Chris Baker reflects on the healing and cohesion facilitated by faith groups in the aftermath of the recent Grenfell Tower disaster.
As the traumatic aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy continues to unfold, the rawness of the anger and grief of the victims of the disaster remans undimmed in the absence of obvious milestones to justice and restitution. A recent Guardian report has looked at the role of the faith communities in the vicinity of the tower since the very earliest hours of the tragedy. They not only co-ordinated emergency relief and ongoing needs such as bereavement and trauma counselling, but now act as a bridge of communication and outreach between local residents and the local authority. Churches and mosques are trusted as safe spaces to not only kick-start the very delicate task of reconciliation, but also in which to hear and hold the rawness of the pain and anger still swirling within the community. They have also offered quiet spaces where many people have come to simply reflect on what this has meant to them, and to remember in silent thought and prayer those who have died, been injured or made destitute. They know as well that this is no quick fix response, but that they will need to be doing this for many years to come – they are in it for the long haul, long after the media circus has left. In addition, these churches and mosques have also been platforms for a determined denunciation at the corporate greed and inequality that contributes to the housing crisis on cities like London.
Key to the power of these responses has been the renewed visibility of religion and religious identity (already very strong in the North Kensington area) to the external world, especially the media and politicians. One of the most telling remarks from the Guardian piece came from local Methodist minister Mike Long, who said that until a month ago, he rarely wore a dog collar. However, at 4.30 on the morning of the fire he put it on and has never taken it off at any public engagement since. ‘Now’ he says, ‘my role is much more public and I need to be identifiable’.
There are several ways in which this simple story resonates into wider issues. The first seems to be about the confident emergence of religion and belief back into public life. We don’t know why Mike Long didn’t wear his dog collar much before the Grenfell Tower fire – perhaps he felt its symbolism might put people off in a multi-cultural area; perhaps he preferred to express an anonymous servant type theology (certainly popular some years ago) which sees the church as getting stuck in, one agency amongst others, serving others, and of actions speaking louder than words.
Now people seem more comfortable and relaxed about seeing a dog collar in the public sphere. Where has this new valuing and relaxation regarding public religious identity come from and how do we understand its value going forward? Will we eventually see the same level of acceptance of other public religious symbols such as the hijab emerge as part of the wider, national healing and cohesion that could come out of the awful trauma of this event?
So much of what has emerged post-Grenfell is this idea of public servants (but especially politicians and local authorities) not being visible and therefore escaping accountability. The last 40 years of neo-liberal ‘reform’ has masked and occluded the idea of accountability and responsibility. Things just happen; public bodies have been stripped of their regulatory power and authority. This now must stop. A new public culture must emerge where we choose to be identified as responsible for the accountable and fair running of the public sphere. Religious people, proudly but unassertively wearing their badges of office – making themselves publicly accountable to implement the values and ethics of their professional and religious identity, sends an important message in this regard.
Finally, there is the issue of healing and cohesion. It is the public performance by churches, mosques and other secular institutions and individuals of acts of compassion, solidarity, bridgebuilding, listening, counselling, as well as denouncing, that create and restore webs of connectivity and hope. The reason why so many bad and sad things happen in our society is that we have become disconnected – disconnected from each other, disconnected from the environment, but also publicly disconnected from the values and traditions, beliefs and worldviews that used to shape and inform the social order that we sought to build.
A much-needed turn to a sense of national purpose and direction will not come from shrill voices and policies designed to implement British values and demonise those who don’t appear to conform to them. Neither can these value be taught in a formulaic and prescriptive way as part of RE classes in our schools. As the report from the recent Malvern 2017 conference on nation building reflects, Britain will not be stitched back together again by a ‘tick box’ approach to values and cohesion. The values and principles by which we need to construct a new social order out of the ashes of tragic events like Grenfell tower are ‘caught’, not taught. They are embodied and performed at local levels. Our job as public bodies is to reflect and celebrate them, and allow the hope and resilience they inspire to remind us that the way we run our public life can no longer obey the blind logic of managerialism and algorithms. Rather, our public life is explicitly constructed on the principles of service, accountability, fairness, vocation and trust.
Whatever our ‘dog collars’ are for us, whatever our means of publicly identifying our authentic and professional selves, for the sake of the victims of Grenfell and for sake of preventing tragedies like this happening in the future, we need to be loud and proud of who we are. Not for the sake of a false pride – or even a false humility – but for the sake of being publicly accountable to one another, and committing to a transparent commitment to use our beliefs and identities to build a fairer and more interconnected world.
William Temple Foundation Director, Professor Chris Baker, on the terrorist attack on Manchester.
As the tragic and horrific events of yet another terrorist attack filter through, this time in Manchester, I am once again struggling to come to terms with the enormity of the blind hatred and violence towards others that characterises so much of our modern public life.
Manchester Arena is a place I know well, having been to several concerts there over the years that I lived in the North West. The fact that children are among the victims whose lives have been cruelly taken from them in their prime adds another level of horror and despair to an already desperate situation. Election campaigning has quite rightly been suspended, and it is hard frankly to see how we can return to such a thing while those who died will be remembered and mourned in the days and weeks to come. However, like the IRA bomb attack on Manchester over 20 years ago, we know that the city will rise up from this outrage and continue to celebrate its identity as a core place of musical and cultural innovation and tolerance amidst diversity.
We have already seen acts of human compassion, kindness and solidarity that always emerge in the wake of such outrages – opening spaces and hearts to comfort and make safe those caught up in the aftermath, taking people home after the city centre shut down. We as a society instinctively come together as a wider community. It reminds me of what anthropologists, following on from the pioneering work of people like Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner call a communitas; i.e. a temporary form of community that emerges when a group of people make a transition from one threshold of experience or identity to the next. Symptomatic of these temporary forms of community are that the normal rules and hierarchies of social engagement are reversed or suspended. So for example, in the immediate aftermath of a mass tragedy, people cross a threshold from a settled and predictable existence into a chaotic and fearful one until ‘normal’ life is signalled as having returned to its usual patterns and rhythms, Within this liminal state, those most directly affected by a tragedy such as this will be the most deeply changed – they will eventually take on new identities and worldviews, and their sense of solidarity with those who have shared the horror of these events will mark them out as a community within a community whose experience is unique and unrepeatable.
