We first met Precious two years ago when she turned up to morning worship. She had recently arrived with her nine year old child from one of Britain’s former colonies. She asked for prayer that she might be able to find additional care work with a better employer, and a school place.. The vicar and I arranged to meet up with her during the week to find out more and to see how the church could help. Thus began a long relationship, involving advice, advocacy, prayer and practical help for two fellow Christians trapped in a desperate situation, and a steep learning curve about a great social injustice.
The care crisis
As a church with an ageing demographic we were familiar with the local adult care system as church and family members needed help from home carers, or places in care homes, some of which were visited by our ministers and congregations, especially to sing carols at Christmas. Some of our working age members worked in the NHS or in social care. Some of us had anxieties as to whether we would be cared for well when the time came, and whether we would need to pay for our own care out of savings or by selling our house.
The older population in England is getting larger. In the last 40 years, the number of people aged 50 and over has increased by over 6.8 million (a 47% increase), and the number aged 65 and over has increased by over 3.5 million (a 52% increase).
The number of people aged 65-79 is predicted to increase by nearly a third (30%) to over 10 million in the next 40 years, while the number of people aged 80 and over – the fastest growing segment of the population – is set to more than double to over 6 million.
Post pandemic there was a crisis in recruitment of staff in the social care sector documented in a 2023 Health Foundation report. In order to meet the labour shortage in 2022 the UK government introduced the health and care worker visa scheme and promoted recruitment of overseas nationals. The visas were dependent on finding an employer who would offer sponsorship for particular posts in the sector. Care homes and care recruitment agencies were able to register rapidly as sponsors, and to advertise job opportunities across the globe, and made attractive promises about working conditions, salaries and help with housing. Visas issued for health and care workers and their families peaked at 348,000 in 2023, falling to 111,000 in 2024. Precious arrived in our city in 2023, having borrowed around £15,000 to finance what she hoped was a new start and a more prosperous life in the UK.
No Recourse to Public Funds
One of the key elements of this scheme is that care workers recruited under sponsorship have minimal rights. They are only allowed to work for their sponsor, other than that they may take 20 hours a week in a second job in a similar role. Of course they pay income tax and National Insurance contributions on any earnings.They have no recourse to public funds, meaning they can claim no benefits if sick or laid off, and have no rights to apply for social housing or other housing assistance. Women who are single and destitute are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
They can access the NHS for medical care, and dependent children can go to school (if they can find a place) but not receive free school meals or child benefit. However, changes made in 2024 prevent new applicants from bringing dependents into the UK.
For Precious, who arrived with her child before the ban on dependents came into force, this meant she had to accept a low quality rented room in a shared house (HMO) where no child should be allowed to live. It meant accepting a primary school place three miles from home, incurring travel costs of £12 a day, and persuading the school to offer free meals from its own discretionary budget. Working any long shifts at unsocial hours meant child care costs, which she could not afford to cover, therefore leaving a child alone at home or with risky informal free care from friends and neighbours. Worse still one icy January morning she slipped, fell and broke her wrist. For several months she was unable to work, with no rights to any sick pay or other benefits. They only survived because of very generous financial help, pulled together through the local church and their wider Christian network.
The Crooked companies
The system is made far worse because of extensive corruption and brutal exploitation among many of the employing companies. Charging large fees for arranging the sponsorship visa is commonplace; we have heard of rates between £12,000 and £28,000 being asked, many times the official fee of £304 per person. Many of the sponsoring companies are no more than employment agencies providing temporary and occasional cover staff to care homes, or bad employers offering “gig economy” work in the poorly regulated home care industries. We know of agencies that offer shifts to students and migrants with no legal right to work on a cash in hand basis at rates below the minimum wage. Some of these companies lack secure long term contracts with local authorities, meaning they fail to offer full time work to their employees. In the worst cases they provide false monthly pay slips to show HMRC and the Home Office that full time hours have been worked, and make deductions for tax and National insurance at commensurate rates. There are sometimes further deductions for uniforms, transport costs, and to repay loans.
Precious fell victim to one of the worst of these companies. Her pay slip always showed she had worked 40 hours a week for a gross monthly salary of £2000. Most weeks she was offered no more than a couple of shifts via a second company, at unsocial hours, in another town nearly 20 miles away, requiring a long bus, or expensive taxi journey. Several times she and colleagues were (illegally) offered alternative work packing frozen food in a warehouse. Whatever she actually earned, and after her accident it was nothing, the employer demanded payment of the income tax and NI contribution based on her false payslip. Eventually HMRC became suspicious and sent a team of investigators to interview the employer and some of the workers. They were blackmailed into telling lies to match the employer’s story, because of their vulnerability and fear. The terms of the sponsorship visa state that if they cease to work for the original employer they have only 60 days to find an alternative sponsor, after which their visa is revoked and they become liable to removal from the UK.
Exploitation, slavery and vulnerability
From 2023 onwards there has been growing awareness and campaigning about the failings of the scheme spearheaded by the trade union Unison. Government action was set in the context of populist demands to greatly reduce immigration numbers., so in May 2025 government announced an end to the scheme. With growing concern about exploitation verging on slavery, and law breaking 470 companies had their licenses removed and 39,000 workers were left without an employer. Precious and many of her colleagues were among this number, left in limbo and desperately seeking new employers. Suitable jobs remain hard to find, especially ones with family friendly hours and decent working conditions. Most employers still charge huge fees for new sponsorships, despite this being against the new regulations. The government has set up an agency to help find care jobs for these unemployed people, but it has had limited success, and amounts to little more than distributing regional lists of employers who still have a sponsorship licence.
