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 recent years, victims of church-related abuse have complained bitterly about their treatment by the church. What has gone so badly wrong, and how could the church do better? Falling Among Thieves seeks to outline a theological understanding of church-related abuse, and the church’s role in ‘re-dressing’ the victim—drawing insights from the story of the Good Samaritan. The text is preceded by a Foreword from Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, who both applauds and responds to Graystone’s words.
Andrew Graystone comments:
“I’m haunted by the scores of people I have met whose lives have been wrecked by their encounters with Christian leaders. In almost every case, the way the church has responded has caused as much harm—and often far more—than the original abuse. Over the years that I have been walking this road, the leaders of the contemporary church have failed to deal with this reality.
Abuse happens in every hierarchical institution—but there is no excuse for the church responding to its victims in such damaging and destructive ways. I hope that Falling Among Thieves will go some way to helping the church think deeply about the damage it has done, and how it might begin to respond more appropriately.”
Chris Baker, Director of Research at the Foundation comments:
“The William Temple Foundation is honoured to publish this important piece of theology by Andrew Graystone that is both a call for justice and a call for reconciliation around the topic of church-based abuse. We hope it will make a positive and substantive contribution to this serious issue.”
In this special blog for Eastertide, Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, explains the Church of England’s new vision for the 2020s.
Easter is a time of great hope. It is the season when Christians remember Jesus’ death on the cross, his victory in resurrection, his ascension into heaven and the disciples receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. That gift nearly 2000 years ago is the reason why Christianity continues to this day and why Easter is such an important celebration in the Christian calendar.
It is with this same Easter hope, rooted in the good news of Jesus Christ that the Church of England has embarked on its vision for the 2020s. It was William Temple, when appointed Archbishop of York, who wrote to a friend to say, ‘It is a dreadful responsibility, and that is exactly the reason why one should not refuse’ (letter to F. A. Iremonger, August 1928). Shortly before I was appointed to follow in his footsteps, albeit 91 years later, I had been asked to give some thought to what the Church of England’s vision for the 2020s might look like and, if I am honest, similar words to those of Temple went through my mind.
However, as I embarked on this task, I was clear on two things. This should never be about my vision, but about discerning God’s vision for God’s church in God’s world—and therefore I should not attempt to find it on my own. Over the next 9 months, various groups were gathered together, representing a huge, and usually younger, diversity of voices. After much prayer and discernment a vision emerged which we felt was God’s call on us for this time. Consequently, there is now a clear Vision and Strategy that the governing body of the Church of England and the Diocesan Bishops have agreed—and the whole Church is shifting and aligning to this new narrative.
Except, it isn’t that new. The Church of England’s vocation has always been to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ afresh in each generation to and with the people of England. In our vision for the 2020s, we speak about this as being a Christ-centred Church, which is about our spiritual and theological renewal, and then a Jesus-Christ-shaped Church, particularly seeing the five marks of mission as signs and markers of what a Jesus-Christ-shaped life might look like. It is therefore a vision of how we are shaped by Christ in order to bring God’s transformation to the world. Three words in particular have risen to the surface: we are called to be a simpler, humbler, and bolder church.
From this, three priorities have emerged, and parishes and dioceses are invited to examine and develop their existing strategies and processes in the light of these ideas.
To become a church of missionary disciples. In one sense, this is the easiest to understand, re-emphasising that basic call to live out our Christian faith in the whole of life, Sunday to Saturday. Or, as we speak about it in the Church of England, Everyday Faith.
To be a church where mixed ecology is the norm. This has sometimes been a bit misunderstood. Mixed ecology reflects the nature of Jesus’ humanity and mission. It is contextual, ensuring churches, parishes, and dioceses are forming new congregations with and for newer and ever more diverse communities of people. It is about taking care of the whole ecosystem of the Church and not imagining one size can ever fit all. In the early church, in the book of Acts, we see this mission shaped by the new humanity that is revealed in Christ, made available and empowered by the Spirit. Therefore, mixed ecology is not something new—it is actually a rather old, and well-proven concept. After all, every parish church in our land was formed once. So, mixed ecology doesn’t mean abandoning the parish system or dismantling one way of being the Church in favour of another. It is about how the Church of England will fulfil its historic vocation to be the Church for everyone, by encouraging a mixed ecology of Church through a revitalised parish system. We hope that every person in England will find a pathway into Christian community.
