Unapologetic: Why, despite everything,
Christianity can still make surprising
emotional sense (Faber, 2012),
Francis Spufford writes perceptively
of how, in contemporary culture,
“each moment is supposed to be the
solvent of the one before” (Features,
7 September).
His point is that the freedom of
unrestrained self-formation, ends up
dissolving rather than affirming our
humanity. The tourist, like the consumer, is peripatetic, never putting
down roots, never establishing commitments that might threaten his or
her freedom. This is the extremity of
a liberal society, where authority and
narrative is located in the individual.
Cathedrals are as far from this as
possible: massive, permanent assertions of an authority that is not even
human, let alone individualistic.
They are narratives in stone, whose
compass extends far beyond our
immediate concerns. In theory, this
should alienate more than it attracts
today. But the research conducted
for Spiritual Capital suggests
otherwise.
THIS tension was wellexpressed by one interviewee, who, while not
seeing himself as religious, was a fan of his
cathedral. “What is important”, he said, “is the
ability the cathedral has
to make people slow
down for a minute and
ponder. . . It allows you
to think about others, to
think about yourself,
about things like guilt
and the welfare of others
— all of which come back
to having faith in something.
“It’s about faith, not religion — it
doesn’t force you to believe in God
or believe in the Bible. . . It instils
faith in people — allowing people to
make up their own minds.”
His sentiments capture, uneasily,
the worshipper (“slow down . . . instil
faith”) and the consumer (“think
about yourself . . . make up [your]
own mind”). They also capture the
challenge that this lays before
cathedrals.
The off-the-shelf response to
such sentiments is to help the individual to explain this sense of the
sacred, and to help him decode the
cathedral’s provocation. But to do
this risks killing the thing itself.
We live in an age of liminal
spirituality, which is simultaneously
encouraging and frustrating. The
encouragement comes from the fact
that years of consumption and the
sneers of cultured despisers have not
turned us secular as a nation, but
rather witnessed a transformation of
spirituality. Today, many of us are
reasonably happy to admit belief in
things such as God, the soul, providence, ghosts, or angels, so long as
these are part of our individual
make-up rather than a body of
organised confessional thought.
In contrast, the frustration comes
from the fact that spiritual yearning
can be “consumerised”, channelled
into selfish and shallow ends, just
like anything else. Spirituality need
not, but can, be vacuous. The temptation for Christians is to seize on the
encouraging signs, and then to settle
people’s sense of the sacred: to
describe, clarify, and harness people’s
persistent spirituality.
PEOPLE, however, do not always
come to cathedrals and experience
what they do there in order for it to
be easily explained. As a result, the
evangelistic course or explanatory
booklet are liable to be less effective
there than in other circumstances. To
quote T. S. Eliot, who, unlike Larkin,
followed where his sacred hunger
led, there is “only a limited value In
the knowledge derived from experience”, as such knowledge “imposes a
pattern, and falsifies”.
In place of words or explanation,
perhaps we need a renewed appreciation of the object — the palmsized cross, the icon, the triptych —
the image that remains uninterpreted, unsettled, and unsettling.
Liminal artefacts in themselves —
part consumer trinket, part relic —
perhaps best connect with the emergent spiritualities that are carrying
people into cathedrals in their
millions.
This will not be comfortable. It is
not just dogmatists who fear that
living with contradictions can invite
laissez-faire spirituality, turning
Christ’s challenging annunciation of
the Kingdom of God into an anodyne exchange of personalised spiritual truths. The uninterpreted icon,
scriptural engraving, or prayer is a
risk, but, in the right place, it is
surely one worth taking.
Nick Spencer is director of research at
Theos. Spiritual Capital: The present
and future of English cathedral is
available free at www.theosthinktank.
co.uk.
Freedom that comes at a high price
IT TAKES only one shocking
event to reveal to the world
the ordeals suffered by human
beings who struggle daily
under oppression. That event
can lay bare the stark issues of
injustice, violence, and fear
that lie unresolved in the lives
of millions. Such is the story
of 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, in Pakistan, who was shot in the head by the
Taliban because of her active support for women’s
education. She is now in the UK to receive
medical treatment.
At one level, it is the familiar issue of the suppression of women — an issue that, at some time
or another, has faced almost every society on
earth. At another level, it is about the assertion of
tyrants who believe that shooting a young girl is
a justifiable way of asserting their control and
silencing opponents.
Many of the journalists who have told the story
paid homage to Malala’s fearlessness before the
ruthless atrocities of the Taliban. But that description does not really seem apt; for people
who are fearless rarely understand what it is to be
afraid. They are impervious to the fear that can
destabilise ordinary mortals. In contrast, this girl
has known fear only too well. She has spoken of
it, described it, explained what it has been like for
her. Everything about her situation has made her
A young Pakistani girl has
drawn the West into her
struggle, says Elaine Storkey
want to run, but she has stayed. It is not fearlessness
but courage that defines her tenacious resistance.
Courage is a very human quality. To start with,
it does not ignore danger. Since the age of 11,
Malala seems to have been acutely aware of perils
that have surrounded her, as she has lived consciously along the chasm of two incompatible
world-views. The world-view she inherited from
her father embraces human rights and education;
it urges respect, hope, peace, love, and freedom
for women.
The world-view that she rejects embraces the
misuse of power, as well as torture and bloodshed. It is driven by an ideology that dismisses
freedom, hates the West, and denigrates women.
Few children would see the gulf so clearly. Even
fewer would have the enormous courage to face
the implications of choosing to resist the powerful.
But courage lives with vulnerability. Malala
had nothing to protect her as she spoke out
against what she had witnessed, as she asserted
her desire to be educated, and travelled to the
school that had been banned. No armed bodyguards surrounded her as she left her home or
boarded the bus. The images splashed across our
screens and newspapers illustrated her vulnerability — the openness of her young face, the
blood-soaked clothing on her body. In facing
vulnerability, she shared truth, and drew us into
her struggles.
Courage also reveals the true nature of evil,
highlighting for us all the cowardice of her
assailants, their hatred, their brutality. Their faces
were hidden. Yet vicious cruelty can never bear
good fruit. Whatever just cause these men
thought they were fighting, whatever power they
thought they wielded, the courage of this child
has exposed them as cowardly bullies. A Pakistani
satirist, Nadeem Paracha, summed it up perfectly:
“Come on, brothers, be real men. Kill a schoolgirl.”
For me, this story reflects not the power of
Western liberalism, but the truths of the Christian faith. Vulnerability and courage are at its
very core. Jesus incarnates them. It was not fearlessness that he exhibited at Gethsemane the
night before he died, but naked terror, as he
contemplated what lay ahead.
We may never know what courage Christ
needed for our salvation. But when we see the
best of human bravery exhibited in the life of a
defenceless young Pakistani girl, we begin to
understand its power.
Dr Elaine Storkey is President of Tearfund.
letters
Defining the poor under the present Government
From the Revd Paul Nicolson
Sir, — Your Question of the Week
(News, 12 October), “Do the Tories
champion the poor?”, fails to
describe the circumstances of the
people who need to be championed.
Research by the New Policy
Institute shows that many councils
will be introducing another poll tax
to meet the ten-per-cent cut in
central-government funding of
council-tax benefit. The poll tax
took 20 per cent of the tax out of
weekly benefits in the 1990s. That
means that the £111.45 a week
Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) or the
new Universal Credit (UC), after
rent and council tax, will be taxed by
up to £5 a week by some councils
from April 2013. That is just one
example of the inadequacy of
benefits.
Many council-tax-benefit
claimants will not be able to pay that
£5, because benefits have been
reduced since the move from RPI to
CPI in April 2011; they have rent
arrears, owing to the housing-benefit
caps; the £500 cap on all benefits
will hit large families with high
rents; and the prices of necessities,
such as food, fuel, clothes, and
transport, are increased by the
market, while the value of benefits is
reduced, and safety nets such as the
social fund have been abolished.
When people cannot pay the
council tax, councils have to apply to
the magistrates for liability orders
adding up to £120 to the tax; the
bailiffs will be sent in, adding a
further £75 to £210, depending on
whether visits are made.
Donald Hirsch, who manages the
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)
research into minimum income
standards at Loughborough
University, calculates that a single
adult receiving £71 JSA/UC a week,
after rent and council tax, needs the
JRF minimum income standard of
£91.58 a week just to pay for food,
fuel, clothes, and transport. So a
couple without children are already
about £18 a week short of the
minimum that they need; and the
Chancellor proposes to take a
further £10 billion out of benefits.
PAUL NICOLSON
Chair, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust
34 Grosvenor Gardens
London SW1W 0DH
Legal obligations concerning pensions
From Mr A. M. Hughes
Sir, — Huw Spanner (Features, 12
October) is quite wrong to say that
“from this month on, everyone who
is employed is required by law to
take out a pension.” I hope that no
employee reading this was unduly
perturbed at not having done
anything about it.
Under auto-enrolment (which I
presume is what Mr Spanner was
referring to), the responsibility is on
the employer, not the employee: he
has to enrol the employee into a
pension scheme. But autoenrolment applies only to
employees earning more than £8105
who are aged 22 or over. They can
opt out after one month.
At present, it is only the very
largest firms that have to comply; a
company with, say, 500 staff, does
not have to institute auto-enrolment
until November 2013.
A. M. HUGHES
3 Moody Road
Headington
Oxford OX3 0DH
Readiness for financial challenges in the parish
From Brenda Hayes
Sir, — Would it not be possible for
parishes to set up a reserve fund to
cover eventualities such as those
being experienced by St Margaret’s,
Hawes (“Priest challenges apathy
towards church repairs”, News, 5
October)?
If need can be shown to be
justified, overcoming any perception
that the church is too rich already,
and appeal is made to the parish
generally for regular donations,
however small, a substantial fund
could be established over a period
of years.
This would help to promote a
sense of involvement and belonging
in the parish, establish a channel of
communication, and release regular
church members from fund-raising
to concentrate more on Christianorientated activities. Presumably
such funds were not considered
necessary in the past.
BRENDA HAYES
24 Warwick Road, Worthing
West Sussex BN11 3ER
Mourners’ contribution at funeral services
From Canon Andrew Bowden
Sir, — As one who inevitably takes
many funeral services, I share the
Revd Charles Howard’s concern
about mourners’ feeling that they
have to “do something” at the
service (Letters, 12 October).
Try another church
From Mr Richard Barnes
Sir, — Surely, if the “committed”
Christians in your “lively” church
are making you feel rubbish (“I’m
not coming to church any more”,
Features, 28 September), you could
go to a different church, where
Christians without adjectives wrestle
with faith and persevere in prayer.
There your children might get
involved, up where the action is, as
servers, singers, musicians, or the
like. Ours is a broad Church.
Explore it.
RICHARD BARNES
7 Dinham Crescent, Exeter
I also find that a number of
passages now read on these
occasions grate, because, with the
best intentions, they skate over the
reality of death and mourning.
Occasionally, however, families
come up with something that is
quite exceptional. Here is one such
that Joanna Lambert wrote for the
funeral of her father, Michael
Naylor-Leyland:
“I cannot say — ‘Do not stand at
his grave and weep’ — as all those
who know me know that I will weep
and weep and weep.
“Death is not ‘nothing at all’. It is,
at this time, everything.
“But let us pray that it will not
always be so, and that soon we will
recognise that it is the beginning of
something new.”
Now, that is honest and it is real,
and I suggest that others may wish
to use it.
ANDREW BOWDEN
Washbrook Cottage
Caudle Green
Cheltenham GL53 9PW
Dr Williams’s use of
the word ‘insane’
From the Revd Christopher Newell
Sir, — The Archbishop of
Canterbury is reported (News, 12
October) as saying: “To put it boldly,
contemplation is the only ultimate
answer to the unreal and insane
world that our financial systems and
our advertising culture and our
chaotic and unexamined emotions
encourage us to inhabit.”
It is somewhat ironic that Dr
Williams used the word “insane”
that day, as Wednesday 10 October
was the 20th anniversary of the first
World Mental Health Day, a day that
is increasingly being commemorated
by the Churches. I and my colleagues hosted an event at Truro
Cathedral, and were invited to celebrate the lunchtime eucharist on the
theme of depression.
Only recently, Dr Williams hosted
a Time for Change event at Lambeth
Palace with, among others, the Revd
Eva McIntyre, who has been
responsible for establishing the
website “Mental Health Matters”.
Thus, the Churches are gradually
coming to realise the priority of not
only supporting people who live
with mental-health problems, but
also pushing the boundaries of
pastoral care and theology, so that
we listen to those of us for whom a
mental condition is part of our lives.
Now this may sound extremely
PC, but I think we all need to reflect
on how we use language. Otherwise,
we shall continue to use words such
as “insane”, which reflect past
negative cultural and religious
contexts where the “insane” were
excluded from public discourse.
I do hope that, as we continue to
challenge, as Dr Williams rightly did
in his address, the absurdist world of
our “financial systems” and our
“advertising culture”, we will use
language that does not hark back to
times when “insanity” and those
who experienced it were considered
beyond the boundaries of Christian
life and social discourse.
I live and work daily with the
challenges, strange delights,
opportunities, and setbacks,
paradoxical and often chaotic, of a
long-term mental-health problem. I
may be “mad”, and I may seek to
explore the Christological and
Pauline theologies of the “madness”
of faith; but I am not “insane”, and
nor do I associate the term with
those with whom I have the
privilege to work.
CHRISTOPHER NEWELL
Community Mental Chaplain
Cornwall Partnership Foundation
Trust
Bodmin Hospital, Boundary Road
Bodmin PL31 2QT
Amos and Occupy
From Mr David Bowen
Sir, — It cannot be a coincidence
that the first anniversary of the
Occupy movement’s protest on the
steps of St Paul’s saw Amos’s
prophecy as the Old Testament
reading last Sunday.
Occupy pointed up that the
unregulated form of capitalism
which had created the world’s
economic crisis trampled the poor
and deprived the majority of the
results of their labour in order to
provide unnecessary comfort and
luxury to those who gained
excessive wealth by their
speculation.
Perhaps the opprobrium that the
protesters received was because we,
too, “abhor the one who speaks the
truth”.
DAVID BOWEN (Reader)
2 Northernhay, Dorchester
Dorset DT1 1XN
A priest’s ministry in the Church in Wales
From the Revd Neil Fairlamb
Sir, — My former colleague the Revd
Geraint ap Iorwerth did not retire
early at 60: he left Pennal and Corris,
aged 62, after 38 continuous years of
service in Bangor diocese, for new
challenges of ministry (Real Life, 5
October).
I was not aware that Bangor
diocese had a theological line that
the clergy had to toe, as the
comments quoted imply. Mr ap
Iorwerth pushed at the boundaries
of faith as he felt called to, and in
two radical and well-received books,
Honest to Goddess and The Gospel of
the Fallen Angel, challenged
conventional thinking.
Burning the more bloodthirsty
passages of the Old Testament was
somewhat theatrical, but how many
clergy could honestly say that Judges
and Joshua, for example, were
edifying reading or useful to any
Christian’s life? A favourite hymn in
Welsh sings of “rhyfel yr Oen”, the
battle of the Lamb, and that is one
that Mr ap Iorwerth tried to fight.
Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and
Buddhist symbols in the church —
they can now safely be put in an
exhibition gallery out of harm’s way,
of course; but Mr ap Iorwerth
wanted to integrate them into
Christian experience. He had a set,
for example, of Kenneth Cragg’s
book of interfaith Christian-Islam
prayers, a work of serious scholarship and credentials — a set to be
used, not part of an exhibition.
And why should not Zen koans
be quoted alongside some of Jesus’s
more gnomic and puzzling
utterances? Is this truly not “in line”
with the “theology of the diocese”?
NEIL FAIRLAMB
The Rectory, Beaumaris
Anglesey LL58 8BN
Eighty years since Gladys Aylward went to China
From Mr Colin Nevin
Sir, — One of the best-loved films
from the 1950s was The Inn of the
Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid
Bergman as the intrepid
parlourmaid Gladys Aylward from
Edmonton, north London, who
became a missionary in China.
It was 80 years ago, on 15 October
1932, that Gladys first set off from
Liverpool Street station on the
Trans-Siberian railway to make the
arduous trip to a far-off country. She
saved up her own fare after being
rejected by the China Inland
Mission for not being academic
enough to learn the Chinese
language. Undaunted, she went to
help an elderly Scottish missionary,
Jeannie Lawson, in China.
It was Jeannie’s plan to open an
inn for muleteers who traversed the
isolated mountain treks that passed
through the remote village of
Yangcheng in Shanxi Province,
where both women were regarded as
“foreign devils”. Jeannie died shortly
after, and Gladys was left alone in a
part of China where few Westerners
ever visited. She learned the local
dialect, and was later asked by the
Mandarin of Yangcheng to help put
a stop to the cruel custom of
binding women’s feet. Gladys was
the perfect candidate, as her feet
were unbound.
Later, when Japan and China
went to war, Gladys’s village came
under enemy attack, and she singlehandedly took 100 children over the
Shanxi mountains for many days,
with hardly any food, to eventual
safety across the Yellow River. This,
she later remarked, was the reason,
she believed, why she came to China.
The film poignantly recalls the
children’s trek, and made Gladys a
household name. A book, The Small
Woman, by Alan Burgess, telling her
story, became a best-seller. I don’t
think that there is any memorial to
Gladys in the country of her birth,
but wouldn’t it be wonderful if an
initiative was taken to erect a statue
or plaque in her honour in
Liverpool Street station to recall this
diminutive heroine, in recognition
of the impact she had on so very
many lives the world over?
Gladys died in Taiwan in 1970,
aged 67; but it would be a fitting
tribute for her own country and
home city to remember her in some
tangible way.
COLIN NEVIN
45c Rathgill Park, Bangor
County Down
Northern Ireland BT19 7TQ
The next Archbishop of Canterbury
From the Revd Alwyn H. G. Jones
Sir, — The rumour machine is
grinding away about the choice of
the next Archbishop of Canterbury,
and we hope that fervent prayer is
being offered. The fact that the
Bishop of Durham has not been in
episcopal orders a year was thought
to be a disadvantage.
We should remember that Basil
Hume was a priest when appointed
to Westminster, and today few
question his outstanding ministry.
St Ambrose was not baptised when
he was elected Bishop of Milan, but
I doubt if the net will be cast as
wide on this occasion.
ALWYN H. G. JONES
1 Upper York St
Bristol BS2 8 NT
From Canon Ian Lovett
Sir, — I am sure that I ought to
know, after many years of meandering through the confines of the
Church of England, but it escapes
me now: why it is that I am unable
actually to cast my vote for the
appointment of an archdeacon,
bishop, or indeed archbishop.
IAN LOVETT
The Rectory, Fore Street
Northam
Devon EX39 1AW
From Canon John Goodchild
Sir, — The Anglican Communion is
a free association, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury has no
extra-provincial powers. The
Lambeth Conference is for
fellowship, not regulation, and
should make no resolutions or
statements. If some bishops boycott
the invitation to common prayer
and study, they discredit only
themselves. It may be sad, but it is
their problem, not Canterbury’s.
Canterbury should not waste
time trying to devise covenants or
other wheezes to keep unwilling
partners together. He should relate
to overseas bishops as a fellow
bishop, earthed in his own diocese,
which should benefit from his wider
contacts.
JOHN GOODCHILD
39 St Michael’s Road
Aigburth, Liverpool L17 7AN
Church Times Letters
3rd floor, Invicta House
108-114 Golden Lane
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fax: 020 7490 7093
[email protected]
17
diary etc
Odd, but
worth a try
cookery
FRANCES LINCOLN’s books are
nothing if not beautiful, and The Art
of Cooking with Vegetables, by Alain
Passard*, is no exception. The facing
page to each recipe is an eye-popping
collage by the chef himself: an
impression of colour, shape, and
rhythm to set the creative juices of
any cook flowing.
Here is the list of ingredients for
Red beetroot with lavender and
crushed blackberries (serves 4):
4 medium beetroots, uncooked
flowers from a sprig of lavender
a bowl of ripe blackberries
40g (1½ oz) of lightly salted butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
leaves from 4 sprigs of basil,
preferably purple
½ litre (17½ fl. oz) whole milk
salt, if desired
I bought cooked beetroots, peeled
them, and set them aside. I melted
the butter over a low heat, adding the
blackberries, crushing them with a
fork after a few minutes. I stirred in
the soy, vinegar, and basil leaves, then
left it all to stew for four to five minutes over the lowest heat.
But then: “Bring the milk just to
boiling point,” Passard writes, “then
whisk to emulsify it, preferably using
a stick-type immersion whisk.” I did
all that, but it was still milk, not
“sauce”, as Passard call it; and the
blackberries were already runny.
To assemble, pour the blackberry
mixture into the bottom of a
warmed dish, slice and arrange the
beetroot on top, “then spoon some
of the sauce over the beetroots, and
drizzle the remainder over the blackberries.” First, it was still milk, not
sauce; and, second, the blackberries
were under the beetroot. Finally, he
says, sprinkle the lavender flowers on
top.
I chose to add only a small portion
of the milk. The revelation was how
lovely the rest was without it: aromatic, and surprisingly savoury.
Many of the other recipes are for
decidedly odd combinations, and, if
you are not a chef in the south of
France, some demanding ones. But I
very much liked a Brittany-style
ratatouille, the difference being in
the use of butter rather than olive oil,
and soy sauce to give depth of flavour. Serving the ratatouille with
accompanying raw tomatoes and
courgettes as a contrast of texture
and flavour worked brilliantly.
Another of the simpler and winning combinations is Spinach,
steamed and buttered, layered with
carrots that had been cooked in a
frying pan in butter and orange
juice, and the whole seasoned with
grated nutmeg and toasted sesame
seeds, the coup de grâce being Confits
de citron.
To make the confit — a delicious
garnish for almost anything — slice a
lemon very finely. Place the slices in a
heavy-bottomed saucepan and cover
with 30g (1 oz) of sugar (I use
honey) and the juice of another
lemon. Cook them very slowly, until
the sugar has melted and the lemon
slices are syrupy and tender.
*The Art of Cooking with Vegetables, by Alain Passard, is published
by Frances Lincoln at £20 (CT Bookshop £18); 978-0-71123-335-5.
Terence Handley MacMath
18
diary
Sister
Rosemary
Holy Name celebration
JUBILEE is in the air this year, and
our community has one as well. We
are commemorating 50 years of the
Community of the Holy Name in
Lesotho. Sisters from England went
to join Basotho Sisters who were
already a community in what was
then Basutoland, and, from the start,
the Sisters were determined to live as
one community, abolishing the racial
divide that was official in South
Africa but tended to prevail in
colonial situations.
Some of the original Basotho Sisters are still alive, and, on 6 October,
they, and all those there who have
joined us more recently, came together to celebrate this anniversary.
In those days, the Sisters in
Lesotho were under the care and direction of English Sisters, with an English Superior, but as they grew more
experienced they took over responsibility for their own government,
and, eventually, each Province — England, Lesotho, and the still newer
Zululand — became autonomous
under its own Superior. (I am pleased
to say that our small instance of decolonisation took place without any
rebellion or war of independence.)
Our representative has just returned, energised rather than shattered by her experience. She described an exuberant church service,
preceded by a great procession, and
including a blessing for each Sister
individually, at the hands of one or
other of the two bishops present. The
singing was assisted — or rather
overwhelmed — by an enthusiastic
brass band, and enhanced by dancing from the Sisters, not least from a
contingent of Zulus from our other
African province.
