Andrew Brown wrote about the 1998 Lambeth Conference the month after it ended. He has comprehensively remixed his account twenty four years late and published it this week. It comesin two parts.
How Christians love one another
More Christian love
Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson Church Times Disability: more steps to take
“Full access is a theological issue”
Church Times Interview: Charlie Bell, psychiatrist
“Just because we know about psychology doesn’t mean we throw theology out”
All interesting articles. With regard to Andrew Brown’s account of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, perhaps veteran anti-apartheid activist Archbishop Khotso Makhulu’s sermon helped to redeem it from disaster: not everyone from the South who does not share the narrow vision of some of its self-styled leaders and their Western allies can be swayed or intimidated into going along with their narrative or staying silent.
The interview with Revd Dr Charlie Bell did not do him any favours. For someone currently engaged in research in psychiatry, he comes across as rather dogmatic about causes of mental illness, in a way that is not supported by the current state of research, nor indeed is it obviously correct. I doubt, for example, that there is a clear scientific consensus that “socio-economic circumstances and societal prejudice — particularly racism — is at the core of poor mental health”. We simply do not know what all the various numerous causes and predisposing factors are for the various numerous forms… Read more »
All very interesting and germane, UN. Thank you. One of the growing areas of interest in psychobiology is the gut-brain axis. We know and experience that brain activity affects the guts, and there is growing evidence that the converse is true, afferent impulses (guts to brain) in the vagus nerve being of great interest (Professor Dinan of University College Cork is worth listening to – he’s on YouTube). Thus the state of our guts affects our mood and emotions – I speak from personal experience. Various dietary fads may not in fact be fads, but given biological diversity, I think… Read more »
Stanley, your comment brings to mind my favorite line from Dickens, when Scrooge says to the ghost of Marley, “…there is more of gravy than the grave about you.” Classic! I’ve attached a link to an article from Commonweal titled, Evolution and Revelation, and the work of anthropologist Agustin Fuentes (teaser below). I think you would like it. But do tell us, which micro-organisms are responsible for your sardonic comments? Lol. My grandma once had a ‘visit’ from St. Anthony of Padua. Was she a mystic, or did she just eat too many Cape Breton pork pies, I wonder? https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/evolution-revelation… Read more »
Thank you Rod. All mystics eat too many pork pies. As to the microorganisms affecting me, I think the principal offender, if offence it be, is Flatus mirabilis.
Homosexuality was removed form the American Psychiatric Assocation’s list of Mental Illnesses on December 15th 1973. When I did a postgraduate counselling course in 1975, that was still hot news.
I’ve just seen on the BBC website that Singapore is decriminalising same sex relationships
Andrew Brown writes of ‘almost’ becoming a Christian: ‘It was a eucharist in the Cathedral: the high windows glowed as if the glass were turned to emeralds and pale rubies. Within, the candlelight, the white stoles and the golden embroidery all refulged; and it seemed, as I watched the stately gestures at the altar, that the light that filled the cathedral was coming from inside, from the sun-like disk of pale bread that the Archbishop Runcie held up. “On the night that he was betrayed…’ ‘Borne up by the ancient rhythm of the words, Runcie seemed at that moment as… Read more »
Really appreciate this comment. It’s like a great homily on a post card. Thanks so much!
Thank you, Rod. Sunday morning’s cameo won’t let go of me. It has challenged my liberal theology (‘We’ll never see another war in Europe’) and – while you were kind enough to liken my piece to a homily on a post card – this morning it feels more like an elegy for a past age. We set the table and make it glorious, but fail to gather the people in. If I was that young seeker after truth today, would I have found myself in church, still less at mass?
I have asked myself that same question. It is an existential question that comes with aging and maturity. I decided that for me it is really a hypothetical question about a young person and their world neither of which exists any longer. My sense of it is that it is as much about vocation (vocare) as it is about seeking, “you have not chosen me I have chosen you”. We seek while at the same time Christ calls. To where and to what am I being called here and now? If I ask Quo Vadis ? (and I don’t mean… Read more »
It’s surely the right question – even if answers may prove elusive. Meanwhile we carry on offering the great Thanksgiving ‘until he comes in glory’.