For the rest of us, our sense of being in a communitas of changed citizens will probably be far more short-lived. Yet while we, as a nation, are in this heightened sense of communitas, we are prepared to suspend our normal rules of social engagement, often characterised by suspicion, fear and bitterness, and perhaps our own sense of entitlement. These norms, that so often come to the fore at election times, and which are often stoked up by a partisan press and social media, are subverted by a temporary sense of solidarity, empathy and compassion We instinctively put the needs of others before our own – we see others as vulnerable bundles of humanity that remind us of the precariousness of human happiness, and we literally or metaphorically say ‘Thank God – what if it had been my daughter or son caught up in this tragedy – how would I be coping now and so how awful it must be for those going through it now?’
The question that always hits me after these awful events is why can we only seem capable of acting like a decent compassionate society in a momentary way. Why can’t communitas – a temporary community of people recognising they are on a similar journey and supporting and affirming each other in that experience – not be more of the norm rather than the exception. The answers to these questions have of course haunted humankind down the ages – they are a mixture of the theological, the political, the economic and the psychological.
But I am guessing at the heart of the all these terrible events lies a distorted sense, in the minds of the perpetrators, of one’s own importance and the message one has, so that one then feels compelled to impose them on others. If they don’t listen, then one is entitled to force them to listen through acts of unspeakable violence. Perhaps the apparent increased prevalence of violent attacks from people who demand their voices and opinions be heard is a response to growing diversity in our society, and an accompanying fear that the specialness or significance of their message will be lost in the welter of competing voices.
If this is the case then one response is, first of all, to continue to celebrate and strengthen diversity – to not succumb to the rhetoric of highlighting difference and specialness. The second, is then to move from celebration to proactive and strategic reflection on the common values and experiences that unite humans to one another and which we seem wilfully to want to ignore or take for granted.
In the immediate shadow of this latest outrage, such reflection can sometimes feel futile. On the other hand, if nothing else, it is more important than ever to create spaces in which the normal rules of engagement are suspended, as a sign of hope and determination that we as a society will never succumb to the mindless nihilism of terrorism. As a communitas of diversity and hope, we are reminded of the importance of articulating and creating alternative visons of society, where the norms of decent and compassionate behaviour are indeed just that – more the norm, and less of the exception.
Writing from the borders of Eastern Europe, Chris Baker reflects on the appalling terrorist attack on Westminster.
As the shocking news of the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack filtered through yesterday I felt both deeply drawn in, but also removed from the horrors that were unfolding. Being a Londoner, I have walked countless times across that bridge, and marvelled at the dramatic juxtaposition of the Palace of Westminster, and Big Ben and their constantly changing profile against the sky at one perspective and the ever-restless and mighty Thames at another. It is hard not to feel a sense of pride and history at what, for many, are iconic images of democracy and freedom that have emerged uniquely from a particularly British sensibility – what some have called ‘the mother of Parliaments.’
On the other hand, I am currently in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and seeing the news from a different European country was instructive. Being at one stage removed, one is aware of the stock images and soundtracks that accompanied similar outrages in Berlin, Brussels Paris and Nice on shaky social media – running crowds, bodies on the ground, armed services and paramedics rushing to the scene.
It had a bewildering impact on me – seeing scenes of carnage that seemed so globally familiar, but juxtaposed on streets and pavements that I knew so well. My heart goes out to all those caught up in this carnage of atavistic violence – those who died and were horrifically injured, those who tried to offer relief and comfort. Their lives will be changed for ever by the events of yesterday afternoon. I was also deeply impressed by the professionalism and courage of the British public services that was clearly on display.
But what to else to say and how to react to the events of yesterday? I think the main thing that struck me observing this from the Eastern-most borders of the European Union was how unimportant the fury and bluster that we have managed to sustain since the June referendum seemed and now seems. If there is one good thing that can emerge from the tragic events of yesterday, I hope it is that innate and instinctive sense of us being part of a wider European heritage can be tactfully remembered. I was struck by a visceral sense of solidarity of what we share with Europe which we share with no other nation or continent: that sense of close proximity (French students and others from other nations were caught up in the horror of yesterday’s events); that sense that what felt under attack was a tradition of liberal democracy that is expressed on so many exciting and dynamic ways across the European continent; that sense that we now know something of what Berlin, Paris, Nice and Brussels have been through. It shows that in the face of a common evil, what is required is a dignity and courage to receive as well as to give, to rely on deep bonds of culture and history when words fail and feelings cannot be articulated.
This is not an apology for European or Western hegemony – there is far too much to say that needs to recognise the shadow side of British and European imperialism, the legacy of which undoubtedly exacerbates feelings of grievance and alienation to this day. What I want to say is really the opposite. The tragic and violent loss of life on the streets of London shows that life and solidarity are more important things to invest in. That will be with humankind first and foremost, but then you tend to want to share your grief and solidarity with those nearest to you – and for us, those nearest to us, with bonds of trade, culture, war and peace, are the our sister nations within Europe.
Of course, we forsake these bonds at our peril. Is it too counter-intuitive to suggest that when you neglect, forget or take for granted deep solidarities and shared visions with those you were once closest to, that it allows other forces of anarchy and fragmentation to come in and fill that vacuum? The resilience, collective wisdom and creativity to disown and discredit these forces becomes dissipated and fragmented. Irrespective of where you stand on the Brexit vote, yesterday’s horrors serve as a stark reminder that in today’s world, no country is an island and no one society can withstand and defeat the worst excesses of globalised evil. Rather we need to be reminded of our interconnectedness with those around us, but especially those with whom we naturally share so much.