At the present time Precious remains jobless and destitute, despite making hundreds of job applications online and visiting many local care homes to ask about vacancies. Last month she was offered a part time job by a local care home as a housekeeper, rather than a care assistant. When the employer checked her right to work with the Home Office they were informed that she had no right to work in this particular role, and had to withdraw the offer.
What would Amos say?..
The whole sorry story illustrates how far the UK has moved away from William Temple’s conception of the post war welfare state. The failure of social care policy in the face of growing need for support of older people, and the exploitation of low paid overseas labour with limited rights has made us into a care-less society. A faith based approach from within the Christian, or other traditions would surely demand something better. The prophet Amos (5; 10-15) still speaks to this situation today.
What can be done?
In the light of these experiences churches and community groups need to be on the lookout for people who are trapped in similar situations. We need to offer emotional, spiritual and in many cases costly financial support and advocacy and signposting to statutory and voluntary organisations who can help. We need to join campaigns such as those organised by trade unions to lobby for workers rights. If we know of, or have suspicions about, care homes and employment agencies that treat their overseas workers badly, we should not be afraid of asking challenging questions directly. We can write to MP’s and Council Leaders, who commission adult social care services, to raise these issues with stories and other evidence.
The government needs to hear and admit that the care worker scheme was ill thought out, and open to corruption and abuse, as well as being mean and unfair to overseas workers. The Labour government has made some progress in investigating and enforcing corrupt practices of “employers”, but still needs to be more vigorous and effective in enforcing the regulations. Finally we should call on the government to offer help to workers who have had their sponsorships revoked and face destitution, by offering them benefits (Universal Credit) for up to six months. Job centres should then provide more serious help, such as a work coach who would match workers with local vacancies in the care sector, ensure this was secured with a proper contract of employment with no hidden fees. A few simple steps would put an end to this scandal and abuse of workers rights.
Greg Smith is a Research Fellow of the William Temple Foundation. He has worked for over forty years in urban mission, community development and social research in London and Preston. He has published extensively on religion in the inner city, faith involvement in urban regeneration, and urban theology. See more on Greg’s work and publications.
A response to the launch of “Towards the Conversion of the Church of England by the Rest of England”
As necessitated by its name, a lot of the discussion surrounding the William Temple Foundation’s “Towards the Conversion of the Church of England” project has been focused on the difficult position the Church of England is in. Falling congregation sizes, internal debates, impending national irrelevance if the Church does not act soon. The Church faces imminent threats to its survival.
However, in recent months we have also seen a degree of hope emerge about the Church’s future. The Bible Society’s infamous “Quiet Revival” report showed a growth in Church attendance, albeit not yet for the Anglican Church. As Professor Linda Woodhead referenced in her reflections on the project, many people are becoming more open to spirituality in England. In these changing times, and with a new Archbishop, the Church needs to look to the future with initiative and action. Yet the question remains: what action does the Church of England, in all its diversity, need to take?
Professor Woodhead, in her response on the “Towards the Conversion of the Church of England” series, rightly cited the importance of parishes in the future of the Church of England, as well as the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all solution due to the varied and multifaceted nature of each congregation. Local parishes best know how they can serve their own communities, in ways that the national Church couldn’t imagine. If we want to see a Church of England that is thriving, perhaps we need to let local parishes do more of the talking.
In my own reflection on “Towards the Conversion of the Church of England”, I have found myself turning to the Letter to Diognetus – an ancient depiction of the early Church. The writer describes Christians as not being
“distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity… Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life.”
The early Church of the New Testament existed in their own communities, testifying to their own faith through actions and service. They were distinct, set apart, in their lifestyles. The writer goes on to reproach against Christian complacency:
“The soul is dispersed through all the parts of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul lives in the body, yet is not of the body; Christians live in the world, yet are not of the world.”
It seems that the Church of England has forgotten its missional call to be set apart, and in doing so has become a cultural chameleon, blending in to the backdrop of modern society. As the national Church, intricately entwined with the state, complacency is an easy trap for the Church of England to fall into. Yet its established role within institutions of government also affords the Church one of its greatest opportunities. In the reflections he shared at the book launch for “Towards the Conversion of the Church of England”, John Denham discussed the role the Church can play nationally in shaping the values and direction of our country. The beautiful dichotomy of the Anglican Church, he reflected, is that it is parochial, but it is also national. It can be invested in local communities whilst also playing an important role in providing firm guidance and hope during a period of deep political turmoil.
But crucially, that would require the Church of England to become much more purpose driven. In recent years, the Church seems to have lost its distinctiveness. This is an argument that has been popularly made by the historian Tom Holland, who has frequently argued that the Church needs to be “weird” again. The Bible Society’s “Quiet Revival” report found that growth was seen mostly in Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches. Whilst they are two drastically different traditions, they are both united by passion and drama. They unashamedly believe in mystery and spirituality, something beyond the physical world.
