Reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth seem to contradict the familiar claim that, ‘Death is nothing at all’. In recent decades, cards of sympathy and condolence, or readings at funerals and memorial services, have told us that,
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged… Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well…”
These sentiments have comforted some but others dismiss them as trite or as wrong. Their authorwas Professor Canon Henry Scott Holland, a Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in London who became Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. He declined the offer of a bishopric but was highly influential on William Temple and others at the cusp of theology and politics as a social reformer, especially as founder of the Christian Social Union.
So how did a Christian cleric come to write words which irritate many fellow believers? What world was Henry Scott Holland living in, if he thought that death was nothing at all? When those words are quoted, the context is usually omitted but that is highly relevant to our mourning for Queen Elizabeth. He was preaching in St Paul’s on Whit Sunday, 15 May 1910, after King Edward VII had died on 6 May and just before the first royal lying in state in Westminster Hall on 17 May and the funeral on 20 May. It was a poignant moment for the church to speak profoundly to the world.
Henry Scott Holland began by saying, ‘I suppose all of us hover between two ways of regarding death’, of which the famous ‘death is nothing at all’ was the second. The first approach was the exact opposite, to ‘recoil from it as embodying the supreme and irrevocable disaster’.
How did Scott Holland resolve the tension between these two extreme views of death?
“Our task is to deny neither judgement, but to combine both… Only through their reconciliation can the fitness of our human experience be preserved in its entirety.”
It is not a fair reading of Henry Scott Holland to take one half of the two positions he was contrasting and represent that as the whole, as if he did not understand the other approach, when he had in fact already set it out in his sermon. The sermon captured the moods of the nation precisely because it was a special time in the life (and reflection on death) of the country, when the king was dead and yet when the cry went up, ‘Long live the King!’
Of course, the poetry of Henry Scott Holland’s words contributed to this effect. He was so eloquent in his choice of words, to represent a position that he did not hold, that the view has come to be associated with him.
We have the opportunity now to lay to rest not only Queen Elizabeth but also such partial understandings of Henry Scott Holland’s rounded exploration of the natural human reactions to death. The full text of this sermon, ‘Death The King of Terrors’ can be easily found on-line. It bears reading on the eve of this state funeral and in the months and years which follow. For the preacher recognised that death is not met by the bereaved with only one of these opposing views once and for all. At the bedside, at the funeral, one approach might prevail but in the following months, the other extreme might be encountered.
Hence death, as here, ‘may come to the very old as the fitting close of an honourable life’, in which case it is often possible to come to appreciate that,
What really matters is the life with its moral quality, its personal characteristics, its intense and vivid charm, its individual experiences, its personal story; the tone of its voice, the pressure of its presence felt as surely now as once through eye and hand; the tenderness, the beauty, the force of the living will — its faults, and its struggles, and its victories, and its maturity, and its quivering affection.
Even then, there will be times when the bereaved are ‘drawn under the drag of days, submerged, unnerved, wearied, out of spirits, disheartened’.
The royal family, churches, diverse faith communities, secular politicians, the wider public and the whole world have found, in response to the Queen’s death, a dignity, appreciation and compassion which is uplifting. All of this will help other families cope with griefs as best we can and will help us to enjoy life’s graces while anticipating the deaths of one another and of ourselves.
Just as Queen Elizabeth showed us there is so much to life, reactions to her death are helping us understand, as Henry Scott Holland appreciated, that death is indeed quite something, after all.
Simon Lee is Professor of Law at Aston University & Chair of the Trustees of the William Temple Foundation s.lee19@aston.ac.uk Twitter @paradoxbridge
Comprised of a breadth of voices, Victoria Turner’s Young, Woke and Christian offers prophetic words that promise to lead readers from experience and theological reflection to decisive action. Each contributor offers a fresh response to a current crisis that weighs heavily on the shoulders of young people, even if it is often overlooked by the Church. This book successfully brings together voices that passionately cry out for a truly integrated Church – one seeking truth and justice; one that cares for the world that it inhabits; and one that cares for all people with whom that world is shared.
In an essential prologue, Anthony Reddie highlights the importance of this book. He acknowledges how this work initiates a new trajectory for liberation theology with its focus on the experiences of the young. Although intended for a popular audience, Reddie’s introduction lends this book an air of gravitas, not only as a contribution for the Church, but also, and more broadly, for a more specialised academic audience. Helpfully, Reddie carefully untangles the term ‘woke’, offering some guidance for the contributions that follow. Victoria Turner’s editorial introduction further unpacks the meaning of this theme, highlighting the intention to ‘[react] to the mainstream antagonistic use of the word’ (p. 6). Although ‘wokeness’ may have become somewhat marred in contemporary political discourse, it is used here with a progressive intention.