To be a church that is younger and more diverse. Professor Andrew Walls writes, ‘The Church must be diverse because humanity is diverse, it must be one because Christ is one […] Christ is human, and open to humanity in all its diversity, the fullness of his humanity takes in all its diverse cultural forms.’ (The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, p. 77) We need to look like the communities we serve in all areas of age and diversity. For the Church of England that means believing in and supporting children and young people in ministry; facing up to our own failings to welcome and include many under-represented groups, particularly people with disabilities and those from a Global Majority Heritage; and committing ourselves to the current Living in Love and Faith process and our already agreed pastoral principles so that LGBTQI+ people are in no doubt that they, along with everyone, are equally welcome in the Church of England. It also means putting renewed resources into our poorest communities.
Whilst some have questioned why we only have three priorities, they are, I believe, vital for the Church of England in the 2020s as we continue to serve Jesus in the power of the Spirit through his Church.
In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes, ‘if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.’ Our desire is to reach everyone with the good news of Christ, and especially those who in the past may have felt excluded. That is why the work with racial justice, a new bias to the poor, and an emphasis on becoming younger are so important.
Ultimately, this vision flows from the joy we find in the risen Christ. It is an Easter message. A message of transformation for the world, as a church that is renewed and re-centred in Christ and shaped by God’s agenda for the world will be good news for that world. It will bring God’s transformation to the hurt, confusion, weariness, and despair we see around us—that Church existing for the benefit of its non-members as Temple so memorably put it.
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.
One of the joys of taking assemblies in our local primary schools is that one never knows what responses will be elicited from the children. Focusing on the subject of creativity and important inventions, and having gone through the wheel, clocks and drugs, with the children to quickly realize that each of these can be both good and bad, I got to the subject of the internet. One little boy, who, according to the staff, is normally “off with the fairies”, put up his hand to everyone’s surprise and said “it is elite”. Stunned silence for a few moments; but, of course, he is correct. This is one of the downsides of our digital revolution – the existence of the digitally deprived or excluded. “Out of the mouths of babes” etc. Although where he had got this idea from is an interesting question. He had probably seen it on the TV or encountered it through the internet!
This may seem of peripheral concern for faith communities, but this is one of the determining factors of the context in which we now operate and to which we have to respond. What we now call “material religious practices” are themselves being shaped by this revolution. So who is shaping whom and to what ends? For instance, the benefice in which I work has now set up its own website, linking to other village websites across the patch; increasingly accesses the Facebook pages of two of the more active villages in order to promote events; and is setting up an email network across our 8 villages for the same reason. Here I am writing a blog post for William Temple Foundation.
As the education researcher Maggi Savin-Baden recently suggested, we are increasingly “digitally tethered”. You only have to travel by train to realize that people no longer talk to each other because they are too busy talking to “distant others”. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? When do we reach the point where form determines content, and can we even make that distinction any longer? What is happening to our capacity to relate to those around us?
The mistake that we often make, both historically and ethically, is to imagine that the technologies we develop are “neutral tools” that we simply manipulate to our own advantage. Whether it was the wheel, writing, clock time, drugs or the internet, it is as much the case that they re-shape us and our cultures as that we shape them. In less familiar language that does better justice to this insight, we are always already part of the “assemblages” or constantly shifting and developing combinations and configurations of the human (material) and non-human materials that are the components and “machines” of our existence. Examples from real church life: couples construct their wedding services from resources accessed on the internet; individuals no longer have to rely on the external authority of church, tradition and minister in order to explore for themselves the varied faith resources on the web; a few weeks ago Anglican bishops produced their pre-election pastoral letterto their congregations, available as a 57 page downloadable document. For those digitally deprived parishioners the only access is through a hard copy from Church House. Would they not have been better to produce the standard 1000 word blog? Who but academics are going to read that length of document on-line? Form determining content again?