Andrew Brown, a non Christian, understands a fundamental point about religion.
We participate in religion. It is an activity, an experience, and especially a shared experience.
I would argue that when we make that participation secondary to a set of faith propositions, whether about the nature of God, or of sexual morality, then we can get lost.
But if we make faith or belief secondary to participation or ‘experience’ we get just as lost don’t we? They belong together.
I don’t see much Gospel support for that proposition. It’s also at odds with the tradition of hermits and anchorites, a tradition so old it predates the canonisation of the Bible.
Kate: And yet the solitary hermit or anchorite seemed to draw communities of believers around them. Perhaps I should say, holiness draws us into community. Teaching keeps us there.
What a beautiful post. Thank you.
Thank you. Beautiful.
Thank you for linking to Naomi Jacobs’ and Emily Richardson’s important book extract. In one of my congregations I was lucky to have a very elderly retired former chaplain to the deaf. He told of arriving at a civic service, with the group of deaf people for whom he was going to sign, to find they had been allocated seats behind a pillar. Knowing how important it is for the deaf to see, since they cannot hear, and being a spirited sort of chap, George asked the mayor and other VIPs in the front row to swap places with his… Read more »
I too was glad to see that. It’s more than access though. So many churches expect people to stand, sit or kneel on demand but for someone with arthritis, for example, that’s not something they can easily do, and can only do at all at the cost of pain. And, if they don’t, they feel othered. There may be a cost for churches in doing things like removing the awful chancel steps or putting on voice loops but every church could stop standing/sitting/kneeling immediately if they really care about the disabled. Then there are autistic Christians. Simple Book of Common… Read more »
Good points, Kate. When I developed rheumatoid arthritis I dreaded the Peace, because my hands were so painful that people gripping them was agony.
In church services people should be free to sit, kneel, stand, exchange the Peace, or not, as they feel right, without anyone judging them.
I grant that some autistic people may find family services overwhelming, but that’s not true for all of us. Different autistic people have different needs and preferences. Some of us are sensory seeking, and find loud music soothing, for example Demanding that everyone give up on the ritual actions and changes of posture that support their worship also seems absurd. All that is required is that no judgement be applied to those doing otherwise, and that invitations from the front to take a particularly action make it clear that it is an invitation, and not a demand (“stand as you… Read more »
“As you are able” is awful and othering. It sets an expectation and suggests that everyone should try to follow, even if painful, and marks out anyone who can’t. The correct instruction is to tell people that there is no need to stand, kneel or sit at any particular times. If people want to, that’s up to them, but doing so isn’t either encouraged or discouraged. Neutral language and most certainly remove all particular directions.
And, yes, some autistic people may want loud music but a significant number don’t and the schedule of services ought to cater for that.
Clear guidance on what is customary, and when, is vital both for newcomers and for those of us who thrive on order and rules. You seem to determined to wreck an important part of the practice of worship on the off-chance that someone puts the worst possible interpretation on it. Differences should absolutely be accommodated but that can be done without disrupting the practice of everyone else.
There’s no such thing as “the correct instruction”. There may be one which in your opinion best strikes the balance between competing requirements, but that’s not the same as being “correct”.
The reason this discussion goes nowhere is that it’s precisely about how to proceed when some people are, for whatever reason, unable to do something that other people are able to do. That is a difference. It’s not possible to discuss that difference sensibly on the basis that it cannot be referred to for fear of “othering”.
“the schedule of services” . In many rural areas now people are lucky if they get one service a month.
Yes – that’s what I thought when I read that too. In my neck of the woods rural parishes string communities together with sometimes a hundred miles from one end to the other. If they can keep up one service a week in each poiint they think they’re doing brilliantly well. I think those parishes have just been ‘othered’.