In the opening contribution, Liz Marsh recommends how we should respond theologically to the climate crisis. She draws upon themes of hopelessness, exposing our own arrogance, and our accounts of hope needing to be reimagined in our relationships with one another, and with the planet in which we live. She offers a beneficial summary for how the Church should respond to many of the issues we face.
In the following chapter, Nosayaba Idehen’s ‘Guidelines to being a More Racially Inclusive Church’ uses autoethnography to pull together several ‘do’s and don’ts’ for churches to appreciate, attract, and celebrate people of black and ethnic minorities. She rejects the rhetoric of oversimplifying racial inclusion, and recognises a combination of strategies of cultural changes that will be needed to begin challenging the systems of injustice that permeate not only our society, but also the institutional Church.
Josh Mock’s chapter on queerness pulls no punches. He explores the inadequacy of dialogue with oppressive institutions. His chapter feels more relevant than ever in the wake of the LLF process and the recent Lambeth Conference of the Church of England. He rejects idle, lazy attempts at queer justice for the sake of acceptability and decency. With Mock’s passionate argument almost leaping off the page, one hopes the readers will find themselves leaping away with a similar sense of radical activism.
Next, Molly Boot’s chapter tenderly and powerfully reconsiders our own relationship with our bodies. They move away from the objectification of the body as ‘it’. Rather, they remind us that our bodies are interwoven with our mind and spirit. Hence, our bodies are worth attending to with our Christian faith, our practices, and with a special concern for purity culture.
Kirsty Borthwick’s chapter tracks the journey in recent decades of women and their ministries in the Church of England. Although this recount may on the surface appear familiar, Borthwick’s attention to feminism’s ‘tendency to leave people behind’ (p. 63) opens up a new focus on intersectional progress that will be required for true gender justice within the Church.
In ‘A Guide to a Trans Christian Experience’, Jack Woodruff offers a broad and yet succinct chapter that explores trans scriptural hermeneutics, the inclusivity of trans people in Christian institutions, and resources for future activism. He endeavours to answer the question ‘can I be trans and Christian?’, though it seems to be more of an answer directed to those who might ask ‘can you be trans and Christian?’.
Chrissie Thwaite’s chapter ‘Waking Up to Ableism in Christian Communities’ announces a shift in tone. It leads not from personal experience but rather with theory and statistics. Nevertheless, she offers helpful practices for churches to implement a more inclusive understanding of disability. She encourages churches to recognise the difference between individual impairment and the disablement brought about by society. Thwaites recommends further how churches can adopt a more ‘enabling’ stance towards the disabled. With this acknowledgement, a more personal narrative could have been fitting.
With the cost-of-living crisis deepening, Anna Twomlow’s chapter on food poverty is increasingly relevant. She offers a theological justification for eradicating food poverty. She calls us to understand how justice for the poor should ‘fire our souls’ (p. 113). Though very inspiring, an acknowledgment of the important role wider Christian faith communities have played in helping tackle food poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic would have been appropriate.
Annika Matthews reminds readers of the relevance of mental health for young people. She argues that the Church cannot ‘effectively evangelize to them without ministering to their well-being’, whether that be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual (pp. 116-7). Deeply based in scripture as well as experience, she responsibly walks a fine line between knowing how faith in Jesus can help to lift one’s mental health, and acknowledging that professional help may often be needed as well.
Shermara Fletcher’s chapter shifts the narrative of homeless communities from those whom the churches can help, to the ‘unlikely leaders’ who can be fully integrated into their lives, structures, and leadership. The central question is ‘Are we willing to change our structures and cultures of learning so that everyone can participate in the mission?’ (p. 139), which poses a real and thoughtful challenge to how we can have an effective and integrated ministry with, and not to, homeless communities.
At the heart of this book is the sentiment that social justice is a fundamental part of Christianity. Sophie Mitchell’s chapter argues that this must entail interfaith engagement, in which similarities and differences can be discovered, bridges can be built, and a better understanding can be promoted. Breaking from a Christian bubble, Mitchell argues that living out a Christian faith requires working alongside others of all faiths and none, and boldly widens the scope for what counts as social action.