Then came an entertainment, including reminiscences of the community’s past, greetings from England, songs from the church youth
choir, and Basotho dancing, featuring an unexpected view of some Sisters in traditional figure-enhancing
dress.
St Gargoyle’s
Nothing left over
THE service began at 10 a.m., and
the whole congregation moved to
the convent and its grounds for the
feast at 2.30 p.m. Not only the Sisters, but friends from near by, had
rallied round to prepare mountains
of food. This was an occasion at
which all would enjoy the rare pleasure of satisfying themselves with
fresh meat.
As our English Sister remarked,
“In England, we would be wondering
how we could use up the leftovers. In
Lesotho, we knew there wouldn’t be
any leftovers.”
Ruth was a fairly recent convert
human-rights lawyer working with
the United Nations, on her way to
take a case in the Ivory Coast. She
said: “It was your RE and history
lessons that inspired me to take up
this work.”
If ever we wonder whether what
we do is really worth while, an encounter like that can give us hope
Dancing in the nave
Success story
MOST of us in England are not in
our first youth, and we decided that
our participation in the event would
consist of singing a Te Deum in our
own chapel. One of us, however,
happily agreed to undertake the
gruelling experience of two longhaul flights in less than a week in
order to represent us in Lesotho.
I received the distinct impression
that this would help the Sisters in
Lesotho to hold up their heads
among the Roman Catholic communities, who are clearly much in
evidence there: “See — we are international, like you.”
IF OUR Sister needed anything else
to make her joy complete, she found
it at the airport in Johannesburg. She
suddenly heard herself being called
by name by an impressive African
woman. Not recognising her, she had
to ask who she was, and found that
she had been a student at the school
of which this Sister had been principal, back in the 1980s.
She struggled to connect this slim,
elegant figure with the plump
schoolgirl she vividly remembered,
who had seemed to be on her way to
a career in drama. Her long-lost pupil explained that she was now a
Write, if you have any answers to
the questions listed at the end of
this section, or would like to add
to the answers below.
Extempore prayer
Your answers
out of the question
Extempore prayer in C of E
services is often ill thought out.
Why has it been encouraged? Is it
too late for the floodgates to be
closed, and liturgical principles
reasserted?
of the intercession. This should be
encouraged.
Neil Inkley
Walton-le-Dale, Preston
It it not too late — if there is a
mind to close them. When the great
intercession is passed to lay people,
there can be a sense of competitiveness over who can demonstrate
most contemporary newsawareness. A bishop once said to me
that in some of the churches he
visited, the intercessions were
reminiscent of the eight-o’clock
news, except that the eight-o’clock
news was limited to ten minutes’
duration.
The Church of England is a
liturgical Church, and its liturgies
provide most of what needs to be
said. Somehow, the proliferation of
liturgies seems to have encouraged
the abandonment of liturgy.
Spontaneous prayer can
sometimes be terribly specific, to
the exclusion of personal relativity.
For me (and for many), the Prayer
Book prayers have a wonderful
quality of providing a conveyor belt
up to heaven with hooks that are
generic, and not completely full —
so that one can readily attach
personal supplications and be part
I have seen references to people
known as pew-openers. Who were
they? When did they exist, and
what did they do? Is it just another
name for a sidesman? [Answers, 12
October]
Box pews, general in churches until
Victorian re-seating schemes, have
doors, usually closed with a latch or
turnbutton, and the pew-opener
was there to admit the congregation
to their pews. In a journalist’s
account — somewhat satirical, and
with a clear Tractarian bias — of a
suburban evensong in the 1880s, I
find: “But down below it is more
select than in the galleries, and the
liveried beadle looks as sharply as a
footman at every fresh arrival, as if
he were about to tell him that the
so-called owner of this temple was
‘not at home’.
“The pew system is in full force,
and every pew has a door which can
be shut and barricaded against siege
with hassocks and pew cushions, if
necessary. With all justice to the
aforesaid beadle, and the ancient
pew-openeress, it must be said that
Work hard, sing well
I AM currently making an effort to
watch the series The Choir: Sing
while you work, with Gareth Malone.
I was moved to do this because a
friend of mine is a member of one of
the workplace choirs featured in the
current series.
I had not seen any of his previous
programmes, but I knew that their
message seemed to be: “Even if you
if you look tolerably respectable
they will put you in a pew, and if
you wear a ‘gold ring and goodly
apparel’ they will put you in a good
pew.”
The church accounts confirm
that pew-openers were paid, but
they were clearly of fairly low status,
unlike sidesmen, who, properly
speaking, were, and are, officers of
the church, elected to assist the
churchwardens.
J. R. H. Pinkess
Edgbaston, Birmingham
I have in my possession a leaflet
from the Ministry of Social Security
dated April 1967 — leaflet N.I. 36. It
is titled “Employment in places of
Worship”. The headings are:
“1. Three classes of insured persons.
Class 1. Employed Persons
Class 2. Self Employed Persons.
Class 3. Non-employed Persons.
“2. Employments for which there are
special rules on classification.
(a) Choir, organist, or other
musician, precentor, acolyte, beadle,
bell-ringer, caretaker, chapel keeper,
church officer, clerk, door-keeper,
organ-blower, pew opener, sacristan,
sexton, verger, Bible woman, lay
preacher or scripture reader.”
thought you couldn’t sing, you can
be part of a really good choir.” I felt
sceptical: good choral singing is not
as easy as that.
Watching these programmes, I
realise that the message is rather
more nuanced. “Even if you think
you can’t sing, you may be mistaken
— I can audition you, and find out if
you have potential.” Some, whom we
did not see, must have been told,
“Sorry, you really can’t sing.”
But the message to those who
were chosen was: “You can be part of
a really good choir — if you rehearse
like mad, work as hard as you can,
and take notice of all the advice you
are given.” Now, that I can believe.
The Revd Sister Rosemary CHN is a
nun at the Convent of the Holy Name
in Derby.
I have kept this leaflet as a
curiosity, but it has now shown
itself to be useful. People earning
less than 40 shillings a week did not
have to pay contributions.
(The Revd) Joan Wagstaff
Great Sutton
Cheshire
Your questions
Why has it become today the
almost universal custom, at the
eucharist, to take the ablutions
immediately after the communion,
instead of after the blessing? This
is done even in the Prayer Book
service, in spite of the rubrics in
both 1662 and 1928, which direct
that the sacrament shall remain on
the altar till after the blessing. Do
other readers agree with me that it
is disruptive, keeping the people,
choir, and organist on edge as to
when the service is to continue,
and tends to make the priest hurry,
even sometimes to the loss of
reverence?
W. N. T.
Address for answers and more
questions: Out of the Question,
Church Times, 3rd floor, Invicta
House, 108-114 Golden Lane,
London EC1Y 0TG.
[email protected]
We ask readers not to send us letters
for forwarding, and those giving
answers to provide full name,
address, and, if possible, telephone
number.
It’s a stretch, but not too far
David Adam continues his series of ‘alleluia’-themed reflections
KNOW that God waits for your
return. He has not forgotten you: he
holds you in his heart. Accept the
invitation to come into his presence,
to place yourself today before God.
You can use a hymn or words of
scripture to remind you that God is
with you, though in time you will
be content to delight in him in
silence. I like the comment that
Mother Teresa of Calcutta made
when she was asked: “What do you
do when you pray?”
“I listen to God,” she replied.
The enquirer then asked: “What
does God do?” and the answer
came: “He listens to me.”
In the stilling of our lives, we give
God the opportunity to speak to us.
In giving him our attention, we can
get to know him and enjoy his
presence.
In a wonderful homely way, this
awareness of God’s presence was
expressed by a woman from Kerry
in Ireland. “Where is heaven?” she
was asked. “It lies about a foot-anda-half above the height of a man,”
she replied, suggesting that, to enter
God’s Kingdom, you do have to
stretch yourself a bit, but it is there
for those who reach out to it,
wherever they are.
Too often, we have relegated God
and the Kingdom of heaven to the
far distance, when they are close at
hand. There is no need to go in
search of God; for, in the words of
St Paul: “In him we live and move
and have our being” (Acts 17.28).
If we ignore the presence that
vibrates in every atom, then we will
live a lie, and become lonely and
alone. If our deep sense of loss is
shared by everyone around us, then
there is a danger that we will accept
our blindness for normality. The
call to thrust out a little is the call to
become more sensitive, more alive
to what is around us. It will ask us
for a while to turn our backs on our
normal routine, but the reward for
doing this is to discover a depth to
life that has been passing us by.
FIX a time and a place to be still
before God. Keep to this time and
MARK never spares the disciples’
blushes. Whereas the other Gospelwriters tend to soft-pedal when
describing their failures and muddles,
Mark has no such sensitivities. We
cannot read today’s Gospel without
its jarring with the other two readings, which speak of the suffering of
God’s servant, or with this middle
section of Mark’s Gospel (8.2710.45): this began with Jesus’s first
prediction of his suffering, and ends
with his emphasis that his way
involves being a servant, indeed a
slave, of all people.
This middle section see-saws constantly between Jesus’s words about
suffering, service, and welcoming
him in a child, and the disciples’
arguments about greatness, and
their blundering attempts to exclude
someone who acted as Jesus did. The
juxtaposition is painfully uncomfortable.
Jesus had tried to settle the debate
about greatness by putting a child in
front of the disciples as their example (Mark 9.33-37); James and
John’s request, however, shows that
the debate was still going on behind
his back. The lectionary omits Jesus’s
third description of his coming
death and the response of amazement and fear that it elicited; once
again, the disciples failed to support
Jesus as he faced impending suffering.
AP
Listening to God:
Mother Teresa of
Calcutta, photographed in 1993
place for at least a week, if not
longer. Then, in the stillness, seek to
give yourself, your attention, your
love, to your Creator.
Rest in his presence; make yourself at home with him. God does
not require gifts, or even words: he
simply wants you. Seek to give
yourself to him, and know that he
gives himself to you. Take to heart
the words: “Be still, and know that
I am God” (Psalm 46.10).
If you find your mind wanders
too much, use a sentence to centre
yourself on God, such as: “God, you
love me: I seek to love you,” or
“God, you give yourself to me: I
seek to give myself to you.”
In time, you should be able to
centre yourself simply by saying
“God”, and re-placing yourself in his
presence.
Think on these words:
God, in all that is most living and
incarnate in him, is not far away
from us, altogether apart from
the world we see, touch, hear,
smell and taste about us. Rather
he awaits us at every instant in
our action, in the work of the
moment. There is a sense in
which he is at the tip of my pen,
my spade, my brush, my needle
— of the heart of my thought.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Le Milieu Divin (1957)
This is the third of four edited
extracts from Occasions for Alleluia
by David Adam (SPCK, £8.99 (CT
Bookshop £8.10); 978-0-281-065776).
faith
Jo Spreadbury values prayer for the week
words from a fourth- Strengthen for service, Lord,
century communicant the hands that have taken
holy things;
well known as a hymn may
the ears which have heard
THIS prayer has a long tradition in
Christian worship, right back to the
fourth century. It originated as a
poem by Ephrem the Syrian (c.30673), was used in the fifth-century
Malabar rite in South India, and
came into many of our hymn books
in translations by J. M. Neale and
Percy Dearmer.
It is fascinating to experience how
those early worshippers responded
to God in communion. The concerns addressed by the prayer seem
oh-so-contemporary to our lives,
even if the language has a timeless
feel. Deceit, disputes, clamour, and
gossip; unholy actions and activities
— these are the easy habits that we
need God to save us from. Instead,
we are given a vision of love, hope,
and life, to feed and sustain us.
The intense physicality of the
prayer is inescapable. No pious
generalisations here, but a direct
equation between being nourished
by the Body of Christ and the impact
this has on our bodies. Hands, ears,
tongues, eyes — and feet, too, in the
hymn version of the original — all
absorb God’s transfiguring, radiant
power.
Eyes shine, and bodies are refreshed with a spiritual beauty that
the commercial efforts of the advertising, health-care, diet, fashion,
and cosmetic industries can never
imitate. Here is a regime and a ritual
(a word now beloved of spas and
salons) that works.
If the prayer is wonderfully pragmatic, it is also programmatic. This
is the effect that the sacrament of
Christ’s body will have on our bodies
and our lives, listed sense by sense,
clause by clause. Or, at least, this
should be the effect. . . It is good to
be reminded of what we are and will
be in Christ.
The prayer could well be adapted
as a form of self-examination — a
preparation for confession perhaps.
Have my hands offered service
worthy of the most holy sacrament
that is cradled and enthroned by
them when I receive communion?
Have I listened as eagerly to God’s
word as to gossip, grievances, and
Disciples’ blunder redeemed
Sunday’s readings
Rosalind Brown
20th Sunday after Trinity
Proper 24: Isaiah 53.4-end; Hebrews
5.1-10; Mark 10.35-45
God, the giver of life, whose Holy
Spirit wells up within your
Church: by the Spirit’s gifts equip
us to live the gospel of Christ and
make us eager to do your will,
that we may share with the whole
creation the joys of eternal life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Matthew’s version of the story has
James and John’s mother asking
about seats in glory on their behalf,
but in Mark these “sons of thunder”
(3.17) ask for themselves, thereby
indicating how well Jesus knew them
when giving them that nickname.
They pushed their luck, wanting a
guaranteed answer before they revealed the question, and can hardly
have been surprised when Jesus recast the question, and the others
were furious with them.
In answering James and John,
Jesus reversed all the norms of
greatness. The same thing happens
in the passage from Isaiah, part of a
Servant Song, which we hear in a
different context from its usual one
on Good Friday. Justice is perverted,
and the innocent servant suffers and
is cut off from the land of the living.
Far from the throne in glory that the
brothers want, his grave is with the
wicked. Worse, it appears that God is
complicit in this.
But then comes the great reversal:
the righteous one will make many
righteous, and be allotted a portion
with the great. Why? Because he
poured himself out to death, and
made intercession for the transgressors.
Hebrews picks up this theme with
another unimaginable turnaround.
Jesus offered loud cries and tears to
the one who could save him from
death, and he was heard. Yet the
recipients of the letter knew that he
died. Could both be true? Then
comes the answering paradox: he
learned obedience through what he
suffered, something we know is very
hard: everything in us rebels against
suffering, especially unjust suffering.
He became the source of eternal
salvation for all who obey him —
that obedience word again — being
designated by God a high priest for
ever, thus taking the thought back to
the beginning of the reading. We
obey the one who learned obedience.
A little phrase at the beginning of
the epistle helps to link all this
together: “he is able to deal gently
with the ignorant and wayward.”
Unlike wilful sin, the Bible treats
your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have
sung your praise be free
from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen
the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have
been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness
of your life;
glory to you for ever.
Common Worship
Post-communion for the
8th Sunday after Trinity
backbiting? Have I been honest in
my relationships with others, and in
my praise and worship of God?
Would anyone recognise, for all my
failings, the hope that is in me, or the
life of Christ at work in me?
Fullness of life is what Christ
comes to give us, to refresh us with,
as we come to receive him. And the
habits of worship are habits that we
will be clothed with eternally. I love
the physicality of the picture we get
in Revelation of the worship of
heaven: falling down before the
throne of God, hands holding bowls
of incense, eyes beholding what
angels veil their faces to, and a
myriad of tongues singing “Holy,
Holy, Holy”.
This is what we are being
strengthened and shaped for, physically and spiritually, by our worship
here. This is what Christ gives us a
token and pledge of in communion,
a promise that we will share in the
communion of the saints, and indeed give glory to God for ever.
The Revd Dr Jo Spreadbury is the
Vicar of Abbots Langley, in the diocese
of St Albans.
ignorance and waywardness with
mercy. Jesus’s response to the disciples suggests that he recognised,
probably wearily, that they were still
ignorant rather than rebellious or
disobedient. His deconstruction of
the only models of leadership they
knew was too radical and too new.
This theme of ignorance’s being
met kindly underlies today’s postcommunion prayer:
God the Father, whose Son, the
light unfailing, who has come
from heaven that he may deliver
the world from the darkness of
ignorance: may the eyes of our
understanding be opened through
these holy mysteries that we,
knowing the way of life, may walk
in it without stumbling.
Put alongside the vivid imagery of
the collect, as the Holy Spirit wells
up within the Church, the fact that
Mark paints a severe picture of
James, John, and the other disciples
becomes a consolation. Despite their
and our ignorance and waywardness, the Holy Spirit’s welling up in
our midst can turn our ignorance
into eagerness to do God’s will, and
to share the joys of eternal life — the
very thing that James and John
learned that they could not monopolise.
19
features
Somewhere to lay their head
Young people are
being hit hard by the
recession. A national
scheme, supported by
churches, is helping the
most vulnerable to
avoid homelessness,
says Madeleine Davies
W
HEN Paul Rogers tells
people that a young homeless person, whom he has
never met before, will be staying at his
house, he is asked “quite a lot of
questions” — typically, “What on
earth do you think you’re doing?” His
answer is: consider what it might be
like to be on the other side of the front
door. “I am on the inside. Can you
imagine how much scarier it is,
ringing the doorbell?”
For the past two years, Mr Rogers, a
Baptist minister who lives in southeast London, his wife, and his two
young sons have volunteered as hosts
for DePaul UK’s Nightstop scheme.
This means that, most weeks, a young
homeless person in need of emergency
accommodation will stay with the
family overnight.
Last year, volunteers such as the
Rogerses provided more than 9000
nights of housing to more than 3000
young people, through 40 Nightstop
schemes accredited by DePaul UK.
The idea is to provide a stopgap until a
more permanent solution can be
found.
“One person turned up with a big
grin on his face to say: ‘Thank you for
having me. On Monday, I get the keys
to a flat,’” Mr Rogers says. And he was
able to offer one girl a three night-stay;
“so that she was able to start college”.
Some of the stories, he says, are
heart-breaking, such as the young
woman who lost her boyfriend, flat,
and college course in a week. Getting
his guests to stop saying thank you is,
he says, one of the “difficulties”.
Hospitality: above: Paul Rogers and
family; below, right: a host, in Enfield,
London, with a young person staying
in Supported Lodgings
T
HE manager of Nightstop in
London, Stella Ajuwa, believes
that youth homelessess is on the
rise, particularly in the capital: “We are
finding that more and more young
people are having to fend for themselves.” The 20 per cent of young
people aged 16 to 24 who are unemployed, and the hints from the
Government that it may cut housing
benefit for those under 25 remain
causes for concern.
The latest figures from the Department for Communities and Local
Government show that councils accepted 12,860 applications from
people claiming homelessness between April and June this year — a
nine-per-cent increase on the same
quarter last year. Of these, 430 were
young people aged from 16 to 18, who
had left care. But these figures include
only young people who meet the
current legal definition of homelessness.
A University of York study pub-
20
‘Almost half have
been thrown out
of home’
lished last year, Ending Youth Homelessness, estimated that the number of
16-to-24-year-olds in the UK who
experience homelessness every year is
80,000. The consequences are often
grave. Research suggests that young
people are highly vulnerable to sexual
assault, violence, and crime if they
spend any time on the streets.
Jude Todd, who has been hosting
for DePaul UK since 2005, believes
that a “fear of young people” exists in
the UK. “There is a lot of negativity up
against them, before they even start,
and if you label them with the word
‘homeless’, they see that as their worst
nightmare. . . Once you meet them, or
hear about what it’s really about, it’s
very different.”
Most young people are referred to
Nightstop because of family breakdown. An evaluation of the scheme
carried out in 2010 found that almost
half the young people had been
thrown out of their family home.
B
ESIDES providing accommodation, DePaul UK carries out
prevention work, delivers talks
and conflict-resolution courses in
schools, and offers mediation between
young people and their families. Last
year, an analysis of the Reconnect
scheme found that homelessness was
prevented in 82 per cent of cases.
“The common thing to all of them
[people who stay] was that it wasn’t
their choice; it wasn’t their fault,” Ms
Todd says. “They really are quite
young, at the end of the day. There are
a lot of triggers to bring about family
breakdown. It could be that their
parents have lost employment. . . A
grandparent may not be able to
manage any more. There are situations
features
Life-changing help
Transformed: Katie Mindo holding the Olympic torch
where illness in the family has just got
too much.
“There was a young person kicked
out because he came out as gay. I’ve
had young people from poor backgrounds, and those from very, very
wealthy backgrounds.”
Ms Todd is part of DePaul UK’s
Supported Lodgings scheme, which
offers young people a home for six
months to two years, as a stepping
stone, until they have the skills to live
independently. Having been homeless
herself at the age of 16, she “knew how
much a room could mean to someone.
. . . Nightstop enabled me to do something in a very safe and supported
way.”
Volunteers for both Nightstop and
Supported Lodgings are assessed by
DePaul UK, which conducts a CRB
check and collects references. They
also receive training on various issues,
including boundaries, confidentiality,
and safeguarding.
“We tease out what people’s
attitudes are towards certain things,”
Ms Ajuwa says. “What if you find a
knife in their pocket? We want them to
think about the worst-case scenario,
and how to respond accordingly.”
D
EPAUL UK offers a 24/7 oncall advice and assistance
service for hosts, but, in the
London scheme that Ms Ajuwa
manages, there has been no placement breakdown despite Nightstop’s
accepting people with “complex
issues”.
“We are not risk-averse. . . We know
what the risks are, and if they are being
managed, we can deal with it. If
they used to use heroin, and are on
methodone on a regular basis, it is a
risk issue, but it is being managed,
because they are on medication.
“One of the things we say no to is
intoxication on the day. . . We have
placed young people with self-harm
issues or suicide attempts. We do accept people who have [been involved
in] criminal activity, but it depends.
A burglary two weeks ago would
probably be a no, but a burglary three
years ago, explained away, would
probably be a yes.”
Both Mr Rogers and Ms Todd
report that they have never needed to
call the assistance line.
“Once you have tried it, it changes
your mind about a lot of things,” Mr
Rogers says. “These are folk for whom,
at the moment, life has gone terribly
wrong, and they are making steps to
try and put things back together
again.”
They are “polite, generous, and
KATIE WANJIRU MINDO, now aged 26, was
facing a “dark time” when she first found help
at Nightstop, in the New Forest.
She had moved to the UK from Kenya, aged
15, to join her mother after a “difficult childhood”, in which she was sexually abused and
raped. Katie then faced bullying at school,
where she was the only black student.
She left home after her mother moved in
with a partner, with whom she clashed. Katie
was diagnosed with depression, and struggled
to navigate the benefits system. Eventually,
she found herself on the streets, “where I
wanted to take my life in a place that I felt
was private”.
Since her first night at Jude Todd’s home,
however, her life has been turned around. She
has completed all three of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, and the Prince’s Trust programme, and has received the Prime Minister’s
Award for National Civic Service.
This summer, in recognition of her commitment to her community, she carried the
Olympic torch in Ringwood. She now plans to
gain a degree in youth work after completing
a college access course.
“A volunteer saved my life,” she says.
“These are ordinary people, but what they
are doing is extraordinary.”
‘They are polite,
generous, and
helpful’
grateful,” Ms Todd says. “I think their
parents would probably be proud of
them; they really are very sweet.” She
will often end up acting as a listening
ear for her guests.
“Every boy who has stayed with
me has cried. . . [they] are so lost, they
are very vulnerable, emotionally. . .
Sometimes they are gabbling on and
then they will say ‘That has been the
best day of my life; you listened to
me.’ . . . One said: ‘Nobody’s cooked
for me for four years.’ He was only
17.
