Category Archives: church

We shall not evangelise England with an emaciated incarnation

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I have been reflecting much on my experiences of last year. I shall not reach any conclusions until after a retreat next month at the earliest, but one thing that is coming to the fore is my sense of a gulf between the 53% of England that voted for Leave (higher amongst self-identified Anglicans) and what I think of as the ‘institutional mind’ of the Church of England.

By ‘institutional mind’ I am principally thinking of what is expressed by those in positions of authority, so the House of Bishops first and foremost, but extending more widely to include General Synod and also the para-church organisations like the Church Times. An example of what I have in mind is the letter from 25 Bishops that triggered my article in response. This is not about hostility to the Leave position; rather, what troubles me is my sense that there is a theological lacuna in the insitutional mind, a gap where an understanding of the nation – and therefore of England – needs to sit.

Here is my sketch of what I am thinking about.

In Scripture there is consistent reference to the nation and the nations, Israel being a paradigmatic example. I need to do more work and reading on this, but nations are clearly a part of the created order – fallen and redeemable. This is a point of conflict with the prevailing liberal mindset (which I see as also culturally dominant in the church, part of the institutional mind) which does not give a nation any existence that is separate to the viewpoints and habits of those individuals which aggregate together into a ‘nation’ (or a ‘family’ or a ‘corporation’ or a ‘government’). In contrast I see such entities as part of the principalities and powers – and I see the Biblical treatment of such things as an essential aspect in our understandings. We cannot understand the cross, or the teachings of St Paul, without understanding the principalities and powers. The Biblical understanding of nation does not map neatly onto modern understandings of the nation, let alone the nation-state, and let alone the rich complexity of a ‘United Kingdom’ but there is something here which is essential for the Church of England to grasp if it is to fulfil its vocation.

For historical reasons, principally rooted in the experience of WW2 but not restricted solely to that, our dominant culture sees the expression of national identity as immoral, inherently risky and liable to cause disaster. This can be seen in so many ways – the whole Brexit debate itself is rife with examples – but for me, a paradigmatic instance was Emily Thornberry’s scorn towards the display of an England flag. This distance between the somewheres and the anywheres is now becoming an accepted short-hand, so I can say that my concern with the institutional mind of the Church of England is that it is a resolutely ‘anywhere’ mentality. This is ironic, as the whole tradition and theological standpoint of the Church of England is ‘somewhere’ – rooted in each local parish, and bound up with an emphasis upon the incarnation as a leading theological doctrine in our self-understanding.

Which is why this phrase isn’t leaving my mind: we shall not evangelise England with an emaciated incarnation. One of the texts used to justify the disdain for national identity within our church conversation is the wonderful passage from Galatians – in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek etc. I believe that this passage is being misused. I do not for one second doubt that our identity in Christ trumps our various national identities. We are called to a Christian identity that is more foundational than any national identity. Yet what I wish to insist upon is that this Christian identity does not evacuate the national identity of meaning or continued application. On the contrary, it is only through being set within that larger Christian identity that the national identity truly finds itself and is able to flourish and shine.

Jesus, after all, was a particular man born in a particular time and place within a particular culture. His universality is not something imposed ‘top-down’ from Heaven, as if he came down from the sky fully-formed, rather it is built up out of that identity – they are the building blocks. Jesus never stops being a Jewish man from first century Palestine. This is what I mean by ’emaciated incarnation’ – the anywhere ideology seeks to downplay all the particularities and distinctives that makes us different from each other, as they are perceived as problematic. In contrast I want to insist that these distinctives cannot be taken away from us, for they make us who we are. We are not called to be national eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven.

The great beast of global capitalism generates an immense social and cultural pressure pushing a ‘smoothing’ of individuality. Capitalism wants us to become efficient ball-bearings that do not hinder the accumulation of profit. My concern about the institutional mind of the Church of England is that this ideology – this Royal Consciousness – has surreptitiously crept in and taken over. Of course it is wrong to value a distinctive national identity! Don’t you know that it inevitably leads to bigotry and racism and fascism and all the other terrible things that the twentieth century taught us?

I see this, not simply as an acquiescence to worldly thinking but as an abandonment of our own, distinctive, Anglican charism. The Church of England needs to be a Church for England. We shall not evangelise England with an emaciated incarnation. Telling that story simply aligns the church with those economic forces that depersonalise and dispossess the people in this land. We are seen as hostile and alien, court chaplains whose ultimate service is to Mammon not to the living and incarnate Lord.