Annie Sharples concludes the book by focussing on personal, social, and political peace. This chapter aptly connects all of the chapters that precede it. For these young voices have all promoted peace in some way. Fear of the other is, she comments, what most of all threatens peace (p. 165). Young, Woke and Christian thus attempts to tell the stories of the ‘other’, so as to awaken and educate the wider Christian community.
With this diversity of intersectional voices, this book has brought together a new, young liberation theology. Nevertheless, the distinctiveness of each voice is clear. None of the chapters try to compare themselves to another. Rather, each crisis is judged on its own. And, in each, valuable personal experience is called upon as a source of insight and inspiration. In a world in which so many social justice driven issues are too easily dismissed as‘woke’, this book effectively breaks down those labels to hear the unique contributions of each voice. With this highly commendable volume, we can begin to hear from this missing generation, and contribute to steering the body of Christ’s where God calls us.
Will Moore is training for ordained ministry in the Church of England at Westcott House, Cambridge and is studying for a PhD in Theology with the Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University. He holds a BA (First Class Honours) and an MTh (Distinction) in theology and biblical studies from Cardiff University, and recently completed a PGCert in Theology, Ministry, and Mission with the Cambridge Theological Federation, accredited by Durham University. His work focuses broadly in the areas of gender, masculinity, sexuality, trauma, and violence, and their intersections with theology, Christianity, and the Bible. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His first book Boys Will Be Boys, and Other Myths: Unravelling Biblical Masculinities, written to introduce masculinities and biblical studies to a popular Christian audience, has been published with SCM Press in 2022.
A post-Elizabethan era begins, and with it an existential shift unlike anything experienced, certainly since World War Two, maybe in our history. When the pandemic hit, Her Majesty said that ‘we will meet again’ and so it was, but in so doing we note the depths of uncertainty surrounding us.
Something has changed; deep, intangible, fundamental. Life is more fragile than it was. The cost-of-living crisis bites, catalysed by Brexit. The Climate Crisis continues, exemplified by catastrophic floods in Pakistan and temperatures in the UK over 40degrees for the first time. The war in Ukraine rages, displacing millions and rupturing the geopolitical terrain. These concerns are shaping our lives in different ways at personal, communal, societal, and global levels.
With Her Majesty’s passing, tributes centred on her leadership, noting the depth of commitment she offered:
“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
(Speech on her 21st birthday, April 21, 1947, broadcast on the radio from Cape Town)
In hearing this and in seeing the global response to this profound loss, I was challenged to ask, how might we all embody leadership for uncertain times?
In my paper to the British and Irish Association of Practical Theology, conference on 13th July 2022, I explored this question, which has now been given fresh significance and momentum, by looking through the lens of Curating Spaces of Hope. Curating Spaces of Hope emerged from lived experience of contexts of uncertainty from 2010-2020, a decade bookended by the global financial crash and the global pandemic. It was rooted in experiences of unemployment, poor mental health, social isolation, coercive and controlling behaviour, blackmail, abuse and discrimination. As time moved on, it was shaped by a social movement, public dialogues, and ethnographic research into organisational approaches, physically engaging circa 1000 people in urban spaces in north west England.
In terms of what emerged, the Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in England described Curating Spaces of Hope 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.”
Through doctoral research at Goldsmiths University of London, Curating Spaces of Hope has been defined as a new paradigm and consultative methodology for faith-based organisation (Barber-Rowell, 2021). What is generally meant by Curating Spaces of Hope is, a means of mapping and mobilising responses to lived experiences of uncertainty, which are more than the sum of their parts.
This process begins with each of us. Curating Spaces of Hope is the task of leaders, committed to their context and drawing on all that they have, to offer to others what they can, to make the world a better place. Five principles have emerged from the Curating Spaces of Hope journey to date and are here for you to consider:
Freedom: the potential we have within us and the ability we have to make that real and tangible. Put another way, taking responsibility, and sharing the fullest possible expression of our personality.
Relationship: We are in relationship with everyone and everything, from the people we love to the places we live, to the rest of the world as we see it. Relationships help us to understand the freedom that we have positively, in terms of freedom for others, as opposed to freedom from others.
Service: expressing freedom, in relationship with others is service; the incarnation of our potential as expressions 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 rather an outward question for others to answer about whether what we are doing is truly hopeful and hope filled.
With the death of Her Majesty, we have lost a giant in history, who has exhibited for us what it means to embody leadership in uncertain times. As this era of uncertainty continues, it is over to all of us to respond. My invitation that I wish to extend will be to explore these principles for yourself and consider what embodying leadership means for you.
Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Master of Environmental Politics, Founder and Director of Spaces of Hope, and a former William Temple Scholar. Matthew has spent the last ten years working in urban contexts in the northwest of England, engaging with issues of loneliness, isolation and social connection, and applying grounded and assemblage theories to produce interventions that combat health inequalities. Matthew specialises in gathering stories, surfacing motivations, beliefs, values and worldviews and contextualising their role in shaping spaces, places and the wider environment.
Mez McConnell, The Least, the Last, and the Lost: Understanding Poverty in the UK & The Responsibility of the Local Church Published by Evangelical Press 2021 ISBN 978-178397-328-6
Reviewed by Greg Smith, Associate Research Fellow William Temple Foundation
Mez McConnell has, with some contributions from his colleagues, produced a passionate book about urban and estate ministry which should be required reading for anyone involved in the field. It is also aimed at complacent middle class evangelical Christians whom he sees to be in denial about social class in the UK.
McConnell writes as an insider who grew up in a tough unchurched environment, fell into addiction, crime and homelessness, but miraculously experienced a new birth and transformation of his life through an encounter with Jesus Christ. For the last two decades he has served as a pastor and church planter in a working-class housing scheme (council estate) in Edinburgh. He now leads a Scottish network of church planting and revitalisation called 20 Schemes.
As in Paul Keeble’s recent Urban Tract, McConnell underlines the importance of being there, and staying there long term, with a deep appreciation of yet without assimilation to local culture, and a spiritual life rooted in the deep love of Jesus and of people. He stresses above all the importance of the gospel, proclaimed in church, and in the street, in a clear evangelistic message calling for repentance and faith. He expects that some among the least, the last and the lost will respond in professions of faith, conversion and a journey of discipleship, as the church will provide personal mentoring and Biblical teaching. In his opinion, the local church is the only organisation or community that can tackle the deepest problems of such neighbourhoods.
McConnell’s work is not the first to highlight the importance of stories in urban culture and is rich with examples. The stories shared in the book are full of realism, of struggle, of disappointment, of life in a bleak environment, yet interspersed with moments of joy, strength of family and community ties and overcoming difficult circumstances.
McConnell should be commended for recognising the agency of people struggling with poverty, rather than trapping them in dependency and hopelessness. He also recognises the potential among people living on housing schemes for leadership in church and community and suggests models of training that are more appropriate and effective than traditional Bible College courses. Such training does not simply need to “dumb down” on Biblical knowledge or theology, but should rather be on an apprenticeship or in-service basis, applying the learning to real life situations.
At 527 pages, this lengthy volumedoes not say everything McConnell wanted to say (there is more online at 20schemesequip.com). The first half of the book is about poverty, class and culture in the UK and draws somewhat uncritically, on research, including government statistics, reports from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and published and unpublished narratives about life on urban estates.
The assumptions are largely about communities dominated by the “white British working class”, which is both increasingly difficult to define, and demographically questionable in an era of diverse intersecting identities. While McConnell repeatedly expresses his reluctance to stereotype, and his contempt for the genre of “poverty porn” media depictions, it felt difficult to finish the book without these established perceptions being confirmed or strengthened, rather than appreciating estate life in all its nuanced variety.
The second section presents an excellent basic overview of the Biblical material on poverty from the Law and Prophets in the Old Testament to the Gospel narratives and the teaching and practice of the early church. However, his reading of the texts is very much “plain sense” without exploring the contextual settings either of the writers or of today’s readers. One can sometimes detect a tendency to prioritise “the poor in spirit”, though without neglecting compassion for the materially poor.
Perhaps the biggest weakness is the limited treatment of the Kingdom of God as among us now but not yet on earth in fullness. The author is steeped in Reformed theology which stresses God’s sovereign rule over the whole universe, a doctrine which has led many Christians to redemptive involvement in art and culture, science, medicine and social care politics and business. Yet he does not promote this as within the mission of God.
This view could discourage the development of meaningful public theology, and Christian involvement in attempts to influence local decision makers or work for legislative reform to mitigate poverty, a theme very much part of the 19th Century evangelical heritage.
In the third and fourth sections, which concentrate on the life of the church, there are a number of statements that may likely be a cause of discontent. Readers from outside Reformed and Evangelical tribe will perceive a traditional gospel of exclusivity, narrowness and perhaps even arrogance.
