This blog is the third of three produced by Research Fellow Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell, as part of our Fellows Fund Programme. In this series, Dr Barber-Rowell sets out the potential role for intra-communities dialogue and local leadership for Curating Spaces of Hope in a post-pandemic society.
In this final blog, I set out local leadership based on characteristics drawn from stories and contributions from over 900 people who have shaped Spaces of Hope. My contention is that these characteristics can provide us with a map of our local leadership potential, which we can make real and concrete by ‘curating’ them, using five principles: freedom, relationship, service, affect, and authenticity.
My argument in this blog is that if we can map our different and creative potential, we can then use these principles as the compass to guide us through uncertainty, using the characteristics as way marks on the map. I will turn to this now and then conclude this series by issuing a call to action to sojourn and then journey on together.
Local Leadership:
Spaces of Hope has been coproduced by a wide variety of people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse experiences, ranging from refugees and homeless communities, to senior religious leaders, to differently abled volunteers, to chief executives, from community workers to academics, from local authority officers, to foodbank users. Examples of local leadership have emerged from anyone and anywhere. We all possess that potential.
Spaces of Hope research has found that local leadership can be characterised as:
incarnational; where the potential we have is made real by the things that we do.
negotiated in that we understand what can be done and develop this in conjunction with and with respect for others.
Including different roles and responsibilities. It might be that we are specialists in a given subject, or generalists in that we wear different hats. Both are needed. Both have value.
Both formal and informal. It might be that we are a local leader by profession; appointed within an organisation, or we might have been voted into office to represent the views of swaths of people. Or it might be that we are a local leader in a more informal sense bringing invaluable service through the things we do and the associations we have, whether we know it or not.
These characteristics of local leadership are best understood in relationship with things that offer context to that leadership. Relationships with the place we live and work, the service that we offer and the potential that relationships themselves bring for transformation to take place in our lives. What motivates us, the beliefs, values and worldviews that emerge from the context we are in, the foundations we build our lives upon, and the values that we form together. The things we do when we interface with others, the way we communicate with others, offer welcome and care, and how what we do relates to voluntary work and professional services and systems, alike.
Local leadership is also steeped in the prophetic and authentic stories which set out how we have dealt with things in our lives and how they might inform a vision for the future. Local leadership is also at its most effective when it finds the flow of what is happening in the world around us, working with others in networks and partnership to create movements that can both count the cost of change and embrace it, together.
These characteristics and relationships are both underpinning the way local leadership can be understood and are formational for the Spaces of Hope approach that I am offering here. The most pertinent of these for you will emerge from intra-communities dialogues, but they will all have their part to play in the urgent task of mobilising local leadership for post-pandemic society.
I have addressed how we might map our uncertain terrain and the characteristics of local leadership. Now I turn to our compass to guide the way.
Principles for Local Leadership
Spaces of Hope has drawn on a wide variety of inspirations and influences since it emerged in 2016. These sources include: the leadership by experience of people in the north west of England; the work of public intellectuals e.g. William Temple, who offered guiding principles for people to participate in society; interdisciplinary scholarly work from theology to philosophy to sociology, to social policy to urban geography. With these in mind, the five principles that have emerged are:
Freedom: this is the potential we have within us and the ability we have to make that real and tangible. Put simply, taking responsibility within our circumstances and sharing the fullest possible expression of our personality.
Relationship: We are in relationship with everyone and everything around us, from the people we love to the places we live, to the rest of the world as we see it. The principle of relationship helps us to understand the freedom that we have positively, in terms of freedom for others, as opposed to freedom from others.
Service: the expression of freedom, in relationship with others is, service. Service is the incarnation of the potential that we each have and the expression of leadership in the multitude of different ways that this manifests itself.
Affect: Expressions of service can come in a wide variety of forms, each can be both subtle and significant and are simultaneously synonymous with hope. The principle of affect is a guide to be aware of and sensitive to everything around us. As the pandemic has taught us, the smallest of sources can bring hope.
Authenticity: Finally, we should consider if the freedom we are sharing through relationship with others and expressing through service that is affective and affected by what is around us, fits within our wider story. This is not an inward sense of authenticity that we decide upon for ourselves, but an outward question for others to answer about whether what we are doing is truly hopeful and hope filled.
Intra-communities dialogue, set out in blog two, helps us to map the characteristics and relationships that flow through the spaces we are in. Applying these principles to them offers us a compass for guiding local leadership. What I am proposing is that we now explore together. Journeying on to discover how we might better talk to one another about what has happened to us, identifying the things that we care about and taking them forward. I am proposing that we engage in intra-communities dialogue and curate the different and creative potential characteristics and relationships that make up the spaces we inhabit to form concrete and hope filled local leadership for post-pandemic society.
I am seeking spaces to explore this further. This process will leave you with the outcomes to take forward yourself and also feed into the understanding of what it means to Curate Spaces of Hope. This is an invitation to join a journey that can take us forward for years to come.
Biography: Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell has been working in activism and academia in the north west of England for the past 10 years during which time he developed Spaces of Hope. Matthew is a Research Fellow with the William Temple Foundation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. During the pandemic Matthew supported local food provision; packing and delivering food parcels in his local community, acted as a trustee of his local church and was a team member delivering UK wide COVID research. Matthew has led work scoping responses to Net Zero in the north west, and is continuing this work through ecological change projects within churches in the north west. Matthew completed his PhD at Goldsmiths University of London, which discerned and defined Spaces of Hope, offering the basis for new work developing intra – communities dialogue and local leadership.