We are standing at a pivotal time for our country. In our postmodern society, we have deconstructed value and truth down to a meaningless oblivion. The result, as we are seeing up and down the country through the so called “Quiet Revival”, is a country that is crying out for purpose. This is the moment the Church needs to step up and embrace its strength as a purveyor of guidance. The Church needs to remember its purpose: to serve the world and share the good news of the gospel, and to not be ashamed of what it believes.
As I think about the future of the Church of England, I’m reminded of a Church I’ve recently visited in South London. Balancing two markedly different Church services and congregations, the Church has managed to grow and serve its local community. The first service is a more traditional, “high Church” Anglican service, featuring liturgy, robes and processing the Bible. But if you were to return a few hours later, you would find the same vicar and same sermon, but a much “lower” Church affair – charismatic worship and, dare I say, a few ripped jeans. Both services are thriving, and congregations mix in house groups and church events, as well as through serving the needs of the community together. Perhaps this can be a source of hope for the future of the Church of England, in all its variety and diversity. Many parts, united into one body by shared purpose. Living distinct lives that share God’s love with their communities.
By Abigail King, journalist and Parliamentary Assistant in the House of Lords.
It is with great pleasure that the William Temple Foundation announces the appointment of Victoria Paynter as its new Communications Officer.
Victoria will be joining the team in a freelance capacity and will strive to amplify the great work of the Foundation. In her role, she will strengthen the Foundation’s public profile across a variety of platforms and promote the valuable contributions of its fellows and partners.
A recent Politics graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Victoria brings her experience in communications through her voluntary work with the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence and Just Love Edinburgh. She has a strong interest in the socio-political role of the Church and the valuable contributions of faith communities to the public square. With good synchronicity to her new role with the Foundation, Victoria will also shortly commence work for a Christian peer in the House of Lords as a graduate on the CARE Leadership Programme.
Speaking about her appointment, Victoria says, ‘The William Temple Foundation has a rich history of developing and promoting faith contributions to public life. I am delighted to have the opportunity to build on that legacy by helping to platform the Foundation’s scholarship and insights, and foster greater dialogue between its audience and contributors.’
Professor Chris Baker, Director of Research for the Foundation responds, ‘We are thrilled that Victoria is joining the Foundation in this important role. She will bring a lot of fresh thinking and approach as to how the Foundation continues to position itself in a rapidly changing political and belief landscape and communicates its core message – especially to the leaders and opinion formers of the future.’
Exactly 250 years ago today, on 1st January 1773, the words of Amazing Grace were first heard here in Olney, Buckinghamshire. They were composed by the Reverend John Newton to accompany his sermon. In the following century, they were set to the tune we associate with Newton’s words.
The same judge who heard the Tobias Rustat case about, and in, Jesus College, Cambridge in 2022 had granted a faculty in 2021 to the Church of St Peter & St Paul, Olney, to present a more balanced account of Reverend John Newton ahead of today’s anniversary. Chancellor Hodge QC’s conclusion was that,
‘The planned changes to the eastern end of the south aisle of the church are designed to bring into regular and beneficial use what is presently a little-used area of the church and to ensure that it is available to educate visitors, in a balanced way, about John Newton, his life and his work, and to celebrate his later, and worthy, achievements whilst not overlooking or in any way seeking to diminish his earlier sins. The proposals will enhance the significance of the church through its strong connections with John Newton; and they will have no adverse or negative impact upon the significance of the church building. The four pews that will be removed are of no intrinsic, practical, or historical significance; and they will not be lost to the church. Rather, the proposals are entirely positive in terms of their impact. As the ‘Home of Amazing Grace’, with significant connections with John Newton and William Cowper, the church already attracts thousands of visitors every year; and the changes that are being proposed will only serve to enhance the visitors’ experience, thereby enhancing the church’s mission. The new displays will serve to remind the worshipping congregation and visitors alike that Jesus came “to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5, 32). They will also bring to mind the true saying of Saint Paul, worthy of all to be received: “That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1, 15) as we are instructed during the Service of Holy Communion according to the Book of Common Prayer. From the material that has been presented to me, it would appear that the church are alive to the need both to ensure that there is appropriate diversity amongst the presenters of materials which are to be displayed within the church, and to recognise the vital contributions made to the abolition of the vile trade in human flesh by African and other global majority heritage writers and abolitionists, women and working class reformers rather than simply focusing upon the work of prominent, white, upper and middle class male abolitionists like John Newton and William Wilberforce.’
In an era of cancellation, how has this legacy of a former slave-trader survived? It was an act of redemption but its lasting impact has been helped considerably by other creative acts of genius through the ages. John Newton’s eighteenth century words were blessed fifty years later by the American William Walker who set Amazing Grace in the 1830s to variations on a folk tune known as New Britain, and who popularised this version through his entrepreneurial and religious vocation of selling hymnals. Amazing Grace was revived in popular culture in the second half of the twentieth century. In 2015, it was used to great effect by President Barack Obama in his eulogy for Reverend Clem Pinckney, one of the Black Christians murdered in their own church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white gunman they had welcomed into their worshipping community. Just looking at the point where the President began to sing, on YouTube, is graceful enough but it is worth watching or listening to the whole eulogy to appreciate the beautiful way in which President Obama introduced grace earlier in his oration and, especially, around the assumption that the murderer would have had about how his victims’ relatives, friends and church community would react, where President Obama made this unattributed allusion to another insight from Olney, this time by Newton’s friend, the poet William Cowper,
‘Oh, but God works in mysterious ways’ lightly paraphrasing the opening line of Cowper’s 1773 hymn, ‘God moves in a mysterious way’.