“I think that people don’t realise
that you don’t need to run in and fix
all of their lives: it’s basic acts which
really touch them. . . If somebody says:
‘Actually, you are worth something,’ or
shows it in actions, it goes a really long
way to counteract some of the harder
things that have happened to them.
It really does plant hope in them.”
Ms Todd is now running DePaul’s
New Forest Nightstop, one of 21
projects shortlisted for this year’s
National Lottery Awards.
For Mr Rogers, “welcoming the
stranger” is part of his faith. “These are
categories of people actually mentioned in scripture, and you’ve got to
take notice of that.”
Clare Connors, who has been
Grateful: Ms Mindo with Jude Todd, from New Forest Nightstop
‘Every day we
have to turn
people away’
offering Supported Lodgings at her
home in Whitley Bay since 2009,
believes that the common thread that
links her guests is “the need for an
adult who is consistently interested in
them and their lives — because, often,
they come out of quite a lot of chaos.
. . . My approach is that I always say
what I mean, and do what I say. Over
time, it becomes clear that I can be
relied on.”
D
EPAUL UK is constantly looking for more volunteers who
are able to open up their
home, ideally for at least one night,
once a week. Ms Ajuwa reports that, in
London, “every day we have to turn
people away.”
Funding from local authorities in
the current climate is “quite difficult”,
even though Nightstop could be a
much cheaper and more appropriate
alternative to bed-and-breakfast accommodation for young people, she
says. Those already involved are the
charity’s best advocates.
“I would say, Give it a go,” Ms
Connors says. “My life is transformed
by being part of this scheme. . . It’s
lovely: it’s been a gift to me.”
www.depauluk.org
Place called home
ROB, who is 21, left home after his relationship with his mother broke down.
It took him a long time to feel at home
in his Supported Lodgings, having “moved
around so much with my mum. But it is
definitely a place I call home now.”
He has benefited from “a stable environment to work in”, and he is now at university, studying sport and exercise development.
Homelessness is “a waste of a life”, he
says. “I think a lot of people think these
people are stupid, and haven’t got a lot to
give to the community, but they get stepped
on.”
ERNESTAS, who is 18, spent eight nights
with a Nightstop host four months ago, after
his father made him leave home. “I was
nervous, because I did not know the person,
but after one or two days I felt comfortable”.
Now living in a hostel, he is studying for
his GCSEs, does volunteer work twice a
week and plans to become a gym instructor.
“I would definitely recommend Nightstop,”
he says.
Names have been changed
21
features
How to topple a king
BASSANO
The Archbishop of
Canterbury, Cosmo
Lang, played a
critical part in the
abdication of King
Edward VIII, but
damaged his own
reputation by his
comments
afterwards, says
Robert Beaken
COSMO GORDON LANG had a
complicated and torn personality,
and history has not always dealt
kindly with him.
He was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 to 1942, and he had
great gifts as a preacher, pastor, and
wise administrator. He was a shrewd
judge of men and women, and
everyone to whom I have spoken
who knew Lang has mentioned his
immense personal kindness and
generosity of spirit.
But Lang was also a workaholic,
who never took a weekly day off. He
was possessed of an iron sense of
duty, and had a strong awareness of
personal sinfulness. As Archbishop,
he sat in lonely eminence at the top
of an ecclesiastical pyramid, with a
tiny and inadequate secretariat at
Lambeth Palace to help him. He was
the focus of all sorts of unreasonable
demands and expectations.
Lang had a shy streak, and could
sometimes come across as distant.
One suspects that he was frequently
a very lonely man. Shortly after his
enthronement at Canterbury, a
blood clot travelled to his heart, and
he nearly died. He was often ill during the first few years of his primacy.
Since his death in 1945, Lang has
been frequently misunderstood by
writers and broadcasters, who have
failed to understand his personality,
and have sometimes sought simple
explanations and storylines.
One recent example was the
Channel 4/Blakeway television
documentary Edward VIII, the Plot to
Topple a King, broadcast in May,
about Lang’s part in the 1936 abdication crisis. I was interviewed for
the programme, but do not accept its
interpretation.
THE documentary was subsequently
criticised for its lack of objectivity
and fanciful dramatic reconstructions. More seriously, this production got its historical research significantly wrong, and presented a misleading impression of Lang.
It made much of a letter sent to
the Editor of The Times, signed
simply “A. C. D”, alleging that
Edward VIII was mentally ill. Despite
the letter’s being addressed from the
Cloisters, Windsor Castle, the programme claimed that it had been
written by Alan Campbell Don,
Lang’s chaplain, as part of an attempt by the Archbishop to smear
the King’s reputation, in order to
force his abdication. In fact, the letter
was sent by a completely different
man with the same initials, Anthony
Charles Deane, a Canon of Windsor,
22
and had nothing to do with either
Don or Lang.
The TV viewer could be forgiven
for forming the misapprehension
that a rather nasty Archbishop of
Canterbury had used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. In truth,
it would be better to envisage Lang
in 1936 as a skilful surgeon, reluctantly carrying out a complicated and
potentially dangerous operation, and
wielding his scapel with dexterity.
Eleven months earlier, Lang had
emerged from his first audience with
Edward VIII, feeling rather hopeful
about the new reign. When the King
wanted to, he could still impress and
excite his subjects. Unfortunately, he
also had his fair share of difficulties.
As the Prince of Wales, he had
suffered from a problem with
alcohol. I suspect he was not very
good at relationships.
The Prime Minister, Stanley
Baldwin, described the new King:
“He is an abnormal being: half child,
half genius. . . it is as though two or
three cells in his brain had remained
entirely undeveloped, whilst the rest
of him is a mature man. He is not a
thinker. He takes his ideas from the
daily press instead of thinking things
out for himself . . . no serious reading: none at all.”
IF THAT was all, the royal household
and the government could probably
have coped with Edward VIII.
Unfortunately, the King also wished
to marry Wallis Simpson. She had
already divorced one husband, was
shortly to divorce her second, and,
‘He was
neglecting state
papers and
behaving
erratically’
unknown to the King, was also
engaged in another adulterous affair
with one of his subjects, Guy
Trundle.
Edward VIII’s passion for Mrs
Simpson became obsessive. “I have
grown to hate that woman,” Baldwin
confided to his friend Tom Jones.
“Walter Monckton [the King’s legal
adviser] sat next to her recently, and
came to the conclusion she was a
hard-hearted bitch. I have turned on
the lawyers and ascertained what our
powers are. If he marries her, she is
automatically Queen of England.”
Within a few weeks of Edward
VIII’s accession, it become apparent
to a small circle of courtiers, and to
Baldwin and Lang, that there were
serious problems with the new King.
He was neglecting state papers, and
behaving erratically and tactlessly,
and was utterly dependent on Mrs
Simpson.
Letters of complaint about the
King began arriving at Lambeth
Palace. Members of the government
and the royal household, and even
the Viceroy of India unburdened
themselves to Lang. The Archbishop
made sympathetic but vague noises
to those who turned to him in their
anxiety, and was careful to express
Crisis: above, left: the Duke and
Duchess of Windsor; above: the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo
Lang, in coronation robes, in a
photo from 1937; below: part of the
excited crowd presses against the
gates of Buckingham Palace in
London, in December 1936,
carrying banners and posters with
slogans such as “No Abdication”,
and “Save the King from Baldwin”
PA
no opinion about the King himself.
By the late summer of 1936, Lang
appears to have decided that Edward
VIII would have to go. He would
not have found this conclusion easy,
but he viewed the monarchy as
primarily a Christian institution,
and would have felt that it was endangered by the King’s immoral
behaviour.
He was conscious that it was only
18 years since many ancient European royal dynasties had been swept
away, at the end of the First World
War. And he fully understood the
importance of the British monarchy
as a focus of unity within Britain and
the Empire, at a time when Fascism
and Nazism were disturbing Europe.
NEWLY declassified papers reveal
that Lang played a crucial and
hitherto hidden part in the abdication crisis. In September 1936, Lord
Wigram, George V’s former private
secretary, and Alec Hardinge,
Edward VIII’s private secretary,
secretly met Lang in Scotland, and
had a long talk “up and down the
problem of His Majesty”.
An opportunity for Lang to intervene came the following month,
when Lang and Baldwin found
themselves guests of Lord Salisbury
at Hatfield House. Baldwin unburdened himself in a private conversation with Lang.
In the next six weeks, Lang
developed a close friendship with
Baldwin. The two men met in secret
seven times, spoke on the telephone,
exchanged letters, and shared their
correspondence about the King.
Lang, the more intellectually able
of the two, gingered up Baldwin to
take action. He guided the Prime
Minister’s thoughts, offered pastoral
support, and provided him with
arguments to use in his audiences
with the King.
As a result, Edward VIII was left
with the options of staying on the
throne and not marrying Mrs Simpson, or abdicating and marrying her.
PA
Baldwin described himself to Lang
as being “like a dog in a sheep-dog
trial who has to induce a single
sheep into a narrow gate.”
At a crucial weekend in the
abdication crisis, Lang intervened
further to ask that preachers did not
mention the King in their sermons,
thus sparing the monarch potential
embarrasment, but also preventing
any expressions of support.
Finally, on 10 December 1936,
Edward VIII abdicated, and was
succeeded by his brother, King
George VI.
THROUGHOUT the events leading
up to the abdication, Lang behaved
with great circumspection. He did
not share his thoughts even with his
chaplains, and, on one occasion —
when he had to discuss the King and
Mrs Simpson with the bishops — he
took secrecy to almost comic proportions, by meeting them in a
cloakroom in Church House, Westminster, to avoid being overheard. It
is hard to understand, therefore, why
Lang made the infamous radio
broadcast that was critical of Edward
VIII on 13 December 1936.
The Bishop of Coventry, Mervyn
Haigh, had urged Lang to speak out
about the ex-King, and told him that
people were refusing to stand for the
National Anthem. Lang — who was
probably tired and overwrought after
the stress of the abdication — appears, unusally, not to have questioned this bad advice.
The result was that he made a dull
and, in places, very silly broadcast,
which gave the impression that he
was kicking a man when he was
down. It caused widespread offence.
Lang quickly realised his mistake, but
it was too late, and his reputation
never really recovered. The sad thing
is that he bore no personal ill will
towards Edward VIII, although he
‘He bore no
personal ill
will towards
Edward VIII’
features
Duty calls: Princess
Elizabeth, Queen
Elizabeth, Princess
Margaret, and King
George VI, shortly
after the abdication
of Edward VIII
believed that the King had let the
country down.
It would be hard to complain
about the outcome of the abdication
crisis. George VI and Queen Elizabeth proved to be admirable wartime
monarchs, and, while four more
European royal dynasties were
overthrown after 1945, the British
monarchy emerged from the Second
World War secure in the affections of
its people.
The historian is not supposed to
speculate. I cannot help but wonder,
however, what would have happened
had Lang and Baldwin failed to induce the single sheep into the
narrow gate.
Had King Edward VIII and Queen
Wallis been on the throne at the time
of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940,
might Neville Chamberlain and Lord
Halifax have received encouragement
from Buckingham Palace to negotiate an armistice with Hitler’s Germany? Where would we have been
then?
Robert Beaken’s new book Cosmo
Lang: Archbishop in war and crisis,
is published by I. B. Tauris at £25 (CT
Bookshop £22.50); 978-1-7807-6355-2.
‘Oh, the pity of it’
ON SUNDAY 13 December 1936,
two days after Edward VIII’s
abdication broadcast, Cosmo Lang
made his own speech on radio. He
approached the task with some
trepidation:“It was a difficult task. I
felt that I could not in honesty and
sincerity merely say kind, and of
course true, things about the late
King’s charm and manifold services;
that in my position I was bound to
say something about the surrender
of a great trust from the motive of
private happiness, and about the
social circle in which he had thought
that that happiness could be found.”
These are the passages of his
broadcast which caused most comment and offence:
“WHAT pathos, nay, what tragedy,
surrounds the central figure of
these swiftly moving scenes. On the
11th day of December, 248 years
ago, King James II fled from Whitehall. By a strange coincidence, on
the 11th day of December last
week, King Edward VIII, after speaking his last words to his people, left
Windsor Castle, the scene of all the
splendid traditions of his ancestors
and his throne, and went out an
exile. In the darkness, he left these
shores.
“Seldom, if ever, has any British
sovereign come to the throne with
greater natural gifts for his kingship.
Seldom, if ever, has any sovereign
been welcomed by a more enthusiastic loyalty. From God, he had
received a high and sacred trust.
Yet, by his own will, he has ab-
dicated — he has surrendered
the trust.With characteristic
frankness, he has told us his motive.
It was a craving for private happiness.
“Strange and sad it must be that
for such a motive, however strongly
it pressed upon his heart, he should
have disappointed hopes so high,
and abandoned a trust so great.
Even more strange and sad it is that
he should have sought his happiness
in a manner inconsistent with the
Christian principles of marriage, and
within a social circle whose standards and ways of life are alien to all
the best instincts and traditions of
his people.
“Let those who belong to this
circle know that today they stand
rebuked by the judgement of the
nation which had loved King
Edward. I have shrunk from saying
these words. But I have felt compelled for the sake of sincerity and
truth to say them.
“Yet, for one who has known
him since his childhood, who has
felt his charm and admired his gifts,
these words cannot be the last.
How can we forget the high hopes
and promise of his youth; his most
genuine care of the poor, the
suffering, the unemployed; his years
of eager service both at home and
across the seas? It is the remembrance of these things that wrings
from our hearts the cry ‘The pity
of it, oh, the pity of it.’
“To the infinite mercy and the
protecting care of God we commit
him now, wherever he may be.”
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we provide to members of the Clergy and Trustees we have launched a dedicated
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The new website is designed to focus on the financial concerns and needs of members
of the Clergy including a number of key challenges that they currently face such as;
“It is a pleasure to recommend Darron’s excellent services.”
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“I would warmly recommend him to anyone.”
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“Professional expertise that is both helpful and trustworthy. I would
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PARTNERS IN MANAGING YOUR WEALTH
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The title ‘Partner Practice’ is the marketing term used to describe St. James’s Place Wealth Management representatives.
23
books
Religion is safe, but perhaps not science?
Andrew Davison reads
books with surprising
takes on the conflict
between these two
Awe-inspiring nature: an image
of the Antennae Galaxies from
the Hubble Telescope; from The
Lion Handbook of Science &
Christianity, edited by R. J. Berry
(Lion, £25 (£22.50); 978-07459-5346-5).This illustrated
book covers the history of
science-faith relations, with
contributions from 26 scientists
Where the Conflict Really Lies:
Science, religion, and naturalism
Alvin Plantinga
OUP £17.99 (978-0-19-981209-7)
Church Times Bookshop £16.20
Why Religion is Natural and
Science is Not
Robert N. McCauley
OUP £18.99 (978-0-19-982726-8)
ALVIN PLANTINGA lays out his
argument on the first page. Any
supposed conflict between science
and theology is merely superficial,
while underneath there is a deep
concord. This goes against the
common assumption that the real
synergy of world-view is between
science and naturalism: broadly
speaking, the contention that matter
is all there is. For Plantinga that is
an illusion: the concord between
science and naturalism is only
superficial, veiling deep conflicts.
There is plenty here of what we
would expect from any foray into
science and religion: a history of the
relationship, for instance, and a
reflection on the limitations of
science. Most of the book, however,
is given over to a consideration of
the relation of science to religion,
on the one hand, and to naturalism,
on the other, laid out in terms of
those conflicts and consonances,
some deep and some superficial.
Plantinga has a reputation as a
champion of the Christian faith
among those who are hostile to it,
and especially for attempting to give
an account of the faith which will
hold water among philosophers. It
has never been clearer than with
this book that this comes at a price.
Take his embrace of the notion of
“possible worlds”, and his willingness to use a phrase such as “the
proportion of [. . .] possible worlds
in which there is such a person as
God”. Nothing is more important
for the interaction between theology
and science than our account of the
doctrine of God, and yet, at one
stroke, God both becomes one more
thing in the world, and is subordinated to the reign of possibility.
I cannot resist quoting Aquinas in
reaction: “Nothing is prior to God,
either in reality or in concept.”
Then there are the three occasions on which Plantinga describes
human beings as “immaterial selves”
merely “connected” to “a particular
physical body”. Whatever else the
science-and-theology dialogue has
taught us, it has shown that this is a
terrible account of what constitutes
a human person.
Plantinga’s science is generally
secure, with the odd slip. It is not,
for instance, that we aren’t clever
enough to predict how three or
more bodies will behave. On the
contrary, we are clever enough to
see that no mathematical account
can be given. These are minor
problems. More troubling is the
sense that naturalism is wrong
because at some level science cannot
offer a scientific account of why
organisms are as they are. (He invokes Behe’s “irreducible complexity”.) Justifying God by finding gaps
in science is a dangerous endeavour.
Plantinga may be one of the biggest
24
of big names in the philosophy of
religion, but his book makes one
wince surprisingly often.
Robert N. McCauley’s book also
wears its thesis on its sleeve: religion
is natural, and science is not. Science may not be “natural”, but that
does not stop it from setting
McCauley’s terms. “Natural” is
judged according to the perspective
of evolutionary cognitive science.
“Natural”, in a good turn of phrase,
means “ideas that human minds
find good to think”. The argument is
marshalled around a handful of
simple conjectures, such as the
proposal that religion deals with
meaning, while science can explain.
An example of science’s being good
at explaining is that it can explain
the origin of that very distinction.
Religion is natural, but that
certainly does not mean “good”
(other than it “sells well”). Nor does
natural imply “true”. Religion is
probably no more than the sideeffect of mental functions (or
“modules”) that are (otherwise)
useful for survival, such as recognising people or agency. Religion may
be to human beings like the eyetongue reflex of a frog, which will
whip out its tongue towards a ballbearing, and catch and swallow it, if
one is fired across its visual field, as
a consequence of having good
reflexes for snatching flies when
they do the same.
Religion is natural because it taps
into some of the basic aptitudes and
tendencies that develop in all welladjusted people, such as perceptions
of agency and the idea of contamination. These are so basic that religion need fear little or nothing from
atheist detractors: religion is here to
stay.
Note that religion is here to stay,
as a perennial demotic urge. The
same cannot necessarily be said for
theology. Theology is like religion in
dealing with life-derived concepts,
but rather like science in thinking
about them in “unnatural” ways,
which is to say, ways that are abstract, counter-intuitive, and technically hard work. The problem
Seen from the bottom up
Adam Ford applauds
John Polkinghorne
God and the Scientist: Exploring
the work of John Polkinghorne
Fraser Watts and Christopher
C. Knight, editors
Ashgate £17.99
(978-1-4094-4570-8)
MANY have reflected on the truth
of the aphorism that “it is better to
travel than to arrive.” One is
tempted to apply this notion to the
activity of theological debate today:
that faith is better practised and
expressed through dialogue with
others than it is in a plenary session
at the end of a conference, or in a
final credal statement. This collection of essays bears out that contention.
John Polkinghorne, a respected
scientist and revered theologian, describes himself as a critical realist in
the first essay, “Reflections of a
Bottom-up Thinker” — and you
can’t get much closer to the bottom
of things, in this extraordinary creation we inhabit, than he did as an
elementary particle physicist in the
period that discovered the quark
structure of matter. As one of the
great champions of the credibility of
the Christian faith in a scientific
age, he manifests in all his writings a
deep desire to understand the
world, both through the eyes of
science with its “delicate circular
interplay between theory and experiment”, and also through his
reading of the Bible. “For the Christian bottom-up thinker, the Bible
remains an indispensable resource,”
he writes.
The 14 essays that follow are by a
group of theologians brought to-
Scientist and theologian: Dr Polkinghorne; from the book above
gether to celebrate Polkinghorne’s
80th birthday; well-known names in
the field such as Ian Barbour, Keith
Ward, and Fraser Watts. The reader
is immediately immersed in a rich
dialogue (some of it academically
philosophical), as they seek to express and make sense of the faith
they share, and to respond, with
generous respect, to the lifetime
work of Polkinghorne. There are
inevitably agreements and disagreements; but in their quest for truth
there is no reluctance to question
some of Polkinghorne’s lines of
argument, nor to reveal what might
appear to be inconsistencies.
So, for example, where Polkinghorne, as a bottom-up thinker, believes that other religious faiths are
the result of encounters with sacred
reality, and that therefore “the challenge of interfaith dialogue is one of
the most important issues for us
today,” we cannot be sure that he
will allow their witness equal weight
with his own appeal to the Bible. In
the final chapter of his Gifford
Lectures, he wrote: “I sometimes
fear that Christianity is a little too
eager for dialogue, a little lacking in
nerve to hold fast to what it has
learned of God in Christ.”
The Revd Adam Ford is a former
Chaplain of St Paul’s School for Girls.
with this analysis is that it reduces
religion to one thing, independent
of any tradition. It also ignores the
extent to which Christian theology,
for instance, developed out of a
concern to make sense of Christian
experience, or the extent to which
even practical responses to practical
matters can be shaped by a specific
theological world-view.
As an example, McCauley thinks
that we can explain the growth of
the Early Church on account of its
“benign” treatment of women and
the sick. But if early Christians were
bucking a trend in that regard, why
were they doing so? The behaviour
of those ordinary Christians was
shaped by the theology that McCauley takes to be the abstract preserve of the intellectual few: the sort
who can think thoughts that don’t
come naturally. In this, and in his
treatment of science, he shortchanges the masses.
Religion is safe, theology is
perhaps a little precarious, but
science is under threat. The final
chapter is an unexpected warning
that science has so little conceptual
purchase on the brain that
ideologies and economic disasters
can sweep it aside. The warning is
welcome, but perhaps overdone.
Human beings ask those bigger
questions a little more naturally
than McCauley suggests, questions
that we need both science and
theology to address.
The Revd Dr Andrew Davison is
Tutor in Doctrine at Westcott House,
Cambridge.
new titles just
published
In the Beginning Was the
Spirit: Science, religion and
indigenous spirituality by
Diarmuid O’Murchu (Orbis,
£14.99 (£13.50); 978-1-57075995-6).
The Essential History of
Christianity by Miranda
Threlfall-Holmes (SPCK, £12.99
(£11.70); 978-0-281-06642-1).
Evolution of the Word:The
New Testament in the order
the books were written by
Marcus J. Borg (HarperOne, £20
(£18): 978-0-06208210-7).
Friends in Christ: Paths to a
new understanding of church
by Brother John of Taizé (Orbis,
£14.99 (£13.50); 978-1-626980006).
God’s Embrace: Praying with
Luke’s Gospel by Terry Hinks
(DLT, £9.99 (£9); 978-0-23252948-7). Forty readings, reflections,
and prayers.
Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church
House Bookshop, which operates the
Church Times Bookshop.
books
WELLESHIK/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A disability in its
social context
Joanna Jepson looks
at a balanced ‘life’
of Down syndrome
Down’s Syndrome:The biography
Chris Nancollas
DLT £12.99
(978-0-232-52880-0)
Everlasting arms: Remigius Geyling’s mosaic of Christ for the high altar in St Leopold “am Steinhof”, Vienna, built
1904-07, for patients of the Lower Austrian Institution and Sanatorium. From the book reviewed below
Admit patients and paintings
This, Terence Handley
MacMath finds, has
often been the rule
The Healing Presence of Art:
A history of Western art in
hospitals
Richard Cork
Yale University Press £50
(978-0-300-17036-8)
Church Times Bookshop £45
RICHARD CORK quotes Florence
Nightingale’s opinion that hospitals
were essentially depressing places;
but they were not always so. Once
upon a time, as Thompson and
Golding observed, those who built
hospitals (which were often for the
poorest of the poor) believed that
art was intrinsic to healing — so
much so that it was “hard to distinguish a hospital from a gentleman’s house”.
