Month: February 2025

Is God Calling?

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I usually skip through the online edition of The Church Times over breakfast on a Friday. It is a newspaper with a venerable history, having first hit the presses in 1863 (between the publication of The Origin of Species and the first sales of Turkish delight). In 1981 a scurrilous and highly enjoyable spoof of The Church Times was published under the title Not The Church Times, reflecting the popular use of the ‘not’ brand of satire in the 1980s. It came complete with adverts for high office, one of which stated:

Applicants are invited to apply, stating their public school, Oxbridge college, year at Westcott House, and Lodge.

Sadly, I would qualify on only one of these criteria and even then, by 1990, Westcott was no longer the powerhouse of episcopal chumocracy for which it was once renowned. This undoubtedly explains why, when there is presently a surfeit of episcopal vacancies in the Church of England, no mitre is likely to fall on that pate so propitiously cleared of hair, which would be enhanced immeasurably by the imposition of a pointy hat. Alas, as Cervantes put it in Don Quixote – quoted later by Sterne – with a head so beaten about by the vagaries of life, if mitres were “suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it.”

In recent years the criteria for preferment have undoubtedly changed from those in the 1980s. Favour has fallen on evangelical candidates; those perceived to have been successful in an organisation other than the church; and, more than anything else, priests who have a story of leading church growth. Once again, my credentials would make little impression in these categories of assessment.

All of this came to mind as I read through the classified section of this week’s issue of the ecclesiastical newspaper. My eye was drawn to an advertisement from my home diocese, the See of Blackburn. A creation of William Temple, consisting of parishes carved out of the rapidly growing Diocese of Manchester – itself an earlier Victorian offspring of the Diocese of Chester. The ad that caught my eye had a headline in a style not uncommon in The Church Times:

I pondered whether this was the same God responsible for the creation of the universe. That is, the entire reality identifiable from earth, which is at least 28 billion light years in diameter. The God who predates time and will draw time to a close. That God? I imagine that this God probably has rather a lot to do but, God being God, perhaps there would be an infinite supply of time so that spending a few minutes reviewing the needs of the Blackburn Archdeaconry wouldn’t be too onerous.

However, wouldn’t it be more honest and meaningful to ask: ‘Do you want to be the Archdeacon of Blackburn?’ Shouldn’t our desires be material to the concept of vocation, rather than being cast into doubt under a pall of implied sanctity. Perhaps it would lead to much greater honesty and candour if we explored the motivations of why anyone wants any particular role. As the Church of England struggles to address the abuse that has happened, and is happening, in situations where piety has been asserted and manipulated, it might produce a better culture if we began with a humble recognition of our own wants and needs. Wants and needs where, in various ways, God is already present and active. Teasing these out may be the best way to achieve greater honesty; self-knowledge; deeper discernment; and a safer Church.

Perhaps spiritual directors should run the C of E – they are the people, usually, who cut through the flummery and ask this kind of inconvenient question. Might God be calling any of them to Blackburn – or even to Canterbury?

The Outer Marker

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Interpreting complex and dynamic information is never easy. As a hospital chaplain I was familiar with the necessity to appraise a situation and make a decision under significant time constraints. Finding the right words, rituals or other aspects of pastoral care, when death is imminent, has the capacity to focus both heart and mind. On rare occasions, when the family and friends of someone nearing the end of life presented a wide range of beliefs, great care was needed to find a form of recognition and support which was of genuine service to all concerned. Getting it “wrong” can have enduring consequences for the bereaved.

Five years ago we were getting to grips with the new phenomenon of SARS-COVID-19. Hardly anyone in society had experienced a serious pandemic in the UK. Working in the care sector, it soon became apparent that many leaders lacked the heath care background which would have supported a speedy awareness of the consequences inherent in the unfolding events. Perhaps most significantly, the understandable desire for clear evidence and guidance prevented early actions to stem the rate of infection. As I commented at the time, in a pandemic, waiting until the evidence is utterly compelling is the definition of leaving it too late.

“we want to avoid any over-reaction but preparation seems wise”

Chris Swift email 11 February 2020

Viruses are most effective in the period when there is no immunity from prior infection; people feel no motivation to alter their routine behaviours; and when a delay between infection, illness and public reporting lasts several days. In care homes, where vulnerable people are kept close together, rooms are warm and many residents might forget requests to change behaviours, the risks of an easily transmissible respiratory infection are severe. By 5 March 2020 there was sufficient evidence available to determine that this wasn’t a rehearsal – but the emerging reality of a disease which spread quickly and had a high mortality rate amongst older populations. This was probably the prime date in the UK when decisive changes in behaviour would have saved the greatest number of lives. On 11 March 2020, I wrote to a colleague stating that, in my judgement, we were passing the outer marker of when it would be most beneficial to act. Finally, on 23 March, the UK went into its first national lockdown.