I’m afraid Tim provision seems to be declining even in town situations. Many churches now seem only to have one service. I was always happy to have an 8 HC and an evensong as well as a main service altho they only attracted a handful. I sometimes feel the Parish Communion movement has not had an altogether wholesome effect. I suspect where churches have maintained a weekly service( lay led if necessary) and clergy kept an alternative to a main service numbers have kept up better. In England the percentage of people now confirmed is tiny yet often the only… Read more »
“In England the percentage of people now confirmed is tiny yet often the only service in offer is a parish communion at 10 or 11.”
OK, now I’m confused. Is the rule in the CofE that you must be confirmed before you can take communion? Because here in the USA, children as young as 5 or 6 often take communion–and confirmation usually isn’t until 12 or 13. Our canons say any baptized person (of any denomination) is welcome to the table.
But for others, standing/sitting/kneeling are all forms of embodied prayer.
In my parish, the directions for standing, sitting, kneeling, etc., in both the printed order of service and the spoken words of the priest are accompanied with the words “as you are able”.
What an awful phrase. Could it be more othering?
I would prefer something like “if you wish” and a more general understanding promoted that it’s alright for people to decide for themselves if they choose to stand, sit or kneel at any stage in the service, being respectful and considerate to others. Unless a church is going to be really stuffy, there shouldn’t be a problem with that. Okay, it might look a bit unusual if someone in the row in front of me chose to stand all the way through the sermon, but with goodwill there should be ways round this. The option not to kneel should be… Read more »
“If you wish” is exactly the sort of phrase that should be used.
I’m a firm advocate of the approach of that creature from the Anglo-Catholic underworld: the MC on the occasion when an Evangelical Archdeacon visited the parish.
AD: ‘I’m not sure how you do it here’.
MC: ‘Just leave it to me, Farver’.
Unconvinced as to how that would work, the AD carries on. On reaching the words of institution a voice from out of the shadows bellows, ‘elevate!’, then ‘genuflect!’
A wonderful antidote to the usual limp C of E practice, and one moreover which would turn around the Church’s fortunes.
You’d prefer a totally undirected liturgy? “Stand, sit, kneel, dance in the aisles, we don’t care?” Or one where most of the congregation are going through the “pew aerobics” (as a former rector in my parish called them) and those who are not look like they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing?
I’ll point out that “as you are able” would apply not only to those who are permanently unable, but also those in a temporary situation (on crutches, in a cast, dealing with the aftermath of surgery, etc.)
Please suggest a better phrase.
Susannah did.
I had posted my comment with its question before Susannah’s appeared here. I assume you mean ‘if you wish’. I find this phrase every bit as bad as ‘as you are able’. I have not been able to stand for long in church for sometime now. Remaining seated is categorically not what I wish, but it is all I able to do. I am unconvinced that ‘what we wish’ should determine how we should behave in worship, or in any other aspect of our Christian lives.
Westminster Abbey uses a rather neutral “All kneel or sit” in its orders of service, adapted to “All kneel or remain seated for the Intercessions”. That makes it quite clear that sitting, whether equally due to physical health or personal choice, is acceptable. I’m sure I have seen similar elsewhere.
What about the moments when standing is required, such as the reading of the Gospel? For many people, getting up out of pew is a struggle and standing for several minutes can be tiring.
I honestly can’t believe this conversation. Most clergy I know are doing the best they can, and many are being driven to distraction by the competing and incompatible demands of nitpicky and perfectionistic
consumersmembers of their congregations. Covid has exacerbated this, and I understand that in the next couple of years it is expected that fully a third of pastors will retire or resign.We could all use to be a little more patient and forgiving, and aware of our own shortcomings and failures.
We have here a way of making services more inclusive and probably increasing attendance – if people haven’t already been scared away permanently by existing attitudes. The change costs nothing. It takes no time to implement. There are no big theological barriers – after all we don’t insist women cover their heads in church. And yet, there is still push back to change. No wonder the Church of England is dying.
You’ve not demonstrated that it is actually more inclusive. You’ve asserted it and I’ve pointed out that the demands you make hinder some people as much as (arguably more than) they help others. Making simplistic claims based on shaky logic and then getting melodramatic when others disagree doesn’t exactly sell your case.