The sumptuous buildings were
decorated by sculpture and painting
to make the heart faint or sing.
Indeed, the connection between the
patients’ response to images and
their healing is made clear in one
patron’s insistence that the patients
must be first brought to contemplate the central altarpiece (Mathis
Grünewald’s harrowing Isenheim
altarpiece) before receiving any
medical treatment, because until
the heart was stirred, no healing
could begin. This is an interesting insight into the spiritual and
social dynamics of a pre-utilitarian
age.
In 25 chapters, Cork explores the
themes of suffering and death, art,
Christian beliefs, and healing,
through hospitals, their patrons,
commissioners, and artists, and
through some of the artists, such as
Richard Dadd and Vincent Van
Gogh, who became patients themselves. Cork’s exploration of art in
hospitals in the West takes us from
the late medieval age to Naum
Gabo’s Revolving Torsion, a fountain on the riverside terrace of St
Thomas’ Hospital in London, installed in 1975.
The author shows us round buildings that few of us will ever visit, or
that have now been converted for
other uses, or demolished, although
many of the paintings will be
familiar to us, as the Isenheim
altarpiece is. There were also
ceramics, and sculptures, such as the
extraordinarily moving works made
by Caius Cibber for Bedlam, and
stained glass by Chagall for the
Hadassah-Hebrew University
Medical Center.
Chapters open doors for us into
military and naval hospitals, mental
asylums, orphan asylums, and the
hospital where Leonardo da Vinci
befriended patients and subsequently dissected their cadavers,
making his important anatomical
drawings. How our predecessors
wove together art and healing is a
rich theological mine: think of the
dialectic of promise and fulfilment
of Rogier van der Weyden’s Last
Judgement painted on the reverse
with The Annunciation, and opened
as a glimpse of eternity on Sundays.
AT ITS founding in 1912, the
Eugenics Record Office in New York
issued a mission statement: “Society
must protect itself; as it claims the
right to deprive the murderer of his
life, so it may also annihilate the
hideous serpent of hopelessly
vicious protoplasm. Here is where
appropriate legislation will aid in
eugenics and create a healthier,
saner society for the future.”
In Chris Nancollas’s story of
Down syndrome, this chilling
snapshot is part of the early-20thcentury scene, in which global
reactions to people with learning
disabilities reverberated with the
expectation of eugenic possibilities.
His biography of Down syndrome
opens, however, with the promise
of more compassion, starting with
the remarkable career of the
humble Cornish doctor John
Langdon Down, who identified the
syndrome. An outstanding student
who won gold medals while studying pharmacy, surgery, midwifery,
and medicine, he could have had
his choice of glittering career
specialism. He took instead the
post of “medical superintendent
of the Earlswood Hospital for
Idiots”.
Through Down’s career, Nancollas traces the medical and
psychiatric recognition of Down
syndrome, early attempts to classify
learning disabilities, and the ensuing
public treatment of both the disability and the disabled, notably
through the rise and fall of the
asylum.
Nancollas’s career as a GP, as well
as his sensibilities as a parent, bring
wit and humanity to his reflections
on the course of public health-care
in the past 150 years, and the widespread vulnerability that this has
caused for those with Down syndrome. It is often observed that
the reality of disability lies not
altogether in the physical and
mental condition of those so
labelled, but also in the way in
which the community perceives,
marginalises, or interacts with them.
The book affords a greater appreciation of the truth of this by
exploring the negation of the
human dignity of those with disabilities, as well as first-person
accounts of those who have Down
syndrome or care for someone who
has.
The final chapters make it clear
that the reality of living with Down
syndrome is richer in terms of
medical prognosis and quality of
relationship, purpose, and opportunity. Yet the threat that has arisen
with genetic screening and the
prevalence of terminations is not
overlooked. The book compels us
to ask how we can further the enlightenment that has characterised
our awareness since the 1960s,
but alludes to the regression that
may ensue if cash-centred policymaking destabilises the flourishing
of those who live with Down
syndrome.
The Revd Joanna Jepson is an
Associate of London College of
Fashion.
SPECIAL OFFER TO $&'"$& %)!(# READERS
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THE CHRONICLES
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by C S Lewis
Now brought together in a
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RRP £41.93
THE LION’S WORLD:
A JOURNEY INTO THE
HEART OF NARNIA
by Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams offers an
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the world of Narnia.
RRP £8.99
PACK OFFER PRICE £24.99 - SAVE OVER £25 (RRP £50.92)
plus P&P of £2.50 per order (UK rates).
To order contact Church House Bookshop on + 44 (0)207 799 4064, order securely at www.chbookshop.co.uk
or email [email protected]. Whilst stocks last. Offer closes 7th December 2012.
CHURCH HOUSE BOOKSHOP
YOUR FIRST CHOICE FOR CHRISTIAN BOOKS, RESOURCES & CHURCH SUPPLIES
25
books
Beauty spreads around us, born of holiness
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Julian Litten considers
architecture by Sharpe,
Paley, and Austin
The Architecture of Sharpe,
Paley and Austin
Geoffrey Brandwood, editor
English Heritage £50
(978-1-84802-049-8)
IN 1977, the V&A Museum
mounted an exhibition, “Change
and Decay: The Future of our
Churches”. One of the buildings
selected in order to illustrate the
losses was St Saviour’s, Bolton, an
elegant structure of 1882 by the
architects Paley & Austin. Their
practice is the subject of a new book
from English Heritage, edited by
Geoffrey Brandwood, and lavishly
illustrated with colour photographs
by Mark Watson.
St Saviour’s, one of two Bolton
churches by Paley & Austin financed
by the cotton magnate Thomas
Greenhalgh, had a lifespan of just 90
years before it was demolished in
1974. The fate of St Saviour’s best
sums up the situation facing the
Church in 1970s suburbia.
But to some extent one is jumping the gun; for the book begins by
outlining the career of Edmund
Sharpe (1809-77), a Lancastrian
polymath who indulged in architecture between 1835 and 1851, taking
as his pupil in 1838 a young Yorkshireman, Edward Graham Paley
(1823-95).
Sharpe and Paley both came from
wealthy clerical backgrounds; so
there were plenty of relatives able to
provide the practice with work.
Indeed, such was their success that
they never needed to stray out of
Fine work: above: St Stephen-on-the-Cliffs, Blackpool, 1925-27,“a fine interior in the mature A&P tradition
with a canted east end and a complex array of arches” (Mark Watson); above, right: a stall end designed
for, and awaiting delivery to, St George’s, Stockport, at James Hatch & Sons’ workshop, Lancaster
the counties of Cheshire, Lancaster,
Cumberland, and Westmorland, as
was the case for the practice throughout its 100 years.
Paley’s elevation to full partnership came in 1845, but when he
married Sharpe’s youngest sister,
Frances, in 1851, Sharpe effectively
withdrew from the practice. Indeed,
from then on Sharpe and Paley
remained very much a family concern for Hubert James Austin (18411915), who joined the practice as a
pupil in 1868, and subsequently
married Sharpe’s niece in 1870.
The years between 1851 and 1868
were hectic. New churches were
being required throughout industrial Lancashire, and Paley soon
became the county’s favoured
good news
in front of more than 200,000 Anglicans —
‘the people in the pews’
The Sign (incorporating Home Words)
brings you sixteen A5 pages or eight
A4-equivalent every month.
Where else could you get this
amount of properly researched,
well-written material to add to your
parish magazine each time?
ailable
lways av
PLES asers and
M
A
S
E
erti
FRE
ntial adv
nt to use
for pote who might wa magazines.
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And at such little cost?
The Sign costs less than 10p a copy.
You would be hard-pressed to
photocopy as many pages from any
other source for that money.
For a free sample pack, contact us.
With a small change in design, The Sign now incorporates Home Words.
Together our single new inset continues to help parishes to improve the
look and content of their own local magazines.The inset is available in
trimmed and untrimmed form, with a colour cover or without, folded or
unfolded.The options are all designed to make the job of parish newsletter
editor that much easier.
ADVERTISING
To help keep costs low, the inset takes a limited amount of national
advertising — which varies from advertisements by the larger Christian
charities through to those from individuals.You can advertise a holiday
letting or make a charity appeal — anything that is relevant to the churchgoing public.
Want to know more? Simply make contact:
Stephen Dutton, The Sign, c/o Church Times, 3rd floor, Invicta House
108-114 Golden Lane, London EC1Y 0TG
Tel: 020 7776 1011
26
Fax 020 7776 1017
email: [email protected]
architect. His work culminated in
the Royal Albert Asylum at Lancaster, a magnificent building somewhat redolent of Waterhouse’s
Natural History Museum, Kensington (1868-72).
Edward Paley’s son Henry (18591916) became a pupil in 1877, and
a partner in 1886, the year in which
appeared the first of the distinctive
Paley & Austin central towers — at
the Good Shepherd, Tatham Fells —
that span both the crossing and the
transepts. When Edward Paley died
in 1889, the firm became Austin &
Paley, and remained so until its
closure in 1944, owing to lack of
business.
This long-awaited exposition is
the most comprehensive account of
Paley & Austin to date, and will
remain the standard work of reference for many decades. It is a complex story, eloquently unravelled by
Geoffrey Brandwood, ably assisted
by Tim Austin, John Hughes, and
Jim Price, who mounted the highly
successful Paley & Austin exhibition
in Lancaster in 1994.
If one is looking for the archetypal Paley & Austin church, then it
must be the enormous St George’s,
Stockport (1897), wholly financed
by the reticent Major George Fearn,
a man so retiring that he did not
even attend the consecration
ceremony. O that there were such
donors today!
Dr Litten is an architectural historian.
Church Times Bookshop
Books that have a Church Times Bookshop
price can be ordered from Church House
Bookshop in any of the following ways
(please mention “Church Times
Bookshop price”):
Website: www.chbookshop.co.uk/ofct19oct12
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when checking out. Discount price may vary
slightly online.
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two months after publication date. E&OE
If you want to get ahead . . .
William Whyte enjoys
a study that celebrates
the finer points of
Victorian revivalism
Victorian Religious Revivals:
Culture and piety in local and
global contexts
David Bebbington
OUP £60
(978-0-19-957548-0)
MY GREAT-UNCLE John spent the
whole of his life preparing for a
religious revival. A farmer and a
devout member of the Plymouth
Brethren, he would practise his
sermons on a herd of cows during
the week, and then deliver them to
an expectant audience on Sunday.
Each summer, he scoured the
beaches of Suffolk for potential
penitents, and every three or four
years he would be the moving force
behind a tent crusade designed to
lure other countryfolk into the fold.
Yet the closest he ever came to a
real revival was the upsurge of
interest in Evangelical Christianity
which followed Billy Graham’s first
mission to England — and even
that was a somewhat ambivalent
experience. It prompted a collection
of women to turn up to chapel,
convinced that they had been
converted. None of them wore hats;
and so, in Great-uncle John’s mind,
that meant that they had not
accepted Christ at all. Did not St
Paul insist that truly Christian
women should cover their heads?
But for the fact that this was the
1950s rather than the 1850s, the
story of Great-uncle John could
easily fit within David Bebbington’s
latest work. Revivalism can indeed
seem a sort of timeless process —
not least because participants, looking back to the biblical models that
they seek to emulate, desperately
want it to be so.
In this book, by contrast, Professor Bebbington seeks to provide a
properly historical account of religious revivals between 1840 and
1880. In a series of case studies
ranging from Texas to Cornwall,
and from Canada to South
Australia, he explores the specific
denominational and geographical
factors that helped to mould the
spiritual life of Christians around
the globe.
Serious, scholarly, and meticulous, this is a book that celebrates
the particular rather than the
general, and that very deliberately
avoids bold claims. None the less, a
thesis does emerge: one that will
appeal to anyone who is interested
in Victorian faith or religious re-
vivals. Challenging those historians
who see this behaviour as nothing
more than the outpouring of raw
emotion, Professor Bebbington
establishes that it is also driven by
theological principles.
Above all, this is a test case of the
ways in which culture shapes religious experience, and religious
experience shapes culture. If only
Great-uncle John could have read it,
he might have been more sympathetic to all those women who
thought that they had found God,
but didn’t realise that this should
mean buying a hat.
The Revd Dr William Whyte is a
Tutorial Fellow in Modern History
of St John’s College, Oxford, and
Assistant Curate of Kidlington.
FEW people are aware of the part
played by women in anti-slavery
campaigns in the 19th century.
Women, Dissent and Anti-Slavery
in Britain and America, 1790-1865
focuses in particular on the ways in
which the religious traditions of the
abolitionists contributed to, and
formed, their views, which were by
no means uniform. Edited by
Elizabeth Clapp and Julie Roy
Jeffrey, this book contains eight
essays. Some are about specific
individuals, others address wider
concerns (OUP, £63 (£56.70); 9780-19-958548-9).
BRINKHOFF/MOEGENBURG
arts
Hermit meets a killer
Michael Caines sees a
Molina play revived
Fallen angel:Amanda Lawrence as the Devil and Sebastian Armesto as Paulo
in Molina’s Damned by Despair at the National Theatre in London
IN THE wilderness, an angel speaks
to a hermit, and tells him: if you
want to know what your fate will be,
whether your soul is to be saved or
damned, go to Naples and find a man
called Enrico. His fate will be yours.
Off goes Paulo, the hermit, with
his sidekick, Pedrisco, in the hope
that this Enrico will turn out to be a
sure-fire saint. He turns out to be a
killer, a blasphemer, and a thief
leading a gang of thieves. For Paulo,
this is, of course, a test, and the angel
was in fact the Devil in disguise; in
any case, the hermit does not take the
news well. His years of prayer and
self-denial were a waste of time, he
decides. He might as well be as bad as
Enrico is.
First published in Madrid in 1635,
El Condenado por Desconfiado by
the monk Tirso de Molina, a
typically prolific contributor to the
Spanish Golden Age theatre, is now
playing at the National Theatre as
Damned by Despair, in an
adaptation by Frank McGuinness.
The language is colourful, and the
allusions are often playfully contemporary, enhanced with gallowshumour twists on proverbial
wisdom (“A fool and his soul are
soon parted”). Everything takes
place against the three-pronged sky
of Giles Cadle’s set, through which
the clouds, the stars, and the moods
of heaven are seen, swelling
overhead.
But, while the opening scenes in
the wilderness have a Baroque,
chiaroscuro look, in which Sebastian
Armesto’s robed and bearded Paulo
seems most at home, the ensuing
action in Naples is turned out in
contemporary dress: a moped
rounds the Olivier stage, and guns
are drawn, as well as daggers.
Amanda Lawrence’s corvine, glinteyed Devil is here, too. A glimpse of
her leads to a massacre and a
manhunt.
The crucial complication of the
play is that Enrico is as bad as he
seems, but with a purpose: he will go
without food and money himself to
support his wheelchair-bound
father, Albano, who knows nothing
about his son’s life of crime. The first
time we see them on stage at the
same time, the father is dozing under
a warm light; Enrico is out in the
cold.
The director, Bijan Sheibani,
seems, if in doubt, to have preferred
such bold to subtle effects, which
seem to be partly responsible for
Damned by Despair’s receiving some
hostile reviews. But Baroque drama
encourages precisely these largerthan-life, operatic rather than
realistic, effects. If Sheibani is
licensed by the script to send one
man to heaven, maybe, and another
to hell, and actually show it, he can
be allowed a little slow motion, as a
score of pulsing, deep bass tones,
courtesy of Finn Ross, works its own
brutal magic.
Despite Paulo’s dilemma, it is
Enrico’s story that rapidly becomes
the more interesting of the two.
Bertie Carvel manages the difficult
trick of making the audience believe
in this principled monster, who is
both dead-eyed killer (much of the
violence is added by Sheibani and
McGuinness, expanding on the
original design) and devoted son (“I
do my damnedest for you”).
There are other good turns in a
20-strong supporting cast, including
Rory Keenan as Pedrisco, Pierce
Reid as the unlucky Octavio, and
Leanne Best (not long after
performing in The Match Box,
McGuinness’s monologue about the
death of a child, in Liverpool) as
Celia, Enrico’s vain, versifying
squeeze, who is not ashamed to
suggest that her own kiss is like
“tasting God”. Neither Tirso nor
McGuinness tells us what is going to
happen to her, but I think we can
guess.
At the National Theatre (Olivier),
South Bank, London SE1, until 17
December. Phone 020 7452 3400
(ticket information: 020 7452 3000).
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
God hangs a tombstone out
Nicholas Cranfield
sees sculptures by
William Edmondson
FRIEZE ART is an international
trade fair for dealers in the contemporary arts which has spread
from New York to London. This
year marks its tenth anniversary. For
the first time, Frieze also exhibited
Old Masters at Frieze Masters, 15
minutes’ walk north of the Frieze
Art pavilion in Regent’s Park.
The juxtaposition of the old and
the new is not itself a novelty.
Galleries such as Robilant & Voena
often exhibit both; David
LaChapelle, Morandi, Foppa, and
Luini are all comfortable bedfellows.
Museums too often showcase works
from their own collection alongside
contemporary artists; last year, at Cy
Twombly’s death, an exhibition of
his paintings illuminated the
Dulwich Picture Gallery, as had
Lucian Freud in 1994 and, more
recently, Howard Hodgkin (2001).
In 2004, Freud and Frans Hals stood
shoulder to shoulder in the Wallace
Collection.
Perhaps the most staggering
exhibition in London at the
moment is one at Ordovas, in which
Lucian Freud (d. 2011) is seen
through the penetrating gaze of
Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). Dr
Xavier Bray has imaginatively
chosen three portraits from the
1590s to converse with five of Freud’s
portrait heads.
Pivotal to this is an oil sketch of a
crabbed woman which the
Bolognese master painted on the
back of a laundry list (Daniel Katz),
and which he kept in his studio as
one of a number of studies that
informed his own painting and his
pupils. Here it introduces three
portraits that Freud painted of his
mother in 1972. Piercing eyes, wellgnarled skin, and a confidence greet
us at head height.
On the neighbouring wall, John
Deakin, Frank Auerbach, and the
Italian’s grizzled old men claim our
attention. No wonder Freud wished
that he could paint like this.
The law of unintended consequences may well be that the
bubble that is contemporary art is
finally pricked; how ludicrous that
collectors spend ten times or more
for a piece of fabricated work of art,
often a multiple copy, than for a
significant work by a wellestablished Old Master. Visiting
Frieze Masters before seeing Frieze
London brilliantly underscored how
so often the emperor is naked.
This dialogue between the old
and new, and the effects of inspiration and indebtedness, is welcome,
but it somehow makes for something of a contradiction when the
impoverished, self-taught American
artist William Edmondson (18741951) can find a niche here alongside the extraordinary Italian artist
Carlo Zinelli (1916-74), who went
to fight, as so many artists of his
generation did, in the Spanish
Civil War, despite being a schizophrenic, and who returned unable
to speak.
Both are “outsiders”, a term that
James Brett, the director of The
Museum of Everything, who
brought these two artists to Frieze
Masters, rightly chastises me for
using, as it is bigoted. Both artists
stand in judgement on the
commercial, success-orientated
world of contemporary art, and the
way in which we choose to write the
history of art.
Brett himself comes from a
background in the film industry,
and seemingly is a busy man, too
preoccupied to keep various
appointments with me for planned
interviews and then hoping to rearrange my timetable at his own
convenience. Pity. At least at Frieze
Masters I got to meet John Ollman,
who is an authority on Edmondson,
and who had planned this show of
11 primitive limestone works.
Edmondson came from an
impoverished family of former
slaves, and was born in rural
Tennessee in the 1870s. There is no
surviving evidence of when he was
born, as the family Bible was lost in
a fire. We know, however, that he
moved to Nashville proper with his
family at the age of 16, working for
railroad and sewage companies, on
building sites and as a hospital
Continued on page 30
Self-taught sculptor:
Angel (left) and Adam
and Eve (below) by
William Edmondson,
shown by The
Museum of
Everything at Frieze
Masters in London
last weekend
27
media
Another dismissal based on religion
press
AN interesting example of the way in which
the gay-marriage debate is going septic comes
from Matthew Parris, in The Times. He is
normally a paragon of reason and wit, but he
seems to have argued himself into a bad
corner.
He was writing about a debate he had had
with Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop
of Rochester, at a Conservative fringe meeting.
“Michael Nazir-Ali outlined his opposition
to gay marriage. His statement did not oppose
civil partnerships: he didn’t say anything about
homosexuality at all. His submission could
have been made by an unreligious professor of
sociology, and was apparently based on the
social and cultural value of marriage as
presently defined. . .
“I . . . agreed with him about stable families
[but] he was being disingenuous. He was there
not just because he approves of marriage, but
also because he disapproves of homosexuality.
The former Bishop of Rochester has been
consistently outspoken against equalising the
age of homosexual consent. He has condemned civil partnerships, condemned the
House of Bishops for giving that measure an
easy ride, condemned church blessings of civil
partnerships. He has been scathing about the
Anglican ruling that such partnerships were
not intrinsically incompatible with holy orders
if the couple remained celibate. He plainly believes that homosexuality is a very considerable
evil in the eyes of God.”
All this is undoubtedly true. But it leads, by
the end of the article, to Parris’s dismissing any
argument put forward by a religious believer,
since he takes it that their opinions on some
matters are driven by their faith: as he says of a
Roman Catholic opponent of abortion: “His
opinion wasn’t mainly founded on medicine,
or society, or the needs of the mother; it wasn’t
an opinion that could be validated or
undermined by evidence of any kind, except of
God’s command.”
I think this attitude is possibly empirically
false, and certainly pernicious. The empirical
falsity comes from the way in which he assumes that beliefs drive emotions. I am
reasonably certain that Dr Nazir-Ali would
disapprove of gay people even if he were an
atheist, and I know at least one Roman
Catholic who was led to his faith partly by his
instinctual, pre-existing horror of abortion.
More importantly, it shouldn’t matter
whether either man is being insincere when
they are making good arguments. The force of
an argument, in reasoned debate, should be
entirely distinguishable from the character of
the arguer. Some things are true even when
loathsome people assert them; some things are
false when even lovable saints maintain them.
It’s practically the distinguishing feature of
civic, as opposed to tribal, life that we treat
arguments on their own merits.
Parris says: “It is slippery for people to
couch objections that are really undeclared
religious objections in the language of a secular
argument.” But as Dr Nazir-Ali states in a letter
to The Times on Tuesday: “I pointed out that
marriage is a natural institution, although the
Church has made an important contribution
to its strengthening.”
‘My name is Bond’
radio
IT IS fair to say that the target
audience for the James Bond film
franchise is not female Chinese
intellectuals. However ambivalent
your attitude might be to the
regime that has nurtured and oppressed you in equal measure, you
are hardly going to take kindly to an
icon of Western masculinity bedding and blowing up your compatriots with such insouciance.
So it was hardly a surprise to
hear the novelist Xiaolu Guo’s
opinions of the Bond oeuvre,
delivered on Night Waves (Radio 3,
Tuesday of last week). This edition
was given over to a panel of international critics, and their take on
recent Western artistic products
was illuminating.
The Lebanese architect Karl
Sharro, for example, declared the
heretical opinion that Roger Moore
was the best Bond. But that is
because he reads the Bond movies
as an elaborate form of ironic
therapy. Everybody knows that
British gadgets are as rubbish as our
colonial aspirations; so having
them work so efficiently and effectively at those life-threatening moments is part of the joke.