I have much work to do to flesh this out. It links with understandings I’ve gained from Tom Wright about apocalyptic language, and Stringfellow and Wink and Richard Beck and many others. But I think this is what God is calling me to say. Abraham is much on my mind – and has been ever since May of last year – and he, after all, becomes the father of many nations. I need to learn what that means – and apply it to our situation today.

I’ll keep you posted.

Echoes

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LECTER’S VOICE
I thought, to begin, you might tell me
how you’re feeling.

STARLING
About what?

LECTER’S VOICE
The masters you serve and how they’ve
treated you. Your career, such as it is.
Your life, Clarice.

STARLING’S VOICE
I thought we might talk about yours.

LECTER
Mine? What is there to say about mine?
I’m happy. Healthy. A little nomadic at
the moment but that’ll soon change. You,
though. You, I’m worried about.

STARLING
I’m fine.

LECTER’S VOICE
No, you’re not. You fell in love with
the Bureau – with The Institution – only
to discover, after giving it everything –
that it doesn’t love you back. That it
resents you, more than the husband and
children you gave up to it ever would.

LECTER
Why is that, do you think? Why are you
so resented?

STARLING’S VOICE
Tell me.

LECTER
Tell you? Isn’t it clear? You serve
the idea of order, Clarice – they don’t.
You believe in the oath you took – they
don’t. You feel it’s your duty to
protect the sheep – they don’t. They
don’t like you because they’re not like
you. They’re weak and unruly and
believe in nothing.

Nigel Farage might just be the prophet of God’s will (Prophetic Imagination and The Brexit Party)

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According to Walter Brueggemann the prophetic task begins with grief – with identifying grief and articulating it. This engenders solidarity with those who suffer, from which point (and only from which point) it becomes possible to speak the word of the Lord into the situation, articulating his ‘bias to the poor’ and criticising all those who maintain the status quo.

The status quo is best characterised, according to Brueggemann, with the phrase ‘the Royal Consciousness’ – these days we might say the establishment consensus, or the Westminster bubble. It represents the shared framework within which the political realm understands itself and its role in events. In Biblical terms it is Pharaoh, the man himself and all those whose role in the society depends upon the existing system carrying on in the accustomed manner: it represents the way they think, it is the ‘common sense’ of the powerful.

In this situation the prophet comes in and invites the people to imagine something different; to grieve; to say ‘this is not God’s will’; to denounce the Royal Consciousness; and to bring down the plagues upon the establishment before leading people to a promised land.

In our situation, who is playing what role in the prophetic drama?

Let us begin with the grief: millions of those who have felt excluded from the operations of society, whose communities have been broken by shocks both economic and social, chose to articulate their grief with a vote against the status quo.

A healthy society would have responded with a heart for inclusion, working to re-engage the excluded, to seek to protect communities, to bind up old wounds, to re-establish a genuine sense of national solidarity.

Instead, the Royal Consciousness has doubled down on its condemnation of those outside the consensus. Instead of requiring more bricks with less straw, the Pharaohs of today simply say that those who cried out with grief did not know what they were doing and are probably uncultured and immoral in any case.

It is very important to the Royal Consciousness that it can see itself as righteous and virtuous. Not many human beings outside of satanic circles can live with the sense that they have chosen to be evil, not even Hitler’s willing executioners. We all cover up the knowledge of our own sin with more or less substantial rationales and justifications for our behaviour. They are all illusions.

What the referendum represents, as a cry of grief, is a shattering of that illusion – for those that can accept a new reality. However, those who cannot cope with the illusion being shattered, who wish to retain their sense of being righteous and virtuous, have to strive all the more to eclipse and efface that cry of grief, to try and restore the status quo ante, to deny this new truth.

This is unsustainable. God is not in that process – God is with those who grieve, with those who have been excluded. God casts down the mighty from their thrones and raises up the poor and lowly. God calls up prophets to speak his Word of justice and solidarity into broken political contexts.

Who, today, in British society, is articulating the grief on behalf of the poor, giving a voice to those who were previously voiceless? Might it not be a man of unclean lips? The extent to which you consider such thing impossible might simply be an index of how captured you have been by the Royal Consciousness:

“Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

(This has been buzzing in my head for some time. You won’t get this point of view in the Church Times – which is the house newspaper for the priests of the Royal Consciousness… Also – milkshakes are quite mild compared to what other prophets have had to endure!)
See: Does God have a plan for Brexit? and Brexit and the baking of bricks, Brexit, the Church and God’s bias to the poor and a little rant about Brexit and the Church of England.

