Prison ministry and its resourcing

From Mr Alan Stanley

Sir, — You have published a number of articles on prisons and prisoners recently. Your 23 August edition contained two news items that highlight the need to resource the hidden but valuable work of prison chaplains properly. The Bishop for Prisons, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, encourages church members to get involved with ministry to prisoners, while the WTC is trying to raise £83,000 to support the development of a theology course across the prison estate.

I am privileged to be a part-time voluntary chaplain in a Category C prison holding around 900 men. In the six or so years that he has been there, our Anglican Chaplain has seen his Sunday congregation grow from single figures to around 40 men each week. The context is men constantly leaving and new prisoners arriving. In other words, there is not a settled core congregation.

Add to that the 30 or so at the Roman Catholic mass on a Saturday, and the chaplains can point to a significant Christian influence in the lives of some men. What parish priest would not be happy to see around eight per cent of their parishioners in church each week? My Church of England chaplain is regularly seeing men come to faith and request baptism. What parish priest would not feel blessed to be able to say the same?

Chaplaincy work is often overshadowed by the emphasis on parish ministry. Last year, the diocese of Leeds received a £1.5-million grant so that local churches could share the Christian faith with thousands of students. Many of us working in prison ministry long to see a headline saying that £1.5 million was being given so that prison chaplains could share the Christian faith with thousands of prisoners.

There were 88,234 prisoners in our prisons on 23 August, which is roughly twice the number of students across the three universities in Leeds. Until better funding happens, from the perspective of a prison volunteer, may I endorse Bishop Treweek’s encouragement to get involved with prison or after-release work? Each time I go into my prison, I discover that the Holy Spirit has gone on to the wings before me, and I have the great joy of finding myself playing a small part in the mission of God in that place.

ALAN STANLEY
Address supplied

‘New things’ and how the data were gathered

From Mr Anthony Stansfield

Sir, — My conclusions when reading Madeleine Davies’s story about the recent report on “new things” (News, 16 August) were very different from those of the Revd Professor Ian Bradley (Letters, 23 August).

First, I assumed that when Cranmer Hall asked the various dioceses for information, what they received back would have been the results of the dioceses’ own surveys of their parishes about what they were doing. When I was a churchwarden in a previous parish, what we were doing by way of Fresh Expressions or New Worshipping Communities (the language might change from time to time, but the underlying idea didn’t) was a question that we were asked each year. In other words, the data that the dioceses had and would have passed on was the result of self-reporting by the parishes rather than detailed research by the diocese themselves.

I wonder, therefore, if the apparent low representation of initiatives from a Catholic tradition is a consequence of this self-reporting. After all, if a Catholic parish believes that (to quote the report) “a church is the gathering of those around the word, and sacraments as administered by a priest and according to the authorised forms”, then, for example, a new service at a different time may be viewed as “more of what we’ve always done”, and so not reported as a “new thing”, whereas in a more Evangelical parish it would be seen as an attempt to reach a different demographic, and so would be reported.

Second, the view that “new things” are essentially “initiatives in Evangelical managerialism” is very far from my experience when involved with others in starting and leading one. Ours was a bottom-up initiative that started as a collaboration between two neighbouring parishes, one of a Catholic tradition and the other Evangelical. Leadership was shared, drew in people from both parishes and from other non-Anglican traditions, too, and tried to respect our different backgrounds.

Finally, we deliberately didn’t call it a church. In our context, that would have given the impression that it was an independent entity similar to the local Anglican church, Methodist church, or Baptist church. By referring to it as a “congregation”, we wanted to be clear that it was part of the existing parish structure, not outside it: simply another congregation alongside the already existing Sunday-morning and -evening services.

OTHER STORIES

Bishop for prisons worried by sentencing of August rioters

RIOTERS “need to bear the consequences” of their actions, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, said on Tuesday. But she also called for a “more creative” — and more effective — approach to criminal justice in the light of the UK’s overcrowded prisons

ANTHONY STANSFIELD
67 Beechcroft Road
Swindon SN2 7RE

Was the Church irrelevant during the rioting?

From Mr Philip Belben

Sir, — Andrew Brown (Press, 9 August) cites the recent unrest as evidence of the “irrelevance” of the Church of England, because nothing that a bishop says, or a consistory court rules, can affect it.

Fortunately, the relevance of the Church has never been in what the bishops say, but in what the people do. Indeed, the recent unrest has shown how local churches feed and care for those dispossessed or injured by the riots, defend those falsely accused, and generally live out the gospel.

The fact that other organisations, of other faiths or none, are doing the same thing should give theologians much food for thought about the distinctiveness of the Christian life; the fact that the Church’s relevance is found here rather than in bishops’ pronouncements should definitely give food for thought to those who are setting budgets for diocesan offices and parishes!