So how are we to get a grip on these assemblages and to begin to make critical judgments (like our little boy in assembly) about which are life enhancing and which are life denying? Challenging though this may be, it demands of us a new terminology and conceptual framework – the old assumptions about human autonomy are not “fit for purpose”.
Before I propose some possibilities, I refer the reader to a book on contemporary Russia: “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia” by Peter Pomerantsev. The writer argues that the authoritarian control exercised by President Putin is established through control of the media and deliberate manipulation of the population by playing on their fears and nightmares; one of which is the narrative of hostile Western imperialism. The route to critical thought and reflection that we might associate with an Enlightenment ideal of reflexivity, is short-circuited by the blatant use of the technology to play directly into what I would call a pre-autonomous level of what it is to be or become human. Emotions and fears come before critical thought and questioning. The even more worrying aspect is that the example of Russia is a more extreme version of what happens (perhaps a little less blatantly) in the West. What is required here is a better grasp of human psychology, and another understanding of how we humans operate, that can at least recognize when we are being manipulated in this way, and can counter this through a level of critical reflection. If the digital technology is being employed to “rewire” a passive population, where is the hope for political change?
The resource that I am finding helpful in this respect is the work of Bernard Stiegler, a French philosopher of technology, who can at least open up these other levels of thought through a different analysis of our digitally tethered assemblages and addictions. Obviously a blog will not allow me to elaborate, but two crucial insights are his use of the term “pharmakon” a Greek word that means both remedy and poison, close to my own understanding of being entangled, and pointing to the double-edged sword which is the digital revolution. The other is his less accessible ideas about human psychology and development, building upon the work of Winnicott and Simondon, which do indeed suggest that technology is being used through commercial exploitation to manipulate those pre-critical dimensions of human behavior, and to short-circuit the longer processes of reflection and questioning which are essential, ethically, politically and pastorally. His counter to this is a reconfiguration of education and the university, but, for those of faith, we might want to explore how and to what extent material religious practices can be, to paraphrase Stiegler’s term “a therapeutics of faithful dissent”. Perhaps it is possible to enable content to triumph over form after all.
One thing is certain, we cannot return to a point pre-digital any more than we can to a time pre-wheel, pre-clock time or pre-drugs, we can only progress from where we are, fully entangled in the material assemblages which are made up of the human and the non-human.
John Reader is an Associate Research Fellow of William Temple Foundation.
Are you looking for the best websites on religion and public life?
The internet can be an over-whelming place, so here at William Temple Foundation we’re helping to streamline your surfing by gathering together a succinct collection of some of our favourite online resources devoted to various aspects of religion and public life. Below, we share our top 15 websites on religion and public life including places to find news, research, opinion pieces, and events.
Of course this list is not exhaustive, so if we’ve missed any great websites on religion and public life, let us know by adding a link in the comment section at the bottom of this post.
A one-stop shop for up-to-date religion news, ranging from the serious to the decidedly silly. The daily RNS ‘Slingshot’ collects everything you need to know in one email and delivers it fresh to your inbox. Whilst much of the news is USA focused, the bigger (and funnier) international stories also make the cut. One of our very favourite websites on religion and public life.
In the online version of this print magazine you’ll find fresh young voices writing comment pieces and longer, in-depth research articles. It is edited and mostly written by British post-graduate students and their efforts to create a magazine delivering informed and in-depth coverage of religious issues deserves our support.
A relatively new kid on the block, Religious Reader is a project of the interfaith organisation Faith Matters. The website offers a collection of mostly British faith-based news and aims to promote pluralism whilst support social action.
A great resources for academic types, this hub for the International Sociology Association (the RC22 of the title relates to the research committee for the sociology of religion) brings together calls for papers, job opportunities, conferences, funding etc. on religion and public life, from around the world.
In true Huff Post style, expect big, bold photographs and attention grabbing headlines. Delve a little deeper however, and you’ll find an enriching mix of news and blog posts, often featuring topics and stories you simply won’t find in other mainstream media outlets.