A novelist, Lesley Lokko, agreed,
and added that the attempt to make
Bond a more complex character in
the latest movies was pathetic.
Seriousness will destroy Bond as no
arch-villain could do.
Almost as iconic as Bond in
Western culture is the beatnik,
quintessentially depicted in Jack
Kerouac’s On the Road, an adaptation of which has now reached UK
cinemas. All agreed that the road is
a less resonant symbol than it used
to be; and, for Guo, the road did not
promise freedom, only failure.
With two architects on the panel,
28
Michael Gove’s injunction against
curvy school buildings came in for
some trenchant criticism. But, aside
from his views on self-indulgent
architecture, the debate over Mr
Gove’s policy of free schools continues to bubble, as several new
such schools failed to open at the
start of the year because of small
numbers. And in The Report (Radio
4, Thursday of last week), Simon
Cox discovered that a further 14
out of 55 of the free schools surveyed admitted to being significantly under-subscribed.
This is despite the lures that the
schools throw at parents to attract
their attention, from lessons in
Hebrew to free iPods. The latter
ruse — attempted by Beccles Free
School — has not yet done the trick,
and one section of this programme
involved the head of Beccles
School’s squirming as he was asked
why there was a need for a free
school in an area where there were
places in the mainstream sector.
There are some happier scenarios developing as well, not least
the Jewish Eden Primary School,
Haringey, whose pupils seemed
delighted by the curriculum. And,
as Cox concluded, the proof of the
pudding will come only after the
next election, when exam results
start coming through.
Space only for a swift mention of
Heart and Soul (BBC World
Service, Saturday), which is running a two-parter on the experience
of Jews exiled from their native,
Arab homelands. In the first programme, we heard from Jews born
and brought up in Iraq, Egypt, and
Libya, whose lives were uprooted in
the wake of the Middle Eastern
conflicts post-1947. Some Jews, as
we heard, weep not beside the
waters of Babylon, but for them.
Edward Wickham
One of the commonest and most important
ways in which we enlarge our sympathies is to
hear good arguments made by people we had
presumed bad. When this mechanism fails, all
politics is reduced to identity politics, and all
arguments come down to a labelling or libelling of the participants.
needs a voice more than the mute baby in the
womb?”
The most striking thing about this style of
argument is that it is almost impossible for the
other side to believe in the sincerity of its
opponents. In the abortion debate, in particular, both sides understand the other as
motivated entirely by the lust for power. The
idea that it is a clash of principles cannot be
taken seriously in such an atmosphere.
Which reminds me: I may have done Lord
Carey a small injustice last week. According to
the Telegraph’s report of the event, he was
appealing to his own side not to call their
opponents “bigots” before he launched into his
ghastly Hitler analogy.
YOU can see this very clearly in Mehdi Hasan’s
New Statesman piece last week declaring his
opposition to abortion: he casts his position as
left-wing, and his opponents, by implication,
as right-wing.
“Abortion is one
of those rare political
issues on which left
and right seem to have
swapped ideologies:
right-wingers talk of
equality, human rights,
and ‘defending the
innocent’, while leftwingers fetishise ‘choice’,
selfishness, and unbridled individualism.
“‘My body, my life,
my choice.’ Such rhetoric has always left
me perplexed. Isn’t
socialism about protecting the weak and
vulnerable, giving a
voice to the voiceless?
Who is weaker or more
vulnerable than the
unborn child? Which
member of our society In dispute: Matthew Parris in Saturday’s Times
week
ahead
HIGHLIGHT: Says Who? As part
of Radio 2’s Faith in the World
week, the Revd Richard Coles
explores morality in Britain.
Radio 2 10pm Monday
TELEVISION: Sunday 4.50pm
(BBC1) Songs of Praise Choirs and
5000 singers take part in Britain’s
Biggest Hymns Big Sing from the
Royal Albert Hall.
Monday to Friday 7.55pm
4thought.tv Reflections on whether
Britain should remain a Christian
nation.
Monday 10pm (More4) Sex, Death
and the Meaning of Life Dr Richard
Dawkins explores what science can
tell us about death (2/3).
Tuesday 10pm (More4) Jews at Ten
Celebrities such as David Baddiel and
Uri Geller talk about what being
Jewish means for them (3/4).
Wednesday 9pm (BBC4) Voyager:
To the final frontier The story of the
Voyager space probes.
RADIO: Saturday 7.30am (BBC
World Service) Heart and Soul Magdi
Abdelhadi looks at the last Jews that
remain in Arab countries.
Sunday 6am (R2) Good Morning
Sunday Aled Jones launches Faith in
the World Week.
8.10am (R4) Sunday Worship A service from Hillsborough Presbyterian
Church, in Down.
8.30pm (R2) Sunday Half-Hour Diane
Louise Jordan explores how morality
affects faith.
Monday to Friday 10.45pm (R3)
The Essay: Anglo-Saxon Portraits Contributors profile figures such as Hild
of Whitby, and St Cuthbert.
Tuesday 9am (R4) The Public
Philosopher Michael Sandel discusses
immigration with an audience in
Texas (1/2).
Andrew Brown
Grand relations
television
BE CAREFUL what you wish for:
it might be granted — a truism
vindicated in spades by Who Do
You Think You Are? (BBC1, Wednesday of last week). The actress
Celia Imrie made an unusual
subject for this exploration of
personal genealogy, because, instead of the usual discovery of
forebears that no one has ever
heard of, Ms Imrie’s mother’s ancestors were very grand indeed. Her
family tree is studded with coronets
and strawberry leaves.
As a child, she had closed her
ears whenever her mother tried to
tell her about her family; as she
entered this journey of discovery,
she hoped that they would not turn
out to be boring.
She found exactly the opposite.
They were leading actors in the
national drama, and the two that
were focused on, Lady Frances
Howard and William, Lord Russell,
had lives that brimmed over with
sex and violence, embroiled in the
power struggles of the 17th century.
Lady Frances successfully sought
an annulment of her marriage to
the Earl of Essex, on the grounds
of non-consummation; her subsequent marriage to the Earl of
Sussex was blighted by their conviction for murder. Her grandson
Lord Russell’s public opposition to
Charles II led to the scaffold.
This TV series impinges on us
because, so often, it is parish
records that provide the links in the
chain. This time, however, nothing
so humble as the local church —
only Lambeth Palace, Lincoln’s Inn,
and Woburn Abbey were good
enough. But surely the likely audience for such a programme will
have heard of the Glorious Revolution? And the history itself is
curiously unrevised: Lord Russell
was presented as a hero of the
emergence of British democracy. I
thought that this Whiggish account
was now considered far too biased a
view of a more nuanced reality.
Is your key theological theme the
concept of covenant? If so, you
would have found parallels in Built
in Britain (BBC2, Sunday), a
celebration of the recent triumphs
of our construction industry. Evan
Davis shared his enthusiasm for
such achievements as the St Pancras
High Speed line, the Olympic Park,
and London’s £1-billion underground network of high-voltage
cables. We could be on the cusp of a
golden age of infrastructure projects to rival those of the Victorians.
We assume that in Britain major
works will be blighted by overruns,
disputes, and doubling of costs, but,
in recent years, this has been far less
the case. Instead of the former
adversarial model of managing
projects, the current buzzword is
alignment: ensuring that everyone
involved — political decisionmakers, financiers, designers, contractors — has shared objectives.
And the ultimate, extremely unlikely hero that makes it all possible
is a new covenant, the New Engineering Contract. It seems that if
only you get the paperwork right,
everything else will fall into place.
The new series Me and Mrs Jones
(BBC1, Fridays), in which a
divorced mother is bringing up two
children, and her former husband
is now shacked up with a selfregarding beauty, is hardly a
ground-breaking sitcom scenario,
but the cast is excellent, and, if the
writing is sharpened up, it should
provide a decent portrait of the
comfortable middle class laughing
wryly at itself.
Gillean Craig
gazette
appointments
ARNOLD. The Revd Frances Arnold,
Executive Officer of the House of
Bishops, to be Vicar of Sawbridgeworth (St Albans).
BURGE-THOMAS. The Revd Ruth
Burge-Thomas, Chaplain of St Mark’s
C of E Academy, Mitcham, and Hon.
Assistant Curate of Holy Spirit,
Clapham, to be Parish Priest (Vicar
Designate).
COLLINSON. The Revd Amanda
Collinson, Assistant Curate of Catherington and Clanfield, to be Priestin-Charge of Northwood, of Gurnard, and of St Faith’s, Cowes (Portsmouth).
COURTNEY. The Revd Louise
Courtney, Priest-in-Charge of
Lanteglos-by-Fowey, of Lansallos,
and of Talland, to be also Assistant
Curate of Lanreath and Pelynt
(Truro).
ELLIOTT. The Revd Marilyn Elliott,
Assistant Curate of Stoke Climsland
and of Linkinhorne, to be Priest-inCharge of Lanreath and Pelynt, and
Assistant Curate of Lanteglos-byFowey, of Lansallos, and of Talland
(Truro).
FIRBANK. The Revd Michael Firbank, Priest-in-Charge of Camborne,
to be also Priest-in-Charge of
Tuckingmill (Truro).
GUZEK. The Revd Bridget Guzek,
NSM of East Clevedon with Clapton
in Gordano, Walton Clevedon,
Walton in Gordano and Weston in
Gordano (Bristol), to be Priest-in-
New ‘Archdeacon Pastor’
THE Ven. John Green, Acting
Archdeacon of Coventry for the
past five months, is to be the first
Archdeacon Pastor of Coventry.
In the new post, he will, as the
Archdeacon Missioner of Warwick has since 2010, minister
across the whole diocese.
Charge of St Buryan, St Levan and
Sennen (Truro).
KASIBANTE. The Revd Amos
Kasibante, Priest-in-Charge of St
Cyprian’s, Harehills, Leeds, and of St
Stephen and St Agnes, Burmantofts,
to be also Diocesan Racial Justice
Officer (Ripon & Leeds).
KENNEDY. The Revd Jane Kennedy,
NSM in the Gilmorton, Peatling
Parva, Kimcote cum Walton, North
Kilworth, South Kilworth, Misterton,
Swinford, Catthorpe, Shawell and
Stanford Team, to be NS Assistant
Curate (Associate Priest) (Leicester).
MATHESON. The Revd Alexander
Matheson, Vicar of Sarisbury, to be
also Curate-in-Charge of Whiteley
Conventional District (Portsmouth).
MILLS. The Revd Philippa Mills,
NSM of Hook with Warsash, to be
part-time Interim Minister of
Whiteley Conventional District
(Portsmouth).
obituary
CANON MICHAEL BAKER
Canon George Burgon writes:
CANON Michael Robert Henry
Baker, who died on 30 July, aged 73,
spent most of his life, and his entire
ministry, in Peterborough diocese.
His father, a village policeman in
Geddington, near Kettering, was
recalled to the Coldstream Guards in
1941, when Michael was two years
old, and was killed in combat in Italy
in 1943. The village gave Michael the
foundations that shaped his life. The
Queen Eleanor Cross, near the medieval church, St Mary Magdalene’s,
gave him a sense of history. He was a
chorister and server, and his faith was
born through these activities. Village
life introduced him to cricket,
Scouting, drama, and music.
Michael was articled and qualified
as a civil engineer with Corby Urban
District Council. He met his wife,
Margaret, in that town, and they were
married in 1966, after his theological
training in Durham and Lichfield.
He was ordained deacon in
September 1966, in Peterborough
Cathedral, and served his title at All
Saints’, Wellingborough. His warm
openness and wonderful sense of
humour brought many members of
the congregation to his priesting the
following year, to endorse the
ministry of this remarkable man.
It was in the many challenges that
Michael faced when he moved, in
1969, to become the Priest-in-Charge
of the new parish of Christ the
Carpenter, Peterborough, that he
began to see the importance of
developing the skills of the laity in
ministry. Michael was a pioneer in the
use of pastoral assistants.
When he moved, in 1973, to All
Saints’, Earls Barton (with the famous
Saxon tower), Michael developed his
skills in using props and accessories to
enliven and enlighten sermons and
school assemblies. His children were
now on the receiving end of them, and
he could never be accused of boring
them or their contemporaries. Fishing
rods and chickens and giant Mr Men
are fondly remembered still, along
with a very risky scientific experiment
that involved heating and shrinking
an empty petrol can in front of the
medieval rood screen.
One of the most daring props was
a bunch of freshly cut stinging nettles,
duly grasped to drive home the
necessary truth at the centre of the
Christian stewardship of money, time,
and talents. Michael became County
Scout Chaplain, and was awarded the
Silver Acorn for his service to the
movement. He was very proud of that.
When he became Team Rector in
the Kingsthorpe Team Ministry in
1987, he had one of the largest
parishes in Northampton, with team
vicars and curates to assist, but also to
train. His ability to listen and encourage was part of his graceful way
of dealing with people, especially
when the inevitable tensions surfaced
with the ordination of women, a
development that he welcomed. At
Kingsthorpe, he completed his Keele
MA thesis on the Saxon tower of Earls
Barton, its structure, history, and
form — a well-chosen subject for a
qualified civil engineer.
In 1998, Michael moved to the
small and delightful town of
Towcester, with its Dickensian
connections and links with horseracing. He adored the medieval
church, St Lawrence’s. He continued
to be a loyal and steady son of the
diocese, bringing his wit and common
sense to several committees down the
years. He was Rural Dean of
Wellingborough from 1975 to 1985,
and of Towcester from 1997 to 2003.
He was Hon. Canon of Peterborough
Cathedral from 1986 to 2004, and
Chaplain to the Blind and Deaf.
Michael enjoyed all forms of sport,
but cricket was his first love. As a
young lad, he had achieved his county
school cap in 1954, and had ambitions
to play for Northants. He became the
first chaplain to Northants County
Cricket 50 years later, and was very
knowledgeable about world cricket.
His retirement was a well-earned
rest back in Geddington with
MONTAGUE. The Revd Juliet
Montague, Rector of the Downs
Benefice (Winchester), to be housefor-duty Assistant Curate (Associate
Minister) of Shedfield and Wickham
(Portsmouth).
NORTH. The Revd William North,
Assistant Curate in the North Farnborough Team Ministry (Guildford),
to be Rector of Barming with West
Barming (Rochester).
PHILLIPS. The Revd Rachel Phillips,
Priest-in-Charge of Northaw and
Cuffley, to be also Rural Dean of
Cheshunt (St Albans).
SAVAGE. The Revd Jennifer Savage,
Priest-in-Charge of Thornton-inLonsdale with Burton-in-Lonsdale,
and Deanery Hospitality Development Adviser, to be part-time Priestin-Charge of Steeton (Bradford).
SCHMIDT. The Ven. Karen Schmidt,
Bishop’s Chaplain, and Acting Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight, to be
house-for-duty Assistant Curate (Associate Priest) of Brighstone and Brook
with Mottistone, of Shorwell with
Kingston, and of Chale (Portsmouth).
SHEMILT. The Revd Lisa Shemilt,
Assistant Curate of Walton, to be Director of Studies, and Assistant Curate
(Minister Responsible for Morley and
Smalley) of Morley with Smalley and
Horsley Woodhouse (Derby).
SIBANDA. The Revd Melusi Sibanda,
Priest-in-Charge of Rednal, to be
Vicar, remaining Area Dean of King’s
Norton (Birmingham).
Margaret. He loved his garden and his
music, and having time for his friends
and his family, especially his grandchildren, whom he entertained with
stories, drawings, and acting the fool.
Sadly, his eldest son, Christopher,
predeceased him in 2009; and he
never really got over that. His own
health began to deteriorate early in
2012.
Michael had no other way of
revealing the depth of his priesthood
than being himself. On his coffin were
symbols of that ministry and loving
service to his Lord and Saviour. There
was his prayer book, which was with
him every day for the offices. There
was his ordination stole, made by
Margaret from her wedding dress; and
a chalice and paten. These had been
given to Michael by the neighbouring
priest William Norman Campbell
Murray, Rector of Weekly and
Warkton (1956-71), and had been
used in the trenches during the First
World War. Michael was very proud to
use them when he celebrated in the
homes of the sick and elderly.
Margaret and two of his children
survive him.
STEPHENS. The Revd Anthony
Stephens, Pioneer Minister of Weymouth Town Centre (Salisbury), to be
Priest-in-Charge of South Hill with
Callington, of Linkinhorne, and of
Stoke Climsland (Truro).
WORSLEY. The Revd Christine
Worsley, Ministerial and Adult Learning and Training Officer, and Acting
Director of Ministry, to be also Hon.
Canon of Ely Cathedral (Ely).
WYNN. The Revd Edward Wynn,
Chaplain of Wolverhampton University (Lichfield), now also Chaplain
of Birmingham Women’s NHS
Foundation Trust (Birmingham).
WALES
ARDOUIN. The Revd Timothy
Ardouin, Priest-in-Charge of Llanrhidian, to be Priest-in-Charge of
Llanrhidian with Llanyrnewydd
(Swansea & Brecon).
MORRIS. The Revd Nia Morris,
Rector of Bala, to be also Area Dean of
Penllyn and Edeyrnion (Bangor).
SCOTLAND
CLARK. The Revd Dr Antony Clark,
Assistant Professor of Friends
University, Kansas (ECUSA), now
Chaplain of Fettes College (Edinburgh).
WITHDRAWAL OF ACCEPTANCE
CROFTS. The Revd Stephen Crofts,
Assistant Curate of Birstall and Wanlip (Leicester), has withdrawn his
acceptance of the Vicarage of Gravenhurst, Shillington and Stondon (St
Albans).
CENTRAL
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Communion Linen
The finest purificators, palls, corporals
and lavabo towels, at affordable
prices
Made by Zimbabwe Mothers’ Union in
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Matabeleland Church Linens
7 The Daedings, Deddington
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email:[email protected]
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THE RUSTAT TRUST
The Trust makes grants in cases of hardship for the maintenance of the children
of Church of England clergy (including deceased clergy) while at school.
There are no restrictions on the clergy (or families) who may apply,
but in the absence of special circumstances, grants are not made
towards the payment of school fees.
Applications from clergy beginning their ministry
will be especially welcomed.
Further details (s.a.e.) from Alice Johnson
The Dean’s Secretary, Jesus College, Cambridge CB5 8BL
Closing date for applications 1st December, 2012
Choir Robes
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29
gazette/arts
obituary
CANON PAUL BRIAN CARTER
Canon David Lickess writes:
FOR more than 60 years, the Revd
Paul Carter (right), who died on 28
September, aged 90, was a priest in
Yorkshire, serving parishes in two
dioceses, and on the General Synod.
He died at home in West Tanfield,
the village near Ripon to which he
and his wife had retired in 1987.
Paul had grown up at Repton
School, where his father, also a priest,
taught. During the Second World
War, he served in the RAF in North
Africa, used his talents as a pianist
and writer of songs to form a concert
party, and accepted Jesus as his
personal Saviour. After studies at
King’s College, London, and War-
minster, he was ordained priest in
York Minster in 1951, by the great
Archbishop Cyril Garbett.
His first curacy was in Scarborough, where the vicar he expected to train him had just left because
of ill health. He then served at Pocklington, and married Shirley, a young
woman whom he had met on an
SCM summer course. They had two
children, and their marriage remained strong through 59 years.
In 1955, he was appointed vicar of
a large inner-city parish in Hull,
where he had about 100 baptisms,
100 weddings, and 100 funerals a
year, for all of which he made at least
three home visits, an example of
Tombstone
exhibition of an African American,
showing a dozen sculptures.
A substantial retrospective was
held in 1981 at the Tennessee State
Museum, and most recently the
Cheekwood Gallery in Nashville
celebrated his work in 2011. But
American museums have largely
ignored this autodidact, although
Ollman is planning his inclusion in a
new exhibition next spring in
Philadelphia at PMA, and there are
collections of his work in Newark,
NJ, and Milwaukee, WI.
Besides biblical scenes,
Edmondson obsessively carved
angels and crucifixions, as well as
squirrels and horses. All creatures
great and small found a voice in his
art until illness forced him to stop
work shortly after the Second World
War.
Here the simply hewn little figures
of doves, a turtle, a lamb, and a ram
offer a comfortable, almost childlike
approach to Nature, as if the phyla of
animals and varmints are headed for
some distant and unseen ark. Two
doves sit on a branch no more than a
hand’s breadth, pecking identically.
Seeing three of them side by side in
another piece reminded me of a
wooden toy I had in the 1960s that
came from the Soviet Union.
In founding the Museum, the
director, James Brett, is clear that the
new venture of the gallery (since
2009) is to bring together the
untrained and marginalised.
Edmondson fits happily into that
Continued from page 27
janitor. He later became a pious
member of the United Primitive
Baptist Church.
In the Great Depression, he lost
his hospital post, and, shortly
afterwards, when he was in his 50s,
he had a heavenly vision in which he
was instructed to pick up his tools
and start to work on a tombstone. “I
looked up in the sky and right there
in the noon daylight, He hung a
tombstone out for me to make.”
Soon his back yard was littered
with large-scale monumental
carvings hacked out of limestone
chunks often from masonry yards
and demolished buildings. For a
chisel, he is said to have used a spike
from a metal rail. Many of his works
were intended as tomb markers in
the local African American cemetery
at Mount Ararat, TN, where
Edmondson himself lies buried in an
unmarked grave since 1951.
In 1935, Edmondson’s work
caught the attention of an art
professor, Stefan Hirsh, who
happened to be walking in the
neighbourhood. He was once
photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe
(who later bought The Caped Angel
on show here), and his reputation
spread rapidly. MOMA in New York
in 1937 accorded him the first solo
pastoral care from which some of
today’s clergy could learn.
He moved in 1960 to Ripon
diocese, to be Vicar of Ainderby
Steeple, near Northallerton, where
he served six villages for 27 years,
and a church school, and used his
large record collection to give
spectrum, and might almost be the
patron saint for such a collection, as
he virtually is in Philadelphia PA,
where there is a Foundation for SelfTaught Artists.
I left the gallery stand feeling light
of step, and returned from the naïf
to the more familiar world of Guido
Reni (Adam Williams in New York
has a panel of two dancing fauns,
Naïf style: Woman in a Bow Dress by
William Edmondson
musical evenings. Parishioners much
valued his Bible-based sermons,
gentle manner, and patience.
In 1970, he was elected to the then
new General Synod, where he served
for 17 years, and keenly supported
the ordination of women to the
priesthood. He was later made an
Hon. Canon of Ripon Cathedral, and
retired in 1987, but continued to take
services, and to give record concerts.
Preaching on the 50th anniversary of his ordination, he said that
being a priest was a great treasure
and awesome responsibility, and that
the heart of the Christian faith was
not a set of rules to be obeyed, but a
personal relationship with Jesus,
based on love — the love of an unchanging God in a changing world.
He will be remembered as a
faithful priest and good friend, who
quietly got on with parish ministry,
was conscientious in pastoral care,
and drew people to Christ.
one of four commissioned by
Henrietta Maria in 1637 for her
bedroom ceiling in Greenwich,
which the Queen really should buy
back), Ribera’s painting of Aristotle
as if a contemporary hidalgo (Coll &
Cortés), Zurbarán’s St Francis in
Meditation (with Caylus), and
ancient Minoan artefacts (Rupert
Wace) on display elsewhere.
But, on reflection, I was
underwhelmed by the claims made
for Edmondson; the truly
remarkable autodidact I found to be
in the work of a former farm-boy,
Mark Evans, whose show “Furious
Affection” (Hus Gallery) was staged
three minutes’ walk from Regent’s
Park in the former church of Holy
Trinity, Marylebone.