Instead of nursing a grievance, the community’s reaction was a measured, forgiving kind of grieving, an amazing grace, to which the President added beyond measure. The congregation is electrified by this phrase 16 minutes into the eulogy. Then President Obama begins to talk about grace. He gives a moving reason why sometimes a symbol should be removed, talking about how amazing it would be for the state of South Carolina to take down the Confederate flag in recognition that slavery was wrong. He links this back to God’s grace and faces squarely political controversies around race discrimination in employment and around gun laws. This eulogy is one of the greatest of contributions to the public square. It was only after 35 minutes that President Obama began to sing Amazing Grace.
On this 250th anniversary, then, it is timely to reflect on how we add to legacies and how they are linked. For example, I think it mattered that Newton lived here in Olney, with Cowper and all those oppressed in the lace industry and other disadvantaged circumstances, just as it mattered that Temple, Beveridge and Tawney lived in Toynbee Hall, in the midst of poverty, after their privileged time together as students. Newton and Cowper tried to help the poorest of their neighbours but also learned from them. They exchanged stories of Cowper’s life-threatening mental health issues and of Newton’s life-threatening journeys, including his shipwreck off the northern coast of Ireland.
Listening to Amazing Grace, which might have been directed to him, was thought to be William Cowper’s last experience in church and this hymn might have been his last. I gave the year, 1773, but it was actually in January, indeed in the next day or so after Amazing Grace, before another suicidal episode.
How amazing that, here in this little town of Olney, within hours of each other, Newton wrote the world’s favourite hymn and Cowper wrote the wondrous phrase that is so often echoed, as by President Obama, and which is often assumed to be a Biblical verse, but which was his original expression, about God moving in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
I think Cowper might have drawn on the Giant’s Causeway and the storm in which his friend Newton almost died in the imagery of his opening stanza. Unlike Newton’s Amazing Grace, this example of Cowper’s genius has not yet benefited from such a fitting tune. So I wonder if, in death as in life, Newton (whose fame for this itself depends so much on the American Walker’s yoking of his words to the amazing New Britain tune) could come to the aid of his friend, Cowper. Since both hymns are in that 8, 6, 8, 6 syllable-rhythm, and bearing in mind President Obama’s intertwining of the two friends’ words, could ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ be sung to Amazing Grace’s New Britain tune? Might that be one small legacy from the celebrations here today, and around the world, of the 250th anniversary of Amazing Grace?
‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.’
Simon Lee lives in Olney and is the Chair of the Trustees of the William Temple Foundation, Professor of Law, Aston University, and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence, Queen’s University Belfast
In 2022, the William Temple Foundation has marked the 80th anniversaries of William Temple’s Christianity & Social Order and of the famous Report by his friend, William Beveridge, which is often credited with responsibility for the foundation of the Welfare State. We held conferences in partnerships at Canterbury Cathedral, Balliol College, Oxford, and Blackburn Cathedral, all places which had a link to William Temple’s life.
We heard from some of the most distinguished theologians and historians, convening gatherings of diverse voices, including those critical of Temple or Beveridge or of the Welfare State. We have more to do in 2023 and beyond to ensure that our panels are more evenly balanced, for instance by gender, but we have made progress for instance in listening to a range of perspectives from younger participants in contemporary debates.
For the most part, there was a recognition that the ideas of Temple and Beveridge, together with those of another college friend of theirs, R H Tawney, were influential and progressive. They were prophetic in and during two world wars, which makes their examples relevant to society amidst various crises today.
More detailed lessons from different speakers either have been published already or will be in 2023 but I would like to round off the year with a few points from my remarks at the end of the Blackburn Cathedral symposium on 15th December.
First, that setting was chosen partly because William Temple as Bishop of Manchester had the wisdom and humility almost one hundred years ago to give up part of that big diocese to create a new diocese. Its surrounding communities have become increasingly Muslim which also made it an appropriate setting to consider how we might adapt Temple’s pioneering work in Jewish-Christian partnerships to encompass the widest possible range of faiths and beliefs. Personally, I love the nominative determinism of Temple’s surname and believe that our Foundation can reach out to, and learn from, all those who have their own temples, or places of worship, whatever their particular faiths or beliefs.
Second, there was a disagreement about whether the welfare state is working as Temple and Beveridge envisaged. It is worth pointing out that Beveridge disliked the term and called his proposals instead a ‘security plan’ but the expression used by Temple proved more popular, often without an appreciation of the context in which he coined ‘welfare-state’ in the 1920s, which was as a contrast to ‘power-state’. It is timely at the end of 2022, the year in which President Putin launched his war against Ukraine, to bear in mind that security is important both for nations and for all their citizens, and that our preference is for a state which focuses on the well-being or welfare of its citizens, the ‘common good’. Within such a state, there will be plenty of scope for intermediate groups, called voluntary associations in another report by Beveridge, to play their part in the flourishing of all individuals and communities, but there is a role for the state itself in safeguarding everyone.