A radically Christian perspective on Brexit

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Ian Paul writes on his excellent blog about a Christian perspective on Brexit. I find what he writes insufficiently radical and so I thought I’d set out the ways in which I see a properly Christian understanding being brought to bear. Most specifically, I don’t see this analysis as something that a ‘well-meaning atheist’ could share in – and that is the point and revealing of the fundamental problem.

Point one: we are not in charge, God is. One of the most debilitating aspects of the Westminster bubble is the way it encourages a sense of self-sufficency and centrality, that ‘here is where the important things happen and are decided’. One way in which this is going to go ‘pop’ is when the EU chooses a no-deal exit (I give that about 60% chance at the moment) and Westminster suddenly realises that all these shenanigans were only one part of the equation. However, much more important is the Christian claim that God is present and active in our world, and that our calling is to find what he is doing and then get out of the way, to use Peterson’s language. This sense of something outside of our own preferences and choices, which has a greater authority and power than our own preferences and choices, is the principal thing that is missing in our conversation – that is, in our Christian conversations most of all.

Point two: we do not have to be afraid. There are standpoints on both sides of the Brexit divide which seem to be rooted in fear of what might happen. This is the corollary of point one – if everything rests upon our own choices then there is much greater pressure to get them right. If, however, we believe in a God who can always redeem our fallen choices then that pressure is relieved, and, I suspect, the odds of making the best choices increase. We are not to make decisions on the basis of fear, whether that be Project Fear itself or the fears about ‘losing’ Brexit on the Leave side.

Point three: communities, nations and multi-national states (the EU) are real things that are more than simply the sum of their parts. They are ‘principalities and powers’. Their reality is denied by the contemporary dominance of global capitalism, which seeks to minimise such inefficiencies, and therefore undermines them at every turn. Yet Christianity recognises that such things, whilst fallen, can also be redeemed, and calls us to work for such redemption. We need to be much more clear-sighted about the nature of the institutions with which we are dealing, and the ways in which power is being asserted against the vulnerable. Which leads to…

Point four: God has a bias to the poor, and we need to listen to the poor, for it is often through those who are small and of no account to the great and good through whom God speaks to us. It is a shocking thing that the bench of Bishops has no voice affirming the choice of the poor in our society; it is even more shocking that none see the plight of southern Europe as bringing in to question the moral legitimacy of the European polity. Such things do not necessarily entail Brexit – they do, however, require a more prophetic response that comfortable silence.

Point five: sometimes God calls us away from compromise towards radical and unpopular choices; sometimes those who are shepherds of the sheep are called upon to proclaim justice against the oppressor; sometimes what we most need is the Old Testament Heart. The Via Media is not always a virtue – sometimes, to adapt a saying by Mencken, “Every [Christian] must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Metaphorically speaking, of course. And in love.

So: five elements of a radical Christian response. Read Stringfellow!!

Of Brexit and the baking of bricks

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‘Who bakes the bricks?’

This is an important question, from many different points of view. We need to consider who bakes the bricks from an economic perspective, from a practical and social justice perspective, from the perspective of gender roles and unconscious bias. The question of who bakes the bricks becomes all the more important when the people as a whole are asked to bake more bricks with less straw.

Yet at that sort of time, there might be a more urgent question than who bakes the bricks. There might be a calling from someone named Moses, or his brother Aaron, saying ‘set my people free’. There might be an almighty – even an Almighty – struggle going on between the establishment powers and the insurgent powers. The question of who bakes the bricks, which is an important question, might have to take second place to an even more important question, which is: where shall we bake the bricks?

Shall we bake the bricks in the promised land?

The people cry out for relief, for they struggle under the weight of oppression, and their existing leaders are comfortable with the status quo. So strange leaders come among them, who do not have impeccable credentials, one might even be a murderer. Yet the Lord is with them. They are aware that the Lord has decided to liberate his people, he has heard their crying unto Heaven and now look! He is doing a new thing.

Those who argue about the baking of bricks do not know what to make of this. They are trapped within the Royal Consciousness, and the world made by Pharaoh is the only world that they can conceive of. They cannot see the new thing that the Lord is doing. They do know what to do about bricks, though. So they concentrate their time on arguing about the production of bricks, for this too is an important question and it is important to get the right answer. Perhaps we can lead the Hebrews to a new place just outside the city walls, and continue to contribute to the baking of bricks from there? Would that be alright please, Mr Pharaoh?

Where shall we bake the bricks?

The church wrings its hands over Brexit, and seeks earnestly and sincerely for the overcoming of divisions and the reconciliation between estranged parties. If only we could be nicer then perhaps that nice Mr Pharaoh and that mostly nice (but a bit uncouth) Mr Moses can come together in a happy compromise…. Meanwhile the Lord Almighty changes the world and asks those who truly respond to His will to daub the frames of their doors with blood and to get ready to move at short notice.