The God McConnell offers is holy, just, and merciful, yet the vast majority of us seem destined (deservedly) for the eternal torments of hell. Church life and worship is centred on traditional expository sermons, and a ‘complementarian’ theology means that church leadership and authority is vested in men. Despite this, the book has some useful material on women’s ministries.
On the other hand, Christians within conservative Evangelical tribe may also likely to be provoked. White British Evangelicals abound in affluent suburbs, but are rarely found living and serving in inner city or estates communities. At best their churches provide occasional opportunities for urban Christians to share testimonies and stories of front-line work—and in return promise prayer, or sometimes some financial support (though large sums of money rarely trickle down to urban churches as David Robertson argues in Part 3.4).
Help in terms of long-term missionary personnel is extremely rare, while short term raids often do more harm than good. McConnell is critical without much nuance of “mercy ministries” (such as food banks and homeless shelters) especially when these are delivered by para church organisations. He argues that they tend to trap people in dependency and fail to communicate in words the gospel of salvation, simply by being too nice.
While I am in many ways enthusiastic about this clarion call to urban mission and rejoice in the work of McConnell and 20 Schemes, through which estate residents are coming to faith in Jesus and local churches are beginning to flourish, the book often appears to lack appreciation of the wider urban mission movement, its history and literature. Indeed, McConnell has little time for pluralism within Christianity: while mainline liberal denominations get some credit for being present in urban estates, they have abandoned the gospel, and charismatics and Pentecostals, (especially prosperity preachers) are seen as heretical.
I see some similarities between Mez McConell and the brilliant, if annoying General William Booth whose passion for “the Least, the Last and the Lost” of the book’s title, led to the foundation of the Salvation Army. The later development of that movement as a major charitable service provider suggests that the urban church cannot live by hellfire preaching alone.
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.’
David Ormrod is Professor of Economic and Cultural History at University of Kent
My suggestion from the floor of the conference (sparked in part by several papers attempting to define the scope of Temple’s thinking for our current social order) was that we should recall the thinking of the Christian Left in the 1930s and 40s beside which Temple’s social thought can be seen in clearer perspective. This is especially important today for those who deplore the inequalities created by the dismantling of the welfare state from the 1980s. Although some in the conference and elsewhere see this as creating new opportunities for religious engagement, the former must view this state of affairs with alarm.
Christianity and Social Order opens with the clearest possible affirmation of the Church’s claim to be heard in relation to economic and political issues. Its historical reference points come directly from Tawney, and Temple’s description of the nineteenth-century pioneers of the Christian social movement affirms their significance in recovering the Church’s moral authority and commitment to social justice, in retreat since the post-Restoration decades. Since the late eighteenth century, urbanisation and industrialisation created conditions demanding social reform, but until the 1840s, the primary concern of reformers was still for individuals (pp. 1-10).
From the 1880s to 1945, we can identify a developing Christian and socialist convergence, and Temple’s contribution is best understood in this context. In 1937, Clement Attlee wrote, ‘…probably the majority of those who have built up the socialist movement in this country have been adherents of the Christian religion – and not merely adherents, but enthusiastic members of some religious body. There are probably more texts from the Bible enunciated from socialist platforms than from those of all other parties.’ The Malvern conference of 1941 marked the high point of these convergent forces, and as they have dissipated, something of an ethical void has opened up in our society.
During the interwar years, more than a dozen Christian socialist societies and movements flourished in Britain, with the express purpose of exercising a prophetic and vanguardist role within the churches and in society at large. We can identify two main tendencies within and amongst them. The first, that of the majority, was represented by Temple and Tawney focusing on the idea of an ‘ethical state’. The second and more radical approach, emerging during the late 1930s, was most cogently expressed by John Macmurray, deriving from his humanist-inclined philosophy and his encounter with the Marxist-inclined Christian Left and its publications. Victor Gollancz, John Lewis, Richard Acland, Stafford Cripps and John Collins played prominent roles.
The thought of the Christian Left developed at some distance from progressive Anglican social thought and its claims on a sense of British national identity. The incarnational principle, in Temple’s case, led to a conservative view of the church: the visible church was seen as the preferred instrument for inaugurating the kingdom of God. Furthermore, the relationship between the established church and the state had a special significance since the nation state was also seen as a divinely established means of bringing forward the kingdom. Hence the duties of Christian citizenship formed an important theme. As John Kent has pointed out, this rested on an Aristotelian view of politics in which state and society were identical – the ‘oneness of the world within the city’s walls’, the polis. For Temple, British national identity required a bonding religion, Anglicanism. Tawney, however, was much less optimistic about the potentialities of the Church of England which, he felt, ‘remains a class institution, making respectful salaams to property and gentility, and with too little faith in its own creed to call a spade a spade in the vulgar manner of the New Testament.’