Third, our Foundation is a small example of these intermediate institutions, such as cathedrals, other places of worship, colleges and other places of study, academic research centres, grassroots community organisations, and diverse charities. We value working in partnerships with other such institutions, which has been a feature of our year. All these ‘little platoons’, as Edmund Burke dubbed them, have a role to play in creating and curating what one of our research fellows, Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell, calls Spaces of Hope. This is why I am so interested in what the ethos was of Balliol College, Oxford, as the nineteenth century ended and the twentieth began, when Temple, Beveridge and their friend R H Tawney were all students there. Of course, different institutions will have different values, the same institution might change values over time, and individuals might take different lessons, if any, from the same community at the same time. But there is something remarkable about the exchanges of ideas between those characters and the way they drew on the spirit of earlier generations of Balliol students and their tutors. Again, it was not about all thinking alike. Rather, as a Balliol student of the 1880s Anthony Hope Hawkins said of his tutor, R L Nettleship, it was that he ‘taught me to seek truth – and never to be sure I had found it’.
Fourth, as this 80th anniversary year proceeded, I was struck by how many reports I read or re-read not only by Beveridge but also by committees which included Temple or Tawney. This was brought out beautifully through one of the many insights of our final panel of the year when Lord (Rowan) Williams pointed out the methodology of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, of which he is co-chair, which was established by the Welsh Government. The Commission has made a point of going out and about to listen to people in their own communities. This reminded me of co-founding thirty years ago in Northern Ireland, with a journalist friend Robin Wilson, Initiative 92, a citizens’ movement which created the independent Opsahl Commission. This invited representations from all-comers, whether or not they were subject to broadcasting restrictions, to offer views on ways forward for people and communities in Northern Ireland. Charitable funding, principally from Quaker foundations, allowed outreach workers to help new and old community groups develop their submissions and prepare for their appearances at the 17 public hearings and two inter-school assemblies held across Northern Ireland. The Commission received over 500 submissions from more than 3.000 people. The report was published in June 1993 and is perhaps best remembered for its practical proposals to promote parity of esteem between different communities. In my opinion, however, the beauty of it was in the process. As Index on Censorship observed, ‘The Opsahl Report gave a platform to voices excluded elsewhere – from the Catholic and Protestant working women of Belfast to academics and lawyers – all tired of the old polemic. It gave hope that in Northern Ireland, too, an end is stirring.’ The first IRA ceasefire came just over a year later at the end of August 1994 and the Good Friday Agreement was reached in 1998. This emphasis on encouraging inclusive processes, from Northern Ireland to Wales and beyond, connects to points our Foundation has made throughout 2022, especially in Professor Chris Baker’s public lecture in Leeds and in his wider writing on what he calls kenotic leadership.
Fifth, what Temple and Beveridge in their different ways brought to war-torn people in 1942 was ultimately a prophetic voice of hope. Today, still, what the socially excluded are ultimately excluded from is a sense of hope. Cardinal Suenens explained that, ‘To hope is not to dream but to turn dreams into reality’. When we celebrate an anniversary, we are not simply looking backwards. We are seeking inspiration to pass forwards. In war-time, people yearn for peace. The priority for those being ‘left behind’ is naturally food and shelter. Both Temple and Beveridge wanted better education as well as good health and living conditions for all. All this comes together in the gift of hope. On publication of their 1942 works, Temple and Beveridge immediately set about taking their messages around the country and beyond. The talks by Temple are collected in a volume entitled The Church Looks Forward. They include his BBC broadcast for Christmas 1942. Temple returned to the theme of states using power and force being resisted by nations that wished to promote the welfare of all through love and hope. He ended with wise words which apply just as much in 2022 as in 1942: ‘the hope of the world will not be fulfilled when’ we have overcome aggressor states, ‘that hope will be fulfilled when the lesson of Christmas is fully learnt’, by which he meant absorbing the mystery of the ‘Child of Bethlehem’, who ‘lies helpless in the stable’. Then he spoke again on the last Sunday of 1942, in a BBC broadcast entitled ‘From The Old Year To The New’, in which he asked for an examination of our individual and collective consciences:
‘So at this moment of passage from a year of so great vicissitudes, which yet closes with great hope and promise, to a year which must call for all we have of constancy in endurance, and perhaps also for the vision and wisdom to make a right use of success, let us take stock of ourselves and ask how far we, to whom a noble cause has been entrusted, are worthy to be its champions.’
Simon Lee is the Chair of the Trustees of the William Temple Foundation, Professor of Law, Aston University, and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence, Queen’s University Belfast
Over the last few months, I have become aware, while working as a community development practitioner in the Durham Diocese, that the wonderful staff and volunteers are increasingly expressing that they are exhausted and angry.