We in the church have so many great and important questions to wrestle with, questions of justice and economy and sexuality and gender, and these truly are important questions. Yet sometimes what is most important is not to resolve questions such as these but rather to simply listen and pay attention and seek to discern what God is actually doing in a time such as this.

Were we to do this, were we to look up from our parochial concerns and truly take in the newly forming vision for our national life together then perhaps we might agree to not resolve the questions around the baking of bricks for a year or three in order to stride forward with faith into the wilderness, not turning to look behind.

The Church of England doesn’t have a functioning theology of the nation, and this is all the more problematic when questions of nationhood – of where we are to bake the bricks, of what sort of country it shall be wherein the baking of bricks shall be done – are so important. We fret ourselves into frenzied activity trying to show how relevant we are, yet the most relevant and timely claim upon our involvement is one that we are now so ill-equipped to handle. For it is not a question of who bakes the bricks. It is a question of ‘can you see what the Lord is doing?’ and ‘is this not a marvellous thing in your eyes?’

Hear the word of the Lord you peoples of the United Kingdom, for these dry bones shall live again. The Lord is going to destroy Pharaoh and all his works – we have only to stand aside and be still.

A Church for England: Guarding the nation’s soul

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The prophets of ancient Israel were those who called the nation back to a faithful religious life – back to right worship, that is, worshipping the right things, and back to social justice, which meant ensuring that nobody was excluded from sharing in the national life.

The Church of England doesn’t have a functioning theology of what a nation is, which means that it doesn’t know how to call a nation back to a faithful religious life. This is something of a problem when the name of a nation is in your self-description. Captured by modern, secular individualism, the church seeks to market the gospel to modern, secular individuals – which means that those for whom issues of loyalty, authority and sanctity matter are alienated from their natural spiritual home.

Nations are part of the creation and they have their place in that creation, which is why nations are talked about so often in the Bible. Nations are real things, spiritually real – they are part of what St Paul calls the principalities and powers – and our culture is very familiar with what it means when a principality is raised up into the shape of an idol, when it is given a greater value than it deserves to have, and it becomes demonic – we all know enough history to be aware of what that looks like. It is a great sin to overemphasise nationhood: in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, the claims of Christ are higher than any national claim.

This does not obliterate nationhood however; it does not mean that we are to abandon any sense of what it means to live within and be part of a nation. What is missed in our church and our culture is that there is an equal and opposite error, of obliterating any sense of national identity and seeking to do away with any expression of it. It is part of being fully human that we are formed within a community of people, and the most fully human person who has ever lived was not an exception to this. Jesus did not appear to us coming down from on high, full of heavenly glory: no, he lived at a very particular time in a very particular place, he took part in the very particular customs of a very particular nation and from that solid foundation he transcended those particularities to become a source of universal salvation. It is as members of one nation or another that we are redeemed, none of us are redeemed as abstract human beings, devoid of context or roots in a particular land and nation.

George Orwell wrote that England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality, and it seems to me that the mind of our House of Bishops has been captured by that same intellectual disorder; it is, in fact, a theological disorder. Some ten years ago a kind friend introduced me to the folk group Show of Hands, and took me to a show of theirs in Putney. It was the first time I had heard any of their songs, and I was blown away. One song especially:

And a minister said his vision of hell
Is three folk singers in a pub near Wells
Well, I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl
It’s pubs where no-one ever sings at all
And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens
Australian soap, American rap
Estuary English, baseball caps
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk
Of the way we look, and the way we talk
Without our stories or our songs
How will we know where we come from?
I’ve lost St. George in the Union Jack
That’s my flag too and I want it back
Seed, bud, flower, fruit
Never gonna grow without their roots
Branch, stem, shoot
We need roots

We can’t let patriotism, the story of who we are as a nation, be monopolised by the morons and the bigots, but if we don’t have a healthy understanding, a theological understanding of what a nation is then that is what is going to happen by default, they will take up that space – and then the demonic will take it over. Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, ‘Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil, for what is evil but good, tortured by its own thirst, and forced to drink of stagnant waters’.

The task of the Church of England is to provide fresh living water to our nation and by doing so to tend to the soul of England. It is because the Church has failed to even engage in this spiritual struggle that we have lost our moorings as a society and the church dies.

These words: I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.

Blake was a prophet, and I have always taken Jerusalem to be about the Kingdom, about engaging the imagination in such a way that working for the Kingdom in a particular place, for a particular people becomes possible… I think I’m supposed to work specifically for that. In England, amongst the English – here I stand, I can do no other.