My hope and prayer is that it will be a long time before a little Britain or Englander mentality raises its ugly head again to shore up a supposed sense of superiority over our European neighbours. This period of deep and sober reflection, and soul searching, must be time for recognising that we share so much more than what apparently divides us, and that in the face of such nihilistic death, we affirm our common identity and love of diversity, freedom, equality and life itself. There are more important things than fear of losing face or acting on perceived slights to our nationhood. One of those things is to re-imagine a strong, free and capacious Europe which we are pleased to be part of and pleased to strengthen. If we don’t, the nihilists have won, and the huge sacrifice of those who gave their lives and skills to save others in the name of compassionate solidarity will once more be in vain.
Chris Baker is Director of Research at the William Temple Foundation
I recently came across a superb piece of photo-journalism in the New York Times entitled ‘Occupy Wall Street – Where are they now?’. Photographer Accra Shepp had shot in situ portraits of several ordinary New York citizens in Zuccotti Park in October 2011, among the several thousands gathered in the wake of the 2008 financial crash to protest against the impacts of de-regulated capitalism. Shepp had tracked down some of his original subjects because he wanted to know how the heady events of five years ago had changed them: the preppy-looking lawyer who became the leading figure pushing through same-sex equality legislation in New Jersey and is now working on penal reform; the undocumented Mixtec migrant – a young woman from Mexico – who now runs a popular restaurant which employs undocumented workers and serves as an advice hub for others.
However, not all stories are narratives of spectacular change and progressive protest. One of Shepp’s most striking images is of a mother and daughter. The mother had taken her daughter out of school that day believing that the events that were unfolding in Zuccotti Park would be more life-transforming than books and lessons. Five years later, Shepp asked the daughter if she had ever discussed these events at school. The answer was a simple no – there had been no acknowledgment of any of it.
And thereby hangs the conundrum of the whole Occupy phenomenon. Just what difference did it make? Hardened cynics and disappointed idealists will point to the overwhelming evidence that nothing has changed. The visceral hope for progressive social democracy of the Arab Spring has largely been replaced by deeper and further repression and violence – the Arab Spring has turned into the Arab Winter. Social trends in the UK, Europe and beyond show inexorable trends towards further inequality and social alienation. Recent financial scandals involving tax dodging and avoidance by multi-national companies (Starbucks, Apple, Google), rigging of market rates (Libor) and treating workers’ pensions savings as personal collateral (BHS) would suggest that despite the crash of 2008, very little has changed, and it is business as usual. What does a five-year perspective on Occupy offer us?
One useful framework for looking at this question is provided by Craig Calhoun, former Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science and now President of the Berggruen Institute (and a recent contributor to our Temple Tract series). He talks about the relationship between ‘moments’ and ‘movements’. It is important, he says, to distinguish between ‘specific protests and other relatively short-term manifestations from longer-term patterns of action seeking to produce major changes’. Movements are defined as ‘relatively long-term collective engagements in producing or guiding social change’ such as the civil rights movement in the 1960s or the moves towards women’s suffrage in the early 20th century. Writing reasonably soon after the event (roughly a year), Calhoun believes that Occupy was not a movement but an intense moment that lasted for six weeks: ‘It is no denigration of Occupy Wall Street (or the Occupy movement(s) more generally) to say it may not have a future as such.’
So on one hand he would seem to share something of a pessimist’s perspective on the long-term impacts of Occupy. However, he does go on to suggest that Occupy could be a moment which might be replicated later on in a different guise. In other words, we might argue that Occupy was a key spike, along with others, in shift towards what we might call an emerging post-neo-liberal consensus, the full contours and character of which have yet to emerge.
I am certainly very interested in this idea of an emerging post neo-liberal consensus, and whilst I share Craig Calhoun’s analysis, I think with the benefit of a five-year perspective, it is possible to argue for a greater claim to Occupy’s legacy.
Occupy crystallised in stark clarity a visceral and heartfelt rejection of globalisation and its inexorable unaccountability, instability, and amoral functionalism. Since then we have seen all over the world, a growing anti-globalisation sentiment that is now shaking the political and economic mainstream – based on the presumed neo-liberal consensus – to its core. Entities like Podemos in Spain, the Five Star Movement in Italy, Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Momentum, Black Lives Matter; these are all over the place in terms of political vision. But they share one thing in common: a desire to reverse globalisation and restore a sense of identity and values back into the public sphere.
Of course political vision is hugely important. Much of Trumpism and ‘hard’ Brexiteering is based on the return to protectionism and narrow nationalism. However, the strong appeal of Corbyn and other ‘new left’ movements lies on their call for a return to progressive state interventionism as a way of restoring inclusive and solidaristic values back into public life. As Paul Mason recently remarked; like it or loathe it, Corbynism marks an inevitable trend to new political and economic reality that is unstoppable – history is now on their side’. An insider friend told me that at a recent conference of investment strategists, there was a widespread and relaxed acceptance of John McDonnell’s economic modelling and rise of Corbynism – because they recognised the current political system is both intellectually and instrumentally broken and will have to radically change. In other words, there are more risks associated with the toxic impacts of the current economic strategy than the ideas represented by, for example, Corbynism.
The key question is: What new politics will emerge out the ashes of the present death-throes of neo-liberalism? Will it be an open or closed-borders future – intellectually as well as geographically? It is all to play for.