This think tank’s website offers news on their activities, research and events. The section we find especially useful however, is the media monitoring section, which collects all of the religion news stories featured in the British press to one handy webpage.
The blog section of Jim Wallis’ Sojourners website offers timely Christian comment on issues related to politics, faith-based action and social justice.
If you’re not able to attend the highly engaging Westminster Faith Debates, it’s reassuring to know that high-quality, carefully edited recordings of each debate is available online. This extensive collection of videos, featuring some of the UK’s top thinkers, makes this a great resources and a top website for religion and public life.
The folks at Pew are not only leading researchers focused on religion and public life, they’re also highly adept at demonstrating their results through snappy overviews and eye-catching graphics. Their surveys tend to be US-centric, but there’s enough from elsewhere to keep researchers from around the world happy.
Here’s something a little different! For religious commentary on the go, why not download this regular podcast, billed as a thought-provoking radio show for people of faith, and for those intrigued by the spiritual dimensions of life.
One of the very best (probably!) websites for intelligent, articulate and well-constructed arguments on issues of religion and public life. Curated by the University of Southern California, US domestic issues and policies feature heavily, but there’s lots more besides.
Perhaps we could call Public Spirit the UK’s answer to Religious Dispatches (above). The well-laid out site describes itself as offering spirited debate about religion and public policy. The website has been rather quiet since mid-January however… but their archive material is still worth browsing.
Launched in 2014, this online magazine covers ‘All things Catholic’ and rather more besides. A user-friendly interface, classy design and stories added on a daily basis, make this website a winner!
This multi-authored blog gives voice to newly emerging young faith leaders and interfaith advocates. For hard-hitting opinion pieces and personal religious reflections, you’ve come to the right place.
OK, yes, we apologise for our bias, but we’re very proud of the diverse and engaging blog posts, lecture recordings and exclusive interviews you can find on our website. We hope you’ll check it out.
Did we miss a great website on religion and public life? Let us know by commenting below.
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.
The Foundation’s Associate Research Fellow Greg Smith has edited a new book which suggest that evangelical Christians put the welfare of those in greatest need above their own interest.
Over 9 out of 10 evangelicals want the UK government to speak out more strongly on issues of human rights and religious liberty in countries with oppressive regimes; the same number think we have to continue to campaign hard if we’re to make poverty history.
The findings come in a ground-breaking new book, 21st Century Evangelicals, based on five years of surveys into the beliefs and actions of evangelicals in the UK. This research backs up the conclusions of the recent Evangelical Alliance report Faith in politics? showing high political activism among evangelicals.
The book draws together leading academics in theology and the social sciences who looked in depth at the data and contributed their analysis and reflection. The chapters tackles subjects including social involvement, politics, global mission, gender, and families, and each chapter includes a response from an experienced practitioner.
According to the book, 4 out of 5 evangelicals say they have volunteered in a church activity serving the wider community in the last year and over a third do this each week. Over half consciously try and buy Fairtrade and nearly as many are involved in child sponsorship (43 per cent). The book also reveals that 4 out of 10 evangelicals have been overseas for mission or development work.
Greg Smith who edited the volume said, “The data sets we have compiled are a treasure chest of information about Evangelicals in the UK. In the book we have been able to delve deeper than in the initial reports, and our team of authors has been able to set out their analysis of the data in the framework of contemporary academic debates, while writing in a style which should be accessible to all.”
21st Century Evangelicals is out now, published by Instant Apostle. The volume is edited by Greg Smith and includes contributions from a wide range of academics and practitioners.
An exclusive interview with the eminent sociologist Professor Craig Calhoun.
On William Temple’s legacy
“The kind of church engagement that Temple was engaged in never was, if you will, an insular church engagement.”
On the role of the state and social action
“If we want to compensate for some of the kinds of problems that are created by capitalism… we need to think in terms of states”
On the role of religion in public life in the USA and the UK
“The so-called theory of secularisation says there’s been a decline [in religion] which just accompanies modernity…it’s a story about Europe, it’s not a story about the US.”
On the postsecular and the future
“The world never became secular the way he [Habermas] imagined; some European countries did!”
With thanks to Craig Calhoun and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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