A few days ago, I was watching a series of videos on the history of Christianity and when they got to the Syriac Christian Church, it was noted that, for them, every single gesture and movement of both the celebrant and the congregation is an inherent part of the liturgy. They would no more sit during the Eucharistic Prayer than we would hold a phone conversation while it was going on.
Equally true of the C of E, but we are discussing people with special circumstances. The key word is, or ought to be, reverence.
Does that mean that people unable to stand – for instance people in wheelchairs, with broken legs, or simply too infirm – absent themselves rather than sit when they ‘should’ be standing?
I wonder how they do the Royal Family/Parliament and others manage this one. When everyone is asked to stand for the National Anthem, for example?
They stand, and, other than HM the Queen, members of the Royal Family sing: clear memories of seeing Prince Philip do so many times.
Good question. Isn’t there a tradition also that you remain standing in the presence of the Sovereign until given permission to sit?
Honestly… I hope by the time William accedes to the throne, we shall have done away with a whole load of these pompous, stuffy protocols. And I say that as someone who likes the constitutional royalty. The same should in my view apply to church. There is a place for ritual and procession, but aside from those times, we need people who are down to earth, unpretentious, gentle, non-judging and kind. Preferably with sense of humour and self-deprecation. Not saying I meet those ideals, but as with royalty, I think we need to cut through some of the stuffiness. Don’t… Read more »
To be clear, also for Pat, my answer to Homeless Anglican referred specifically to the National Anthem. I believe in every country on the planet people stand for their national anthem unless physically unable to do so.
Hmmm… well I’ll certainly try to stand for Flower of Scotland… but I take your point, and yes, I think people may well stand for the National Anthem if they choose to. It’s up to them, and no offence if they don’t. In Church, I like to stand to sing, and personally likewise for the reading of the Gospel (not sure why but it seems nice). Sometimes I need to stay sitting for health reasons. If so, I do. I think God’s idea of sovereignty is rather different to the ideas we attribute to human rulers. All that said, the… Read more »
Sorry, Susannah and Pat, I’m abandoning ship and joining Tim Chesterton. This ‘discussion’ is getting too silly for words. I will allow latitude to Father Stanley swinging from the chandelier as a special case.
OK, as a compromise, what I expect from congregation members is to show reverence which they can do whether sitting, standing or kneeling without being told what they must do.
Rowland’s “too silly for words” is right. I am deaf. If I wish to hear I wear aids. This is my responsibility. I have poor vision in only one eye (the other is blind). If I wish to see I use a lens (not that it’s much help). This is my responsibility. I do not expect a small and hard-up organization to shell out on accommodating me, or people like me. I regard it as my responsibility, or that of the community at large. I do not expect every hobby group that I belong to to make individual arrangements. Like the discussion… Read more »
The discussion starts from two positions each of which is unsustainable, so it is bound to end in silliness. The first position was that any response to differences between people must proceed on the basis that all such differences are, literally, unmentionable. The second position was that each of us is entitled to complete toleration of everyone else of everything we do without criticism, verbal or mental, by others, while being equally entitled to be intolerant of the behaviour, even the thoughts of those others.
I’m afraid I don’t consider that either of your two scenarios relates to anything I have written on this thread – you have lost me. At face value, your comment is rather offensive. I won’t say any more.
Unfortunately the people who come to church, or indeed the people we meet in everyday life, aren’t always going to be like that. Hence the development over history of social norms and conventions in everyday life.
Standing or sitting or kneeling. In retirement I see more and more clearly just how much of a hobby, one among many, going to church is, and just how irrelevant church is in the lives of the vast majority of the white population who get their “religious” fixes from exercise or craft or other communal activities. But I hadn’t realised until this discussion just how barking mad churchgoers can be. Being told to sit if I am able is the worst kind of patronising claptrap. I shall swing from the chandeliers while eating a Macdonalds if I like – I’m… Read more »
Whereas I, on the other hand, have before now made a point of standing for the canticles at Choral Evensong, much to the bafflement of those around me who remained seated, giving the impression that they had come along for a mid-afternoon recital.
… which of course they had.