Loughborough University has found that North East now has the highest child poverty rates in the country, with over 50% children growing up in poverty in some communities. Child Poverty rates in the region have risen by almost half, from 26% to 38%, in the space of six years compared to a drop by two percentage points across the country [1]
I was reflecting on this when I came across an old report from the Church Urban Fund that looked the problems facing community organisation in the most deprived areas. It described:
‘Significant issues confronting people living in deprived communities – The most common problems cited by respondents included high levels of unemployment, especially amongst young people; reductions in benefits coupled with rising rent, food costs and bills; increasing levels of homelessness, and rising levels of debt’.[2]
What, however, most shocked me about the report was not the content – but the fact that it was written ten years ago! The austerity years, the COVID-19 years, and now the current economic crisis. Each wave of crisis has seen congregations and faith-based organisations pick themselves up and do what they can. Food provisions, debt advice, drop-in support, and warm spaces.
The congregations and projects I support are increasingly growing exhausted, not knowing what to do next or where to turn. This exhaustion has been highlighted by a recent article in The Guardian:
“Many of our teams are struggling to cope as demand for our support outstrips our food and financial donations and we are forced to make difficult decisions about how we operate. We are overstretched and exhausted. Many of our organisations are at breaking point.” [3]
However, there is another emotion that I am witnessing: the anger resulting from the recognition that years of responding to human need through loving service has not changed things. Rather, it seems things are now worse than ever before, as highlighted in the child poverty statistics.
Last month an email from an area dene explained that at the deanery synod found ‘there is a desire to do more than give, [as] this cannot be accepted as the norm and collectively we would like to campaign but are unsure how to take this forward’. Our charitable practice doesn’t help us to seek to transform unjust structures of society. As Thia Cooper reminds us:
Charity is only needed when a situation of injustice exists. On its own, charity is not enough; it leaves the person ‘giving’ with the power. It does not ask how to achieve a just system, where no one holds greater economic, political, radical, or other types of power over another human being. (Cooper, 2007: 175) [4]
Last week was Living Wage Week. As the chair of Tyne and Wear Citizens Living Wage Action team, we will be celebrating the first Living Wage City in the region, Sunderland, and our second council, Newcastle.
This year, I have noticed a shift in the narrative around the Living Wage campaign from one of advocacy to deep solidarity. There is a deeper connection for many of us which has moved us beyond standing alongside as we are all, to varying degrees, look with concern to work out how to make ends meet. I am not playing the ‘we’re all in this together’ card, because that just isn’t true but there is a deeper solidarity.
Joerg Rieger (2017) develop the notion of solidarity into ‘deep solidarity’ when describing a situation where 99% of us who must work for a living, including people who are excluded from the job market, realise that they have this in common. Deep solidarity recognises that the system works for the few rather than for the many, and that nothing will change unless more of the many come together. It also recognises that our different religious traditions can help us imagine and reimagine deep solidarity.
At the heart of worship in Israel is the Exodus from the conditions of slavery in Egypt; this tradition ties together the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Interreligious dialogue is a live option not only because of shared traditions but also because deep solidarity helps us deal with our differences. In fact, differences become an asset when the resources of our different traditions are allowed to make their specific contributions to the struggle. (Rieger, 2017: 361) [5]
So tonight, I am off to run listening training for the deanery synod who wanted to move beyond simply giving but weren’t sure how to go about it. We will be practicing how to have conversations with people who are different from ourselves with such an understanding of deep solidarity.
[4] Cooper, T. (2020) A Theology of International Development. London: Routledge.
[5] Rieger, J. (2017) ‘Empire, deep solidarity, and the future of liberation theology’, Political theology: the journal of Christian socialism, 18(4), pp. 354-364. doi:10.1080/1462317X.2017.1311060.
Reviewed by Chris Baker, Director of Research, William Temple Foundation
This latest text from Stephen Spencer is another biography of Archbishop William Temple, who died in 1944, and joins a small but enduring list of biographies published to date. This year is an auspicious year to bring out such a volume, focussing attention as it does on the 80th anniversary of the publication of the work that Temple is perhaps still best known for, namely Christianity and Social Order. This biography, focusing on what Temple’s life says about a model of public leadership and service within a framing of servant leadership is also incredibly timely, coming at a time when political leadership in this country has been proved to be eye-wateringly corrupt and tainted by self-service, sleaze, and purposefully orchestrated division. Will public confidence in political leadership ever recover at this time of multiple crises—which range from the cost of living, poverty, and collapse in public services to environmental disaster and a new European war in Ukraine? Also, as I write this review, controversy and disunity have surfaced at the 2022 Lambeth conference over the issues of same-sex marriage and LGTBQ+ rights. I wonder how Temple’s approach to leadership and reconciliation would have played out amidst the current political and ecclesial splits shaping our public discourse? Inevitably, these thoughts were playing in my mind as I read this latest addition to the Temple oeuvre.
Spencer’s biography starts with a brief overview of the theme of servant leadership. There is a clear root to Jesus’ radically kenotic view of leadership along the lines ‘whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all’ (Mark 10:43-44). But Spencer augments this allusion with two influential contemporary exponents of the concept (Robert Greenleaf and Kenneth Blanchard). These additional facets include providing vision and direction in ways that shape the present but define the future by having clear goals and acknowledging what others have done and offering clear and concise support when changes are needed—both of which are underpinned by a wider sense of hope and trust in what God is bringing to the world.