Macmurray and his circle envisaged a moral community which transcended the boundaries of the nation state and the churches. Christian consciousness, he realised, was deeply embedded in society, extending well beyond the visible church. Above all, it was expressed in personal relations: the nature and quality of personal relations was the touchstone of the ethical society. By 1944, Temple saw the purpose of God as ‘the development of persons in community’, a formula very close to the former’s thinking. Macmurray, in turn, moved closer to the earlier concerns of mainstream Christian socialism as he came to realise the full extent to which German fascism had succeeded in asserting a rational control of society as a whole. Wartime debates within the Christian Left reflected a loss of faith in social systems which rested principally on rational planning and took a more humanistic turn. By 1945, the moment had arrived to translate the consensus achieved at Malvern into a new kind of ethical state.
This is the second of two reflections on the 80th Anniversary Conference of Christianity and the Social Order
Victoria Turner, PhD Candidate, World Christianity, University of Edinburgh
This conference was jointly organized by the William Temple Foundation and the new Centre for Anglican History and Theology at the University of Kent, hosted in the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral. The conference sought to both historically contextualize and reflect on Temple’s most famous publication, Christianity and The Social Order and also question its and Temple’s relevance for our world today.
The first paper was delivered by Professor Kenneth Fincham from the University of Kent. Professor Fincham compared William Temple to William Laud who was Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and executed in 1645 with the falling of Charles I. The biggest similarity of both Archbishops was their conviction that the church should absolutely be involved in political affairs. Whereas this legacy has been avidly remembered for Temple, it has fallen away from the memory of Laud, receiving only a brief mention in his entry to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[1]
I appreciated this paper, but questioned its applicability in this conference, especially at the start of the day. Fincham took for granted that the audience were already Temple “experts” and the concentration was on Laud. I was hungry and eager to begin learning about Temple at our 10am start, so although this scheduling made sense chronologically, conceptually, it was strange to begin a conference that celebrated Temple by not focusing on Temple, especially for a non-conformist already feeling a little out of place in a very Anglican setting.
The second paper was more what I imagined would be presented at the conference. My interest in Temple comes from his social justice work, especially its roots which was formed when he was studying in Oxford and volunteered with the University settlements and also his ecumenical work. Being a student of mission at the University of Edinburgh, the impact of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference of 1910 where Temple was a young steward is continuously reflected on. Part of my PhD is exploring George MacLeod who started the Iona Community in Scotland in 1938, and MacLeod was inspired by the Toc H movement, founded by Tubby Clayton during World War 1, which also finds its roots in the University Settlement movement. I enjoyed Simon Lee’s careful recounting of how the mission of Tonybee Hall changed as the ‘leaders’ understood their working-class context better and how this incarnational theology and emphasis on listening to the poor continued in Temple as archbishop.
Elaine Graham blessed us with a superb paper that questioned how Temple would react to today’s questions surrounding gender and sexuality. Firstly Graham outlined the huge social shifts that have occurred since 1942 and warned of the dangers of too easily applying Temple’s ideas to our context. Yet by highlighting his incarnational theology, middle axioms idea and insistence on listening to the marginalized (for the elites to make the decision on their behalf) she explained how she believed Temple would be affirming of creating spaces for discourse, encouraging the theology of common grace and perhaps even following Susanna Cornwall’s idea of going back to virtue ethics and asking generally, what is it about a marriage that as Christians we value. Jeremy Carrette stayed in our context of today in the next paper but applied Temple to our climate crisis. Temple was clear in his stance that land was not a mere resource and should be used for personal profit, only for the common good. Carrette successfully argued Temple in 1942 pushed us to regain our reverence for the earth.