The indispensable truth that Occupy bestowed however, is that human beings matter again – stories and experiences need to be valued and listened to, especially those at the bottom of the pile. Above all, and this is something that the Foundation believes with every fibre of its being, that we need to be reconnected to one another and to principles and values that transcend the short-term and the material. Occupy may not have had a coherent political message or policy at the time. But its simple cry that the 99% matter unleashed a new consciousness on the world; that human beings matter; that the earth matters; that the solution to the world’s problems will be based around a new ethical imagination, not a just a quick technical fix.
Chris Baker is Director of Research at the William Temple Foundation.
Religion, Government and the Public Good by Craig Calhoun is available to download – click here >>
I was at the House of Lords last week attending the unveiling of the newly-launched Oasis Foundation. In front of a packed and appreciative audience of politicians, civil servants, think tanks, local authorities, senior church leaders and grassroots activists its first report Faith in Public Service – the role of the church in Public Service Delivery was launched. Its aim is to re-invigorate momentum in the Big Society agenda by placing the role of churches and other faith groups in the driving seat.
Oasis has shown over 30 years of experimentation and creative entrepreneurship how churches can become pivotal providers of social infrastructure – schools, housing, business start-ups, libraries and parks, mental health and social care. Oasis now provides education for 25,000 children in its academies and works across several countries. This report challenges other churches to think of themselves as hubs and networks of care, institutionally organising themselves in regional clusters so that they can combine resources, brand themselves and become commissioned providers of public services. It calls for a change in mindset of local authorities in the way that they commission services from the faith sector, and advocates a kite-branding system for faith groups to prove to funders that they are commission compliant. It also calls for better integrated patterns of meetings between churches/faith groups and government in the form of a new Civil Society Taskforce, a better resourced Office for Civil Society and a Church Commission on Social Action.
This is a bold and confident move into a confused, depleted and demoralised public sector by Oasis on behalf of the churches in the UK to argue for a permanent shift in the policy landscape towards religious providers. Much of it fits into our developing agenda at William Temple of faith groups as the new ‘curators of spaces of convergence’ (such as foodbanks) that many citizens find meet their needs for more values-driven and ethical forms of civic engagement.
However, there are also unacknowledged risks to the Oasis approach that need to be addressed.
In many ways, what is being advocated feels like a replication of the clinical commissioning groups (CCGS) brought in as a top-down reform of the NHS by the last Coalition Government. These clusters replaced Primary Health Care Trusts who had a strategic and integrated view of a whole region’s health and social needs. A recent King’s Fund Report has identified huge problems associated with trying to deliver health and social care between 211 CCGs and 152 local authorities. These include: lack of clarity over what is meant by joint commissioning (is it geographically or thematically-based?); duplication; over-complex administration protocols involving the pooling of staff and locations and integrating systems; and the consequent reduction in the time clinical practitioners can invest in front-line care. Lessons like this need to be learnt alongside the bold vision of the sunny uplands.
Steve Chalke, the founder of Oasis, whose vision and drive has led to such an impressive legacy of action for future research, quoted Marx’s famous ‘religion as the opium of the people’ dictum at the launch. On the contrary, he rightly claimed, religion wakes people up – it catalyses the motivation and vision for transformational social change and justice. However, there is no theological critique in this report of the drive towards the reduced state and the expansion of the commissioning culture and its role in the continuation of social inequality. They are assumed as given.
Whilst fully in favour of the church developing a theology of enterprise, the lack of a critique of the inherent power dynamics arising from the current ‘reduced state strategy’ seems a significant omission. The church must develop a coherent and sustainable view of the enabling state before it leaps into the commissioning swimming pool. With whom does the legal buck stop when millions of vulnerable people are callously stigmatised by the welfare system? Or are told instead that they are now ‘social entrepreneurs’ who are entirely responsible for their own welfare? In its eager willingness to mop up the tragedy of wasted and downtrodden lives, the omnicompetent church plays into the hands of the neo-liberal agenda of the marketisation of our compassion and moral duty to care for the vulnerable and the weak.
Religion has a language and view of the human being that transcends this form of idolatry. This is an integral part of its ‘offer’ when it engages with the mainstream. Faith groups are vital co-producers of social capital, but not at the cost of hiding their own theological sources of wisdom and energy (what the William Temple Foundation refers to as spiritual capital). When it brings a prophetic critique to bear, even in ‘technical’ reports like this, then I think, in the present post-secular climate, it encourages everyone else to raise their moral and ethical game.
Without a robust and prophetic theology of the state by which to hold the state to account, the churches, like the doctors now handling huge commissioning budgets, will become worn out by making cuts and balancing books, rather than making the social transformation they were called to make. And when (perhaps rather than if) it all goes belly-up, I fear the faith sector, because it has taken all the risk, will receive all the flak. I want this report to work. I want the pioneering work of Oasis to effect real change. But we need to change the language of transformation as well as the structures – and they need to be seen unequivocally side by side and interwoven in reports such as these.
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation
21st Century Religion: Violent Extremism to Civil Society? by Chris Baker and John Reader is available to download now >>
Once more our media outlets and devices have been clogged with scenes of terror and devastation. Innocent citizens going about their daily business have their lives ripped apart by acts of violence. On Tuesday it was Brussels. The threatening question hanging in the air is ‘where next?’ And of course, beyond the boundaries of Europe, these occurrences are the stuff of daily nightmares around our world, in places and communities that barely register on our news agendas.
As current media coverage of Brussels shows us, a sort of procedural narrative has been created round the awful predictability of these events. Within hours of live coverage of the terrorist attacks, focus then switches to a public space in the centre of the city; a symbolic space of public freedom and access. Instant shrines emerge, a panoply of candles, flags, flowers, and home-made banners intermingled with graffiti on the pavements and surrounding buildings. People publically engage in forms of body language usually restricted to religious buildings. They close their eyes, mutter prayers, bow their heads, hold silence as well as sing communal songs and then often reconnect physically by embracing and hugging strangers, holding hands and forming circles.