(Developing thoughts from this old post)

Archbishops should stick to theology

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It is not uncommon for religious leaders to come under criticism when they decide to venture into contentious areas of political dispute. There have been many headlines recently about Archbishop Justin Welby, who has been recommending certain changes to our economic arrangements. My politics and those of the Archbishop are distinct but, to channel the remark often attributed to Voltaire, I disagree with what he says but would defend to the death his right to say it.

The desire to silence religious voices on political questions has many aspects, one of which is distinct to our own society. In general, those in power do not wish to be criticised so, when those in positions of religious leadership offer up criticism, they will undoubtedly be attacked for doing so by those who are either in positions of power themselves or who benefit from the status quo in other ways.

This flags up the most common form of political engagement by religious leaders in the Jewish and Christian traditions, which is that undertaken by the religious prophets. Prophecy in Scripture is often misunderstood as being centrally about predictions of a dire future. Such predictions do exist – even Jesus employs them – but they are always secondary to the principal task of the prophet which is two-fold: to call the people of Israel (and the Church) back to the right worship of God, and to call them to establish social justice, and ensure that nobody is excluded from sharing in the life of the wider community.

When this doesn’t happen, the prophet points out that terrible things follow in consequence. To put that in different terms, the prophet points out that if the people are not obedient to God, then they cannot flourish. The most pointed and political form that this takes in the Bible comes when the prophet Jeremiah is criticising the Royal court and says that the army of Babylon will destroy Jerusalem – which duly happened in 586 BC.

So there is a general truth that those in positions of political power do not like to be criticised, as it might threaten their hold upon that power. Yet there is also something distinctly English about a desire to have apolitical clergy, and it goes back to the experience of the Civil War, and the way in which religious enthusiasm took definite political form in the shape of the New Model Army and Cromwell’s abuses.

After that point, any form of religious enthusiasm was inherently suspect. The Church of England accepted a role in society which was essentially that of a neutered house pet. It received lots of grace and favour and a position of privilege, but it was prevented from the most central form of authenticity available to it, and has been unable to reproduce.

This is the legacy with which contemporary religious leaders – most especially Anglican leaders – have to deal. It isn’t simply a straightforward clash with those in power who wish to hold on to their power, and their various cheerleaders in the media and wider society. No, there is a perception still current that for an Anglican to express political opinions is simply not the done thing.

That pattern of life is slowly breaking down, as part and parcel of the way in which the whole notion of what it is to be English or British, or Christian or secular, is breaking down more broadly.

So does this mean that the Church of England needs to identify itself with one particular political party or stance? I would argue not, but with a very significant caveat. The principal reason why not is simply that faithful Christians can be found across the whole political spectrum, and what marks out the Christian point of view is not so much being left or right as recognising that their political perspectives are less important than their religious ones. Which means, to go back to the example of the prophets, not letting any ideology get in the way of submission to God – for that would be what the Bible calls idolatry. It also means being on guard, over against oneself as much as others, not to deceive ourselves about our motives, and to always seek to have a motivation which expresses love for neighbour rather than simply being a cover for our own needs, whether those be naked financial self-interest or the temptation to indulge in nationalistic or even internationalistic fantasy.

The caveat is that I don’t believe it is open to Christians to sit upon the fence when there are issues of immense political importance being decided upon. My model for this is the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, in the 1930s, spent much time with friends in England, including the great Anglican Bishop George Bell, and who could easily have sat out the Second World War in safety in England or the United States. Instead, he chose to return to Germany in order to take part in the struggle against Hitler, eventually being executed by the Nazis for his part in the assassination plot. Shortly after returning to Germany he wrote to a friend in the United States saying, “I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”

Whenever there is a great question of public life to be decided, each Christian must resolve within their own heart and soul what it is that is God’s will. It will almost certainly not be an easy discernment, for political questions in this life by their very nature do not commonly admit to simple, coherent and complete solutions – indeed, the idea that there are such is something of an indicator that an ideology is being deployed, rather than a properly prayerful discernment.

Yet in all the discussions, as much as any political decision debated, decided and argued for, perhaps the real hallmark of a Christian perspective is the grace with which that position is held, and the capacity to listen to alternatives and find common ground with opponents. Christians are called to speak, and must not accept being excluded from the conversation, yet must also bear themselves as those who are dependent upon the virtues of another. We are the ones who do not scapegoat, who do not victimise, who do not project – for it is only through the merits of the one who received all those things from the world that we at all acceptable.