Spencer then cleverly moves to a description of Temple, arguably at the height of his leadership powers, caught on a news film report addressing a packed Albert Hall in September 1942 as the newly enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury on the theme of ‘The Church Looks Forward’. In the audience are leading politicians of the day, including those who will serve as ministers in the post-war Labour Government, as he lays out the principles for post-war reconstruction. Like a movie that starts at the end for dramatic effect, the rest of the book offers us the backstory as to how this pivotal point is reached.
Spencer moves with well-signposted chapters through the early stages of Temple’s life and career, suggesting a nagging desire to question and confound the easy and accepted trajectory for his life at the heart of the elite establishment, including a stellar academic career in philosophy at Oxford and becoming headmaster at an early age of a prestigious public school. Two events challenge that orthodoxy. First, is Temple’s experience of being initially rejected for the priesthood on the grounds of theological unorthodoxy, and second, his placement at Toynbee Hall and the Bermondsey Mission, sent there by Edward Caird, the master of Balliol College, Oxford. The book then becomes more gripping and intriguing. We move through to Temple’s middle and late phases of life, where a meteoric rise to being Bishop of Manchester at the time of the post-war General Strike, and his theological and political reflections on the nature of sin, evil, compassion, and social justice begin to meld into his formidable expression of public leadership.
Here, Stephen Spencer’s acuity as a theologian, as well as an historical biographer, comes to the fore as he expertly unpacks the trajectory of Temple’s thought from its Idealist roots to his Christian Realism, profoundly shaped by the influence of contemporaries such as Reinhold Niebuhr and by his calling to shape society in accordance with Christian principles. This approach required a deep pragmatism allied to a deep vision and the ability to hold together multiple perspectives in tension. Chapter 6, on the theme of ‘Changing Views of Human History’, is an expertly charted essay in philosophical thought, whilst Chapter 10, ‘From Logic to Imagination’ does the same from a theological perspective.
Spencer’s archival diligence skilfully brings Temple alive as a person, a thinker, and a leader. The structure of the book holds the interplay between life experience, its impacts on theological and political thinking, and pattens of leadership in firm view. Finding intimate, touching, and vulnerable anecdotes alongside sustained passages of deep thought as well as incisive and honest appraisals of Temple by his contemporaries is one of this book’s strengths. Spencer is not averse to presenting Temple as a work a progress, rather than the finished article. However, this merely serves to reinforce the phenomenal achievements of a person who, in the end, drove himself to an untimely death through the stress induced by the range of his work and mission. Spencer also highlights the cultural, and in some cases colonial, assumptions of Temple’s thought and idiom which may struggle to find purchase in the contemporary world
In summary, Temple’s leadership comes across as visionary and humble, confident but collaborative, and increasingly fearless in calling out God’s truth to institutional power, both within the church and the wider world. Above all, Temple allowed his personal experience of prayer and spirituality to be the touchstone for his decision making, a spiritual journey that he was also able to articulate and share as part of his leadership, and which continues to inspire others to this day. Yet at the end of this fine and engrossing book I was left with a nagging feeling. It is presented as a study in church leadership for a principally church audience, but should there not be a more ultimate purpose? I think this book has huge and important things to say to secular politicians and business leaders, because, as Spencer so skilfully draws out, Temple’s thinking and approach spilled out into the wider world and touched and shaped many from outside the church. When so much of our public leadership seems paralysed by compromise and corruption on the one hand, and timidity on the other, then here is a voice that needs to be listened to again. I hope churchy imagery and endorsements, fine as they are, do not prevent this book from reaching a properly wide audience.
The William Temple Foundation, in partnership with Leeds Church Institute, is delighted to launch the latest series in our ground-breaking podcast Staying with the Trouble. The series will run for the next six weeks, starting 7th June, 2022.
Entitled Perspectives on Poverty and Exclusion in Leeds and produced by Rosie Dawson, the series is anchored by Bishop James Jones, Bishop Emeritus of Liverpool. Via six interviews with key actors across the city, Bishop Jones traces the impact of the current cost of living crisis on the lives of ordinary citizens, and the relationships and practices of solidarity, care, compassion and justice that emerge to provide resilience and hope to so many facing hardship and despair.
As Bishop Jones summarises, these relationships and networks reflect ‘an organic regeneration’ that cuts deeply across religious, secular, ideological, cultural and ethnic divides.
Director of Research for the Foundation, Professor Chris Baker reflects, ‘In this Platinum Jubilee Year, with its emphasis on theme of service as exemplified by Queen Elizabeth, this series really resonates as it shows how daily acts of service and sacrificial leadership build resilience and hope across our communities in the darkest of times.’
Dr Helen Reid, Director, Leeds Church Institute says, ‘I commend the podcast series to all who love Leeds and are troubled by inequality here. The podcasts combine personal experience and local perspectives with insight, hope and action for building a fairer city.’
In recent years, victims of church-related abuse have complained bitterly about their treatment by the church. What has gone so badly wrong, and how could the church do better? Falling Among Thieves seeks to outline a theological understanding of church-related abuse, and the church’s role in ‘re-dressing’ the victim—drawing insights from the story of the Good Samaritan. The text is preceded by a Foreword from Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, who both applauds and responds to Graystone’s words.
Andrew Graystone comments:
“I’m haunted by the scores of people I have met whose lives have been wrecked by their encounters with Christian leaders. In almost every case, the way the church has responded has caused as much harm—and often far more—than the original abuse. Over the years that I have been walking this road, the leaders of the contemporary church have failed to deal with this reality.