In 2020 different people came to a realisation of the need to act at different times. However, those differences undoubtedly had real-world consequences. If prompt actions made no impact there would, presumably, be no differences in the mortality rates of different countries. But there were significant disparities. Probably the best time to have acted in the UK would have been in the first few days of March. By the 11 March it felt as though we were heading into uncharted waters, beyond the zone in which wise actions would have made a significant difference to the incursion of infections. Sadly, in the UK and elsewhere, this delay undoubtedly multiplied the number of deaths; the incidence of care staff’s trauma; and the inevitable distress of relatives unable to be with loved ones at the end of life.

Five years still feels to be too brief a time for the world-changing events of 2020 to be fully digested or understood. It might be the case that we are in a phase of denial, finding it too difficult or too contentious to rake over the ashes of SARS-COVID-19. However, a time will come when we are ready to talk about the remarkable and tragic events which transformed our collective experiences of everyday living. Perhaps, when the UK Covid-19 Inquiry finally reports, we’ll be in a better place to take a measured view of what the global pandemic meant for us, and the lessons we can take into the future. Sadly, watching the world in the past five years, the international solidarity of lock downs and a shared experience of a sudden increase in mortality, appears to have done little to generate an enduring sense of our common humanity and interdependence. In times when threats to human life are intensifying and growing, the need to interpret dynamic data at a point when wise actions can still shape events, remains a critical need.

Lent Preachers

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As the Church approaches Lent, some Christians might have begun thinking about what to give up, or what to take up. Perhaps a small resolution of abstinence – alcohol or chocolate – and a desire to read something that will draw us a step closer to understanding everything to which Lent points. In some churches, while Holy Week might feature a visiting speaker to lead people through the final week, it has been the custom in cathedrals and elsewhere to have a different guest preacher each Sunday. This practice goes back a long way and can be found in various notices and signs that have survived the passage of time.

In 1725 Ash Wednesday fell on February 10th. Or did it? This statement requires some qualification. The calendar at that stage was still in the Julian form, meaning that the year began on 25 March, hence the Lent preachers list for St Paul’s is described as the year 1724-25. This practice was known as ‘dual dating‘ and caused considerable confusion. It finally ended in England in 1751 with the British Calendar Act and an effective transfer to the Gregorian calendar used by most of the rest of the world.

As the notice from St Paul’s demonstrates, Lent sermons were not confined to Sundays. The advertisement offers distinguished clerics on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, throughout the 40 days. These occasions were not for the minor clergy, but moments when the cathedral staff themselves, or various other deans and bishops, might pronounce their theology and spiritual message.

Laurence Sterne, who was a well known and popular preacher, was aware that his humble station in the Church meant that he was unlikely to be invited into the nation’s highest pulpits. The steps that grace the cover of A Sterne Lent – Forty Days with the Celebrity Parson the Church Forgot, are elegant, simple and modest. They are the pulpit steps of All Hallows, Sutton on the Forest, where the preacher stands only a few feet higher than the congregation. Today, I understand that a less formal way of leading worship (and perhaps fewer parishioners) means that this beautiful 18th century piece of furniture is seldom used.

Many of Sterne’s surviving 45 sermons were first preached in the season of Lent. In keeping with the motif found across Sterne’s work, he was mindful of the contrast between success as an author and the skepticism about his character which would keep him out of high office in the Church.

“I just received a Translation into french of my Sermon upon the house of Mourning, from a Lady of Quality – who proposes to print it, for the Caresm, & to give ye people here a specimen of my Sermons – so You see, I shall be Lent Preacher at Paris, tho’ I shall never have the honour at London”

Letter from Laurence Sterne to Henry Egerton, written in Paris, March 8 1762. Quoted in Volume 7 page 233 of The Florida Edition

In a style characteristic of Sterne’s humour, his letter to Henry Egerton in March 1762 makes reference to the fact that his own death had been reported in newspapers back in England. Sterne’s congregation in Coxwold went into mourning. It took more than a week for corrections to appear in the English press. Sterne would undoubtedly have been fascinated by the eulogies which were published in the intervening days.

St Paul’s never beckoned the peculiar rural parson who had found fame – and a little fortune – through both his published sermons and Tristram Shandy. Undoubtedly Sterne has the last laugh, as the great names of that era, who graced the pulpits of the nation’s cathedrals, are now unknown. Yet, somehow, Sterne’s radical approach to the novel continues to stir the creative spirit of contemporary artists and authors across the world. I believe they also have a much neglected spiritual significance.