Brexit, the Church, and God’s bias to the poor

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In 1983 the then Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard (once of the England cricket team) published a book entitled ‘Bias to the poor’. In it he argued that Scripture shows that God has a consistent preference for looking after the poor and weak of society, and that, to use the modern expression, God was a God of social justice.

This seems incontrovertible to me; that is, I do not think it possible for a person to be a Christian and not be concerned for those who are poor or marginalised or excluded from engaging with the wider society. The message of Scripture, perhaps best exemplified in the marvellous words of the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel, are clear and consistent on this point.

The ‘bias to the poor’ is something that is deeply embedded in the Church of England’s self-understanding, and is something of a commonplace amongst clergy. However, I want to bring out one way in which I think the church has gone astray in its understanding of what this means. Put simply, I think the Church has confused the imperative of caring for the poor with one particular form that such caring might take and, moreover, missed elements of caring for the poor – of integrating them with wider society – which is of huge contemporary relevance.

To explain that point, I want to tell a story about King David – the story about how he was chosen. The prophet Samuel had previously chosen Saul to be the King of Israel – Saul was a fine, handsome, tall and muscular man, accomplished and acclaimed. He led Israel to disaster. When Samuel asked God to lead him to the new King, that he might anoint the King, Samuel was led to the sons of Jesse. Each one paraded before him, but God did not give his consent. Finally, Samuel asked Jesse – do you not have any other sons? And Jesse said, ‘there is still my youngest’ – and this was David. God said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected [Saul]. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16)

Poverty in scripture is never simply about material wealth, but also about status in society. When Jesus hears the disciples arguing about who will be the greatest, he brings a little child into their midst and says that unless they become like a little child they will not enter the Kingdom – and the point of this is that a little child has absolutely no status in society. This principle was embedded in many Christian practices down the centuries. In the Rule of St Benedict, for example, the monks are told that “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger”.

In other words, God doesn’t simply love the poor and seek for them to be given material relief. He also ‘often reveals’ his will through what is said by the poor. This is because those who have little stake in existing systems can often see those systems more clearly – as opposed to those who have a great stake in the existing systems (the High Priests) who lack such a perspective.

Which brings me to the Church of England. So far as I can tell, there isn’t a single member of the House of Bishops who is in favour of Brexit. Which means that, if we look at who tends to be against Brexit, and who tends to be for it, the Bishops are lining up with most of the rest of the establishment – and on the other side are the poor and excluded of British society.

The researcher Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Kent, recently published a paper describing the attitudes and approaches of those who supported Brexit. He finds that such voters are not generally motivated by racism or cultural insularity (which are the usual, reflexive brickbats offered by those opposed to Brexit in order to reinforce a sense of moral superiority) but rather a combination of two things: a sense that, for decades, whole communities had been cut off from the increasing prosperity of wider British society; and, secondly, a sense that those who were making the decisions affecting those communities were more and more distant from the communities themselves. Hence the success of the slogan ‘take back control’.

So here we have large sections of British society who are poor and excluded – exactly the sort of people for whom the Bible expresses an especial concern – but who are entirely unrepresented in the hierarchy of the national church.

Something has gone very wrong.

In Ancient Israel, the role of prophet was one that had a particular place within the Royal Court. There is a fascinating story in the book of Jeremiah which details the conflict between the ’employed’ prophets in the Court – notably Hananiah – and the prophet from the North, Jeremiah himself. Jeremiah was foretelling disaster at the hands of the Babylonians, whereas Hananiah proclaimed that the Babylonians would be defeated. Hananiah, put simply, was telling the Royal Court what they wanted to hear, and preserving the Court in what we would today call a ‘bubble’, where they were unaware of what was happening in the wider political context. Jeremiah, on the other hand, was persecuted for his teaching – and he was proved correct.

The trouble with the Church of England is that it has allowed the bias to the poor to be restricted to the safe, middle-class and soft-socialist nostrums that constitute acceptable discourse for the mainstream centre-left of this country. In doing so, it has failed to recognise that God doesn’t simply care for the poor, he also speaks directly through them, most especially when they cry out for justice and liberty.

If the Church of England is serious about being a Church for the whole nation, especially its mission to the poor, it might do well to start listening to what God is saying through the poor of this country – or, if that is too much, perhaps even listen to the ‘consensus of the faithful’ on the subject of Brexit. After all, Anglicans were significantly more likely to vote for Brexit than the average. The Bishops don’t just represent the more affluent minority of the country, they also represent a much smaller minority of their own church. I just hope that God doesn’t have the same fate in mind for us that he did for Israel under Babylon.