These public and everyday squares (literally profane, i.e. outside the temple) become sacred spaces; spaces of rich symbolic ritual that reconnect individual and fearful souls together within an overarching narrative of love and solidarity. The anger and desire for revenge seems temporarily, at least, to be suspended. Ritual allows us a liminal space to stand aside and reflect on the fragility of life and what we want to bring to it.
Questions I am left asking include, why don’t we do this more often as a natural part of our lives? Why is this not a permanent feature of the way we live our lives today? Why do we only turn to ritual in times of crisis, almost when it is too late? Why do we ‘moderns’ seem to have lost sight of the importance of symbolic ritual and worship in our lives?
There are perhaps two reasons. One is the legacy of the Western Enlightenment on the 19th and 20th centuries, which whilst it helped bring about many good things to humankind in terms of ideas of democracy, progress and rational autonomy, it also brought about what Max Weber famously called the Age of Disenchantment. We swapped wonder and awe for measurement and empiricism. If we couldn’t measure it or rationalise it, so the argument went, then it wasn’t worth considering as true or relevant. The other of Weber’s famous metaphors was what he called the ‘iron cage of bureaucracy’ into which humankind had now trapped itself in the systems of mass production, mass consumption and control.
But perhaps the zeitgeist is shifting. Certainly the 21st century feels very different to its predecessor. Many people I talk to testify to a deep desire to reconnect to something larger than ourselves: to be reconnected to something beyond the material and the technical – to be re-enchanted.
Two recent events have highlighted this apparent trend for me. The first was the intriguing discovery of chimpanzees hurling rocks at trees and placing them inside tree trunks, which scientists suggest is not related to food consumption, but related to a deeper need to mark significant places in the landscape for their own psychic health and wellbeing. If true, then it suggests that ritual, and places set apart for us to offer something beyond ourselves, is a deep, existential and natural need that we ignore or suppress at our peril.
The second and related point was to reflect on the very rich discussion that the Foundation held in Birmingham recently as part of our Faith and Flourishing Neighbourhoods Network. The network is exploring the connections between beliefs and “placedness”, and raising the question of the need for a deeper purpose in house-building, other than just meeting housing shortages. We listened to five case studies of very different built environments which religious and other beliefs have initiated, shaped and are still shaping, including; inner-urban suburbs, garden suburbs, outer-urban housing estates, new exurbs and provincial cities. We identified the following roles that beliefs play in helping to create sustainable and flourishing public spaces including as a founding vision; as a space of temporary ritual and belonging; as spaces that model tolerance and radical hospitality; as bridge-builders between entrenched communities; as spaces of knowledge exchange and learning; as communities committed to ownership of the community (but not in the ‘right-to-buy’ sense).
The main point about all these narratives of belief and place making is the fundamental human need and desire for reconnection – reconnection with each other and reconnection with meanings and values that inspire us to act beyond our narrow ideologies and fantasises. What lies at the heart of these narratives is the importance of creating spaces, places and processes of ritual though which people can journey on a daily basis alone, but also in solidarity and communion with others.
Acts of terror and the ideologies that support them attempt to disconnect us from each other and offer instead an ideology of hatred, fear and isolation. Ritualised coming together strengthens our intellectual, emotional and spiritual resolve to resist these affronts. In our materialist and increasingly divided culture, we have neglected the simple and effective power that can emanate from these practices and spaces.
We need to create a sense of civic politics and place more rooted in inclusive ritual. Only then might the temporary relief gained by lighting a single candle in a windswept market place, perhaps, be converted into a movement for progressive political change.
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation
21st Century Religion: Violent Extremism to Civil Society?
by Chris Baker and John Reader is available to download now >>
What do we dare to hope for in the early days of 2016 as the winter cold finally begins to bite and the last vestiges of holiday tinsel are consigned to the Christmas trunk or loft space?
For me, one of the most sombre events from the opening weeks of this year has been the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris in which the 17 people who died, including the editor and eight other cartoonists based at the satirical magazine. Since then another 130 people have died in the French capital following another wave of attacks by Islamist extremists in November. This anniversary has therefore re-opened fresh and painful memories of that recent atrocity.
The memorial of the Charlie Hebdo massacre was a muted and sombre affair compared to the defiant and boisterous rallies that followed the first attack. Then, it was estimated that one and half million people joined world leaders in reclaiming the streets of Paris as ‘Je Suis Charlie’ become a global rallying cry.
I remember at the time feeling deeply ambivalent as the response to the shootings emerged. My sense of outrage and deep misgiving that religiously-inspired nihilists were attacking freedom of expression and the right to ridicule political and religious authoritarianism and reactionary moralism was tinged with other misgivings. Some of the satire and relentless targeting of authority seemed equally nihilistic and surprisingly humourless. The portrayal of religious minorities was in many people’s opinion (including mine) offensively racist in its ugly and stereotypical portrayal of Jewish and Muslim identities in particular. It seemed as though the intellectual and political legacy of the Enlightenment (and in particular the French Revolution) had been reduced to the ‘right’ to be gratuitously offensive and to use its power of free speech as an expression of old-fashioned cultural supremacy.
One year on from the attacks and Charlie Hebdo magazine has chosen to commemorate the events with another highly provocative cartoon on the front of a special anniversary edition. The cartoon depicts a God-type figure, (white beard, bulging eyes and sandals), with a Kalashnikov slung round his shoulder looking over his shoulder and blood spattered on his white tunic. The caption reads ‘One year on, the killer is still at large’.
Religious leaders, for example Pope Francis, have criticised the cover for “failing to acknowledge or respect believers’ faith in God, regardless of their religion”. I feel this response misses the deeper point. Whilst the image is deeply uncomfortable it reminds us all of the current indisputable link between globalised religion and global terrorism which no-one should be shy away from acknowledging. It forces me, as a person of religious belief, to confront the many injustices wrought in the name of religion and to pledge myself to the cause of uniting a progressive and tolerant religion with a progressive and tolerant secularity.