This blog is the second of three produced by Research Fellow Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell, as part of our Fellows Fund Programme. In this series, Dr Barber-Rowell sets out the potential role for intra-communities dialogue and local leadership for Curating Spaces of Hope in a post-pandemic society. This will be followed by blogs published on the 10th of May.
In my first blog, I set out the uncertain context we are living in, prompted by the pandemic, climate emergency, Brexit, the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis. I posed the question of how we might respond to this uncertainty. I introduced Curating Spaces of Hope and proposed that this is an overarching approach I believe offers potential for the development of intra-communities dialogue and local leadership, in a post-pandemic society.
Spaces of Hope Dialogues
In this blog, I turn to intra-communities dialogue (ICD) and its significance to this new proposed agenda. Dialogue has been formational for Spaces of Hope. In 2017 I was commissioned by a local authority in northwest England to develop networked gatherings across the borough. I used dialogue to support the faith, community and voluntary sector to respond to the impacts of austerity, divisions exposed by Brexit campaigning, unprecedented changes to public services and a growing epidemic in mental health largely caused by social isolation and loneliness. This commission followed on from Vanguard work exploring Health as a Social Movement, led by the Royal Society of Arts, of which Spaces of Hope played a small part. The issues faced struck right at the heart of civil society, impacting personal resilience and the community resources change to public services relied on.
The Spaces of Hope dialogues took place at different community hubs across the borough, engaging nearly 170 people across 9 gatherings from 70+ community organisations, who brought nearly 300 perspectives on what Spaces of Hope meant to them and their perceived barriers to realising those Spaces of Hope in their lives. A case study for the Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in England summarised these dialogues as
“bringing together innovative mixes of civil society actors – from professional community practitioners through to individual community activists – to ‘meaning-make’ as a response to experiences of pointlessness and emptiness in personal, community and professional life.”
A Local Authority Officer said whilst reflecting on the dialogues
“In the past we have had a situation where the policy team has been the policy team … and [use] this kind of council speak … talking in the language of hope or hearts [feelings] over the last relatively short period of time [has exhibited] a shift.”
65% of respondents associated Spaces of Hope with personal vulnerability, personal freedom and social connection and 40% understood people’s suspicions and perceptions around different cultures and worldviews to be barriers to Spaces of Hope. This intervention opened up scope for values based dialogues within this locality. In terms of impact, a senior advisor within Public Health in Greater Manchester said
“[Spaces of Hope] delivers both added value in existing work and produces new projects and networks across neighbourhoods and localities.”
1/3 of respondents said that the Spaces of Hope dialogues had catalysed something new within their own work. Further, 90% of respondents said that they valued the Spaces of Hope dialogues and would participate in them in the future. Spaces of Hope gatherings continued. All told, 35 dialogues took place in 36 months from October 2016-2019.
The Spaces of Hope dialogues were not without interruptions. For example the Beast from the East cancelled one gathering at short notice. Inconvenient yes, but nothing compared to how we experience things now. The pandemic struck in March 2020 and lockdown ensued. UK wide research was conducted into the response, including the role of faith groups during the pandemic. This work found that whilst conditions of uncertainty have been accelerated, there was an affinity between local authorities and groups with different beliefs values and worldviews, who had stepped up during the pandemic. Local authorities wanted to capture and preserve this for the future. The report noted,
“Almost every local authority in the study endorses a commitment to build on this and to deepen relationships supporting long-term policy interventions and partnerships in ways that are different to the current practice and norms.”
This was followed up with parliamentary debate in Feb 2021, which suggests a need for networked and values based dialogues is only growing in response to the uncertainties we are facing.
Intra-communities Dialogue
The uncertainty of the last 2 years has forced us to reconsider where we find hope. Face masks have become a symbol of hope. Baking bread between Zoom calls brought hope to our work day, whilst we reconciled ourselves to the stress of the nowhere office. Our morning walk became both acts of obedience; adhering to laws prescribing one piece of exercise per day, and an act of defiance against the virus, glimpsing forgotten freedom, before returning to our COVID induced confines. New frontlines emerged through pop up hubs packing and delivering parcels of hope. Street level organising and WhatsApp groups nurtured new networked responses to the chaos of COVID and opened up spaces of connection within a changed and uncertain landscape, catalysing alliances and empowering local communities, making the case for a new modus operandi.
With this in mind, the question becomes, how are we going to do it? How do we hold together these diverse experiences and discern the leadership we need? Last year the Journal of Dialogue Studies published an article where I set out intra-communities dialogue as mapping and listening to shared matters of concern, of those with different beliefs values and worldviews, sharing and shaping public spaces together. I have given examples of how listening and mapping of this kind can take place. Intra-communities dialogues is a development and a deepening of the Spaces of Hope approach that succeeded pre-pandemic. I have shown how we might proceed, through networked gatherings and dialogues. With this in mind, I am proposing that we use intra-communities dialogues within new learning communities made up of those who responded to the pandemic in their local community, to reflect on and discern how we Curate Spaces of Hope within post-pandemic society.