But how do you actually know that? I feel you are both assuming the worst of those attending such a service. Many people unfamiliar with church and worship (now the majority) simply do not know the ritual meanings of standing, kneeling or sitting – what they express and when and why. I don’t want to impose or demand a way of behaving on anyone in church – but these physical actions and liturgical ‘reflexes’ in traditional worship have content and meaning. Of course they may look odd to people who have never come across them before. So what? We do… Read more »
Yes, I overstated. It really doesn’t matter.
While I am quite a mild-mannered person (however vocal I can get here) and feel like we should do our best at church to be considerate to each other, I do admit I do find some churches stuffy. What possible difference does it make to God if we stand, sit, or kneel? It’s so obvious that what concerns God is what’s in our hearts. If I’d wanted a regimented approach to my life I would have joined the army (and no disparaging of the armed forces intended – I did once go for a commission, admittedly in the hope of… Read more »
I’m not sure that I agree that it’s always the heart and that the body is less important. I’m sure it’s most important that I have love for my wife in my heart, but I find it’s rather important to her that I hold her hand and hug her, too.
What’s in the heart shows itself in the actions of the body.
I more or less share your view, Tim. Practical lives and compassionate action come from the overflow of our hearts. My wife gets plenty of hugs and love, because my heart tells me she is precious. I think the heart is the source through which our actions flow into being. It probably all amounts to different ways of aspiring to the same thing. Of course, practical love can sometimes be costly and sacrificial, so I’m not trying to elide ‘feelings’ and ’emotionalism’ with what it means to open our hearts to the will of God. But feelings very often help!
Quite so 🙂
Flatus mirabilis I understood; but I had to get my wife to explain “tweed and twinset”. One learns so much here at TA. Lol.
The professor has given you the concise version. At Evensong in that part of Wiltshire populated by retired cavalry majors it was Donegal tweed and stout brogues (‘ratcatcher’) for the men; headscarves and twinsets for their ladies. Concerns over flatus caused horses to be left at the door.
Brilliant!
You gentlemen are killing me here in Canada. You both should consider writing a series for Britbox. Lol.lol!
I’m a physically disabled priest, who became so in my 40s, after contracting a neurological condition. For a long time, I wouldn’t self identify as disabled or advocate for what I need to have the basics available to the able bodied – to come to worship and preside without agonising pain. I’ve learned to self identify and advocate positively. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve experienced, and continue to experience, discrimination – intentional and unintentional. Even those in the Church passionate about inclusion often ignore disability. How many job specs try to redress balances in gender and ethnicity, but no mention… Read more »
Thanks, important points.
I’m with Tim Chesterton re the ‘unbelievability’ of part of the conversations on this thread. We have family members who have significant physical disabilities. It impacts their lives profoundly at so many levels. However, disabled people are neither stupid nor oblivious. When an official at a liturgy asks the congregation to stand for the gospel or an announcer at a hockey game says please stand for O Canada, they know that they cannot do that and that the direction is not aimed at them personally. However, their lived reality also means dealing with stigmatisation, being patronized, and facing real physical… Read more »
If I might inject a note of humour into the discussion of posture, ability, and comfort. Ten years ago our church (most people here know I live in western Canada) got rid of pews and replaced them with comfortable chairs. For some, that was a controversial move. But I notice that, ten years on, when our people are away and worship in churches that still have wooden pews, they tend to tell me how uncomfortable and stiff and sore they were after the services, and how much they appreciate coming back to our chairs! Moral of the story being –… Read more »
Reverting from the extended discussion about posture to Andrew Brown’s remixed impressions of Lambeth 98, which were certainly a ‘blast fronm the past’. I found them alternately hilarious and tragic, particularly his reminscences about Bishop (now Mgr) John Broadhurst, to whom he seemed to have taken quite a shine. I had some experience of Broadhurst when, throughout his time as +Fulham, I was a member of a parish in Rochester diocese where he was providing extended episcopal oversight (not alternative episcopal authority, which he and his supporters wished, and acted as if, he had). Did he really hold the authority… Read more »