For me the cartoon is more upsetting and troubling for other reasons. One of the 17 people murdered by the jihadists was a Muslim policeman. Ahmed Merabet attempted to stop the gunmen as they left the building but was wounded before he could return fire, and then was brutally shot in the head whilst he lay injured on the ground. There was a brief ‘Je suis Ahmed’ meme following the shooting, and his bravery in giving his life protecting those who continuously lampooned and pilloried his religion has been acknowledged by the French State. But in the public consciousness it has been all but drowned out by the overwhelming ‘Je suis Charlie’ campaign, which unwittingly and unhelpfully reinforces the sense that France appears more concerned to preserve a rigid policy of laïcité than acknowledge that times have changed.
I can’t help thinking how much more powerful and healing it would have been if Charlie Hebdo had put a picture of Ahmed Merabet on its front cover, and acknowledged him as a hero of the French Republic, who along with the cartoonists and satirists payed the ultimately price for the right to free expression and free speech. Instead of picking at old wounds and continuing to drive wedges between the French establishment and its own people, such a cover would have signalled a willingness to move into a new public space based on generosity of spirit and true liberalism (i.e. a willingness to accept genuine diversity of identity and expression).
This would have represented an extraordinary leap of moral and intellectual courage on the part of the Charlie Hebdo team, taking them way beyond the confines of their own self-imposed ideology. It could have been a real game-changer, celebrating a common humanity and a true spirit of égalité, liberté and fraternité for which France would once again have become a European, and indeed, global beacon.
Of course, it is my contention that if our wish for 2016 is a safer, kinder, more flourishing civil society – a genuinely ‘civil’ civil society – then all of us, not just those at Charlie Hebdo, will need to rise to the challenge of exercising a ‘leap of faith’ into a new intellectual and moral space beyond our comfortable and assumed mindsets.
The intense pressures of globalisation – increased diversity, growing inequality, more scarcity and insecurity – require us all to reach out and find a new political middle-ground. This new political space is no longer primarily driven by ideological and tribal loyalties. Rather, I sense, it is driven by the search for new spaces of ethical engagement, where we can join others who also want deeper and more sustaining forms of political and civic expression. Our beliefs and worldviews inspire us to search out new spaces of hospitality, compassion and solidarity.
It is not that our beliefs and visions for a better world (whether they are religiously or non-religiously derived) become any the less important. This is no grey, lowest common-denominator politically-correct blandness. It’s just that we choose not to let our own beliefs seek power or dominance over others.
Happy New Year!
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation.
The political establishment and the country as a whole are struggling to digest the political import of the scale of Jeremy Corbyn’s win in the Labour leadership elections. His victory does, however, crystallise a number of existing trends that go back to the heady days of 2011, the Arab Spring and Occupy movements. Remember these rose spontaneously out of a deep sense of anger and despair when it became clear that the financial crisis in 2008 was not going to change the structures of what many perceived to be an irredeemably corrupt and unaccountable global economic system. These climatic events, and the ongoing advancement of the hyper rich minority at the expense of the overwhelming majority, has ensured that these protests were not a blip, but in fact represent a protracted distancing for many from mainstream politics as a whole. For many millions in the UK there is now a permanent sense of simmering resentment or dull apathy; Westminster-style politics will simply not deliver a sense of empowerment, betterment and fairness. In the meantime, new affinities of citizens and networks have grown up, largely outside the orbits of the market and politics, in a series of DIY movements that are seeking to provide not only goods and services, but a sense of hope for many who are feeling abandoned or disenfranchised.
These were undoubtedly the groups of people who were electrified by Corbyn’s authentic and plain- speaking campaign. To packed halls across the UK, Corbyn promised to restore the link between the state and its duty of care and recognition to the lives of its own citizens. He promised a framework of material support for the basic building blocks of life to those cast afloat on the seas of global capitalism. In return, some of his supporters recognised in him a fellow outsider, untainted by the system and determined, it seems, to make his leadership as accountable as possible to the wider public. At his first PMQs today, he intends to use that the opportunity to raise questions and concerns which he invited the general public to send in, apparently with 40,000 to choose from.
Such is the unnerving power of his popular mandate that even some Conservatives recognise that this Corbynmania is part of a wider indictment of the very system that supports them: namely Westminster politics. The parliamentary system is perceived as being too slow, too bureaucratic, occasionally corrupt and too partisan. Too many personal attacks on Corbyn, however easy some of them might be to make, will backfire on the political class as a whole.
But clearly a very early problem has emerged that threatens the Corbyn revolution from even getting airborne (see Owen Jones’‘If Corbyn’s Labour is going to work, it has to communicate’). And that is a lack of a clear broad message and the lack of a communication strategy. At this point, enter one of the most remarkable think pieces I have ever seen in the Guardian. In today’s edition George Monbiot, a self-confessed non-religious believer is suggesting that Pentecostal Christianity, currently growing rapidly across the globe, but especially in Africa and Central and Southern America, contains the blueprint for the future survival of the new politics that Corbyn finds himself the unlikely midwife of. Monbiot has been studying born-again evangelical groups in Brazil for the past two years, following a postsecular hunch, if you like, that religion is a major solution to many political and economic issues facing us today.
According to Monbiot, the strength and appeal of these groups, which has galvanised a whole nation, never mind a neighbourhood, is that they revolve around a set of core convictions and virtues such as empathy, kindness, forgiveness and self-worth. ‘Surely it would not be difficult to create a similar set common to all progressive movements?’ Monbiot suggests. Next, he says, evangelical Christianity is propositional and positive – it sets the agenda rather than constantly responding to the agendas of others. Third, evangelical Christians welcome everyone, especially non-believers. ‘Instead of anathematising difference, doubt and hesitation’, says Monbiot, ‘they explain and normalise the steps necessary for the journey to belief.’ Finally, they dig deep financially, providing material welfare for others. Monbiot concludes, speaking for the body-politics a whole, ‘To sustain ourselves, we need to be more than just political. We should offer those who join us emotional support, moral comfort and sometimes material help.’
