Religious freedom under Law 8371
From Canon Malcolm Rogers
Sir, — The millions of believers who are members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been put into an impossible position by the passing of Law 8371 by the Ukrainian Rada last week.
The vast majority of them are deeply loyal to Ukraine. They have served on the front line, defending their home against the Russian invasion; they have given their lives and the lives of their children for their country. They have seen their churches and communities destroyed by Russian missiles. And yet, despite this, they have remained loyal to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church that is under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow, and has been the majority Church in Ukraine for about 400 years.
A very few, particularly from the East, want a Russian victory, and have collaborated with the Russian forces. The Ukrainian security forces have been (perhaps over-) zealous in their pursuit of those members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who are considered traitors.
But the fact that the vast majority have not voluntarily joined the recently established Orthodox Church of Ukraine — set up in 2016 by President Poroshenko and the Patriarch of Constantinople — is not because of any loyalty to Russia or Patriarch Kirill. It is because of what many hold to be a deeply cherished tenet of Orthodoxy that faithfulness to the past, to the teaching and rules (canons) of the Church of the past, is an essential part of faith in Christ. You cannot simply set up an alternative set of rules or administration or Church because you don’t like the current ones. You remain connected to the church authorities set over you even if you profoundly disagree with their political positioning.
The believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been badly let down by the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church in their wholehearted support for the “special military operations”. But they have also been let down by the Ukrainian authorities, who are employing a Soviet-style approach, arresting leaders such as Metropolitan Theodosius and passing legislation to ban, in effect, their Church.
The passing of Law 8371 puts millions into a position where they have to decide whether loyalty to their faith convictions or to the secular authorities comes first, and is, therefore, about freedom of conscience and belief. It has been questioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope Francis, and the Revd Professor Jerry Pillay of the World Council of Churches, and risks dividing Ukrainians. It is not the sort of measure that one would want to see in an emerging Western democracy, and one hopes that President Zelensky will see fit not to endorse the law.
MALCOLM ROGERS
(Anglican Chaplain in Moscow, 2017-23)
8 Ulph Cottage, Burnham Market
Norfolk PE31 8HQ
Christians in life sciences have more to contribute
From Dr Christopher Wild
Sir, — Samuel McKee, in his article “Christians in the life sciences need a home” (Comment, 23 August), makes several important and timely points about Christians working at the forefront of the life sciences. He rightly points out that a majority do not subscribe to Young Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design, but equally notes that the views that they do hold and the work that they conduct are barely visible in many of their own church communities.
This status quo may contribute to the unjustified but doggedly prevalent view that a Christian faith and a scientific career are incompatible, or at best a compromise. But I would argue the losses linked to low visibility of Christians in science are far greater than dispensing with the illusory science-v.-faith argument.
Science will be at the heart of several domains that will transform humanity in the coming decades, most notably climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and genetic engineering. In the latter area, for example, fundamental challenges include: the extent to which the human genome should be edited (or selected) to avoid disability; the power of an ever smaller number of multinational companies patenting genetically engineered varieties of major global food crops; the environmental risks of releasing genetically modified organisms to eliminate pests (i.e. gene-drive technology), and more besides.
The Christian faith has much to offer in the domain of genetics and those of climate change and AI, grounded in an understanding of the value of all of creation and the special place of human beings therein. The rise of so-called “cultural Christianity” may open an unexpected door to the wisdom of the Christian faith in key areas of societal development. Christians with relevant scientific expertise must participate in these wider debates. The worldwide Church should not miss the opportunity to harness its “in-house” scientific expertise, in conjunction with the relevant theology, to ensure that its voice is heard as our future is shaped.
CHRISTOPHER WILD
Address supplied (Rustington, West Sussex)
The Commissioners and St John’s, Hanley
From Canon Christopher Hall
Sir, — The Church Commissioners have refused permission for Muslims in Hanley to use the redundant St John’s Church for worship as well as for the community. You report (News, 30 August) that it is 52 years since the issue was debated in the General Synod (14 July 1972). It was further debated the next year, when a motion, to refuse sale of a church for such use, was lost in two Houses, and so failed — as the Church Times reported (6 July 1973), “leaving it possible for a redundant church to be sold for the purpose of a non-Christian religious faith”.
Speakers had argued that to prohibit such a sale was to be a dog in a manger. Roman Catholics in France had given, not sold, disused churches to Algerian Muslim migrants. Nine years after the race riots in Smethwick, the local deanery synod had voted strongly in favour of redundant churches’ being sold to other faiths, having witnessed the great community benefit from the sale of the Congregational church in Smethwick High Street to become a Sikh temple.