In my final blog I will set out what I mean by ‘Curating’ and its implications for local leadership for post pandemic society.
Biography: Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell has been working in activism and academia in the north west of England for the past 10 years during which time he developed Spaces of Hope. Matthew is a Research Fellow with the William Temple Foundation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. During the pandemic Matthew supported local food provision; packing and delivering food parcels in his local community, acted as a trustee of his local church and was a team member delivering UK wide COVID research. Matthew has led work scoping responses to Net Zero in the north west, and is continuing this work through ecological change projects within churches in the north west. Matthew completed his PhD at Goldsmiths University of London, which discerned and defined Spaces of Hope, offering the basis for new work developing intra – communities dialogue and local leadership.
This blog is the first of three produced by Research Fellow Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell, as part of our Fellows Fund Programme. In this series, Dr Barber-Rowell sets out the potential role for intra-communities dialogue and local leadership for Curating Spaces of Hope in a post-pandemic society. This will be followed by blogs published on the 3rd and 10th May.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted us in ways we could not have imagined two years ago. It is just one of an increasing number of global movements transforming our lives. We have experienced years of austerity following the global financial crash in 2008, we are facing the consequences of Brexit, a Climate Emergency, the COVID-19 Pandemic, the War in Ukraine, an energy crisis, and a new cost of living crisis in the UK. How might we live in these uncertain times?
In this series of blogs, I will set out a possible way for answering this question. The first blog will set out context for our experiences of uncertainty and an approach that has become known as ‘Curating Spaces of Hope’. I will set out what this is, how it emerged from contexts of uncertainty, and what it might offer us now. I will then introduce the tools that have been produced as part of Spaces of Hope, intra-communities dialogue, and an approach to local leadership, which I will discuss further in blogs two and three, exploring the possibilities they open up for post-pandemic society.
Living in uncertain times:
The pandemic precipitated paralysis in people’s lives. Social isolation was imposed upon us. Emergency legislation limited our ability to leave our homes, see our friends and family and go to work. If we were lucky that was as bad as it got. Financial and food poverty were exacerbated, and what had been described as a mental health crisis was accelerated. We faced a silent and pervasive foe to which we had no resistance and to which we are only now considering how to live with it. We lived hybrid lives.
Our digital lives offered both solace and a sad substitute for social connection. Loved ones died without anyone at their side. Weddings were cancelled. These experiences came hot on the heels of Brexit, which opened up and laid bare the divisions in the UK, across the nations in our union and locally where tribes of ‘brexiteers’ or a ‘remainers’ delineated differences about what and who we were for, and against.
Always on the horizon is the global Climate Emergency. The COP26 climate conference brought hope of a climate sea change amongst the pandemic storm. The target of Net Zero has sparked activism and galvanised individuals to hold industries and institutions to account. And now we see War in Europe. Whilst we do not have to face conflict directly ourselves, it is all too close. How we support those suffering is a live question. Ructions following sanctions on Russia, sets the stage for a cost of living crisis affecting our day to day lives.
As we emerge from lockdown, the ‘Living with COVID’ policy is hot off the press. Therein we are faced with three considerations. 1) life is uncertain and will not look like it did before. 2) legal limits are being lifted, but risks remain. 3) We are faced with adapting how we live in an uncertain world, becoming more resilient, beginning with taking personal responsibility. The time is now ripe to innovate and to determine for ourselves and collectively what life looks like in a post-pandemic society.
Curating Spaces of Hope
The response I am proposing is ‘Curating Spaces of Hope’. This has emerged from my own personal journey of suffering and sense making, catalysed by the 2008 global financial crash, austerity, unemployment, loneliness and isolation, abuse and discrimination. It was a journey traversing uncertain and complex issues, necessitating personal reflection and exploration of how the beliefs and values we hold relate to day to day life, work, social relationships, and our capacity to live and work in a healthy and hopeful way. From 2010-2020 this journey changed from a personal piece of reflection, to a social movement of over 900 people, all contributing, each from their own experiences, to the iterative development of a framework and way of working pertinent to producing fruit out of uncertain times.
Curating Spaces of Hope then is a response to the uncertain, uninvited and unexpected experiences that shape our lives. It is at once a personal response to the wide variety of difficulties that life presents us with and also a productive and pioneering paradigm that offers a means of mapping the content of our lives and coproducing nuanced and creative solutions to the shared problems we now face. What I am proposing, is to use Spaces of Hope to develop intra-communities dialogues, which will allow people to reflect on and map what has happened to them, and also to equip them to develop local leadership as a compass to guide us through the uncertainty in our lives. In the next blog I will set out what I mean by intra-communities dialogues and what it might mean for us in post-pandemic society.
Biography: Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell has been working in activism and academia in the north west of England for the past 10 years during which time he developed Spaces of Hope. Matthew is a Research Fellow with the William Temple Foundation and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. During the pandemic Matthew supported local food provision; packing and delivering food parcels in his local community, acted as a trustee of his local church and was a team member delivering UK wide COVID research. Matthew has led work scoping responses to Net Zero in the north west, and is continuing this work through ecological change projects within churches in the north west. Matthew completed his PhD at Goldsmiths University of London, which discerned and defined Spaces of Hope, offering the basis for new work developing intra – communities dialogue and local leadership.
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.