In other words, faith groups are showing the Labour Party how it can become a movement again, deeply in touch with the wishes and aspirations of the common people. On that basis and on that basis alone, might Labour then have the moral authority and support to transform the country back in-line with its founding principles? Corbyn, one senses, understands the hunger for a more holistic and compassionate politics. He however, has to learn some key lessons very fast if he is to survive, and one of those sources is faith groups and the way they embed themselves into local communities and work for their transformation. As I have said before, faith groups are indeed curators to the new politics, and key partners in progressive localism. Understanding these new sets of links is what is driving our research at the William Temple Foundation. I will also be outlining these themes in my public lecture in Chester on Tuesday ‘Globalised Religion in an Era of Uncertainty: What prospects for a new global ethic of progressive change?’ Do come along and be part of the debate!
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation
Christ in All Things: William Temple and his writings
Stephen Spencer (Editor)
Canterbury Press, 2015, 248 pp., pbk, £30.00
It was my pleasure over the summer to read Stephen Spencer’s excellent reader of the collected works of Archbishop William Temple Christ in All Things. Temple’s output was prodigious, covering philosophical and theological works, political treatises, bible commentaries and essays, alongside a wealth of letters to key establishment figures, over a 30 year period from the 1910s to the 1940s. These, in particular, show him at the centre of shaping British politics and society in one of its most crucial phases: from economic recession and global war to within sight of the sunny uplands of post-war prosperity and human advancement.
Spencer does a great job holding together the chronological development of Temple’s thought and public persona alongside the key themes and principles which underpinned his work. He captures well both the social and intellectual history of the period which Temple both imbibed, but also imperiously shaped. It is therefore, a great volume for those many of Temple’s admirers who know Christianity and Social Order like the back of their hand, but are perhaps put off by the breadth and range of Temple’s earlier writing. However, as Spencer’s deft commentary to each section shows, the full majesty of that deceptively simple book cannot be fully appreciated until one has a sense of the theological and philosophical depths from which it was mined and honed.
Central to Temple’s politics and spirituality are certain key interlocking themes. Of prime importance to him was the unity between faith and knowledge (including science). At their best, he believed, they both revealed what he called the divine will and purpose behind creation and the sustaining of its purpose. However, this is no return to the theist, ‘God-as-watchmaker’ theology of the 18th and 19th century. Key to his understanding of the divine was the overall primacy of love and the desire for God to enter into relationship with an ‘Other’ (i.e. creation and humankind).
There is, therefore, a dialectical and evolutionary thrust between creator and created, as creation is both cherished but ultimately given the freedom to create historical and artistic outcomes from the materiality of the world and the creativity of the human mind. Within Temple’s theology, the ‘Word’ of God’s will and purpose, the Logos, becomes incarnated in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth. At this point the church is born in order to become the vehicle and instrument of divine love and forgiveness, as well as prophetic judgment on the corrupt and death-dealing propensities of the human heart. These are the themes of major works as Mens Creatrix, Christus Veritas, Nature Man and God as well as his Readings in St Johns Gospel. Revelation, for Temple, is the coincidence of a divine event and its appreciation by the human spirit. Meanwhile the goal of history is the Commonwealth of Value (otherwise known as the Kingdom of God) in which we attempt, through the application of both progressive and prophetic action and word, to create the social structures that convey the dignity and intrinsic value of every human and non-human life created in the image of God (imago Dei)
How this feeds into Temple’s political vision for a just social order is now clear. The mandate for a progressive and fair political economy where the state provides the necessary building blocks for human flourishing, emerges directly from this idea of God’s Kingdom as the Commonwealth of Value. As Spencer points out, it was Temple who coined the phrase ‘Welfare State’. This concept he contrasted with what he called the ‘Power State’, an example of which was the Prussian State before the First World War which ‘exercised Power over its own community and against other communities’. The Welfare State, by contrast, enabled the welfare of its citizens by working as the ‘organ of community … maintaining its solidarity by law designed to safeguard the interests of the community’. This it does by providing the social building blocks we have already alluded to, including universal access to decent health care, housing, education, rights at work etc. But having established these building blocks, the role of the state was simply to support and enable the flourishing of what Temple called ‘intermediate groupings’, like families, trade unions, faith groups, and community and voluntary associations. Social thinker Maurice Glasman has recently updated this list to include supporter-owned football clubs and community credit unions. These intermediate groupings facilitate face to face contact and thus communicate to each and every person that they are valued, as well as offering opportunities to exercise responsibility. To cast Temple as an unapologetic cheerleader for the Dependency State, as some of his detractors seek to do, is simply untrue.
Rather, the political watch words for Temple were freedom, social fellowship (what we might more fashionably today call solidarity) and service. He said that what Christian, but also other philosophical principles tell us, is that a deeper political and cultural life is created when we understand the precious gift of freedom to be freedom for rather than freedom from. True freedom, Temple claimed, was to live one’s life for the flourishing not only of your own wellbeing, but others as well. We are most fulfilled when we recognise the call to service; to exercise our right to what Temple called ‘responsible political citizenship’ – however we conceive of that task and by whatever means. Meanwhile, fellowship emerges when we choose to serve others and get involved in their welfare and flourishing which allows us to participate in the divine gift of personality, i.e. discovering who we really are in the midst of challenging and loving relationships, rather than apart from them.