Abuse happens in every hierarchical institution—but there is no excuse for the church responding to its victims in such damaging and destructive ways. I hope that Falling Among Thieves will go some way to helping the church think deeply about the damage it has done, and how it might begin to respond more appropriately.”
Chris Baker, Director of Research at the Foundation comments:
“The William Temple Foundation is honoured to publish this important piece of theology by Andrew Graystone that is both a call for justice and a call for reconciliation around the topic of church-based abuse. We hope it will make a positive and substantive contribution to this serious issue.”
In this special blog for Eastertide, Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, explains the Church of England’s new vision for the 2020s.
Easter is a time of great hope. It is the season when Christians remember Jesus’ death on the cross, his victory in resurrection, his ascension into heaven and the disciples receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That gift nearly 2000 years ago is the reason why Christianity continues to this day and why Easter is such an important celebration in the Christian calendar.
It is with this same Easter hope, rooted in the good news of Jesus Christ that the Church of England has embarked on its vision for the 2020s. It was William Temple, when appointed Archbishop of York, who wrote to a friend to say, ‘It is a dreadful responsibility, and that is exactly the reason why one should not refuse’ (letter to F. A. Iremonger, August 1928). Shortly before I was appointed to follow in his footsteps, albeit 91 years later, I had been asked to give some thought to what the Church of England’s vision for the 2020s might look like and, if I am honest, similar words to those of Temple went through my mind.
However, as I embarked on this task, I was clear on two things. This should never be about my vision, but about discerning God’s vision for God’s church in God’s world—and therefore I should not attempt to find it on my own. Over the next 9 months, various groups were gathered together, representing a huge, and usually younger, diversity of voices. After much prayer and discernment a vision emerged which we felt was God’s call on us for this time. Consequently, there is now a clear Vision and Strategy that the governing body of the Church of England and the Diocesan Bishops have agreed—and the whole Church is shifting and aligning to this new narrative.
Except, it isn’t that new. The Church of England’s vocation has always been to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ afresh in each generation to and with the people of England. In our vision for the 2020s, we speak about this as being a Christ-centred Church, which is about our spiritual and theological renewal, and then a Jesus-Christ-shaped Church, particularly seeing the five marks of mission as signs and markers of what a Jesus-Christ-shaped life might look like. It is therefore a vision of how we are shaped by Christ in order to bring God’s transformation to the world. Three words in particular have risen to the surface: we are called to be a simpler, humbler, and bolder church.
From this, three priorities have emerged, and parishes and dioceses are invited to examine and develop their existing strategies and processes in the light of these ideas.
To become a church of missionary disciples. In one sense, this is the easiest to understand, re-emphasising that basic call to live out our Christian faith in the whole of life, Sunday to Saturday. Or, as we speak about it in the Church of England, Everyday Faith.
To be a church where mixed ecology is the norm. This has sometimes been a bit misunderstood. Mixed ecology reflects the nature of Jesus’ humanity and mission. It is contextual, ensuring churches, parishes, and dioceses are forming new congregations with and for newer and ever more diverse communities of people. It is about taking care of the whole ecosystem of the Church and not imagining one size can ever fit all. In the early church, in the book of Acts, we see this mission shaped by the new humanity that is revealed in Christ, made available and empowered by the Spirit. Therefore, mixed ecology is not something new—it is actually a rather old, and well-proven concept. After all, every parish church in our land was formed once. So, mixed ecology doesn’t mean abandoning the parish system or dismantling one way of being the Church in favour of another. It is about how the Church of England will fulfil its historic vocation to be the Church for everyone, by encouraging a mixed ecology of Church through a revitalised parish system. We hope that every person in England will find a pathway into Christian community.
To be a church that is younger and more diverse. Professor Andrew Walls writes, ‘The Church must be diverse because humanity is diverse, it must be one because Christ is one […] Christ is human, and open to humanity in all its diversity, the fullness of his humanity takes in all its diverse cultural forms.’ (The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, p. 77) We need to look like the communities we serve in all areas of age and diversity. For the Church of England that means believing in and supporting children and young people in ministry; facing up to our own failings to welcome and include many under-represented groups, particularly people with disabilities and those from a Global Majority Heritage; and committing ourselves to the current Living in Love and Faith process and our already agreed pastoral principles so that LGBTQI+ people are in no doubt that they, along with everyone, are equally welcome in the Church of England. It also means putting renewed resources into our poorest communities.
Whilst some have questioned why we only have three priorities, they are, I believe, vital for the Church of England in the 2020s as we continue to serve Jesus in the power of the Spirit through his Church.
In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes, ‘if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.’ Our desire is to reach everyone with the good news of Christ, and especially those who in the past may have felt excluded. That is why the work with racial justice, a new bias to the poor, and an emphasis on becoming younger are so important.
Ultimately, this vision flows from the joy we find in the risen Christ. It is an Easter message. A message of transformation for the world, as a church that is renewed and re-centred in Christ and shaped by God’s agenda for the world will be good news for that world. It will bring God’s transformation to the hurt, confusion, weariness, and despair we see around us—that Church existing for the benefit of its non-members as Temple so memorably put it.
