Top 1000 funds Church Commissioners: Managing historic real assets for the future
Rosalind Rutherford ViaMedia.News What do Others Think of Us?
Neil Patterson ViaMedia.News Can the Church of England be Mature about Love?
Martyn Percy Meander Crisis, What Crisis?
Bosco Peters Liturgy Do Churches Really Want More People?
Martyn Percy Surviving Church Weighing Church of England Safeguarding on the Scales of Justice: No. 1: Who Pays?
I don’t believe that “reform” of safeguarding will ever work because reform ignores the fundamental problem: that those in charge of the Church of England lack Christian love, compassion and empathy. In the case of at least one Archbishop, he seems to lack the ability to even tell the truth. I conclude that something is very wrong with the way we select and train our priests. I was a loyal and hardworking member of my congregation in Berlin. I was subject to very hurtful accusations which caused me to fall into acute depression. I consider all the accusations to be… Read more »
Does the archbishop really lack the ability to tell the truth? Doesn’t he simply lack the basic integrity to do so, whenever it suits him not to? With regard to the way priests are selected, it is certainly possible that those selected are, by and large, bad people. But there is an alternative hypothesis. There may be nothing much wrong with them to begin with, but training and power and the deep underlying culture of institutional mendacity corrupts them and turns them utterly foul. My own rector is a case in point. It is rare to find a vicar widely… Read more »
I think there is a lot of wisdom in your post. Thank you. When things go wrong in an institution it is very easy and very human to look for an individual to blame, and to believe that if you simply change the individual then things will get better. I think Lucy Letby and Justin Welby may be two examples here. It is very human to resist the idea that the institution is at fault, and that the institution you have committed your passion and your life to for decades has major faults in the way that it operates, and… Read more »
I wonder if anyone has given any thought to the dynamics of the victim and persecutor complex, in the sense that if Christ is portrayed in the role of victim then the church (unconsciously) performs and escapes being held to account, when it acts in the role of persecutor?
I say this because there is always a persecutory aspect in victims and a victim aspect in persecutionists. This might explain why the church often (unconsciously – I am being kind here!) falls into persecutory tendencies?
Perhaps this ‘Christ as Victim” theology requires a more careful and thorough appraisal?
It sounds like you are really onto something very important with this thought, Martin. I don’t know enough about the psychology of this to expand on it meaningfully, but I really hope that someone who does can take it further in the way you suggest.
I wonder if Edward Said has interesting things to say here. He was writing as a Palestinian fighting Israeli/US hegemonic power, but I think the words can apply equally well to those of us working to uncover and describe the worldwide historical assault on LGBTQIA+ people by the church, or more locally, those seeking to uncover and describe the C of E’s safeguarding failings. “I soon discovered that I would have to be on my guard against authority and that I needed to develop some mechanism or drive not to be discouraged by what I took to be efforts to… Read more »
In answer to Neil Patterson’s question: it feels unlikely with the current leadership. Equally a more mature understanding also feels inevitable. Just a question of how long it might take.
This ‘so called ‘mature understanding of love’ would make the church an unsafe place for people who choose to be celibate and also those who uphold traditional teaching. This is exactly why a new province is needed.
As someone who chooses to be celibate, that’s complete and utter rubbish. Why would praying for more couples than we presently pray for make any difference at all to me?
But then, unlike some of those who describe themselves as ex-gay, I am not looking for plaudits or even validation from others. In fact it’s the first time I have mentioned it even here. It’s something between God and me. As a rule, I don’t let what others do or don’t do, change that.
How would a mature understanding of love make the church unsafe for people who are celibate? At least, more unsafe than it is for anyone else? I’m celibate and I don’t think that’s what made me unsafe.
Are you suggesting that those who have this “mature understanding of love” are (and would be) intolerant and biased against those who choose to be celibate? Or who prefer to be strictly heterosexual? Why assume that?
I understand what “unsafe” means Adrian. It is when you are sexually or emotionally abused by those in authority in the church. Can you please explain to us all why you would feel unsafe ? Nobody suggests any priest should be forced to marry a same sex couple. Nobody suggests a parish should allow same sex marriage, nobody suggests a parish must accept a priest who practices same sex sexual love. Nobody even suggests your parish should accept a female priest. So as far as I can see you are completely safe in your conservative bubble and your desire for… Read more »
Ruth Rutherford’s article would seem to indicate that their Lordships are revolting!