A little rant about Brexit and the Church of England

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Whilst I have been following much of the continuing conversation around Brexit fairly closely, I have tended to avoid writing too much due to the unfavourable ratio between heat and light that has shaped so much of the debate. I am moved to write now, however, due to a remarkably poor piece of writing that I have discovered in the Church Times, which ever so gently seems to suggest that those in favour of Brexit are not simply warmongers tossing aside a hard-earned peace, but also in the wrong with God. So herewith some comments follow, paragraph by paragraph (read Professor Chapman’s article first).

Paragraph 1: David Cameron was indeed an appalling Prime Minister, with a deeply anti-conservative world view, like most of the commentariat and those who live within that bubble of thought. I disagree that we are in a ‘fine mess’, but we’ll come on to why.

Paragraph 2: Chapman writes that the situation is complex and bleak – why? Because the EU is established upon four freedoms (he only mentions three) “and there are no solutions possible short of accepting these principles”. I wonder what the specific problem is that is being assumed that requires such purported solutions – it would seem that the problem is ‘how to participate in the European market on existing terms’, which is precisely what Brexiters have voted against. The economic part of the argument is that the long-run growth rate of the British economy is likely to be larger if the UK is outside of the EU than if it is inside. So a Brexiter doesn’t see this as a problem that needs a solution – and is certainly resistant to accepting the principles required, as they would prevent us from pursuing trade agreements with the more rapidly growing parts of the world economy.

Paragraph 3: participation in the EU “requires adjudication through mutually accepted standards and mediated by a court”. Indeed it does, which is why Brexiters would prefer trading on WTO terms – also through mutually accepted standards and mediated by a court. We do not particularly seek the Norwegian or Swiss models, unless as part of a temporary transition process. Linking the free movement of goods in Ireland to the continuation of the Good Friday peace process is mistaken both practically and morally – and the use (abuse!) of this issue by the European Commission is shameful.

Paragraph 4: I’m never sure whether Remainers like Chapman fully appreciate the implications of the arguments made in this paragraph. He writes, “there is no incentive to offer concessions that might mean other countries would start their own renegotiations with Brussels”. In other words, the Commission is not negotiating with a view to the best long-term interest of the population of the EU but with a view to preserving their existing power structure – which implies, therefore, that it is not sustained by widespread support. Rather than arguing for the principles at stake, this is about power. Chapman is speaking from a position of fear, which is not a particularly Christian stance. The last part of this paragraph, about nations finding it ‘much more effective to work as part of a massive economic bloc’ is pro-EU boiler-plate, without a great deal of empirical support. It is undoubtedly good for the major multinationals to work in a market in which local differences have been erased. I find it disturbing that an Anglican priest – and professor! – cannot see any tension between an Incarnational theology and support for companies like Monsanto.

Paragraph 5: “sovereign states have far more geopolitical power when they pool their sovereignty” – again, this reveals much about what is assumed to be important. This claim may or may not be true (I think not), but what seems unthinkable to Chapman is the notion that someone might prefer to have less power in order to have greater sovereignty. The EU largely runs according to German dictates, either explicit or implicit – see Varoufakis’ book for details on how the latter works. The construction of the UK economy over the last three decades can be seen as being shaped by German industrial interests. I’m not sure what the point of Chapman’s last sentence is, or how it is relevant.

Paragraphs 6-8: Conservative MPs, if assessed by their votes in the referendum, are indeed split – yet equally clearly the majority of MPs, and the overwhelming majority of party members, are now committed to implementing Brexit. There is an issue of principle here – the people of the UK voted by a clear majority to leave the European Union. It is perfectly in order to say ‘I think this was the wrong decision, but the people have decided and we now need to make the best of it’ (which I think is May’s position); it is a very different proposition to say ‘I think this was the wrong decision and I am now going to do everything I can to frustrate it’ – such an attitude places someone outside of the democratic process and is an unashamed bid for power. Again, in favour of large multi-national corporations – a bit of a theme in Remainer dialogue.

Paragraphs 9&10: here the fear comes fully into the open, a fear of Britain being ‘forced into a third-country status, which could have a disastrous impact upon the economy’. Trade with the EU represents something like 12% of the British economy, which is less than trade with the rest of the world and very much less than that of the internal economy itself. I have no doubt that there will be some disruption to business, especially the large multinational corporations mentioned earlier, yet there is nothing here of which to be especially afraid. The economy changes constantly and I rather suspect that the car industry in particular is facing major technology-driven changes in the next five to ten years that will have a much larger impact upon employment in the supply chain than anything which will be agreed or not between ourselves and the EU.

