William Temple Foundation

This year sees the 40th anniversary of the 1985 publication of the Faith in the City Report (FITC) – a landmark moment on the Church of England’s engagement with urban poverty and social justice. It called the economic collapse, racial discrimination and social desolation of the UK’s post-industrial urban areas ‘a grave and fundamental injustice’ (p.xv) which had been systematically ignored by both State and Church.

Established by Archbishop Robert Runcie and his Commission on Urban Priority Areas (UPAs), the report’s stated focus was to observe what the Church was doing in these areas and how that mission might be more effective. The report located that work in a detailed, wide-ranging and authoritative review of the social and economic challenges facing urban Britain and pulled few punches in laying the blame for the calamitous decline of UPAs on neo-liberal government policies.

Thus alongside 38 recommendations to the Church of England for support on urban mission, the report also contained 23 recommendations to the Government on specific policies aimed at alleviating poverty. For example, increasing the level of the Rate Support Grant, increasing supplementary benefits for long-term unemployed, expanding house building and increasing resources for ‘care in the community’.

The Thatcher government of the day took offence at this approach together with the report’s enthusiastic endorsement of Liberation Theology. An anonymous briefing from a cabinet minister suggested it was ‘pure Marxist theology’. Whilst clearly untrue, my recollection of the time similarly resonates with historian Eliza Filby’s assertion that FiTC became ‘one of the most incisive and important critiques of Thatcher’s Britain’ (2015).*

The report resonates 40 years on with a number of national and local gatherings being held reflect on it. But what precisely is its legacy on church thinking on issues of social and racial justice and how it engages with the State? And if a similar report was to be commissioned today, how might it be different?A partnership between Ripon College, Cuddesdon and the Foundation convened a gathering of key voices across theology, sociology and policy (see below) at the college on the 15th/16th May to consider such questions. The following themes emerged.

Historical Context and Theological Foundations

The FiTC report emerged as a response to growing inequality in Britain’s urban areas. Many participants noted strong resonances with the tradition of Temple and Tawney, representing an Anglican socialist tradition of defending the welfare state. Its 23 detailed policy recommendations clearly wanted to move beyond the generality of the six policy areas generated by middle axioms that appear as a Suggested Programme in Temple’s Christianity and Social Order (1942), presumably on the basis that these would be more productive in effecting progressive change. Our roundtable reflected that 40 years on, few people remember the FiTC policy recommendations whereas over 80 years later, many still recall the contents and methodology of Temple’s approach that helped establish the foundation of the post-war welfare state, and that his language of service, renewal and transformation continues to resonate in policy discourse today.

A notable missed opportunity we identified was the failure to fully engage with the report’s radical theological roots. Whilst it did focus on incarnational and sacramental themes rather than atonement, it could have explored an indigenous English/Anglican theology more deeply rather than relying on liberation theology frameworks that never truly caught fire in the British context. And whilst its approach echoes biblical themes from Jeremiah (“seek the welfare of the city”) and Amos (“the plumbline” as a form of judgment), we noted that explicit biblical references were surprisingly limited, with the report instead taking the 1977 White Paper “Policy for the Inner Cities” as its starting point.

Methodological Strengths and Weaknesses

The roundtable highlighted both strengths and limitations in the report’s methodology. One strength was its commitment to listening to local communities, though some noted that it ultimately elevated “voices from above” over “voices from below.” The report tended to treat urban residents as objects of study rather than active participants, with few direct quotes or narratives from community members themselves. There were questions regarding the composition of the Commission, noting that gatekeepers with power shaped its findings. The Church Urban Fund (CUF) that emerged from the report was largely run by women, yet there has been limited feedback on how these experiences changed ecclesiology. The report had only four Black members on its Commission and was written before the emergence of Black Theology in the UK. Whilst well-intentioned regarding racial injustice, the patrician structure and processes of the report now would be seen as embedded in an Anglican and colonial culture, unaware of the way it excludes Black and Brown voices from its deliberations.

Changing Demographics and Ecclesial Diversity

We highlighted dramatic demographic changes since the report was published. The fastest-growing churches in Urban Priority Areas (UPAs) now include:

​1. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG)—a Yoruba church established in the UK in 1988 that now has over 1,000 parishes, 80% in UPAs

2. The New Testament Church of God (NTCG)—grown from 11,000 to 30,000 members across 134 churches, with roots in Jamaica

3. The Assyrian Christian Church—serving Iraqi refugees with its own cathedral in London

These changes highlight the report’s limited ecumenical vision, which focused on traditional denominations while missing the Orthodox, Pentecostal, and independent churches that would come to populate urban Christianity. The intercultural potential of these diverse communities remains largely unrealized.

Contemporary Challenges in Urban Mission

In the meantime, we identified several contemporary challenges that would require new approaches should a similar report be commissioned again:

1. Digital engagement: Millennial and Gen Z populations have different relationships with authority and institutions. They value authenticity, resist being told what to do, and navigate between individualism and digital connectivity.

2. Environmental justice: Access to nature and green spaces has become recognized as essential for human wellbeing in cities, especially following COVID-19 restrictions. Theological frameworks like those proposed by Sallie McFague (“The World as God’s Body”) offer resources for thinking about cities not as machines but as living organisms.

3. Intersectionality: Contemporary approaches to urban mission and ministry must account for multiple, overlapping forms of oppression beyond the class-based analysis that dominated FiTC (although it was recorded at our gathering that classism in the Church continues to exist to harmful effect) – for example race, gender and sexuality.

Towards New Models of Urban Engagement

Finally, our shared discussions highlighted successful models that have emerged since FiTC, particularly Community Organizing and Citizens UK. These approaches focus on:

• Building collectives that counter the centrifugal forces of neoliberalism
• Facilitating the articulation of suffering and finding others with common cause
• Acting for social justice and achieving concrete wins
• Listening with purpose rather than passively
• Developing leadership capacity among community members
• Preserving independence from the state through collective action

This suggests to me the importance of an ongoing search for an ecumenical, post-secular political theology that provides alternatives to a charity model that merely mitigates injustice through service rather than pursuing structural change.

Conclusion: An Unfinished Project

Our deliberations acknowledged that FiTC represented an important moment when the Church of England functioned as the “official opposition” to Thatcherism. However, the Christian project of urban transformation clearly remains unfinished and requires new tools of power analysis. Today’s urban mission requires attention to climate change, housing crises, asylum seekers, and the growing mental health epidemic—issues either not addressed or differently configured when FiTC was published. What remains constant, however, is the need for deep listening, authentic presence, recognition of transience and journey, and genuine collaboration. As one of us concluded, “It has to be ‘we’ if we are to make a difference.”

From l-r: Robert Pope, Tim Norwood, Alison Webster, Anthony Reddie, Ben Aldous, Chris Baker, Victoria Turner, Tim Middleton, Abby Day, Richard Davis, Joe Forde, Stephen Spencer, Paul Weller, Guy Hewitt, Greg Smith, Luke Larner.

With deep appreciation for all the contributions which we hope to publish as a digital book in September and especially to Dr Victoria Turner who hosted the event in such an enabling and hospitable way.

*Filby, Eliza. God and Mrs Thatcher: The battle for Britain’s soul. Biteback Publishing, 2015.

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