Wouldn’t the easiest way to achieve parity between male and female bishops in the house of lords be to remove ALL the bishops from the house?
Absolutely! I’m surprised that Sir Keir didn’t include it alongside his proposals to remove the last hereditary peers.
Revolting in the active rather than passive sense? There has been considerable silence about the comments of Lord Scriven which Rosalind Rutherford quotes describing mutual flourishing as ‘institutionalised misogyny’ .
It is hard to disagree with him .
Just a final afterthought, the revolting lordships have over 580 male peers and just over 230 female peers. A bit rich of them to complain. Abolish them all!
Amusing to read of the conference’s laughter at Archbishop Welby’s ‘management’ theory. So many clergy feel that the archbishops and bishops are actively working against the mission of the church; Percy lays it all bare. The Archbishop is evidently going to hang on by his fingernails to the bitter end, but as I’ve asked here before, why? As a former oil executive the Archbishop must surely understand numbers and during his tenure the Statistics for Mission have been dreadful; most evidently in the growth indicators of baptism and confirmation. With a performance that bad in his previous role he’d have… Read more »
Very good one Bosco. And as you say, not that difficult to accomplish.
Not difficult to accomplish, perhaps, if your parish is well resourced and has tech-savvy volunteers. If the congregation is small and elderly and the clergy overstretched, good communication can be challenging or near impossible. Though there are a few basics. In one multi-parish benefice with a complicated service rota, I observed that it would be helpful if the notice sheet gave the village as well as the church where each service was due to take place. Not knowing which village honoured which saint, I had said a solitary evening prayer in the wrong church. 10 years later they haven’t changed,… Read more »
I think most non-tech-savvy people have an exaggerated idea of the amount of tech-savvy it takes to put in place at least some of what Bosco is talking about. For instance, keeping your Facebook page up to date. If you have a Facebook page to keep up to date, then you already have all the tech-savvy you need to keep it up to date. Making sure online announcements are updated. Making sure answering machine messages have accurate information on them. Making sure that information on church notice board is accurate and consistent with what appears elsewhere. Honestly, there is literally… Read more »
I’m not sure that tech-savvy people are in themselves the answer. When I asked my son who works in IT why so many websites are a pig’s ear, he replied, “because they’re designed, of necessity, by IT people with little poetry in them. You need the artist too.”
Similarly, one of the reasons that so many large-scale IT projects are so bad is that IT people and the people who need to use the system rarely talk to or understand each other.
Thanks, Tim. What device did you use to Zoom the services, and where were they held? Would it be necessary to have a wifi router in the building?
We actually used Facebook to stream services as it was a lot simpler to use. At first we used an iPad, but later we got better quality with my laptop computer. The wifi in the church was crappy (no fault of ours, long story), so after about three months we started streaming from our house which was a lot better.
We used Zoom for our Bible studies and church meetings and I was blown away by all the elderly people who learned how to use it so they could join in.
That’s encouraging. However, it does all sound quite challenging for people not tech-adept. And I suspect a lot of ancient UK churches won’t have wi-fi to stream services as they happen.
We also had equipment challenges when we started streaming from the church – which is why we moved to our house within three months. And I say again – I learned how to live stream on Facebook during the second week of pandemic shutdown. Until then, my tech adeptness had consisted of emails and blogging. Likewise with using Zoom for meetings. As a parish priest I didn’t think I had the option not to learn how to do these things. I get the point about churches not necessarily having wifi installed – the advantage we have in the new world… Read more »
I’m not in ministry now so it isn’t a problem for me. But if I were – I don’t have a smartphone (I’m neurodivergent and smartphones mess with my brain), and in the church I was going to before I became too ill, some of the older people didn’t have computers of any kind and weren’t online.
I think it’s easy for people who are reasonably comfortable with tech to overlook how big a barrier it can be for those who aren’t.
I admire those who are tech-savvy – including those who learn how to livestream from Facebook!
Yes, it’s a shame that the digital divide that was talked about so much during lockdown has now been forgotten.