In the Hanley case, the Commissioners have advised that a restrictive covenant is not to be varied; so law is to be preferred to grace.
Last week, you also quoted the Archbishops’ Racial Justice Commission report: “Nothing is more undermining to progress than the right rhetoric with no improvement of the impact to which we aspire.” After the recent riots, so deeply coloured by racism, may the Commissioners have the grace to withdraw their objection to the Hanley application, which has the support of the Stoke-on-Trent Council.
CHRISTOPHER HALL
The Knowle, Deddington
Banbury OX15 0TB
Church-planting: lessons from experience, questions about the concept
From the Revd Dr Tim Weatherstone
Sir, — After your excellent articles on church-planting (Features, 9 and 16 August), I thought some that additional context might be useful.
Some forty years ago now, when newly part of a Charismatic free church, I formally covenanted myself to an experienced leader, and together we were sent to a seaside town some 30 miles from a successful mother church, to plant a new one. The enterprise lasted some two to three years before severe and tragic personal traumas forced it to close. My wife and I returned to the home city and church.
Some ten years later, on being very generously received into the Church of England, we joined a parish, meeting usually in a church hall. We had asked to be received after, in part, querying our own travelling miles every Sunday to church when, of course, there were Christian places of worship locally.
Our new church family had itself been part of a church-plant of a different kind, when a larger congregation in the city centre had invited some of its parishioners to move and join this smaller group in the suburbs. The arrangement proved successful, owing, in no small part, to mutual loving enthusiasm and generosity.
These church-plants were financed entirely by those who moved. In the first case, those of us doing the planting continued to work full-time and, through our own giving, contributed the necessary money to run the church. In the second, the benefice had an incumbent.
Theologically, the beliefs and practices of some of the churches already established in the seaside town and those of the new one were almost indistinguishable. In the second example, it was the existing parish church and its life and witness that were re-energised by those coming in and those already present, to good and lasting effect — perhaps pointing to the “graft” of the headline on 16 August
Reading your articles, I am struck by the continued presence of the same damaging prejudices as I myself at first projected and then had corrected. The sentiment that “ultimately transition is going to be really hard for some people” (16 August) quite neglects the result: a group of people, almost always the elderly, are going to be (often severely) damaged. When those who have assumed a superiority in the practice of the faith themselves attain to a similar age, is it their expectation that they, too, will be cast aside? In my offered examples, it was part of the folklore of the second benefice, that after the Second World War, a single family had by their continued faithful attendance rescued that parish from folding, only for it then to be reinvigorated decades later. Loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, prayer, and dogged persistence over many years had in that case upheld the church, over “change” and innovation.
I observed over decades in industry that “strategic change” over several years often resulted in returning to the same place, yet at vast cost in people and treasure. Another often neglected effect of the church-plant is the cost to leaders. I have witnessed the catastrophic effects on leaders and their families of attempting to manage expectations of those above and those in the congregations. Across both your excellent articles, what sort of voices are being mentioned in relation to the leadership of these schemes? And yet, and yet, on the very facing page (16 August) perhaps we have the truth: “many times I have hung on by my fingernails. . . I believe in the messy, diverse and compromised collection of communities that will always want to try again together as we follow Christ.” This is success; for the person who “always hopes, always believes, always endures” in the God who is love surely does not fail.
Are there lessons to be learnt here? In the UK, should we be starting separated “new” congregations when there have been for centuries worshipping communities in the area? What is the evidence that, in a society swamped by noise and excess of all kinds, those seeking something different want noise and excess? Are we following Jesus in “being one as I and the Father are one” if we are funding new congregations in places that already have several? Is it kind, is it loving, is it respectful, to dump people and congregations just because they appear old to some and lack power? Is success necessarily predicated on outside funding?
TIM WEATHERSTONE
The Group Office
The Rectory, The Street
Reymerston
Norwich NR9 4AG
Esther in a lectionary Catholics tend to spurn
From the Revd Dr Daniel Trott
Sir, — In his review of “Six Lives” (Arts, 16 August), Canon Nicholas Cranfield states that “the Book of Esther is not in any Anglican Sunday lectionary”. He is incorrect. The Common Worship Lectionary appoints a portion of Esther to be read on Proper 21 in Year B for those following the “Continuous” Old Testament track.
Although those of a more Catholic disposition often look down their nose at the Continuous OT track, it’s been wonderful this summer to give an airing to some stories rarely heard since childhood (David and Goliath), and to tell some that are barely heard at all (David and Bathsheba).
I would even venture to suggest that the Continuous OT track might provide congregations with the biblical background that would help them to appreciate some of the great art that Canon Cranfield reviews so eloquently.
DANIEL TROTT
21 Landford Road
London SW15 1AQ