Perhaps one of the most attractive things about Sterne is his refusal to conform simply in order to ‘get on’. Yes, it rankled with him that there would be no palace to live in, or ample stipend to live off in a lavish style. Sterne can’t quite let go of the cost – the sacrifice – which witty writing and ecclesiastical satire had imposed on his prospects. Friends advised him to temper his writing until he was in the kind of exalted position no one could touch. However, I suspect that Sterne knew this beguiling suggestion for what it was, and that it would blunt the sharpness of his writing. Too many people have entered the church, or politics, certain that when they ‘arrive’ they will enact their intention to do something dazzling and different. Alas, how often do these well-intentioned ambitions become paralysed in the sticky web of power’s compromise? Sterne may not have preached in England’s most exalted pulpits – but the life we encounter in his writing is an enduring lesson on human weakness and hypocrisy, redeemed only by a God whose sense of forgiving humour is so much greater than the dismal depths of our everyday folly.

Unappropriated Forever

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St Luke’s church in Cleckheaton is a barn of a building. Like so many of the churches thrown up to meet the needs of urban populations, this Victorian Gothic edifice had the working classes in its sights. A nearby Medieval church had assigned seating, and was no doubt the preferred place of worship for the landed gentry and families that looked to the countryside for their employment. St Luke’s, by contrast, was marking a new path in religion and a foundation stone in its porch made known the more egalitarian ambitions of its approach. As The Church Times of 28 October 1887 reported from the laying of the foundation stone: “It is to seat 650 persons, and the sittings are to be free and unappropriated”.

I was reminded of this bold statement of intent during this morning’s edition of Sunday on Radio 4. An item from BBC Radio Solent told the story of an Anglican church that has doubled up as a badminton court for more than 50 years. At Christ Church Melplash, one of the locals interviewed read out the statement made at its foundation that “the seats in this church are to be free and unappropriated forever”. The instruction was given by James Bandinel, the son of a cleric and a civil servant involved in implementing the abolition of slavery. His role was to supervise the suppression of slave trade activities and this included the seizure of boats. Bandinel received a good salary based on the funds generated by selling condemned slave ships. In turn, Bandinel used his wealth to fund the construction of Christ Church Melplash.

The approach to founding churches without assigned seating, or pew rents, perhaps responded to growing militancy in the population at large about privilege in the Church of England. Another example of churches taking this line includes Holy Trinity Stowupland, in Suffolk. Perhaps due to the nature of the its rural character, there were only two of these cheap, plain churches built in the county to meet the growing needs of urban populations.

‘here in the porch is the original foundation board, beginning This church was erected 1843. It contains 250 sittings,and in consequence of a grant from “The Incorporated Society for promoting the enlargement, building and repairing of Churches and Chapels”, the whole of that number are hereby declared to be free and unappropriated forever‘.

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk – a journey through the churches of Suffolk

Plaque at the Church of the Holy Trinity, on the outskirts of Toronto: “free and unappropriated”

Which leads me, inevitably, to the Church of England today. The unique characteristics of the C of E mean that this is a church that belongs to the people of England – free and unappropriated. It’s why, in the current turbulence of the resignations; uncertainty; and instability, the outcome of events is more than a matter to be resolved by clergy and congregations. It must involve a wider consultation and engagement with parishioners and enable the Church to continue its historic mission to serve the people of England in the name of Christ. That’s why, on 27 November 2024, I wrote to the Prime Minister to express concerns about the ability of the C of E to resolve its own problems.

‘While the nature and resources of the Church of England has changed significantly over the past twenty years it continues to have an unparalleled presence across the cities, towns and villages of England. It has often played a key role in developing inter-faith relations, community cohesion and pastoral care, especially at times of national crisis or change. I believe that this role continues to be valuable and worthy of political support. However, it appears very uncertain that the Church of England can reform itself within the provision of its existing structures and leadership. The safe operation of the Church remains a concern”.

Extract from my Letter to Sir Keir Starmer, 27 November 2024

Unsurprisingly, the reply from the Correspondence Officer in the Cabinet Office did little more than refer the matter to the Honours Secretariat. In turn, the Secretariat pushed the issues into the court of General Synod. Perhaps the only slight indication that there is some concern at the level of political leadership has come in the form of a communication from the Charity Commission to members of General Synod. The letter is hosted on the UK Government website. The tone of the letter suggest that it is intended to be a “shot across the bows” of the C of E, reminding Synod members to “remain aware of your legal trustee duties during debate and voting on relevant Synod business”.

Over many centuries the C of E has benefited from charitable endowments and donations. It is duty bound to manage the charitable aspects of its structure for the good of the people it serves, in this case, the entire population of England. Narrow religious enterprises which fail to demonstrate public benefit must be brought under examination and the central purpose and mission of the C of E cannot be watered down in an attempt to shape itself to what many other churches already do very well. The C of E has a clear character, heritage and purpose. This must be upheld; funded; supported and encouraged.