Professor Chris Baker, Director of the William Temple Foundation, speaks on Easter Sunday with Shaun Ley of BBC World News about Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s recent criticism of the Rwanda asylum seekers plan.
“[Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury] is reminding British society and British establishment of core principles, which are around the Christian values of hospitality, providing refuge, support, and working for the well being and development of all humankind.”
Justin Welby criticises UK’s Rwanda asylum seekers plan | BBC World Interview with Chris Baker
Review of Jarel Robinson-Brown, Black Gay British Christian Queer (London: SCM Press, 2021), by Yazid Said, Liverpool Hope University
Yazid Said, Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University and trustee of the William Temple Foundation, reviews Jarel Robinson-Brown’s recent book. Said applauds Robinson-Brown’s call for repentance but wonders whether human nature can really be viewed so optimistically.
Jarel Robinson-Brown’s book articulates critiques and reconstructions of the Christian understanding of grace from his experiences of living as a member of the Black LGBTQ+ Christian community in Britain. He is concerned with the ways in which being black and gay can encourage individuals and the whole Church to reimagine grace and to challenge some teachings and practices in the Church. The book is therefore mainly on how grace determines our understanding of divine action in the Incarnation (Chapter 2) and the crucifixion (Chapter 3) and its relationship to human action (Chapters 4 & 5). Drawing on several experiences of other gay, black, and queer individuals, he argues that genuine grace means walking alongside people in a position of powerlessness rather than in exercising power over them (pp. 72, 105-106).
The book’s importance lies in its emphasis on justice and its calling for a common repentance; it highlights the importance of the Church as a place of welcome for everyone and the significance of encountering the face of our victims for the release of grace (pp. 72 & 80).
Some issues raised in the book, however, require some unpacking. Grace itself remains a highly contentious concept in Christian history, reflecting a wide range of views on sex and sexuality. The implications, therefore, of how the author engages with Christian doctrine are mixed. He points to the Incarnation and crucifixion as an alternative to the emphasis on God’s transcendence, which he often links to human power structures (pp. 52, 56-58). Jesus’ story expresses divine immanence (pp. 50-58). Divine impassibility (Greek apatheia) would be rejected (pp. 69-70). In this way, the book draws on familiar themes and insights from other liberation theology traditions, emphasising the humanity of Jesus, as someone who stands alongside the outcast (p. 84). However, unlike other writers in this tradition (such as Carter Hayward’s The Redemption of God) Robinson-Brown subscribes to the orthodox definitions of Christ (pp. 104-106).
The author, evidently, has a view of grace that reflects a particular liberal philosophy. When it comes to the salvific effect of grace, he reads it as salvation from within, rather than an external challenge for change (106). This suggests that he maintains a highly optimistic view of human nature in line with liberal philosophy. He draws on other activists who have a shared sexuality and a common intellectual heritage with him. Robinson-Brown is not subscribing to liberal individualism, however. He believes that if communities and members of the Body of Christ cooperate, they can achieve true justice in response to the revelation of God in Christ (Chapter 5).
There is no discussion of the Christian understanding of original sin. Indeed, he talks of ‘silencing our sin-talk’ (p. 38). The book does not struggle with the implications of sin for all, when grace includes God’s judgment on sin for the benefit of the sinner (Matthew 9: 10-13). This is reflected in the manner of using scripture. We are rightly reminded that Jesus is more at home in the company of tax collectors and sinners (p. 84). However, whilst Jesus enjoyed the company of sinners, he did not see them as other than sinners. The woman found in adultery is still a sinner: ‘go and sin no more’ (John 8: 1-11). Zacchaeus was still a greedy person (Luke 19); they all need the grace of God in Jesus.
Whilst dependence on Christology and salvation remain striking in the book, the ambiguity of discussing ‘sin’ explains the ambiguity around his discussion of the crucifixion too. The cross becomes for the author a weapon (pp. 63, 67, 69). He identifies the suffering of Black LGBTQ+ Christians with Christ’s suffering. But this identification cannot reflect what is truly radical and new in the cross. It is the darkness of death on the cross that judges all our systems, not simply the suffering that makes us more ‘righteous’. It is difficult to assess whether Jesus suffered more than the millions who suffered in the twentieth century. This is neither here nor there. Rather, the cross silences us—all of us, white, black, gay, or straight—as it reminds us how we all tend to reject the truth when it comes among us.
Similarly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘cheap grace’ is susceptible to misuse in the book (p. 40). Though Bonhoeffer was influential in radical ‘secular’ theological writings such as that of John Robinson’s Honest to God (1963), Bonhoeffer was certainly not trying to push for the usual liberal argument that claims to make God ‘relevant’ to ‘the modern world’. Rather he was trying to confront the evils of the modern world with the radical worldliness of the gospel.
It would also be good to unpack a little more of what the author means by ‘White Supremacy’ in Britain today (pp. 112 & 157). Some might distinguish between supremacist ideology and a ‘hidden’ racism. The latter is more personal. An argument, for example, from Rowan Williams’ chapter ‘Nobody knows who I am till the judgment morning’ in On Christian Theology (pp. 276-289) discusses the question of racism as part of a larger task of defining a human crisis overall.
