William Temple Foundation

Resilience, Resistance & Radical Hope

In almost any podcast, classroom or news show there is a growing sense of the reality and urgency attached to difference. Words like ‘polarised’ or ‘binary’ or ‘siloed’ find their way in common currency. We are more different than ever before. We hear of the growing trend that splits men and women and younger men from young women (don’t take my word for it, look at Buzzfeed, Reddit or the BBC). We hear and, perhaps experience, the emerging gap between wealthier areas, classes and people and wonder about what that means for our futures and the futures of our city. Again, from Joseph Rowntree Foundation to the Government’s own statistics, things are grim for millions. The church has its own differences and the political landscape seems fractious and fractured. For people who are inclined to read the William Temple Blog, I expect this preoccupies us. What is to be done? 

Alongside our difference not a day goes by without a crisis of some sort or other emerging – on grand scale – climate – or local – our river has sewage in it; growing ill health because of air pollution  – my child’s asthma or reduced life expectancy; increased incidence of dementia – my mother’s memory loss; war and refugees or asylum seekers next door, the news reporting their impact on my life. The world we inhabit is full of crises and it seems to create a sense of helplessness, or uncertainty, despair of hopelessness. I could have continued to reel off crises – from disease to violence, from local to cosmic – there’s a lot of groaning in all of creation. What’s to be done? Is there hope? What can we do? Is there anything at all? Who holds hope? 

In thinking about these things there are various ideas to consider and responses on offer. What do we do with suffering and pain? We lament, cry out, name unflinchingly the truth of what we see. That’s an important stance – rituals that help us get alongside each other, that remind us of our solidarity in the face of pain, that echo with history and are shaped around shared practices of weeping, praying, story-telling and enable us to know we are not alone are vital. But, what else can shape and enable us to diagnose and respond? I hope this doesn’t sound anaemic, but one way of hope is to share stories, learn to listen again without interrupt, holding open hearts and ears to the voices of the Other, being heard ourselves in all our need to express the truth of our lives, our activities and their contexts. We are to hear others describe and analyse what they see – this is vital. Humans are created for story and witness – what do we see? Where does it hurt?  Where is there darkness creeping? What is our experience of poverty? Or of division? Of frustration with political activism or decisions in our area? What fears do we share? And Where is there hope and how can we cultivate it?  And, can it be radical hope? 

As a board the William Temple Foundation has been asking if there are ideas and skills we have that would enable people to share and reflect together. Is there a way of gathering people together to talk and share, to listen to one another deeply – not solution driven (though solutions would be lovely) but gathering people together from various backgrounds, agencies, faiths, around a common idea: we need  Radical Hope.  And, we think yes, we can hold space for this. Our next foray is going to be a north-ish of England gathering, held in Ashton-Under-Lyne, an area in the top 10% of most deprived in England, where we plan to gather to hear, share, bear witness and shape conversations that we hope will help build resilience for the future, inviting people from every sector possible around our shared need: hope. After this, there will be a conference in London exploring responses to poly-crises.  

In both of these spaces, anything is possible – discussions of social welfare, or current practices of meeting needs, ecumenism or political activism, subversion or radical witness, and action enabling us to hear one another and share and shape a good vision – in spite of differences and in the light of many crises. Our hope would be that as we talk, share and shape each other through story, we can also align our lives together in new ways to ensure human dignity across the UK and around the world. We can find ways of holding fast to that which is good in the light of anything that would seek to destroy it. Perhaps together we can find ways of resistance when people are treated as instruments, or set to one side when they’re no longer productive, or discarded if they are living with experiences of poverty – perhaps together we can reset our vision around hope. Not a weak hope, a radical hope.