These concepts, so irresolutely old-fashioned, nevertheless deeply resonate within the context of today’s uncertain and fearful world, where social isolation and political mistrust are in danger of breeding a deep cynicism and stasis. We hear Temple’s call for a more ethically-driven and values-rich public sphere echoed by many voices across Europe and the U.S., determined to call time on the destructive social impacts of 40 years of neo-liberalism and reconnect economics and politics to a sense of vision and solidarity. The William Temple Foundation continues to research and mine this rich seam of postsecular politics.
Thank you Stephen for this rich resource which gives us the conceptual tools by which to do this, and which deserves to be read well beyond the confines of church historians and theologians.
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation.
This has been a heady and breathless week for anyone interested in finding a ‘politics of hope’. Last Thursday, the Vatican launched Pope Francis’ much anticipated encyclical on climate change simply entitled Laudate Si (Praise be). It calls for swift action to save the planet from environmental ruin by linking climate change to poverty. It is a vision for the common good that can be owned by believers and nonbelievers alike, which Francis hopes, will shift our political culture away from short-termism and a ‘throwaway’ economy that produces waste and a disregard for human and non-human life. It has produced an extraordinary global response and galvanised the debate ahead of vital inter-governmental talks on climate change controls in Paris at the end of the year.
On Saturday I took part in the anti-austerity marches in the centre of London with an estimated quarter of a million other citizens. It was a positive event, high on angry hope rather than nihilistic violence. That very morning I also readGiles Fraser’s brilliantly perceptive and humorous review of Laudate Si in which he dubbed Francis ‘Naomi Klein in a cassock’. Lo and behold, Fraser’s prophetic utterance comes true, and now the media is full of glowing endorsements from Naomi Klein for the Pope’s messages on climate change. Not only that, but she has accepted an invitation from the Vatican to take part in a conference entitled ‘People and Planet First: The Imperative to Change Course’.
So what do I think is going on here?
First there is the message.
I believe there is a content congruence to these three events. At the heart of Laudate Si is a call to restore a sense of interconnectedness and interdependency. The huge issues posed by climate change are not political but moral ones. Pope Francs suggests we persistently make the wrong choices. Instead of respecting the norms of scarcity and balance and choosing to live a simpler (and more fulfilling life), we refuse to accept any limits to our right to choose and consume.
This reflects a wider moral malaise. Laudate Si is not an anti-capitalist treaty, but rather, is a clear indictment of our current choice of capitalism. Neo-liberal economics, with its default positions of de-regulation and limitless growth philosophy, seems incapable of adapting itself to making rational choices about the future sustainability of markets and resources. It represents a ‘blind faith’ in the power of the markets to self-correct and balance out, over time, the distortions caused by a lack of proper competition or human governance. It is the ‘Invisible Hand’ theory but without the ‘Moral Sentiments’. And Naomi Klein fully supports this analysis. Reflecting on the Pope’s intervention she says: ‘It is the logic of domination and endless greed that has created a broken economy and that is breaking the planet. The way out of both crises is another economic model that lives within nature’s limits’
The anti-austerity march in London had a similar message. This time the wrong choices are caused by a political ideology that transfers risk and responsibility for ‘blind-faith’ economics on the most vulnerable of society; children, the disabled and those whose minimum wage salaries and zero-hours contracts mean they still need to access foodbanks to provide food for their children. Thus foodbanks are sanctioned and growing within a society that has more than enough wealth to provide adequate food, education, housing and healthcare as the foundations for a meaningful life. This represents a series of poor (as in ‘irrational’) choices that will generate disastrous social and economic results further down the line. This is precisely the warning to the UK government by the IMF over its proposed further 12 billion pounds of welfare cuts, who have proved that higher levels of inequality slow down growth and productivity. Again for me, this isn’t a blanket condemnation of the need to reduce debt to manageable levels and make well-considered and strategic cuts. But when ‘austerity’ flies in the face of common decency and sound economics then one is entitled to ask ‘Why?’ and ‘In whose name is this being done?’ The plea from the anti-austerity march went well beyond the injustices of ideological austerity. Speech after speech from poverty and disabled groups, mental health charities and sanctioned mothers was ‘We all belong – we have a right to exist and participate – treat us like fellow human beings and citizens rather than branding us as outcasts and pariahs!’
And then there is the medium.
I want to start the Popekleine or better, the Frankieklein franchise! Of course, we are all used to the strategy of fusing two fairly average products into an alleged superbrand. Think Brangelina. Think Wozzilroy (remember them?) Think Kimye (Ok, no one really says that!).
There is always a danger that this unusual pairing for Pope Francis and Naomi Klein may go the same way. Who would, even a year ago, have imagined that a secular feminist and equalities campaigner, and a celibate male priest in his late 70s, would unite to shake global capitalism to its foundations? It cannot last surely?
Or this coming together of Frankieklein actually a tipping point – not an environmental one this time, but an intellectual one, where the old and sterile zero-sum debates from the last century about the importance of dividing the sacred from the secular are being decisively rejected?
This is skilful and exciting stuff. This is not an uncritical merging of the Catholic Church and the Climate Change movement. As Klein herself points out, ‘There are huge differences that remain over issues like marriage equality, reproductive rights and freedom, to name just a few’. But there is a clear willingness by both parties to nevertheless emphasise what it is they agree on rather than what disunites them. It is an exciting example a new postsecular global ethics where scientific arguments, secular activism and deep philosophical and religious wisdom are being brought together in compelling resonance. It is a deeply pragmatic and ethical contribution to the common good where two charismatic global thinkers have recognised the added value each brings to their perspective on a complex and existence-threatening phenomenon.
Expect to see Frankieklein coming to a red carpet event near you soon. You heard it here first!
Chris Baker is Director of Research at William Temple Foundation.
Professor Chris Baker will deliver his inaugural public lecture at the University of Chester on the 22 September, titled ‘Globalised Religion in an Era of Uncertainty: What Prospects for a New Global ethic of Progressive Change?’ All welcome.