It is evident today that the earlier blanket condemnation of sexual minorities is no longer tenable or indeed desirable. There are enough signs across different church traditions to move away from the condemnatory language of the past. Robinson-Brown refers critically to the Church of England’s document Issues of Human Sexuality (1991) (p. 10); he could have clarified that further in pointing to an aspect of legal hypocrisy here. The document goes as far as to see committed homosexual relationships as a valid option for Christian living whilst attaching celibacy to the legal expression of committed homosexual relationships. It therefore denies a key dimension of gay identity.
Robinson-Brown’s book deserves support for its cause and its apt call for the church to live out its call for repentance; but one still needs to ask to what extent this kind of ‘identity-focus’ theology is able to prosper where the liberal philosophical tradition is less influential. The book seems to assume that people who share the LGBTQ+ identity all share the same experiences, either private or social. This may not necessarily be the case either. Many who may be sympathetic to the cause, may not embrace the optimism that seeks to erase the importance of human sin. A strong consciousness of our fallenness helps deliver us from the kind of binaries that identity theologies—and politics—seek to work with.
You can also read John Root’s review of Israel’s book here.
The death of George Floyd in May 2020 happened at the beginning of a global pandemic. Whilst the issue of racial injustice has been with us for a while, the pandemic did help the global community to be more conscious of the suffering that many people of colour have been facing for decades.
Many of the questions people are asking today revolve around their humanity and their identity. There are questions around sexuality and identity, gender and identity, disability and identity, race and identity, and so on. It is the last of these questions, on race and identity, that I want to narrow down on in this conversation—because the murder of George Floyd has led to the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet the Black Lives Matter movement, like any of the other issues highlighted above, has become politicised and potentially controversial. Some people view it as controversial because they think saying that black lives matter means saying other lives do not matter.
Let me start to unpack this by reflecting on the issue theologically. An anthropological view of scripture affirms that humanity, that is everyone, is created in God’s image (see Genesis 1:26; 2:7). We are all bearers of God’s image irrespective of colour, nationality, social status, ethnicity, religion or culture. This means that our humanity is rooted in God; in essence, our human identity is derived from God. We bear God’s image because we are the signature stamp of God’s creation—and therefore all lives matter. All lives matter to God and are valuable because we are God’s handiwork. Our humanity, bearing semblance to God, also reveals a collective human identity and therefore a shared human identity.
If we agree that all lives do indeed matter and we share this understanding that we have a shared humanity rooted in God, then it should concern us all when black lives are made cheap. Black lives are made cheap when they are not seen as human, when they are enslaved, colonised, indentured, raped, exploited, seen as inferior, marginalised, oppressed, lynched, segregated, disproportionately imprisoned, murdered, and neo-colonised. The best way for us as a church to understand the message of Black Lives Matter theologically is through Paul’s body metaphor: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26, NRSV). Black Lives Matter is saying that people of African descent worldwide, as part of humanity, are suffering from various forms of injustices—and their pain matters. Will our collective humanity seek to understand this pain and respond, or will we neglect that part of the human family? For the church, this is an even more pressing issue, because if we fail to address the hurt in God’s family, that is the body of Christ, we are inadvertently neglecting ourselves.
If the UK church in its breadth of diversity is going to be relevant today and be able to speak into issues of racial inequality, we must seek to engage intelligently. The church cannot afford to keep Black Lives Matter at arm’s length. It is important for the church to engage as Black Lives Matter raises questions around the issues of race and identity for many, particularly young people. If the church is going to make the gospel relevant to millennials and Generation Z, then we must engage some of the concerns of Black Lives Matter. During the Windrush period (1940s-1960s), the UK church lost a generation of African Caribbean youth because they saw how the church had mistreated their parents, and many of them turned away. If the UK church does not engage the concerns of Black Lives Matter, we will not only loose black youth, but also other young people, because Black Lives Matter is a multicultural international movement.
One of the impacts of the pandemic is that people are asking more questions about their humanity and their identity. This is because the Black Lives Matter movement has raised critical questions around what it means to be black in a western context. Whilst I am aware that Black Lives Matter is controversial for some, I believe that the UK church must find ways to engage some of the questions being posed because they are theological questions that require missional engagement.
Guest blogger Dr Nigel Pimlott is passionate about work with young people. He Deputy CEO of national youth work charity, Frontier Youth Trust. His latest book is, ‘Embracing the Passion’ – a book about Christian Youth Work and Politics. His PhD (2013) focussed on developing a model for faith-based youth work in the Big Society social policy context.
Russell Brand is a divisive figure. He is outspoken, controversial and alienates many people. At the same time, his views resonate with the experience of many: especially younger people who feel disillusioned with current political processes. He captures and articulates some of the angst, frustrations, longings and hopes of our times. I described him recently as a social and political ‘John the Baptist’ type figure – warning, highlighting, pointing, suggesting, illuminating, and getting our attention in preparation for what is to come.
In a 2013 interview with Jeremy Paxman, Brand eloquently encouraged people not to vote as he considered it pointless. He put this down, not to apathy and disinterest, but ‘absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations’.
Whilst doing research for my new book Embracing the Passion: Christian youth work and politics, I asked Christian youth workers if they agreed with Mr Brand. There wasn’t much support for his ‘don’t vote’ idea (69% disagreed with him), but widespread support for the consideration that the current system is very broken; 78 per cent thought our system didn’t represent their generation’s needs. These findings resonate with my own perspectives. I feel disempowered by contemporary practice. I have always lived in areas served by ‘safe’ seats – represented and secured by one political party for generations and somewhat unlikely to change. Even though I have always used it, my vote has made little difference to the partisanship present where I have lived.