He had scraped and etched the
image of a shark’s jaw on to nine
tanned hides of coloured leather,
which were hung around the
darkened walls of the church and in
the former sanctuary to startling
effect. Elsewhere (upstairs) he had
tackled the subject of Greed and
money, dismembering carvings of
dollar bills on to other familiar
American idols. With disclosed price
tags of up to £300,000, no wonder
the youthful artist in leather jacket
and cap looked more like a wealthy
farmer.
“Painting from Life: Carracci Freud”
is at Ordovas, 25 Savile Row, London
W15, until 15 December. Phone 020
7287 5013. www.ordovasart.com
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30
resignations and
retirements
BAISLEY. The Revd George Baisley,
Hon. Priest-in-Charge of North
Ockendon (Chelmsford): 18 November.
BLAGDEN. The Revd Susan Blagden, Rector of Bangor Monachorum,
Worthenbury and Marchwiel (Bangor): 30 November.
DELVE. The Revd Eric Delve, Vicar
of St Luke’s, Maidstone, and Six
Preacher of Canterbury Cathedral
(Canterbury): 31 December.
FAGERSON. The Revd Joseph
Fagerson, Hon. Assistant Curate of St
Fillan’s, Killin (St Andrews, Dunkeld
& Dunblane).
FENTON. The Revd Heather Fenton,
Area Dean of Penllyn and Edeyrnion: 30 November, remaining Diocesan Rural Life Adviser (Bangor).
GARLAND. The Revd Dr Christopher Garland, Rector of Copford
with Easthorpe and Messing with
Inworth (Chelmsford): 31 October.
ISKANDER. The Revd Susan
Iskander, NSM of Writtle with
Highwood (Chelmsford).
JAUNDRILL. The Revd Warwick
Jaundrill, Team Vicar in the Rhos
Cystennin Rectorial Benefice (Bangor): 30 November.
WILKINSON. The Revd Mary
Wilkinson, NSM of Llandrillo and
Llandderfel (Bangor): 26 October.
deaths
CARTER. — On 28 September, the
Revd Paul Brian Carter: Vicar of
Newington (1955-60); Ainderby
Steeple with Scruton (1960-79);
Priest-in-Charge of Yafforth (197679); Rector of Ainderby Steeple with
Yafforth and Scruton (1979-87);
Hon. Canon of Ripon Cathedral
(1986-87); Canon Emeritus since
1987; aged 90.
FAULL. — On 8 October, the Very
Revd Cecil Albert Faull: Hon.
Clerical Vicar of Christ Church
Cathedral, Dublin (1958-63); Assistant Curate of Dun Laoghaire (195963); Rector of Portarlington Union
(1963-71); St George and St Thomas,
Dublin (1971-81); Clondalkin with
Rathcoole (1981-91); Canon of
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
(1990-91); Rector of Dunleckney
with Nurney, Lorum and Kiltennel
(1991-96); Dean of St Laserian’s
Cathedral, Leighlin (1991-96);
Priest-in-Charge of Leighlin with
Grange Sylvae, Shankill, Clonagoose
and Gowran (1991-96); aged 82.
LEADBEATER. — On 4 October,
the Revd Nicolas James Leadbeater:
Perpetual Curate of Moreton Valence
with Whitminster (1955-67); Rector
of Westcote and Curate-in-Charge of
Icomb (1967-72); Rector of Westcote
with Icomb (1972-79); Westcote
with Icomb and Bledington (197988); Hon. Canon of Gloucester
Cathedral (1983-88); Canon Emeritus since 1988; aged 91.
PENMAN. — On 6 October, the
Revd Margaret Heather Penman:
Head Teacher of Hesketh with
Becconsall C of E School (19852000); NSM of Lostock Hall (199395); St James’s, Leyland, since 1995;
Liverpool Diocesan RE/Schools
Adviser (2000-09); aged 62.
SIRMAN. — On 30 September, the
Revd Allan George Sirman: Rector of
St Mary’s, Chadwell (1965-75); Vicar
of All Saints with Holy Trinity,
Wandsworth (1975-95); aged 78.
WALTERS. — On 10 October, the
Revd Leslie Ernest Ward Walters:
Vicar of Felbridge (1961-68); Immanuel with St Anselm, Streatham
(1968-81); Hon. Chaplain to the
Bishop of Southwark (1967-80);
Vicar of Cotmanhay and Shipley
(1981-92); Chaplain of Ilkeston
General Hospital (1981-88); Ilkeston
Community Hospital (1988-92); 84.
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31
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Tel: 0207 776 1010 • Email: [email protected]
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services & meetings
DIOCESE OF
WINCHESTER
THE ANGLICAN & OLD CATHOLIC
SOCIETY OF ST WILLIBRORD
BAILIWICK OF JERSEY
HOUSE FOR DUTY
(plus generous honorarium)
Dean’s Vicar
in the Town Church
Chaplain, part time
Required for April 2013 or earlier if possible
FESTIVAL & AGM
Saturday 3rd November
EUCHARIST at 12noon
followed by the
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
at
Christ Church, Shooters Hill, London, SE18
(bus 89 from Blackheath; 244 from Woolwich Arsenal or
486 from North Greenwich)
Preacher:
The Ven. Wietse van der Velde, Vicar of The Hague and
Delft and ‘Archdeacon’
Speaker after AGM:
The Ven. John De Wit, former Archdeacon
of North West Europe
All Welcome • Lunch provided
For more information, directions and to book lunch, please contact:
The Hon. Secretary, The Rev’d Ariadne van den Hof
St. John the Baptist,
Fleet St. Coventry
Applicants who wish to combine this role with other elements such as
specific teaching are invited to do so. Salary will be in accordance with
qualifications and experience.
We are seeking a dynamic and gifted Minister who has the enthusiasm
and ability to:
•
•
•
•
•
Preach the Gospel
Care for the flock
Reach out to families
Lead the staff and volunteer team
Make the most of the unique opportunities of the newly
restored Church in the centre of town
We offer an attractive package of house and honorarium.
Please send your completed application form and covering letter to
[email protected]
Application packs are available from
The Dean of Jersey
The Very Revd Robert Key
Telephone: 01534 720001
Closing date for applications: Monday 29 October 2012 by 12 noon
Interviews: Week commencing 12 November 2012
Closing date: October 26th
Interviews: In Jersey Nov 8th -9th or Nov14th - 15th
If you are interested in applying for this position please refer to our website:
www.headington.org for a job specification and application form.
Applicants must be able to provide evidence of having the right to live and
work in the UK and be prepared to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check.
Headington School is an equal opportunities
employer and is committed to safeguarding and
promoting the welfare of children and expects all
staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Registered Charity No. 309678
RECTOR
SATURDAY 20th OCTOBER
St. James’s Church, POOLE
12 noon
SOLEMN EUCHARIST
Preacher: Fr. Darren Smith
Poole is a bustling town with a busy port and is a great place to
live, with good links by rail, air and road. St James’s is the civic
church of Poole and occupies a prominent place on the quay. We
are seeking a Rector with good Parish experience to lead a keen
team of volunteers and to progress the Church in Our Lord’s work.
3.30 p.m GUILD OFFICE &
BENEDICTION
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You will be a committed and practising member of the Church of England
with a thorough understanding of the social teaching of the Church and
experience of working with young people and young adults. Excellent
interpersonal, communication, advisory, guidance and organisational skills,
along with an understanding of Faith development are also required.
St Helier Parish Church is the Mother Church of Jersey and the
seat of the Dean. The Dean’s Vicar will lead the ministry and mission
of the Town Church. Jersey is a wonderful place to live and an
exciting environment for Gospel ministry.
pilgrimages
GUILD OF SERVANTS
OF THE SANCTUARY
AUTUMN FESTIVAL
Terry Doughty
Secretary-General
7 Church Avenue,
Leicester. LE3 6AJ
Tel 0116 2620308
Headington School is seeking an enthusiastic and innovative individual who
will play a leading role in the liturgical and spiritual life of the whole school.
The successful candidate will work alongside governors, staff and pupils in
promoting the aims of the school whilst supporting the Church of England
Ethos and being able to offer pastoral support, where appropriate.
articles for sale
CONTEMPORARY VANPOULLES — 5’
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FOR SALE — Kilt in clergy tartan, 38”
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sporran. Hardly worn. £250 ono. Tel.
07811 405 058.
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personal
DEVOUT CHRISTIAN WOMAN —
Attractive and solvent, seeks similar
soulmate for friendship and marriage.
33-35
years.
Please
contact
[email protected]
The successful applicant will:
• Love the Church of England
• Love scripture and be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit
• Love people
• Be a person who delegates
• Relishes the opportunities of this important Central
Evangelical Church
The Profile provides more detail. Application form obtainable from
The Archdeacon of Dorset
St Nicholas Church Centre, 30 Wareham Road
Corfe Mullen, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 3LE
Telephone: 01202 659427
Closing Date: 31st October2012
Interviews: 30th November 2012
Further information:
St. James’s Church, Poole
Telephone: 01202 677117
www.stjameschurchpoole.com
CRB Enhanced disclosure required
we are seeking
A PRIEST IN CHARGE
(Team Rector)
to lead
The United Benefice
of Market Bosworth and the Sheepy Group
with Nailstone, Carlton & Shackerstone
This is a significant opportunity to make a lasting
contribution to the mission of church in rural areas.
Further information is available at
marketbosworthbenefice.co.uk
Application forms and parish profile are available from
Mrs Wendy Dunnington
St Martins House, 7 Peacock Lane, Leicester LE1 5PZ
Telephone: 0116 261 5309
or view the details on
Website: www.leicester.anglican.org
Closing date for applications: Friday 2nd November 2012
Short list of applicants: Thursday 8th November 2012
Interviews: Friday 30th November 2012
This post is subject to CRB enhanced disclosure
clerical
TO ALL CHURCH TIMES READERS
Applications are invited for the appointment to a Residentiary
Canonry of the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of
Christ, Canterbury.
The appointment will include working half time for the Diocese
of Canterbury as the Director of Initial Ministerial Education (IME)
Years 4 to 7.
This appointment is open to any Priest in Anglican Orders who
has completed six years of service since ordination.
For further information please apply to:
The Dean of Canterbury
Cathedral House
11 The Precincts
Canterbury, Kent CT1 2EH
Closing date for applications: Friday 26 October 2012
32
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Information is also available on
www.chelmsford.anglican.org/vacancies
or from
The Bishop of Bradwell’s office
Bishop’s House, Orsett Road, Horndon-on-the-Hill SS17 8NS
Telephone: 01375 673806
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COMAG • 01895 433 813
[email protected]
DIOCESE OF LONDON
The Bishop of London
wishes to appoint a
TEAM VICAR FOR THE
WHITE HORSE TEAM
We wish to appoint a Team Vicar to join an enthusiastic,
committed and supportive Team. The White Horse Team is
situated in beautiful surroundings in Wiltshire, between Salisbury
and Bath while being close to the Somerset border.
Being part of a Team of ordained and lay ministers, the focus of
the work will be on our ministry with children, young people and
their families as well as sharing in all aspects of the life of the
Team. The Team Vicar will live in Dilton Marsh, where there is a
comfortable 4 bedroom house in excellent condition in a lovely
setting.
With opportunities to work across the Team and to share
your knowledge, experience, gifts and skills, this is an exciting
opportunity for collaborative ministry.
We seek a priest who will:
• bring experience in engaging with children and young people
across a diverse community,
• have a heart for pastoral ministry, supporting our existing
congregations whilst seeking new opportunities to engage
with the wider community.
VICAR
FOR SAINT JOHN’S
KENSAL GREEN , LONDON W10
YOU CAN ADVERTISE HERE
BY POST 3rd Floor, Invicta House, 108-114 Golden
Lane, London EC1Y 0TG
BY EMAIL [email protected]
BY TELEPHONE 020 7776 1010
BOOKING DEADLINE 10AM
MONDAY TO GUARANTEE FOLLOWING ISSUE.
We are seeking a Vicar to build on the excellent work of the
previous incumbent. We are looking for someone of prayer and
pastoral enthusiasm ready to engage with members of our parish
at every level: in worship, in teaching, socially and with the many
existing community links within this culturally diverse area. Our
worship is Catholic with an emphasis on singing and preaching.
Our new Priest will:
• Have strong organisational and communication skills, ready to
provide leadership in our Catholic tradition and worship.
• Embrace the diversity of our Parish and encourage our links
with other groups and projects.
We can offer:
• A loyal and willing congregation, ready to encourage and
sustain.
• A faithful flock, a financially sound benefice and supportive
network of local clergy.
For profile and application form please apply to:
Archdeacon of Sherborne
Southbroom House, London Road, Devizes SN10 1LT
Diocesan Website: www.salisbury.anglican.org
Closing Date: 22 November 2012
Interview Date: 12 December 2012
Enhanced CRB disclosure required
Applications to be received by Thursday 8 November 2012
A parish profile and application form can be obtained from:
Mrs Pam Nicholls
Assistant to the Archdeacon of Charing Cross
15A Gower Street, London WC1E 6HW
Telephone: 020 7323 1992
A profile can also be viewed on the parish website:
www.sjkg.org.uk
St John’s PCC have taken resolutions A, B, and C
The appointment is subject to an enhanced CRB Disclosure
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Church Times, 13-17 Long Lane
London EC1A 9PN • Tel: 0207 776 1010
Fax: 0207 776 1086 • Email: [email protected]
THE DIOCESE OF DURHAM
The Benefice of Aldenham, Radlett and Shenley
TEAM RECTOR
Applications are invited to take up the post of Team Rector in this
diverse and rewarding Benefice, which comprises Aldenham,
Radlett and Shenley.
The Rector will be based in Radlett and also serve as Parish Priest
of Christ Church and St. John’s in that parish.
The Benefice lies in the Hertfordshire Green Belt, some 15 miles
from London with good transport links and schools.
We seek a Team Rector who has strong leadership skills and is a
committed team player, able to co-ordinate three parishes with
their own PCCs and varied churchmanship. In the role of Parish
Priest of Radlett, the priest will be passionate about making and
sustaining followers of Christ and be a person of prayer and vision
with strong preaching and teaching skills.
For an informal conversation about the post contact
The Archdeacon of St Albans, the Venerable Jonathan
Smith Telephone: 01727 818121
For application details
or write to:
The Archdeacon of St Albans
6 Sopwell Lane, St Albans AL1 1RR
The Benefice Profile can be found on:
www.stalbans.anglican.org/Information/Vacancies
and at www.christchurchstjohns.org.uk
Closing date for applications: Friday 9th November 2012
Interviews and visits:
Parish visits Wednesday: 12th December 2012
Formal interviews: Thursday 13th December 2012
Enhanced CRB disclosure is required
www.durham.anglican.org
A place of diversity and challenge
... where anything is possible
%* 32* ,-22*6.9# 955!"6& .5 899 .$* (5995'"6& 450.0
# (2:9 *26$50 '-2%".7:$2&
Use your smart
phone to scan
the QR tag and
go straight to
our vacancies
page.
For the proposed ‘Team Parish’ of Billingham;
A once in a generation opportunity to shape our
ministry and mission to 38,000 people
# )5!%2 150 -!$8 4%%56":$2 3"7"%$20
The Boldon Parishes;
Supporting ministry for three parishes growing together
# ,0"2%$ "7 /+:0.2
Clergy Vacancies in Durham
Worth more than just scanning over!
Your faith and imagination required
St Stephen the Lawe and St Jude Rekendyke South Shields;
Seeking growth and engagement in multi-cultural parishes
Full details can be found on our website
Or call 01388 660 010
Visit our website for details of these exciting vacancies and
.5 86+ 5-. 752* 315-. .$* )"5,*0* 5( )-2$37/
33
DIOCESE OF CHESTER
RECTOR
The Bishop of Portsmouth seeks to appoint
a priest to be:
CONTINUING MINISTERIAL
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER (0.5)
AND
VICAR OF ST. GEORGE PORTSEA (0.5)
The inner city parish of St. George Portsea serves a predominantly
working class area with a well established community centre.
The parish priest will:
• see prayer and spirituality as the anchor for mission
and discipleship
• have a highly visible presence in the school and parish
• be committed to collaborative ministry, in the parish
and cluster
• involve the wider community in the hall development project
• be committed to an inclusive Christian community
The CMD Officer will, within the Diocesan Mission & Discipleship
team:
• enable licensed ministers to realise their professional and
personal potential
• redevelop frameworks to support ministerial development
• ensure access to in-service training for ministers after IME 4-7
Job description, parish profile and application form in the
Bishop’s section of www.portsmouth.anglican.org or contact
Archdeacon of Portsdown
5 Brading Avenue, Southsea PO4 9QJ
Telephone: 02392 432 693
Closing date for return of application form: 12 November
Interviews: 27 and 28 November
Cheltenham
(An Anglican and Roman Catholic Partnership)
An exciting and cutting edge opportunity to develop this pastoral
and missional ministry!
Term time plus 20 days.
Salary in range £26,500 - £38,000
Find your ‘new parish’ in our superb new school building where
we serve 1150 students, their families and the local community.
You will be able to use your initiative, to develop this new role,
ministering to staff students and their families, leading worship
creatively and working with staff to support spirituality and
embed the Christian ethos into the whole life of the Academy.
You will be part of the West Cheltenham Ministry Team,
joining them in worship as well as having their support in the
development of this role.
The East Richmond Team Ministry
House for Duty Priest
Set in beautiful countryside between Richmond, Darlington and
Northallerton, the Team serves 13 lively churches and comprises Team
Rector, Team Vicar, House for Duty Priest, SSM Curate,
3 Readers and 2 Retired Priests. Our aim is to show God’s love in
our communities, reaching out through worship and pastoral care.
We seek a priest with a desire to focus on pastoral ministry who will
minister Sunday and 2 days a week, assisting with Sunday
services and general pastoral duties which might include ministry
(but not governorship) at 2 schools, weddings and baptism
administration and preparation. We would welcome someone who
wished to make their unique contribution, offering their own
particular gifts.
There is a very pleasant 4-bedroom vicarage at Middleton Tyas,
with excellent access to the A1. The village has a shop and a bus
service.
For an informal conversation, visit or application pack
please contact: The Venerable Janet Henderson
Archdeacon of Richmond
Telephone: 01765 601 316
We do
•
•
•
outreach
lay ministry
spiritual growth
•
•
•
shared pastoral care
world Church
social justice
We are looking for someone who is
•
•
•
•
A person of vision, energy and enthusiasm
A flexible and effective leader
Able to relate well to children and young people
Keen to maintain and develop our relationship with the
community
Our mission statement is “To enable spiritual growth and
show the love of God to everyone through our friendship
and caring.”
Might you be our next Vicar?
http://www.stmartinwestdrayton.org.uk/
Parish profile (PDF format) and application form from:
The Bishop of Willesden
Email: [email protected] • Tel: 020 8451 0189
Closing date for applications: 8 November 2012
Interviews: 26 November 2012
Enhanced CRB clearance will be required.
34
The Rector will lead a large team of lay and ordained
colleagues, co-ordinating and developing the very varied and
flourishing life of the parish and who work together, in
covenant, with the other local churches. There is a strong civic
dimension, amid a commitment to evangelism and outreach,
and the nurture of children and young people. The rich
musical life includes an excellent RSCM choir. Local amenities
are excellent and the modern rectory has recently been
refurbished.
This is an exciting and substantial opportunity.
For full details, contact:
The Bishop of Chester
Bishop’s House, Abbey Square
Chester CH1 2JD
DIOCESE OF
RIPON AND LEEDS
The East Richmond Team Ministry
13 lively churches situated in the beautiful rural area between
Richmond, Darlington and Northallerton seek a Team Rector to
lead them into the next phase of their ministry. You will have a
supportive team of flexible colleagues – Team Vicar, SSM Curate,
3 Readers, 2 Retired Clergy and active Churchwardens. There is a
great variety of worship and spirituality across the churches. We
seek to be outward-looking in serving our communities and 7
schools. There isa growing Team awareness of purposeful mission
and real spiritual hunger. The Team Rector will review the ways in
which the Team works and its pastoral organization. At present,
the Team Rector has pastoral responsibility for 7 churches at the
western end of the area and the Team Vicar for the 6 churches at
the eastern end. We are planning to appoint an ecumenical
Children and Young People’s Worker with the Darlington
Methodist Circuit. There is a supportive Deanery team. This is a
really interesting and challenging post for someone wishing to
help create a mission-focused team.
There is a pleasant 4-bedroom house in Barton where there is a
shop, pub and bus service. It has excellent access to the A1 and
to the nearby Dales and Moors.
Closing date: 16 November
Interviews: 5/6 December
Priest-in-Charge of St Kea
Truro, Cornwall
We are a broad church:
•
•
•
•
welcoming and family-oriented
generously evangelical and Christ-centred
Bible-focused
lively and growing
The church is looking for a leader who can:
•
•
•
•
care for the congregation
teach the Bible engagingly and with relevance
motivate the church in its mission
work with other churches in Truro including the Cathedral
The Parish Profile and Statement of Needs and the
Kea Church 2012 Annual Report,
along with details of how to apply, are available on the
Diocese website: www.trurodiocese.org.uk
The Kea Church website is:
www.stkea.org.uk
Closing date: 1pm Friday 16th Nov
Interviews: 12th and 13th Dec
This post is subject to
CRB enhanced disclosure
For an informal conversation, visit or application pack,
please contact: The Venerable Janet Henderson
Archdeacon of Richmond
Telephone: 01765 601 316
Closing date for applications: Thursday, 8 November, 5 p.m
Interviews: to be arranged
Diocese of Chelmsford
Colchester Episcopal Area
The Bishop of Colchester seeks a new
Priest-in-Charge for the
Parish of St Peter ad Vincula
Coggeshall w Marks Hall
DIOCESE OF LONDON
WILLESDEN AREA
Middle of the road parish. Reordered medieval building. Modern
facilities. Strong commitment to our locality. Significant ministry
through Occasional Offices.
Nantwich is a large and growing community of 20,000+, with
the beautiful and historic parish church of St Mary, centrally
situated as the only place of Anglican worship in the town.
Blaisdon Way, Cheltenham, Glos GL51 0WH
Closing date for applications: Thursday, 8 November, 5 p.m
Interviews: to be arranged
VICAR
ST MARTIN WEST DRAYTON
...to make the love of Christ known
in words and actions
Job description, person specification and details of
All Saints’ Academy: www.asachelt.org
TEAM RECTOR
DIOCESE OF
RIPON AND LEEDS
ST MARY’S NANTWICH
ANGLICAN CHAPLAIN
ALL SAINTS’ ACADEMY
PRIEST IN CHARGE
Team Vicar designate
The Benefice of Curry Rivel with
Fivehead and Swell
We are praying for a priest who relishes a challenge, is full of
energy and enthusiasm, with a kindly patience when introducing
change. We feel we need a leader who is able to bring insights
from the Gospel to bear on the way we act and think together as
a church, and in our everyday lives.
The qualities we seek are leadership; strong leanings towards
pastoral care, reflecting a true empathy with people; witness, as
applied to everyday life; good communication skills, particularly
regarding the Gospel; inter-personal, negotiation and networking
skills leading to team building; an encouraging nature, and a basic
affinity with church administration. This we pray will result in a
strong Christian ministry well supported by the laity.
The parishes are located two miles west of Langport and six from
Taunton. The combined population is 2,940. The Rectory in Curry
Rivel is a detached four bedroomed house built in 2002.