Paragraph 11: “The EU has preserved peace for the longest period…” This is incorrect. Peace in Europe has been preserved by NATO. Indeed, looking at the situation in Greece a compelling case could be made that it is now the EU itself which is the largest source of conflict within Europe! Chapman goes on, “that peace is fragile in the face of the simplistic populism and extremist nationalism” which he sees as dominating national politics. Clearly, Brexiters are simplistic populists – the very idea that there might be a coherent argument in favour of leaving the EU that doesn’t reduce to ‘simplistic populism’ is outside of Chapman’s experience. Which is an argument for him to read more widely. I recommend Roger Bootle, Andrew Lilico and Daniel Hannan as people whose arguments he needs to get acquainted with.

Paragraph 12: “our Church leaders might need to stand up for a vision of pan-European peace and a common humanity” – for clearly, those in favour of Brexit reject such things. In Chapman’s argument, the EU is cast in the role of ‘source of all good things’, certainly membership of it represents an extremely high political value – and I would simply ask the good Professor, how can we be certain that it is not functioning as an idol within your theology? Like all human institutions it is a fallen principality, which the British people have chosen to leave. Is there really no room for seeing positives about this? Again, the comment about “upsetting some churchgoers” is revealing – I rather suspect that there is much unexpressed anxiety amongst the great and the good of the Church of England that the people in the pew voted for Brexit at a much higher rate than average. Clearly the great unwashed must be re-educated and forced to repent of their intellectual failures.

Might it not just possibly be the case, however, that God was at work in the Brexit process? That the EU has become something deeply antagonistic to God’s preference for the poor? That an institution which prioritises the bailing out of French and German banks at the expense of impoverishing the Greek population simply no longer possesses any moral credibility whatsoever? And that the sight of an eminent theologian and teacher of the clergy defending such a fallen principality in these terms tells us all that we need to know about why the Church of England is in the state that it is in?

The future of the Church of England: Insanity or Robert the Bruce?

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“Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results” – said Einstein, allegedly.
Then again, Robert the Bruce took inspiration from a spider, that kept going despite repeated failure – was he insane to do that?

I ask because this question seems very relevant to discerning which direction the Church of England needs to be going in. What isn’t in question is that the Church of England is dying – there has been a consistent decline in church membership for several generations now (see David Keen’s blog).

So: if we carry on as we are, we are facing certain doom (as an institution; let’s not indulge ourselves in the egotistical delusion that Christianity in England rises or falls with the CofE!).

Yet there have been other times in history, in the Bible stories, where disaster comes upon the people as a form of the Lord winnowing the tribe, in order that the faithful remnant might thereby prove their faith – and then be vindicated and give triumph. (I think there are conservative cohorts in different branches of the CofE that have this as their major background narrative). Some of my thoughts have been similar.

Is it the case, then, that what the Church needs to do is simply carry on being faithful in the way that it has been thus far? That the processes in the world that have led to a rejection of faith will turn and that people will once more embrace the faith? And – crucially – that the faith that is then embraced will be recognisably what it has been before? Again, some of my thoughts have been along these lines.

I am coming to the conclusion that simply persisting in the faith as we have received it is not enough. Yes, we must remain faithful – and continue to pray and share the sacraments and so on – but I am more and more convinced that the sorts of solutions I’ve argued for before are inadequate. Not wrong, simply insufficient for what needs to be done.

Most of the money raised by the Church of England goes to pay for the clergy, so if something is going to change then it has to centre on them. Most of the problems that clergy experience relate to the burden of establishment (buildings, PCCs, graveyards etc). So I wonder if the change might need to be separating clergy from all the legal aspects of establishment, and charging them simply to be ‘ministers of word and sacrament’ in particular areas. We could keep the houses as the link to particular parishes – so long as that housing was then offered for life (a soap box I shall avoid jumping on just now).

The thing is, if the sheep aren’t fed, they will leave or die (and sheep leaving or dying seems to be a good way to sum up the history of the Church of England over the last sixty years at least). We need to ruthlessly prioritise what we are investing in – and stop investing in the paraphernalia of establishment.

Set the clergy free to be what they were called to. Stop incumbency driving out priesthood. I don’t think it’s just me.

Yet perhaps what I am really describing with all of the above is less what the Church of England needs to do as a corporate body so much as what I need to do in my small part of that body: to be the change I want to see. After all, I have said a lot of this before. It’s not enough to say these things, I have to do things differently. To stop turning the institutional wheels and give myself over much more fully to proclaiming the gospel.

Might even be exciting.