Younger people appear not so electorally dutiful. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of Russell Brand’s argument, many young adults have already ceased voting. The Hansard Society reports that in 2013 just 12 per cent of 18-24 year olds said they were certain to vote in the next election – down 30 per cent in just two years.
We seem to have got into a cyclical pattern that whenever an election approaches there are calls and campaigns to get people, particularly young people, to register to vote and put a cross in their chosen box. Whilst no doubt noble and well-meaning, I simply don’t think it is good enough to say we need to vote to value democracy and/or honour those who fought for the right in the first place. Arguments of this nature have been further undermined as it looks like 1 million people (mainly younger voters) seem to have been ‘lost’ in the new voter registration process, something Ed Miliband has described as a ‘democratic scandal’. I am ashamed to say cynicism sometimes gets the better of me. I have wondered if some of the people (by no means all) who so strongly endorse the voting imperative are doing so merely to seek endorsement for the system they rely upon for their own purpose, gain and esteem. That somehow they perceive high voter turnout as democratic validation of current systems.
I am drawn to the idea of compulsory voting. I particularly like the idea whereby one voting option is to put a cross in a ‘none of the above candidates’ box. The results of such a process might be a real wake-up call for democracy.
As privileged democratic citizens, we need to go beyond what is and really stand up for democracy by challenging the current malaise: pursuing a more empowering agenda. If the principle of democracy is a correct one, then I believe the principle should be practiced at every opportunity – age should not lead to disqualification from the process. I would like to suggest that we need to involve young people more in our democratic processes, empowering them in ways that are engaging and meaningful. Opportunities need to be broadened and understandings increased so young people have seats at the tables that make so many decisions about their lives.
Before I get too critical of the state and its approach to involving young people in democratic processes, I have to ask if I am pointing out the speck in the eye of the Establishment, but ignoring the massive plank in the practices of the Christian faith I embrace. Whilst things are slowly improving, the church does not have a good track record of empowering young people and involving them in decision-making processes. Generalisations are always open to criticism, but I do not see too many places of faith giving children and young people, for example, full membership and voting rights. Committees and decision-making bodies are too often ‘adult only’ domains, or at best ones giving a tokenistic nod to the empowerment of young people and young adults.
Whilst we appear to have the title, branding and premise of a democracy, we seem a long way from this being something of real meaning and substance that serves everybody. Voting is just one action that can be taken to influence what the state, or church for that matter, does. Our democracy and expectation needs to go beyond simply asking people, young or old, to vote now and again.
The current voting age is an arbitrary boundary established by existing power-holders and, yes, we could lower the voting age. It has been 16 in the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man for several years and empowering 16 and 17 year olds had a dramatic effect in the Scottish Independence referendum. However, I believe we need to much more fully equip and inspire young people, to be fully involved in democratic processes – activism, campaigning, lobbying, advocating and, if necessary peaceful civil disobedience and dissent.
By his own admission, Russell Brand led a dysfunctional life, fuelled by substance abuses and driven by hedonistic goals. Having read his latestbook and listened to him speak, I am in no doubt he has had a transformative spiritual experience and/or faith encounter. He is a reformed character. He understands the role faith plays in realising a better world. He understands Jesus (not in exclusive terms) as a ‘protagonist… from another dimension… saving humanity… ’. Fortunately, he maintains his zeal and wild side, but now channels this into the type of democratic activism I think we need to educate and empower our young people in. If we did, I dare to believe we would see less disillusionment with ‘what is’ and more opportunities to develop ‘what might be’: ourselves being protagonists and saving humanity, in whatever way we can.
Embracing the Passion: Christian youth work and politics is published by SCM Press and available at a discounted price from www.fyt.org.uk. Nigel can be contacted via nigel@pimlott.org.
As someone who has been involved in church activities for over 40 years I should have known the ninth Beatitude: “Blessed is s/he that doth not immediately refuse to volunteer, for s/he will be lumbered with doing it”! But this week, as a result of forgetting the golden rule – that one should keep eyes focussed on the floor – when nominations were asked for at an AGM, I found myself appointed to the office of Chair of the local Voluntary Community and Faith Sector Forum.
The Forum is operating in the wake of five years of stringent austerity, of welfare reform which has made many destitute, and the slashing of funding to local authorities in the North of England who serve some of the most deprived communities. There are some encouraging signs of churches and communities responding in generous and compassionate action, through the rapidly expanding foodbankmovement, debt counselling, support for the homeless, and work clubs for the unemployed. Perhaps although the rhetoric of Cameron’s “Big Society” has faded, and the assertion that “we are all in this together” can be shown up as nonsensically untrue, there is some hope in the emergence of a holy safety net that seeks to plug the gaps in the holey one of the shrinking welfare state. Faith-based provision however, remains somewhat isolationist, safely within the cocoon of its churchiness, and scarcely daring to engage with the wider debates on policy for the Third Sector at the national or local level, and rarely drawing on the major resources of charitable funders such as the Big Lottery of the European Social fund.