The priest appointed will engage in further responsibilities within
the reformed Langport Team Ministry, as a Team Vicar.
Closing date for applications: Monday 19th November 2012
Interviews: 29th/30th November 2012
Application pack available from:
The Archdeacon of Taunton, 2 Monkton Heights
West Monkton, Taunton TA2 8LU
Telephone: 01823 413315
Coggeshall is an attractive and historic small market town of
around 5,000 people in north-east Essex, close to Colchester, with
good transport links to London, Stansted Airport and the M11.
The new Priest–in-Charge will be prepared to
• Give spiritual leadership to St Peter’s church family and be
equipped to manage the realities of life in a thriving parish
• Inspire our outreach to the wider community
• Value the tradition of liberal catholic worship
• Continue the close relationship with the Church of England
primary school, develop links with the local secondary school
and support the activities of the full-time youth worker
• Oversee in due course the development of an expanded benefice
The Vicarage is an attractive, five-bedroomed house opposite the
church
Applications to be received by: Friday 16th of November
A day of visits and interviews will be held for short-listed
candidates on: Wednesday 5th of December
Further details about the Church and its ministry can be found
on the Parish website: www.st-peter-ad-vincula.org.uk
and further details about the Diocesan Strategy can be found on
the Diocesan website www.transformingpresence.org.uk
A parish profile and application form can be obtained from:
The Bishop of Colchester’s Secretary
1 Fitzwalter Road, Lexden, Colchester CO3 3SS
Telephone: 01206 576648
A profile can also be obtained from the Diocesan website:
www.chelmsford.anglican.org
Post subject to enhanced CRB disclosure
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House for Duty Priest
St Mary and All Saints Lambourne
with Holy Trinity Abridge
and St Mary the Virgin Stapleford Abbotts
These are two attractive rural parishes [c. 3,000 pop.] close to
M25 / M11 & within easy reach of London. [Duties are Sundays
plus two days per week].
We are seeking a Priest to work with us who is:
• A good communicator - friendly, open and inclusive
• A good leader with the ability to encourage others to grow in
faith and in their own ministries
• Able to relate well to school children, young people and
their parents
• Willing to work with ecumenical colleagues on a Youth and
Community Project
• Pastorally aware and with the skill to encourage and enable
others to provide pastoral care
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Jo Bluck, Barking Lodge Verulam Avenue, London E17 8ES
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Interviews: 4th December
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Stoke-on-Trent
Team Vicar
We look for:
•
•
•
a priest to lead St Stephen’s Church
a Spirit-filled person to work with and release others to
fulfil God’s vision for them and for our parish
a team player comfortable in a Team Ministry
Further details available from:
www.lichfield.anglican.org/vacancies
Closing date: 21 October • Interviews: 13 November
Benefice of Christ Church & St Mark’s Watford, Herts
The Patrons seek to appoint a
VICAR
You will find
• A lively and welcoming parish with a variety of services at
our two Churches
• Involvement with the community
• A strong desire to bring people to Christ
We seek a Vicar who
• Is assured of their calling to us and will pray for us with a
deep spirituality
• Relates well to people and makes the Church relevant to their
lives
• Has a proven record of drawing children and young families
to Church and will work with a partner Church overseeing a
Children’s and Families’ Worker
• Will help us implement our Mission Action Plan
(see Parish Profile)
• Values our strong musical tradition
The Parish Profile can be found on
http://www.stalbans.anglican.org/Information/Vacancies
and http:///www.christchurchandstmarkswatford.org.uk
For application details
For an informal conversation please contact:
The Archdeacon of St Albans
The Venerable Jonathan Smith • Telephone: 01727 818121
Serving God in the Garden of England
VICAR
of HADLOW
Hadlow is a thriving village (pop. 4000) near Tonbridge, in
commuter rural beautiful West Kent, with a Primary School, and
the outstanding Hadlow College (where there are chaplaincy
opportunities).
St Mary’s Church (975AD onwards) is described by locals as “at
the heart of our community”. The Mission Church in nearby
Golden Green has similar links.
Worship is eucharistically-focussed, supported by a choir. The church
(ER 203) has many parish activities and is committed to serving
the wider community.
4 bedroom vicarage. Good road and rail communications to
London and elsewhere. The Garden of England countryside nearby.
The Bishop of Rochester seeks a priest, pastor, leader and teacher,
who will:
•
•
•
•
•
love Christ and love people
build on links with the community
share the Christian faith
reach out to younger households
help to develop more lay leaders
For further details, a parish profile and an application form,
please contact: Venerable Clive Mansell
Archdeacon of Tonbridge
Telephone: 01892 520660
Closing date for applications: 9 November 2012
Interview date: 7 December 2012
(Visit beforehand: 6 December 2012)
Enhanced CRB Disclosure required
THE MINSTER SCHOOL, SOUTHWELL
(Voluntary Aided Church of England Comprehensive)
NOR 1620, inc. 365 in the Sixth Form, Age Range 7-18
The Governors seek to appoint a Chaplain in collaboration with the
Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham and the Cathedral Church
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Southwell.
Remuneration package to include the equivalent of a Diocesan
Incumbents stipend, CEPB pension contribution and accommodation
in Vicars’ Court, Southwell Minster.
This post would suit those with experience in secondary or higher
education and an interest in Cathedral Ministry.
Closing date: Friday 2nd November 2012.
Shortlisting will take place during week commencing
5th November 2012
Interviews will be held on
Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd November 2012
Application form and information pack available from
The Minster School, Nottingham Road
Southwell, Notts NG25 0LG.
Tel: 01636 814000 • Fax: 01636 817358
Email [email protected]
or from the Minster School website on
www.minster.notts.sch.uk
TEAM RECTOR
for this parish in a large growing town, situated between London
and St Albans, comprising a mixture of a working and commuting
population
Bucknall Team Ministry
SOUTHWELL MINSTER SCHOOL CHAPLAIN
for Benefice of Loddon
Reach in Berkshire
South of Reading is a pleasant and growing suburban/semi-rural
area, offering great opportunities for community engagement and
outreach.
4 parishes (pop.c.10,000), each with its own character, are seeking
to welcome a motivational leader and mission-minded priest who
would relish working collaboratively with the active laity and ministry
teams. Together we shall continue to build up the community of
faith amongst existing congregations, whilst further reaching out
into new and broader communities which include a significant and
growing population of young families
To make the most of this exciting role the successful applicant should:
• have proven team-working and leadership skills, energy and
a talent for communication.
• be prepared to work collaboratively with the new Team Vicar
sharing expertise and responsibility in line with skills and
experience.
The successful applicant can be assured of a warm welcome,
together with our love, friendship and support. We look forward to
working together.
This post results from the retirement of the existing incumbent in
June 2013. Note that the Team Vicar also retires in early 2013 –
this post will be recruited immediately following the appointment
of the Team Rector and early expressions of interest for the position
of Team Vicar would be welcome.
Details and forms of application on the Diocesan website:
www.oxford.anglican.org/vacancies or from
Bishop's House, Tidmarsh Lane, Tidmarsh, Reading RG8 8HA
Applications by: 2nd November 2012
Interviews: 23rd November 2012
Closing date for applications: 6th November 2012
Interviews: 5th and 6th December 2012
Enhanced CRB disclosure is required
jobs.churchtimes.co.uk • jobs.churchtimes.co.uk
Priest in Charge
Cheetham
The Diocese of Manchester and Church Pastoral Aid Society
are looking for an energetic priest to serve this vibrant
multicultural parish.
The parish has two worship centres, one of which is an LEP,
and the person appointed will bring the two congregations into
one building. Pastoral reorganisation may mean that the
neighbouring parish of St Thomas will also become part of the
appointment.
The person appointed will need to be experienced in interfaith
work involving Muslim and Jewish communities, and have the
pastoral skills to enable these congregations to work together
and develop their gifts for the mission of the church.
Further details available from the Ven Mark
Ashcroft, 0161 448 1976,
[email protected]
Closing Date: 13th November 2012
The Delamere Trust and the Bishop of Chester are seeking
to appoint an
INCUMBENT
for the Benefice of Whitegate and Little Budworth
Two rural parishes in the heart of the Cheshire countryside, with a
combined population of 4,000. The church tradition is central to
liberal catholic.
We are seeking a priest:
• Whose life is rooted in the Bible, prayer and the Eucharist;
• Who is a good, outgoing communicator;
• Who will encourage our congregations to use their skills and
talents in the service of God;
• Who is sympathetic to our rural parishes and issues;
• Who will build on our work with children and young people;
• Who will lead us in developing a vision for a sustainable future;
• Who is committed to working ecumenically.
Modern, well-maintained four-bedroomed vicarage.
Profile and application form available from:
The Archdeacon of Chester
Church House, Lower Lane, Aldford, Chester CH3 6HP
Telephone: 01244 681973
Closing date for applications: 16 November
Interviews: 10 December
35
Assistant Priest
Liverpool Parish Church
of Our Lady and St Nicholas
We’re an anglo catholic church in the heart
of Liverpool’s business district serving and
ministering as the Parish Church to the city.
We’re looking for an Assistant Priest who is
! Liturgical
! Pastoral
! Sacramental
! Progressive
Closing date: 9th November Interviews: 30th November
Details from www.liverpool.anglican.org/vacancy
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Churchyard, Chapel Street, Liverpool L2 8TZ
The Diocese of Liverpool is an exciting, challenging and rewarding place to be.
We serve a wide mix of communities in urban, rural and town parishes. We
are innovative, seeking new ways to further God’s mission while respecting
cherished traditions. The Diocese of Liverpool strives for equal opportunities in
all its appointments. This post will be searched and is subject to CRB enhanced
clearance.
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SANTA MARGARITA
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF SANTA
MARGARITA, MENORCA
Priest-in-Charge
A priest is required to serve this Anglican Church on the beautiful island
of Menorca. The congregation mainly comprises British permanent
residents, summer-residents and holiday-makers.
Applicants should be gifted in spiritual leadership and pastoral care and
have a vision for outreach and the fostering of ecumenical relationships.
The package comprises a stipend of £21,900, furnished accommodation,
provision of a car, and normal agreed official expenses. There is no
pension provision.
The appointment is for three years, and may be renewable.
Recently retired priests (including ex-forces chaplains) are especially
welcome to apply.
Resolution B passed for ecumenical reasons.
Further Information and Application Form from:
The Appointments’ Secretary
14 Tufton Street
London SW1P 3QZ
Closing Date: Thursday 15th November 2012
Short listing date: Monday 19th November 2012
Interview Date: Tuesday 4th December 2012
There is a commitment to safeguarding children, young people and
vulnerable adults. Safeguarding Policies (vetting and screening)
will apply to this post
Assistant Curate
The Bishop of Bradford and the Patrons wish to appoint a
Vicar to the United Benefice of Washburn
and the Mid Wharfe, Bradford
The united benefice provides a priest for four adjacent parishes in
the magnificent countryside north of the River Wharfe and not far
from Otley. The parishes are Farnley, Fewston with Blubberhouses,
Leathley and Weston with Denton with four parish churches and
2 chapels of ease and a total population of less than 1,500.
The churches range from Low Church/ evangelical to central in
their traditions.
The PCCs wish to nurture the present congregations which use
the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship, and at the
same time make welcome new people to the informal Family
Services. All four parishes want to grow the church and play a full
part in community life.
This is a great opportunity to develop rural ministry working with
a manageable number of parishes and people. There are good
hearted laity and a team of three readers, a house-for-duty associate
priest and a retired priest.
Could God be calling you to lead these churches forward?
For more details please contact:
Mrs Sylvia Johnson, PA to the Archdeacon of Bradford
Email: [email protected] or
tel: 01535 650523
Closing date: 6th November 2012.
Interviews: 14th November 2012.
An enhanced CRB is required.
St Mary’s Walton on the Hill Team
Liverpool
We’re a team of three churches in a densely populated urban
area of North Liverpool. Committed to growing as a team and
building on our strong community links we’re seeking to develop
our ministry to the local community.
We’re looking for a priest who
! Is a team player who can help us explore new structures
and patterns of ministry
! Can support children’s and young people’s work
across the team
! Work particularly with the congregations of St Aidan
and St Nathanael
! Wants to experience ministry in an urban setting
Closing date: 9th November Interviews: 23rd November
Details from www.liverpool.anglican.org/vacancy
Applications to Revd Trevor Latham,
The Rectory, Walton Village, Liverpool L5 6TJ
The Diocese of Liverpool is an exciting, challenging and rewarding place to be.
We serve a wide mix of communities in urban, rural and town parishes. We
are innovative, seeking new ways to further God’s mission while respecting
cherished traditions. The Diocese of Liverpool strives for equal opportunities in
all its appointments. This post will be searched and is subject to CRB enhanced
clearance.
*+(!#%# "!
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PRECENTOR
The Dean and Chapter invite applications for this appointment as a
Minor Canon of Canterbury Cathedral which will become vacant
early in 2013.
The Precentor is a key member of the Music and Liturgy Department
and is responsible for the organisation of all services at the Cathedral
and the singing of the daily offices.
This position is offered on a 5-year contract and is open to ordained
priests with an appropriate musical background.
For further information please apply in writing to the
Receiver General at: Cathedral House, 11 The Precincts
Canterbury, Kent CT1 2EH or
email: [email protected]
Closing date for applications is Friday 2nd November
TOTTENHAM HALE
PRIEST-MISSIONER
(Incumbent stipend with housing)
The Bishop of Edmonton seeks to appoint a Priest Missioner to
lead the establishment of the church in Hale Village in Tottenham.
This is a wonderful opportunity for the right priest to bring skills
and energy to ‘A new church for a new community’.
The Anglican Church of St Francis,
Tenerife South, requires a
Full-Time Priest
If you love the Son and like the sun you may find this an interesting and
exciting position for you.
The successful applicant will:
Love and Care
for us, be welcoming and guiding all within our
resident and transient congregations, Genuinely care and give time to those
in need and be approachable within the church and wider community;
Ignite and Inspire us to develop a vision to take our Church life
forward and reach out to those in need with or without faith;
Teach and Challenge us by being a dynamic team leader, guiding
and developing our Christian faith; motivating and inspiring us to use
our gifts and strengths;
Spanish language desirable but not essential but a driving licence is
essential;
The package consists of stipend, pension contributions, accommodation,
car and official expenses;
Resolution B passed for ecumenical reasons.
Then please apply for further information and application form from:
The Appointments’ Secretary
14 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QZ
Tel: +44(0) 20 7898 1155
Closing date 15th November 2012
Short Listing date 19th November 2012
Interview date 5th December 2012
There is a commitment to safeguarding children, young people, and
vulnerable adults. Safeguarding Policies (vetting and screening)
will apply to this post.
36
Hale Village is a new mixed development which will house at least
8000 residents. The development straddles two parishes, and the
vision is for Hale Village to become an independent parish.
Building of a church/community centre with attached nursery will
start in Autumn 2012, together with a four-bedroom vicarage. An
interim centre is currently being negotiated. Wide-ranging mission
and funding partnerships are in place to support the work.
Key aspects of the role
• To be the ‘parish priest’ of Hale Village, under a Bishop’s
Mission Order
• To lead the establishment of a thriving church and
community centre, sustainable as the basis for a parish
• From a base of success at Hale Village, provide advice and
support to mission initiatives within the Diocese.
You will need
• A desire to serve the church in London
• A passion for mission, particularly community outreach
• Flair and energy for engaging, enabling, mobilising – making
things happen, getting people involved and generating interest
and momentum
• Experience of working successfully with partners, both secular
and ecclesiastical, including funders
• Ability to work with a wide range of church traditions,
including a parish which has passed Resolutions A&B
• To be subject to an Enhanced CRB check.
Further details and an application form can be downloaded from
the Jobs area of the Diocesan website
www.london.anglican.org
The last date for receiving applications is
Wednesday 31st October.
Priests who are seriously interested in the position are invited for
an escorted visit of Hale Village on Tuesday 9th October or
Thursday 25th October. To arrange a visit, please contact the
office of the Archdeacon of Hampstead at
[email protected]
Interviews will be held on Monday 12th November.
Christ Church Oxford
Christ Church is seeking an outstanding Sub Dean
with energy and initiative
Residentiary Canon of Christ Church and member of its
Governing Body
At the heart of this role is the life of the cathedral, including its
relationship to other parts of Christ Church, to the Diocese of
Oxford and to the wider Church and World. The cathedral is
committed to a continuing process of change, in which the
Sub Dean plays a central part.
Informal enquiries: The Very Revd Christopher Lewis
The Deanery, Christ Church, Oxford OX1 1DP
Tel: 01865 276161
Applications welcome from those who have been in priest’s
orders for a minimum of 6 years: http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk
and select ‘employment opportunities’ to download further
details and an application form.
This is a Crown appointment and is subject to enhanced CRB disclosure
Closing date for applications: 9th November.
Interviews on 3rd December.
[email protected] • [email protected]
PRIEST IN CHARGE AND
ASSOCIATE VICAR/MISSION ENABLER
Ashwick, Oakhill and Binegar
Shepton Mallet with Doulting and Cranmore
This is a full time post formed in partnership with the Benefice of
Ashwick, Oakhill and Binegar (AOB) and the Benefice of Shepton
Mallet, Doulting and Cranmore in Somerset. The person appointed
will have parochial responsibility for AOB as Priest in Charge
(50%) and live there and be an Associate Vicar in Shepton Mallet,
Doulting and Cranmore (50%).
We offer:
• A new and exciting opportunity to work across these two
benefices
• Enormous possibilities for mission and ministry
• An opportunity to work with an experienced colleague, to
pioneer exciting new models of ministry across the
Shepton Local Ministry Group (LMG)
• A demographically diverse community in which to work
• A commitment to seeing lay ministry grow and develop
Closing Date: 12 November
Interviews: 13/14 December
Application pack available from:
The Archdeacon of Wells
6 The Liberty, Wells BA5 2SU
Tel: 01749 685147
www.bathandwells.org.uk
Appointment to this position is subject to satisfactory
enhanced disclosure via the Criminal Records Bureau
Priest in Charge for the Benefice of St Mary of
Charity Faversham with responsibility for the parishes of
St Mary Magdalene Davington and St Peter and St Paul
Ospringe
An experienced priest is sought who will be motivated by the
exciting opportunity of leading and joining these three parishes
into the proposed Faversham Benefice (subject to a pastoral
scheme being made) and to becoming the first incumbent.
Based at St Mary of Charity in the centre of this attractive
market town, the new priest will work with a Team Vicar (to be
appointed) and with the ordained and lay ministry teams in the
parishes. The new priest will promote collaborative working to
strengthen discipleship and lay ministry with the aim of serving
the whole community.
Closing date: 2nd Nov.
Interviews: 15th & 16th Nov.
This post is subject to an enhanced CRB disclosure
Applications and questions to: Ms Sari Mantykivi, PA to
Archdeacon of Maidstone
Email: [email protected], Tel: 01622 200221
Full details and profile: www.canterburydiocese.org/vacancies
Two Exciting Full-Time Parish Posts,
including deanery responsibilities
seek to appoint a mission-minded Pastoral Tutor
to be our
Wells Cathedral
PRECENTOR
TUTOR IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
The Bishop of Bath and Wells is seeking a new Precentor to join
the Chapter of Wells Cathedral.
As a Residentiary Canon of Wells Cathedral, the Precentor will take
overall responsibility on behalf of the Chapter for the
organisation and development of the worship and musical life of
the Cathedral, strengthening and deepening this fundamental
aspect of the mission of the Cathedral.
For further details and to apply please visit our website to
download an application pack:
http://www.wellscathedral.org.uk/how-you-canhelp/current-vacancies/
Interviews: 26 and 27 November 2012
Deadline for applications: 7th November 2012
Interviews will be held on the: 22nd November 2012
Intended start date: April 2013
Appointments
organist & layworker
URBAN MISSION – PIONEER WORKER
All Saints Rettendon and
St Thomas of Canterbury, Hullbridge
Closing Date: 22 November • Interview Date: 6 December
‘Open Door’ is an innovative project, involving the planting of
midweek congregations. It is being funded for three years by the
Archbishops’ Council under its national programme to develop
church growth in deprived areas.
Ss Peter and Paul, Hockley
A wonderful opportunity to continue to build on and lead
a new and growing church community,
which includes a deanery vocations adviser role.
The parish has passed Resolution B
Closing Date: 22 November • Interview Date: 7 December
More details are available on
www.chelmsford.anglican.org/vacancies
or from the Bishop of Bradwell’s office
Bishop’s House, Orsett Road, Horndon-on-the-Hill SS17 8NS
Tel: 01375 673806 • Email: [email protected]
Further details are available from:
Mrs Rebecca Herrick
Ridley Hall, Cambridge CB3 9HG
Telephone: 01223 741060
Web: www.ridley.cam.ac.uk
A full-time Residentiary Canon stipend and accommodation is
provided.
An exciting opportunity for a worker, lay or ordained, to develop
‘Open Door’ mission projects in two urban parishes on the Wirral:
St Paul’s Tranmere (Birkenhead) and The Resurrection, Liscard
(Wallasey). Starting salary £25,000.
A stimulating post for an energetic priest with vision,
to lead enthusiastic and responsive congregations, which includes a
deanery mission development adviser role.
We are looking for someone of considerable ability who will relish
joining this vibrant Anglican college community within the
Cambridge Theological Federation. Excelling in Ridley’s
evangelical and ecumenical setting, she or he will be able to
inspire students to make vital connections between biblical/
historical theology and the life and mission of the Church today.
We are looking for someone with a heart for local mission, eager
to meet people where they are, and comfortable working across
different church traditions.
There is an Occupational Requirement for the post holder to be a
communicant member of the Church of England.
For further information and application details, please contact:
The Archdeacon of Chester
Church House, Lower Lane, Aldford, Chester CH3 6HP
Telephone: 01244 681973
Closing date for applications: Wednesday 14 November
Interviews: Thursday 13 December
The leading Anglican
newspaper
CHURCH TIMES
3rd Floor, Invicta House,
108-114 Golden Lane,
London EC1Y 0TG
Tel. 020 7776 1010
Music in Portsmouth Cathedral
Portsmouth Cathedral Choir and the Portsmouth Grammar School
offer unique opportunities for young counter-tenors, tenors,
basses and an organ scholar for the academic year 13/14.
Opportunities exist for gap year students (pre or post University)
to spend a year working with Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, whilst
working as departmental assistants at one of the country’s leading
co-educational schools, Portsmouth Grammar School. The year
involves daily choral worship in the Cathedral, major concerts and
BBC broadcasts, European tours (Sweden and Malta in 2012) and
performing in the Portsmouth Festivities, alongside internationally
renowned artists.
Regular vocal/organ tuition provided. Accommodation provided.
Remuneration circa £6,500 per annum.
Closing date for applications - 1st November 2012
Interviews - 12th November
Contact Details
[email protected]
023 9282 3300
portsmouthcathedral.org.uk/music.htm
pgs.org.uk
The Chapter seeks to appoint
Assistant Director for Mission
and Community Engagement
Full-time employed post (Ordained or Lay)
Stipendiary or Salaried
An experienced, lay or ordained Anglican to join this newly formed
department. You will help parishes explore issues around mission
and church growth. You’ll enable and encourage Fresh Expressions
of church, build up lay mission teams, develop msm and msi training
opportunities and help parishes respond to the new housing
developments in their midst. You will work with designated
deaneries on Mission Action Planning
We want someone who can demonstrate
•
•
•
•
•
•
you could have a copy of the Church Times sent to your home every Friday.