The third panel of the day was entitled ‘Church, Society and Race’ and for me were the least academically stimulating. Robin Gill had an interesting concept in posing Temple and Desmond Tutu as both ‘speaking truth to power’ in their own time but I felt the omission of an acknowledgement of their incredibly different lived experiences clouded the paper and made me question the applicability of the comparison. Whereas Tutu had to ‘speak truth to power’ to fight for his humanity to be recognized, Temple chose to spend time with those less fortunate than himself and learn how to alleviate their position (not without paternalistic undertones) without ever having the threat of losing his privilege. The truth cost Tutu a lot more, across a much larger distance. Sanjee Perera’s paper was given as more of a sermon, where her passion for her job in racial justice for the Church of England came across but it felt like Temple quotes were slotted in here and there rather than structuring her talk on how Temple relates to her work. The question that interrogated Temple’s relationship with Beveridge, who was a member of the Eugenics Society I thought was important, especially as it pushed another conference member to talk about Temple’s work with the Jewish Community during the war and eventually setting up today’s Council for Christians and Jews.
Chris Baker explored how to build back society in our post-pandemic times and wondered how Temple’s elitist leanings and trust of institutions clash with our culture, especially among the young today. Finally, Stephen Spencer gave an excellent talk that explored the collaborative effort that made Temple’s ‘Christianity and the Social Order’, including it being peer-reviewed by Keynes, Tawney and other academics. He also argued that this book represents just one moment in an important wider context of consultative methodology that engaged theology, industrialization, economics and politics.
The conference speakers and topics were varied but the audience was not. It was overwhelmingly white and male despite the William Temple Foundation being overtly progressive and contextual and a number of the conference papers explicitly being contextualized for today. The audience were generally church historians or theologians interested in Temple, and although receptive to applying him for today, generally wanting to explore his theology and legacy. The attempt to merge a historical conference with a public theology conference, inviting both Temple experts and not, created in my opinion a confused atmosphere but still a hospitable and lovely one, especially felt in the visit to the archive. I quickly felt able to ask questions and by around lunch brave enough to talk to participants in break out spaces.
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.
80th Anniversary of the Enthronement of William Temple, Canterbury Cathedral Archive and the BBC Recordings from 23rd April 1942
Jeremy Carrette and Cressida Williams
Political statements by Archbishops of Canterbury have long resulted in debate about the relation of the church to politics and it seems appropriate, in the current context of the government response to Archbishop Justin Welby’s ethical concerns with government asylum plans, that we should recall the 80th anniversary of the enthronement of an archbishop that demonstrated a profound commitment to Christian ethical engagement in social and political issues. Archbishop William Temple was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on the festival of St. George on 23rd April 1942.
According to Dominic Bellinger and Stella Fletcher’s study of the history of archbishops, The Mitre and the Crown (Sutton Publishing, 2005, p.166), Archbishop William Temple was viewed as “probably the most actively political of the modern archbishops of Canterbury”. His active contribution to the creation of the welfare state, alongside William Beveridge, can be seen in his famous text Christianity and Social Order (1942), on which the Centre for Anglican History and Theology and the William Temple Foundation hosted a recent conference at Canterbury Cathedral, to reflect on its continuing importance 80 years on from its publication. Christianity and Social Order first appeared with William Temple named as Archbishop of York, but within months this successful text appeared with the new title of Archbishop of Canterbury. If Boris Johnson was concerned with his Archbishop’s political statements, Winston Churchill, as noted by various commentators, was not happy with the appointment of William Temple and his social agenda: see John Kent William Temple (Cambridge, 1992) and Stephen Spencer William Temple: A Calling to Prophecy (SPCK, 2001). However, as the letter recommendatory of George VI, written on the 1st April 1942, confirms, he was appointed as the ‘new primate of all England’. This official document, with its royal stamp, is held in the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library (document CCA-DCc/SV1/1942/27) and reveals the importance of the Canterbury Cathedral archive for the key historical documents of William Temple’s enthonement and the events surrounding this historic moment.
While the official papers of William Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury are held at Lambeth Palace Library, alongside other papers deposited after his death by his widow Frances, the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library holds material relating to the translation of Temple to the See of Canterbury, to his formal election by the Greater Chapter of the Cathedral, to his enthronement, and to his funeral. There is also a set of manuscripts of sermons delivered at the Cathedral, and broadcast on radio, between Palm Sunday and Easter Day 1942, just after his appointment and just before his enthronement. These were presented by Frances Temple to the Cathedral. She notes in a covering letter how glad her late husband was “that the first time he spoke to the country on the radio after his appointment to Canterbury he should be speaking on a purely spiritual subject”. However, his Easter address of the 5th April 1942, revealed a spiritual message that would bridge the ethical life with the political. He stated in this address that the call to Easter was not a call to “easy assurance of enjoyment in a heaven of selfish happiness” but rather a place “where love and self-giving are made perfect”. Temple’s spirituality was one grounded in a vision of ethical and social concern, through overcoming the self-centred approach and building a life of loving and compassionate relation to the world.
The Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library also holds the old BBC recordings of the Enthronement, 10 x 78rpm disks (CCA-U202/2), now digitalised by the BBC. Listening to these recordings and viewing the Pathé film – an enthronement “filmed for the first time in history” – you are taken back to the particular historical context of an Archbishop appointed during the war. The commentary informs us the windows are boarded up and precious glass removed and stored away; the austerity of the war time ceremony is evident. We hear evocative descriptions of the statue of Frederick Temple, the 95th Archbishop of Canterbury, echoing the significance of William Temple as the first son of an Archbishop of Canterbury to be enthroned into the same position and become the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury. The listener is also struck by the powerful liturgical singing. Though there were some day choristers living locally in Canterbury who continued to sing throughout the war, the boy choristers were returned from evacuation in Cornwall for the Enthronement. (They would also be sadly returned for William Temple’s funeral a few years later in 1944.)
The BBC recordings of the Enthronement of William Temple presents the “main part of the ceremony and his Grace’s address which we (the BBC) had the privilege of recording for listeners at home and overseas”. It is significant that there were representatives of world churches, including the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches; William Temple worked tirelessly for ecumenical unity and his address also affirmed not only unity and fellowship of the Anglican Communion, but also recognised and valued “traditions other than our own”.
Along with the “Instrument of Proceedings”, a document made by the Notary Public to formally record the event in writing (also held in the Canterbury Cathedral Archive and Library, see CCA-DCc/SV1/1942/29), the eloquent descriptions of the BBC recording capture the moment of when Temple “moves down the crimson steps from the high-altar towards the [marble] episcopal throne” of St. Augustine, the first Archbishop in 597. After Archbishop Temple kisses the book of the gospels we listen to the making of the corporal oath. With the recorded crackling sounds of rumbling chairs and echoing coughs, we then hear how the Archdeacon takes the Archbishop by the hand and places him on the episcopal throne and he is “inducted, installed and enthroned” into the archbishopric.
Disks 6-8 of the BBC recording, record the Archbishop’s address. This was published in a 1944 collection of Temple’s addresses and talks, The Church Looks Forward (Macmillan, 1944), but the recording brings it alive, particularly the “few personal words” expressing his “sense of complete inadequacy” in following those he has known. Here he opens personal reflections on the Archbishops of Canterbury he knew in his life: Edward White Benson (“wise stateman and true priest”), his father Frederick Temple (“the chief inspiration of my life”), Randall Thomas Davidson (“a second father to me”) and his predecessor Cosmo Gordon Lang (“most wise elder counsellor and ever more intimate friend”). As he openly affirmed: “To follow such men is daunting”. But the force of the enthronement service as a “dedication of the Church, the nation and ourselves to the purpose of God” overcomes these feelings of inadequacy. It is that conviction that shapes the moment of the enthronement. Addressing a nation facing the horrors of war, he felt that St. George’s day was appropriate for the enthronement, because it held the sense of service and martyrdom in the national identity at a time of world war. He also spoke of the Church World Conferences (in Stockholm, Lausanne, Jerusalem, Oxford, Edinburgh, Madras and Amsterdam) carrying the ecumenical and social concerns of Christianity. The themes of peace, faith and unity and, above all, that ethical devotion to following the “purpose of God” framed the address. The address revealed the central focus of his work in bringing Christian principles to shape the national agenda. The enthronement of William Temple was recognition of his lifelong leadership in the church and his unique ability to bring a spiritual and political voice into the world.
80 years after the BBC recorded the events of William Temple’s enthronement, it is striking that the Research Director of the William Temple Foundation, Professor Chris Baker, was asked to comment on BBC World News about the response to Justin Welby’s challenge to government and explain why Temple is relevant to this discussion. Professor Baker explained that for Temple it was “the duty of the church to shape society, and the way society thinks, in accordance with the principles of God”. Temple shows how the spiritual and political are joined together. The grand ritual of Temple’s enthronement and his Holy Week addresses, preserved in Canterbury Cathedral Archive and Library, signal how Temple’s vision roots his normative Christian ethical values in the theological purpose of God. It provides a moral dimension beyond history to ground the interventions and actions within in human life. The 80th anniversary of William Temple’s enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury is an historical event that is not only wonderfully preserved in word, sound and image, but one that continues to demonstrate the importance of uniting the spiritual and political in the face of the challenges of war and social injustice.
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.