Not that the secular voluntary sector is immune from retreat into its own silos, or that the majority of charities have the capacity to engage on the broad battle field that stretches before us. Official thinking on the Third Sector under the neo-liberal regimes of recent decades seem to equate charities and big business. They should operate under market conditions, providing services under contracts, awarded after competitive tendering to government; or operate as social enterprises generating profits to be reinvested for social impact rather than merely private gain. All the better if they can do it cheaper or at the same price as the private sector, and add some value by deploying unpaid labour and the caring ethos energized by what we at the William Temple Foundation term “spiritual capital”.
Some of the larger charities have adapted quickly to play by the new rules, and made themselves competitive in tendering for contracts, and also at pitching for public donations. But while much good work continues to be done, significant spending goes on employing professional staff who may previously have worked in the public sector (on better terms and conditions), and in the case of some charities, on excessive salaries for senior managers. Much smaller grass-roots charities, which have always relied on truly voluntary labour, and funded themselves by jumble sales and sponsored walks, can also sustain their work under the new conditions. However, many medium-sized local charities which had become too dependent on a single source of funding are struggling and likely to fall by the wayside.
The pre- and post-election period offers opportunity to think afresh on the concepts of charity and the Third Sector. It increasingly appears that the lumping together of so many different type of groups and organizations under the catch-all label of the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector is a category mistake.
According to National Commission for Independent Action (NCIA), voluntary services face a bleak future as ‘servants of the Government’. The NCIA challenges voluntary groups to take urgent action to fight for the rights of the people they serve, protect their independence and resist the privatisation of public services. Besides the issues of the contracting regime, they express concerns about the position of charities operating from within minority communities, and of the dangers of workfare schemes which make volunteering compulsory. There are huge dangers too for freedom of speech. Familiar to the church from Beckett onwards, those co-opted as chaplains to the powerful find the prophetic role of “speaking truth to power” perilous to their survival and integrity of witness. Recent legislation has limited the political campaigning of charities and according to NCIA charities are being told to keep quiet or lose government contracts. Christian theology also has something to offer to this debate, as for exampled by Steve Wyler’s recent blog post and my own article Faith and Volunteering in the UK.
as a struggle between the idea of the state as essentially Power—Power over its own community and against other communities—and of the state as the organ of community… it is contrary to the psychology of the power-state to suffer conversion; it was likely to fight before it let a welfare-state take its place.
There does not seem to be a contradiction then for Temple between what the state can and should do, and what voluntarism from the community can contribute. Rather Temple maintained optimism that in a democracy, all sectors can work together for good. There is much to admire in the public leadership Temple gave as a pillar of the establishment to the development of a welfare state. After his death in 1944 this came to fruition after in the post-war period when Britain understood itself as a national community where “we are all in it together”. It was a time too when the national church, and the other Christian denominations were more tightly woven into the social fabric of everyday life of the nation.
However, according toGeoffrey Wheatcroft, Temple’s friend and co-belligerent, “the real” William Beveridge,
was shocked by the Labour government’s assault on the voluntary friendly societies, those glorious creations of independent working-class endeavour. In 1948, Beveridge published Voluntary Action… a passionate defence of voluntary provision of social welfare… Beveridge was recanting his own role in the creation of a vast centralised bureaucracy.
While it was not unproblematic that many church and charitable institutions were handed over to the care of the state during the Atlee government, we may need to take this reading of Beveridge with a pinch of ideological suspicion, as it betrays a neo-liberal concern for “smaller government”.
However, in this present, fragmented age, where the market and the state together operate quite unashamedly as “power”, (or as the Bible might have it “Babylon”) I doubt that the establishment coalition of bishops, large charities and benignly progressive political parties can articulate, let alone rebuild national institutions that are needed for the justice and welfare of all. Rather it requires a struggle from below: a careful building of alliances of democratic, member-led independent voluntary associations, community groups, progressive local authorities, parish churches, other congregations and faith communities to bring about real change.
Our Director of Research Chris Baker, reflects on the conference ‘Building a Politics of Hope’ held in central London on Tuesday 24 February, in partnership with Church Urban Fundand the Joint Public Issues Team.
The run-up to many of the recent UK elections has usually focused on who is competent enough to manage the economy. Since the late 1970s, the neo-liberal consensus has been that market economies provide not only the aspiration but the means by which we run a successful economy and therefore a successful society.
But with the financial crash of 2008, and the increasing poverty and inequality which has followed the introduction of systemic austerity programmes, there has been a huge crash in trust, in both the market and mainstream politics. This lack of trust has been reinforced by a perceived increase in political corruption which has seen the rise of so-called ‘antipolitics’. This means voting for single issue parties who promise apparently simple solutions to complex and intractable problems; for example, the idea that a nation state can take control of its borders and dictate the terms of engagement with and in the wider world. This sort of politics is usually based on appeals to unity and purity which involve the demonization of others – immigrants, welfare “scroungers”, other nations within the UK. A progressive politics (i.e. expansive and willing to engage with diversity and building trust) appears to be in short supply in an increasingly insecure and fearful environment, which even the present promise of economic growth no longer seems to quell.
This political landscape was the background for our recent conference entitled Building a Politics of Hope: Exploring the role and impact of faith-based leadership in local communities. Several key themes emerged from the discussions and reflection generated by the three case studies we explored.