Feed your spiritual needs with a subscription to the Church Times.
Send for details to:
Church Times Subscriptions,
13a Hellesdon Park Road, Norwich NR6 5DR
from September 2013
Accommodation provided
Also an
ALTO, TENOR or
BASS LAY VICAR
Start date negotiable
Enhanced CRB Disclosure required
Further details from:
experience within the Anglican Church
energy, drive and a commitment to church growth
a clear ability to lead
an innovative approach to mission
that they are up for a challenge
an eagerness to put theory into practice
Miss Kirsten Norfolk
14 St Mary’s Street, TRURO, TR1 2AF
01872 245002
[email protected]
www.trurocathedral.org.uk
You will live in the Rochester Archdeaconry area, with easy access
to local facilities and nearby Bluewater and Ebbsfleet
SUBSCRIPTIONS
ALTO, TENOR
and BASS
CHORAL SCHOLARS
Want to know more?
Contact: Revd Canon Jean Kerr
Director for Mission and Community Engagement
Phone: 01634 844508
Prebendal House, 1 Kings Orchard, Rochester ME1 1TG
www.rochester.anglican.org
Closing date for applications: 9th November 2012
Interview dates – late November
This post requires CRB Disclosure at Enhanced Level
All Saints’ Church, Bromsgrove, Worcs
seeks Organist and Choir Trainer from
1st September, 2012. Classical tracker
action two manual Tamburini organ
and Allen two manual drawstop organ.
Three sung eucharists, two lay-led
services, one evensong monthly.
Weekly choir practice. Festivals,
baptisms, weddings and funerals.
Traditional and modern repertoire.
Remuneration by arrangement plus
wedding and funeral fees. Contact:
Mike Carrick
01527 873135
[email protected]
You too could advertise for
as little as £11.88 (+VAT) and
reach over 80,000 readers
37
Wesley Methodist Church
Queens Road, Reading
Appointment of Church Organist
WARDEN
Wesley seeks to appoint, with effect from 1 April 2013, a
high-quality and experienced Church organist – to make full use
of the instruments we have available, and to provide significant
leadership to the musical side of worship.
Offa House is a place of prayer and reflection, of encounter and
education, of hospitality, rest and relaxation. As the Retreat House
for the Diocese of Coventry it seeks, as part of the Diocesan
family, to live out and develop the Diocesan Mission Purpose of:
Worshipping God, Making New Disciples, and Transforming
Communities.
Details of the post and other relevant information are available,
from Mrs Marion Young, Circuit Administrator
Wesley Methodist Church, 84 Queens Road
Reading RG1 4BW; or preferably by
email on [email protected]
The Warden is responsible for ensuring that the house operates to
high standards, is a place of welcome and hospitality, a place of
encounter with God, a place of learning. With the Board of
Trustees, the Warden will be responsible for developing and
implementing a new vision for Offa House as a resource to serve
the people and parishes of the Diocese and beyond.
The closing date for applications will be 30 November,
with interviews to be held in the early part of 2013.
Incumbent’s stipend with accommodation in Offchurch Vicarage
www.offahouseretreat.co.uk
ST MARK'S CHURCH, BROOMHILL,
SHEFFIELD
Further details and application forms are available from
http://www.coventry.anglican.org/home/vacancies/
Mrs Yvette McDonald, PA to the Archdeacons
Cathedral & Diocesan Office, 1 Hilltop Coventry CV1 5AB
Telephone: 024 7652 1337
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC
St Mark's is a well-attended, forward-thinking church with a strong musical
tradition situated in Sheffield’s university quarter.
Closing date: Monday 5th November 2012
Interviews: Thursday 29th November 2012
• Established SATB choir of up to 40 adults
• 10 am and 8 pm Sunday services
• Varied styles of worship
• Organist in place
• Strong links with local and wider community
• RSCM Rates
Enhanced CRB Disclosure is required for this post
ANGLICAN ALLIANCE
WEBSITE AND OFFICE MANAGER
Job Description available on our website or by request.
Application by covering letter and CV.
We’re looking for a skilled, dynamic website manager who
can develop our interactive website, with a special focus on
our innovative on-line learning programme.
Deadline for Application: Friday 2 November 2012
Further details, and to apply, please contact:
Rev'd Dr Ian Wallis (Vicar)
The Vicarage, 4 St Mark's Crescent, Sheffield S10 2SG
www.stmarkssheffield.co.uk
The website manager will also assist with the organisation
of our office in West London.
The Anglican Alliance brings together development, relief
and advocacy across the Anglican Communion.
We’re looking for someone who will join our team working
at the cutting edge of the Church’s mission to overcome
poverty and injustice!
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC/ORGANIST
needed for South Coast Resort Parish Church
New digital three manual organ to be installed.
An opportunity to rebuild the fine musical tradition of this church
and would include recitals and concerts.
For more information and an application form
please contact Email: [email protected]
Resolutions ABC in place.
Applications from suitably qualified candidates
with CV should sent to:
CRB clearance required
accommodation to let
Applications close on: November 5th
LOOKING FOR A RETIREMENT HOME?
Holy Trinity Church, Hoghton (Blackburn)
requires an
Organist and Choir Trainer
who has the energy and enthusiasm to play the recently restored
2 manual pipe organ and continue to bring new members to our
choir and further develop the music making among the younger
members of our congregation. We have a well-established choral
tradition with an RSCM affiliated SATB robed choir. We have one
sung service each Sunday morning. Remuneration and fees
within RSCM guidelines depending on experience and agreed
job description.
For more information, contact: Elisabeth Sawle on
01772 821213 • [email protected]
St John’s, Chipping Sodbury, near Bristol
Diocese of Gloucester
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC/ORGANIST
Lively, able, committed musician required. Varied musical
styles. Opportunity to expand existing RSCM choir (local
Church Primary School); instrumental group; 2-manual,
well-maintained pipe organ (tracker action); Sunday morning
services and major festivals. RSCM rate.
Re-advertisement
Sheffield Cathedral Assistant Director of Music
The Chapter is seeking to appoint an experienced musician of
proven ability as an organist and choir trainer to this important
post within the musical foundation.
The appointment is subject to a satisfactory enhanced CRB
disclosure, and carries a genuine occupational requirement under
the Equality Act 2010.
Closing date for applications: 14 November
Interviews will take place on 29 and 30 November
Further details are available from:
The Canons’ Administration Officer,
The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Paul
Church Street, Sheffield S1 1HA.
Tel: 0114 275 3434 Fax: 0114 279 7412
Website: www.sheffieldcathedral.org
situations vacant
Additional wedding & funeral fees.
Further details from
The Rector, Canon Jane Kenchington
Tel: 01454 313159
www.sodburyvalechurches.wordpress.com
Choir Leader/Organist
St. Augustine's R. C. Church, High Wycombe, Bucks.
We are a well attended Church in the Middle of Town, and are
seeking a new Choir Leader urgently, who is able to play a 2
Manual Pipe Organ, for our SATB choir.
This extra job involves choir practice, 1 hour per week, sung
Mass 11am on Sundays plus the usual extra services,
weddings & funerals.
Please contact: Fr. Willie Strain on [email protected]
38
Are you looking for an alternative, counter cultural and spiritually
challenging way to live and work? Then apply to join the
Resident Staff of the Iona Community at our centres on the
island of Iona, to share a common life and extend our ministry of
hospitality to guests from all over the world.
Positions for 2013 available in our Hospitality, Administration
and Programme Teams
For more details including Job Descriptions and
Application forms please see our website
http://iona.org.uk/iona_staff.php or contact Karen Turner
Iona Community, 4th Floor, Savoy House
140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH
Telephone: 0141 332 6343
There are vacancies at Terrys Cross House in
Sussex, for those who have served the church well,
whether paid or as a volunteer. The house and flats,
owned by the Diocese of Chichester, are charitably run.
The reasonable fees include meals,
laundry, room cleaning. Some personal care is available.
There is a lift, a chapel, extensive gardens
and most rooms have lovely views of the south downs.
Bus service from Horsham to Brighton and local villages.
Contact: The Chairman,The Rev’d C Bennett
c/o Terrys Cross House, Brighton Road
Woodmancote, Sussex BN5 9SX
Tel: 01273 492222
Charity No 1011373
holidays uk
Half term availability,
North Cornwall
Fantastic, 4-bed house;
5 mins walk from beaches,
cliffs, golf;
available from
26th October
Please call Sue on
07974 319 083
ANGLESEY LLANFAIRPWLL — Visit
Wales 3* awarded traditional stone
cottage, rural location, peaceful
surroundings, large garden. Sleeps 4+2
Central heating ,log burner, dogs
welcome. Telephone Maggie Hughes
01635
298
106
Website:
www.dyfniabachcottage.co.uk
CHARMING GRANNIE ANNEX —
available all year at £365.00 per week,
ideal for the new forest visits.
Telephone: 01725 518 808 or
www.newforestborders.co.uk
COTSWOLDS — and Stratford nearby.
Spacious second floor self-contained
apartment in pretty Alcester,
Warwickshire. Sleeps 2/3. Use of
cinema room and large private garden.
Ideal touring base. Discount for Clergy
and Churchworkers. Short breaks
possible. Tel: 01789 764640 or Email:
[email protected]
SHERINGHAM, NORFOLK — Self
catering chalet bungalow with ensuites
& wet room accomadates 13.
Discounts for clergy & others - Canaan
Christian Centre. Tel: 01263 824 300.
holidays abroad
ASSISI, ITALY. Farmhouse apartments
with pool in beautiful countryside
from £390 p.w. Sleeps 2-5. www.casarosa.it Tel +39 075 802 322.
CYPRUS PAPHOS — Luxury 3-bed
detached villa, private heated pool. For
Brochure. Tel: Anna 01452 723 474.
DELIGHTFUL — Family villa, sleeps 6,
own pool, in Coral Bay/Paphos area.
For details telephone 01454 632 329 or
Email [email protected].
ITALY/TUSCANY/MONTERCHI
—
Superb ancient hilltop watchtower/
manor house. Perfect rural, cultural,
historic and tranquil location.
Wonderful views. Tel: 07973 224 125.
Web: www.undicihols.com
articles wanted
ALL
CHURCH
CONTENTS
PURCHASED — Robert Mills Ltd,
Narroways Road, Bristol BS2 9XB.
Tel: 0117 955 6542. Email:
[email protected]
ALL CHURCH FURNISHINGS —
Fixtures and fittings purchased
nationwide. Old chairs urgently
required. Chancellors, Rivernook
Farm, Sunnyside, Walton on Thames,
KT12 2ET. Tel: 01932 252736.
Email:[email protected]
CAN ANY ONE HELP — With a
donation of redundant Bishop’s
regalia needed for a-soon-to-be
consecrated East African Bishop Tel:
0208 568 3778
CHILTON — Architectural Antiques
purchases chairs, fixtures and fittings.
26 Windsor Road, Chorley, Lancs PR7
1LN. Tel/Fax: 01257 273 095. Email:
[email protected]
SOW SOME SUCCESS NOW!
Growing your sales and your responses to advertising involves lots of things:
timing, the right audience, good support and ideas. Here are just a few of the fertile grounds
into which you might consider sowing your advertising.
26 October
Making a Will, Leaving a Legacy
2 November
16 November
23 November
Alternative Gift Guide
Vocations/Bible Colleges
Christmas Books Supplement
7 December
21 December
11 January
18 January
25 January
Christmas Services
Christmas/New Year Double Issue inc Review of the
Year
Gap Year & Short-term service opportunities
Lent Books
Travel, Holidays & Retreats
1 February
8 February
Education
CT 150th Anniversary Special
Advertise to the Church Times readership in any or all of these special features.
These are the publication dates. Deadlines for space are
usually about ten days prior; copy usually seven days prior. Discounts for multiple
adverts/contracts.Contact:Stephen Dutton or Sue Keighley
or Anna Lawrence. Call 020 77761011 or
email [email protected]
Crossword No. 1185 by
Bernard Murray
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
CHURCH TIMES
SCRIBBLE PAD sponsored by
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Across
1 Matrimony? Man reacts badly (9)
19
20
9 Like a straight plot at home to intercept crazy
king (6)
21
22
10 Conservative is behind proposal for collection (9)
11 Queen leaves former PM with mop (6)
23
24
12 So dieting improved the process of absorbing
food? (9)
27
13 Work changing into something one might
choose (6)
28
17 The blue mask you will hide (3)
19 Last book, somewhat minimal achievement! (7)
29
20 Old record is the last evidence, initially, for
Ephesians, perhaps (7)
30
21 Sister heard nobody, either way (3)
31
23 Gold is applied to a reverent petition (6)
27 Divine words for the play by Ultravox singer? (9)
28 Has slept without exercise — that’s a
problem! (6)
8 Michael, maybe, discovers revolution in Arab
29 I urge list to be prepared for forms of public worLeague (9)
ship (9)
14 Most flat signs, at first, low on the street (9)
30 Elder of the chosen I ordained (6)
15 Nips along excitedly for Gregory’s music? (9)
31 Have a tendency to give away where escaping
16 Young cricketer, perhaps, in form? (9)
prisoner is burrowing reportedly? (9)
17 Crime hidden by Kissinger could be original (3)
18 Desire for money in Osaka (3)
Down
22 Convert count in anointing ritual (7)
2 A very loud aviation event (6)
24 Very little time (6)
3 Navy top found aboard Tiree ferry (6)
25 Produces party men with inner energy (6)
4 Mass with Old Testament set out for religious
26 Unpleasant experience with soldiers needing
choral works (6)
understanding (6)
5 It’s all about Walsingham (7)
6 See diagonal piece on brick’s core (9)
7 Tiny trace reviewed to obtain conviction (9)
25
26
Helping people on their Christian journey
Last week’s
solution
39
back page interview
‘You can think,
“We’ll put on a
Christian event and
people will come.”
They won’t’
Nick Pollard
founder, the
Damaris Trust
Films are a great way to encourage
people to think about big questions. We don’t like the word “evangelism”, because it immediately raises
preconceptions in people’s minds.
We prefer the concept of walking
people on their spiritual journey as
they seek answers to the big questions of life.
Damaris is run by a team of people
who have a firm grasp on the Bible,
a clear understanding of popular
culture, and the ability to relate one
to the other. Between us, we are able
to seek out new films that help
people as they move on their spiritual journey.
One of the things I discovered is
that you can think: “Oh, we’ll put
on some Christian event and people
will come.” They won’t. It’s not
where they’re at. But they are still
thinking about spiritual and moral
issues, and they think about them
through the films. We realised what
we’ve got to do is say: “If you’re
thinking about deep things like
hope, trust, dedication, and you’re
going to the cinema, here are resources to help. . .”
Practically every film we see, we
think of different people we could
share this with. With The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel, it was about how we
can help the older generation think
about taking risks, for instance. We
think of young people taking risks,
but old people can do that as well —
step out and do something different.
Back in the early days, when we
were creating Bible-study material
for home groups in partnership with
Scripture Union, we produced a
large resource based around the
issues raised by Harry Potter.
First and foremost, and most important, we must treat the film with
integrity. It’s not about cherrypicking bits that we can illustrate a
Gospel story with. We must look at
the ideas that the film explores and
the questions it raises, and consider
how, with complete integrity, we can
help people who have watched it to
develop their thinking about those
issues.
We don’t use exploitative films,
either of people in the film, or the
audience. Pornography — we
wouldn’t be involved in anything like
that. That’s not helping people to
think about issues. It’s exploiting
their weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Damaris is a registered charity that
depends on the gifts of Christians,
churches, and grant-making trusts to
enable us to pioneer and develop
new resources.
We work in partnership with the
film industry. We introduce differ-
40
ent audiences to the key themes and
messages of the film. There’s the
cinema-going public who will go to
anything — a small number. We’re
part of the means by which the film
industry can interest other people
who are looking for films that
interest them, and we are helping
people on their spiritual journey. As
long as we treat the films with
integrity, there is never any problem.
for ever.” You’re laughing all the way
through because it’s so funny, then
there’s a quiet, moving moment,
particularly powerful because it’s in
the midst of all this humour. So
many people will say that, too. We
want to say: “Well, perhaps there’s a
God who loves you and will be with
you for ever.”
Colossians 3 is both the favourite
and the least-liked — because it
challenges me every time I read it. It’s
practical and inspirational at the
same time — and, no matter how
long you have been following Jesus,
there is always more in that chapter
to challenge you.
We create community educational
resources to go with new films as
they are released in the cinema.
Sometimes, they are special, short
films, a whole range of different
types, or little reflective films we call
a “Movie Moment”: presenting clips
from the film and raising life issues
designed to stimulate discussions.
I get angry about the way in which
some people in the Church
advocate entertainment
over
serious engagement. I love practical
jokes, love humour — but people in
the Church think Christian outreach
means just entertaining them, or
engaging with them emotionally.
Reel to Real takes issues raised in a
film to real life. So, from Africa
United we made a whole bunch of
videos on child soldiers, AIDS orphans, child prostitution, and got experts in that subject to speak about
these issues and how people might
take action.
Nobody buys them: they’re given
away free. Each one is designed for a
particular group; so, for example,
our The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
was made for the University of the
Third Age, which is made up of a
quarter of a million people across
the UK. We also produce work for
groups that do film studies and
cultural studies.
We began by creating resources for
churches; but I was very struck by
God’s command to Abraham in
Genesis 13: “You’ll be a blessing to all
people.” So we’re moving much
more to making resources that any
community group can use: Scouts
and Guides, Rotary, schools. We do
website assemblies online every week
for primary and secondary schools.
It’s great fun when we release clips
from the film and a teacher can show
it to their class, saying: “Next week
this film is coming out.”
We worked with 20th Century Fox
to get Chariots of Fire re-released
for the Olympics. We had a feature
about it in the opening ceremony,
and we had the film digitally remastered and released throughout
the country.
I wanted to be a doctor as a child,
and originally came to Southampton
to study medicine, but switched to
psychology at the last minute. Then,
at post-graduate level, I moved into
philosophy. As a teenager, I was fascinated by different philosophies and
religions.
I made a commitment to be a
sceptic, and to seek truth wherever
it would lead me. This led me, in
time, to becoming convinced of the
truth of the life and teaching of Jesus.
I regret not completing my Ph.D.
All the research was done; much of it
was written. But my wife and I were
head-hunted by the Billy Graham
Association, and the attraction of all
the opportunities to help people to
explore the gospel was overwhelming.
I used to love camping and walking,
but now we are hugely attracted by
cruises. Is that a sign of age?
Recently I have started to relax by
reading biographies. It’s fascinating
to read the inside track on people’s
experiences as they journey through
life
Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto: whenever I feel tired or jaded
— I have a wonderful drawing room
upholstered in leather, my little bit of
luxury — I put that on, and sit on
the sofa. That’s enjoying life.
I wrote a book called Get More like
Jesus While Watching TV [Damaris,
2005]. I say which is my favourite
film in that; so I could just say buy
the book. But it’s It’s A Wonderful
Life. It’s a 1950s film that engages
you emotionally and intellectually,
and you ask: ‘What would the world
be like if I hadn’t lived? What has
been my impact on the world?’
There’s an angel in it, which is
theologically way off-beam, but I’m
not worried about that, because it
helps people think.
I’ve been deeply influenced by Peter
Berger and his concept of signals of
transcendence. One of the things he
talks about is the idea that there are
things in the world around us that
TWO blackbirds gorge on berries
below the study window. They stand
a yard apart, eating and balancing.
But no fruit in the orchard for me.
Not an apple, not a plum. And the
wheat harvest is way down, and were
we living in Thomas Hardy’s day we
would be saying the prayer “In the
time of Dearth and Famine”. “And
grant that the scarcity and dearth,
which we do now most justly suffer
for our iniquity, may through thy
goodness be mercifully turned into
cheapness and plenty.” But it was the
summer rain, not my iniquity which
did it.
In John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, he
remembers:
All whom war, dearth, age, agues,
tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain . . .
Dearth is dearness. I no longer
know the price of anything —
butter, eggs, pyjamas, bacon, the
cinema. And now this harvest’s
bread. I buy three loaves, and put
two in the deep freeze. A charming
soil-tester comes and tells me what I
have never been told before about
our village fields, stones and all.
At the opticians’, a young man
asks me to read A Z L M O, etc. “Try
the next line.” In the High Street —
the same down which the Romans
wandered — the young and old
make their way. I buy next year’s
Gardener’s Diary. How efficient I
am.
Changed and in my toiler’s rags, I
prepare the orchard for the scythe.
Everything must lie low. E’er the
winter storms begin. I am the great
leveller. I think of Oliver Cromwell,
of harvest supper, of the last chapter
awaken within us an insight into the
deeper questions of life, transcending the material world. You watch a
sunset. There’s got to be more. . . A
newborn baby: amazing. That happens in the cinema all the time. For
so many people, it provides wonderful signals of the transcendent.
Is it possible to be forgiven? To find
a love that will stay with us for ever?
We’re going to be working on
Nativity 2, and it’s about a small
group of kids entering a Songs for
Christmas competition, and David
Tennant is in it. There’s a line in the
film from someone talking about
how his dad left him, and he says:
“Ever since then, all I’ve wanted is a
best friend who would stay with me
word from
Wormingford
In a time of dearth,
Ronald Blythe turns
to John Donne
— how to begin it. In church, I must
remember not to mention St Luke’s
little summer, so that people do not
exchange looks and give little smiles.
“Wait for it — he will tell us that it is
St Luke’s little summer.” But what
shall I say instead? Shall I leave
dearth alone?
The farmers and their wives pray.
As do the Waitrose customers. All
bowed. Honeybees, fruit and veg, the
token sheaf, the rich scent. The sun
on the painted saints, on the Lord
himself.
“I can’t bear it,” the old friend
used to say as she watched market
day from her car. Meaning that it
would all go on when she was “gone”.
The stalls, the schoolchildren on the
bus, the swing doors of the shops,
People misunderstand film if they
think it’s merely entertainment.
There’s a huge layer of complexity in
even a superficial rom. com. A lot of
work has gone in to engage people at
all levels — aesthetically, artistically,
emotionally. We identify with a character very powerfully, feel the emotion with them, engage intellectually,
think about the questions they are
facing. We are whole people, emotional, intellectual, active.
I’m happiest whenever I am with a
group of people who are actively
engaged in thinking about the big
questions of life.
I pray that I will be able to “make
the most of every opportunity”
[Colossians 4].
I’d like to get locked in a church
with my son. We could talk philosophy and theology without having
to stop for food.
Nick Pollard was talking to Terence
Handley MacMath.
the town-hall flag, the plane flying
low, the people chatting, the church
clock striking, the girl laughing at
the counter, the lovers holding
hands, the October air. Everything
would go on. She couldn’t bear it.
Three labourers have spaded their
way down to where the Romans
trod, raising a mountain of blond
rubble. People look down on them.
A wit: “Have you lost something,
mate?” On they dig. I take a short cut
through long Victorian roads, which
are named after Cromwellian
generals, and get lost. Most of my
short cuts are a long way round.
Surprisingly, a villa calls itself a
Russian Orthodox church. What a
squeeze it must be. Incense and icons
in the front room. Rich responses
climbing the stairs.
And now, home. What shall we
sing on Sunday morning? Do we
know “Light of the minds that know
him”? It is a prayer of St Augustine
of Hippo, and is about our treading
out our own Emmaus road. A little
rain falls.
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Newspaper House, Morton Way, Horncastle,
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