I recognize that there are people who do not have computers and others who have only the most basic knowledge of how to use their computers. There is no perfect solution. During the pandemic our church offered three ways of joining in worship. A Facebook live service every Sunday morning. This now continues as St. Margaret’s has housebound members who have expressed their strong appreciation for it. Over the past five years the church spent some money on better equipment and the streaming takes place through the 4G network using a hub. This was set up for St. Margaret’s by… Read more »
Well done.
Thanks, Janet. I was ably supported by a wonderful team of volunteers, most of whom started from scratch!
That matches our experience Tim.
We stream night night prayer services from our home on zoom, with an regular and appreciative elderly participating congregation. And I attend a regular on-line LGBTQ service run by the group’s chaplain from his home study. Both work well.
Streaming from any of our ancient rural churches would sadly be beyond our financial resources to install the necessary equipment.
I don’t know how limited your financial resources are but our remote island church streams services via 4G – we started with a mobile phone on a tripod but now use an old conference room camera (£25 eBay find). If you don’t have a microphone set up already then a conference mic can pick up whoever is leading very well. There is excellent free software such as OBS available if you need more sophistication but for a lot of purposes a camera pointing in the right direction with a suitable [mike] is all you need. I’ll admit that if there… Read more »
Thanks Jo, that is helpful. We might need to experiment.
Jo – yes, my old parish of St. Margaret’s uses a 4G hub to stream its Sunday service as the church’s wifi is woefully inadequate and the provider has no plans to upgrade it (long story). The 4G hub is excellent.
Zoom is one of the simplest remote connection systems out there.
Part of the difficulty is knowing what to spend time on. I have stopped updating my parish Facebook page as people stopped engaging with it. I do keep our page on ‘A Church Near You’ updated as I know that people do look us up on there. A couple of my servers are talking about setting up a parish TikTok page, but I have no idea what to do with that and would be reliant on them to manage it. Bosco Peters mentions taking control of the Google profile. I had to do that a few years ago as ours… Read more »
“If you cannot remember which account you used for GMB, you will need to claim it again with a new account, and then preferably make a note of which account you used.” https://support.google.com/business/answer/4566671
Blessings
Bosco+
It’s amazing how hard it is, on some church websites, to find the basics: where the church is and when the services take place.
There are some which include it in the newsletters so you have to plough through those to find it. Anyone would think they don’t want new attendees …
Websites such as “find a church” and “a church near you” are very useful tools in England. Very helpful when visiting a new place.
Great to see another good selection of articles to delve into and thanks to everyone behind TA. But can I point out that I don’t remember seeing any post last month about the publication of the Fifth Biannual Report of the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice? Ok, it was in the second half of August when many are on holiday, but I mention it because I made the same point about one of the previous reports from the Commission. Why is this important subject being overlooked?
May be the Dis-establishment of the Church of England is not far off and perphaps with a Prime Minister who is an admitted Atheist, this could happen more quickly than people expect. Jonathan
Bring it on is what I say. Is the PM an admitted atheist? Maybe, but he is certainly a man, sensitive to the religious sensibilities of others, witness the fact that he tries to reserve Friday evenings for his family and participates in the jewish ceremonies wirh his wife and her family.
I suspect that the Church of England will not be disestablished under Starmer’s watch precisely because Starmer is an atheist. Starmer’s focus is on the economy and the NHS. Most voters don’t care about the Church of England or bishops in the House of Lords. Disestablishment would be a messy can of worms that would provoke hostility in some quarters and would waste a great deal of time And how would Starmer benefit ? Not at all. The political fallout would be wholly negative. Starmer the atheist doesn’t care about the future of the Church of England. If it withers… Read more »
If I had to choose between two Prime Ministers, as to in whose hands the church would be safest, I would struggle to argue that the church would be safer in the hands of Boris Johnson the Christian, rather than Kier Starmer the atheist.
I wouldñ’t struggle at all. Starmer would be safer by a country mile!
Not saying it’s Starmer the atheist’s fault, but do we have a Second Church Estates Commissioner yet?
Nothing new. Neither Churchill nor Attlee were Christians, with the latter openly stating that he was “incapable of religious feeling” and that he believed in “the ethics of Christianity” but not “the mumbo-jumbo”!
And yet Churchill did invoke divine agency in his famous ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech:
‘ . . . our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.’
By his own admission Churchill was a devout Christian in the classic Church of England pattern. He said that he was not a pillar of the Church but more of a flying buttress, supporting it from outside.