The first case study [listen to the audio recording] was dubbed ‘an innovative experiment in community empowerment’ in the Hodge Hill area of Birmingham; an area of high deprivation and diversity which recently lost its church building when it was demolished. The vicar, Al Barrett pointed out that his parish was full of those ‘others’ so roundly condemned by certain sections of the media and establishment politicians: immigrants, Muslims, single parents and unemployed youth. It was a community used to being ‘done to’ – labelled as dysfunctional and in need of ‘expert’ intervention and surveillance.
The church community perceived the need to change the narrative of those living in the community as a first step to creating a new sense of hope and transformation. This it did conducting one to one conversations and ‘hearing into speech’ the issues and aspirations of the local community. This led to the production of a theatre and culture space and the opening of a new community hub called Open Door which operates according to the principle of the five Ps: place; people; presence; provision and participation.
This highly relational approach has not only shifted the cultural narrative, but also the political one. The initiative has reconfigured the relationship between the community and Local Authority as well as the institutional church who now understands the three key questions emerging from these new processes of co-production and the order in which they should be addressed.
What can we do with neighbourhood power
What do we need some external support with?
What do we need external agencies to do?
Up to now, external authorities would have addressed these questions in precisely the opposite order.
The second case study [listen to the audio recording], presented by Mohammed Mamdani, was a relatively new Muslim-run community foodbank and Kitchen in West London, called Sufra, a word which has strong connotations of hospitality and dining in many different languages. 90% of the people who access their services are non-Muslim The provision of food support is not viewed as an end in itself – indeed Mohammed was critical of the proliferation and politicisation of foodbanks as new expressions of institutionalised poverty. Rather Sufra see their project as an entry point to accessing other life opportunities, including a food academy offering accredited training for 16-25 year olds who are not in employment, education or training.
Sufra will also be a venue for pre-election hustings, reinforcing the idea that faith-based spaces of welfare are also becoming spaces of political debate and conscientisation. Mohammed thinks that Sufra represents a new space for third generation British Muslims whereby they volunteer more and become engaged politically and practically to meet the needs of the local community of which they are part, rather than the more traditional route of giving charity to global Muslim projects.
The third case study focussed on the launch by an Anglican priest, Chris Sunderland, of the Bristol Pound – a local currency initiative designed, in Chris’s words, ‘to give people a taste of a different form of money, that was embedded in the local economy and could produce a new values-led community of exchange’. The initiative, which had grown from several years of developing community allotments and environmental campaigns in Bristol, aimed at addressing climate change issues. The Bristol Pound was launched in 2012 and is currently used by several hundred business and individuals. It has been formally recognised as an official currency by the Bank of England.
The next challenge is to get the Bristol Pound used more widely in poorer areas of the city as a spur to setting up new co-operatives, social enterprises and pop-up markets. Overall the aim of Chris and his fellow trustees (who come from all faith traditions and none) is to ‘… bring people in touch with local producers, and encourage the uptake of fresh food through using buying groups that will order food through a bespoke web tool’.
So what lessons can we draw from these creative and diverse examples of faith-based welfare and economic engagement and what do they tell us a new politics of hope?
First, these ‘spaces’ of engagement, often based on affinities and networks and beyond the reach and approval of institutions (such as political parties and religious institutions) are ‘cross-over spaces’ of engagement between all faiths and none. Old binary ways of looking at the world based on rigid demarcations of religion, ideology and ethnicity (such as in the multicultural politics of the 80s and 90s) seem remarkably outmoded and irrelevant to many citizens who simply long to reconnect economics and politics to things that really matter. Two urban critical geographers, Paul Cloke and Justin Beaumont, define the growing significance of these new spaces of engagement as ‘… a coming together of citizens who might previously have been divided by differences in theological, political or moral principles – a willingness to work together to address crucial social issues in the city, and in doing so put aside other frameworks of difference involving faith and secularism’.
Second, is the common narrative or political philosophy that lies at the heart of all these projects; namely a radical and relational hospitality by which these new affinities and networks of action and outrage can be nurtured into a new spaces and practices of hope. Key to this radical hospitality and openness is the idea of ‘hearing into voice’ those of our fellow citizens who have been marginalised but in ways that totally negates the ‘Why me?’ victim mentality on which much of the current anti-politics is based. Here, in these new spaces of political conscientisation and progressive citizenship the emphasis is on relational belonging and solidarity, not stigmatisation and technological fixing outside of a moral framework.
Third is the growing evidence of the ways on which these new practices of hope and ethical citizenship are feeding back up into the political and institutional chains of command, thus forcing institutions like local authorities and churches for example, to rethink their priorities and make them more responsive and effective for those on the ground.
One suspects that Westminster politics and the core of the banking systems will want to cling most stubbornly to outmode and disconnected ways of exercising power. But, as one respondent in our conference pointed out, faith-based welfare and social justice programmes not only articulate an alternative vison of society; they practically show what it can look like, and invite others to join them. There is ample evidence to suggest that this is in fact what more and more of our citizens are doing: looking for new local solutions to enduring problems in way that express a deep moral pragmatism.
Faith-based spaces and initiatives are becoming the location of choice where these hopes and aspirations can be expressed. This is what a politics of hope begins to look like. All of us have a role to play in ensuring that it flourishes in the hard challenges that lie ahead of us the other side of May 7th, whichever political party or parties are in power.