PHILIP BELBEN
The Chapel, Maitlands Close
Nettlebridge, Radstock BA3 5AA

From Mr George Reiss

Sir, — Andrew Brown thinks that the recent far-Right riots show the Church to be “irrelevant”. Not at the local level, if you are newly arrived in the UK and wondering who your friends are, as the violence triggers memories of the trauma that you hoped had been left behind.

In recent years, many churches in the UK have been oases of light as they have provided a welcome and spiritual support, as well as practical aid and the beginning of integration into our communities.

The Archbishops couldn’t, of course, stop the hostile new legislation proposed by the previous government, but at least the truth was spoken, and the Bishops’ voice could be heard calling for a more responsible approach than the Rwanda scheme and other policy stunts.

In the context of the riots, and in the spiral of anxiety and fear that we saw on the messages that we received from those we have got to know, the churches were a true ally for the persecuted. “Rock solid” are the words that come to mind, but never “irrelevant”.

GEORGE REISS
Trustee, Wolverhampton City of Sanctuary
41A Sandy Lane
Wolverhampton WV6 9EB

Vicar raises hell in disagreeing over sexuality

Sir, — I know that the Vicar of my parish church says that he welcomes everyone, but, as he believes the scriptures, as he puts it, he doesn’t accept the science, reality, and lived experience of LGBTQ+ people.

After a recent service, I expressed my dismay about the commissioning service at St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (News, 2 August).

I have been able to learn and accept that some people are LGBTQ+, thanks to the help of my adult children, who have LGBTQ+ friends who are steadfast in their loving relationships. Also, I’ve learnt that the science is clear. And it’s clearly dangerous when we fail to read the Bible in context.

The Vicar told me that he believes that he has to preach against this view, and also warns people that they may go to hell. I clarified with him that he couldn’t actually say who was going to hell, only God. Right. So then, why is he saying this?

What distressed me greatly and surprised me was the unhappiness and anger that I felt at the Vicar’s suggestion of hell for me and possibly others like me who disagree with his views. These thoughts kept coming to mind, even though I didn’t believe that it was now my eternal destiny. Why was it bothering me so much?

Writing this email has helped to get these thoughts out of my head at last; but how dare this man preach this message! And what harm is he doing to others?

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Out-of-date language

From the Revd Stephen Southgate

Sir, — Thank you for the recent article on “neurodivergence” (Comment, 16 August) as a much-needed introduction for many to this pressing subject. The authors’ testimonies were gently indicative of the Church’s attitudes to difference: in effect, reluctant toleration.

Unfortunately, the very term “neurodivergence” implies that some of us perceive, process, and respond to the world in ways that represent troublesome deviations from an acceptable norm.

The reality is that human neuro-diversity is almost infinite, with a vast range of impaired and superior capabilities and sensitivities, and no two brains the same. In this way, neuro-diversity is just as normal as variations in body-type and colouration. So, despite good intentions, labelling someone “neurodivergent” is inadvertently as judgemental as bygone terms for disability, ethnicity, and “race”.

But even when certain outlying neurological, behavioural, and performance characteristics are identified, it is those that need to be addressed, not clinically labelled groups of us, because that leads to stigmatisation.

Any or all of us can be gifted or vulnerable in different ways that should be welcomed and accommodated in the Body of Christ, as St Paul spelled out to the heedless Corinthian church, and as was demonstrated by our Lord’s own radical inclusiveness.

OTHER STORIES

Leader comment: Quick cell is no solution

THE public in Britain, as in most developed countries, has been schooled over decades to regard imprisonment as a fitting and effective method of dealing with wrongdoers

Let us hope that the forthcoming research leads towards the kinder integration of all our various needs, and a greater celebration and liberation at every level of our many and diverse gifts for the Church to flourish and to thrive.

STEPHEN SOUTHGATE
The Vicarage, Ripponden
Sowerby Bridge HX6 4DF

Monastic arrangements in a medieval depiction

From Canon Nicholas Cranfield

Sir, — The celebrated image of the monastery of San Salvador in Tábara used to illustrate the extract from Sara J. Charles’s book The Medieval Scriptorium (Feature, Books, 16 August) has a slightly misleading caption.

The 1220 illustration occurs in Las Huelgas Apocalypse by Beatus of Liéban (The Morgan Library, New York, MS. M.429, f.183), which is thought to be a copy of an early-11th-century manuscript. It shows two different monastic activities being undertaken side by side. (The surviving tower was rebuilt in the 12th century when the window frames were modernised.)

In the tower, three monks are ringing the bells, as they would have done for the offices and for the hours throughout the day. In a separate, adjacent two-storey building that is not the tower, we observe the work of a scriptorium.

Although there is some evidence that scriptoria were housed on the ground floor, as at Echternach Abbey (Bremen Universitätsbibliothek MS. 217) and in accounts that suggest cloisters were sometimes used, an upper chamber was much preferred, as it was for libraries (and indeed sleeping), to avoid the damp.

NICHOLAS W. S. CRANFIELD
10 Duke Humphrey Road
London SE3 0TY