Far Right and the Church’s task
From Canon Jonathan Herbert
Sir, — Last Friday, I took part in a Roma Holocaust Commemoration event at Sherborne Abbey, organised by the Dorset Traveller-led charity Kushti Bok. It was 80 years ago that 2897 Roma and Sinti were killed in one night at Auschwitz. In all, more than 500,000 Roma and Sinti were killed by the Nazis.
Two days later, I was on Weymouth seafront as part of a “Dorset Stand Up To Racism” counter demonstration against a far-Right-organised march in the seaside town. A thin line of police separated the two groups and seem to symbolise the growing polarities in our society.
Frighteningly, echoing 1930s Germany, groups of thugs are seeking to attack mosques and set fire to buildings housing asylum-seekers. My Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller friends tell me that they know they will be the next group to be targeted.
What can be done in the face of such violence and hatred? Engagement is vital. Ignorance breeds fear, but meeting people who, we feel, are different reveals our common humanity. Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller Friendly Churches model the kind of reconciliation that we need in society, as we seek to break down “othering” and bring people together. Only love and costly engagement can dismantle the fear that leads to scapegoating and violence.
JONATHAN HERBERT
Hilfield Friary
Dorchester DT2 7BE
From the Revd Simon Douglas Lane
Sir, — Praise be that Carl Hughes, the chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s Finance Committee, said on Radio 4 on Sunday morning: “I fervently believe that the thing we need to be investing in is front-line ministry: every study shows that not having a priest present locally doesn’t give rise to growth.”
Recently, it has been shocking to hear not only of the horrific events in Southport, but also the rash of violent demonstrations since. No excuse is being made for those rioting, but, in their perceived lack of power and in deprivation, they experience the pressure on schools, surgeries, and housing which the more affluent largely don’t: integration is a two-way street.
After my training curacy I was appointed to a parish by my area bishop with the brief to pull it round or it would be closed. It was basically three council estates, an isolated backwater of severe deprivation in a borough that qualified as affluent. The church was no architectural gem, with five leaks in the roof, no heating or hot water, a hall hardly used, and a congregation of fewer than 20. The bus route through two of the estates often stopped early because of endemic trouble, the so-called shopping centre was a run-down rat-infested complex, and frankly, if you lived there, you were supposed to get on with it and lump it.
With all the contacts I could muster, we obtained, after much struggle, government, livery-company, council, and grant funding, which allowed us to fund organisations for the young from birth to age 17, helped by the Surestart and Homestart initiatives and the borough itself, and also a weekly free legal advice centre. The hall was used nightly, and there was fantastic involvement with the community school.
The congregation of all ethnicities grew exponentially, and, thanks to diocesan and local grants, acquired heating and hot water, and the roof leaks were a thing of the past. We were never going to pay common fund in full, but we were a beacon of light in a challenging environment.
Sadly, fewer other sources of funding are available now than there used to be, and so withdrawing the Church Commissioners’ funds from parish ministry is a grave mistake. The Commissioners should be making sure that their precious funds, which were given to provide priests for poor parishes, are used for just that purpose. With local leadership, much can be done to improve the lot of the poor. The church can yet become a focus for local good and be seen to make a difference in these troubled and divided times. Galatians 3.28 should inform all that we do.
SIMON DOUGLAS LANE
30a Belgrade Road
Hampton TW12 2AZ
From Canon Andrew Lightbown
Sir, — On Saturday, I phoned the chairman of our neighbouring mosque. He invited me to his house for coffee and prayer, and to talk about how we can promote the peace and welfare of the city where we both serve. The mosque is arranging extra protection so that its members can meet and worship in relative safety. I felt truly humbled.
Could it be that one of our most urgent missional challenges is to pick up the phone, reach out to our Muslim neighbours, and arrange to meet, eat, and talk with each other about how we can, together, work for peace, justice, and the welfare of the city or town where we serve (cf. Jeremiah 29.7)?
ANDREW LIGHTBOWN
Monmouth Diocesan Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer
The Canon’s House, Stow Hill
Newport NP20 4EA
Charismatic soul-searching after Pilavachi scandal
From the Revd Dr John Caperon
Sir, — Your readers will, I am sure, be grateful to the Revd Dr Helen Collins for her article “Soul-searching after Soul Survivor scandal” (Features, 26 July); it offers significant insight into the Charismatic subculture for those who have not been part of it.
There may be others, however, who, as I do, find it alarming to the extent that it seems to picture not so much a subculture of recognisable Anglicanism as a culture that might be described as cult-like. Dr Collins’s list of Charismatic “fashions” that she has experienced evokes for me some esoteric group with its own distinctive experiences and thought-forms: “falling over in the power of the Spirit, holy laughter, fire tunnels, prophetic treasure-hunting”.
All of these seem a long way from the straightforward “fruit of the Spirit”, or indeed from Dr Collins’s own description of the “work of God among us” as being “forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, transformation, hope”, and so on. She presents Charismatic Anglicanism as having a self-referenced, even self-absorbed, identity, as her phrase “personal therapeutic intimacy” suggests.
When Dr Collins describes the reformed kind of Charismatic continuity which she seeks, it seems to be one somehow shorn of the “excessive emotional individualism” that she now recognises, free of “harm and abuse”; but she seems still to want to hold on to what she calls “the Charismatic faith”. But it is by no means clear what this might be, or whether it can ever be healthy.
Anglicans have, of course, instead traditionally held “the Catholic faith” — in either its Evangelical or Catholic guise. Dr Collins’s article exposes the dangerous, cult-like power of Soul Survivor, possibly of Charismatic Christianity generally. It is, in effect, a warning to all of us to stay firmly in the mainstream rather than seek out cultic byways, if we wish to be genuinely Anglican.
JOHN CAPERON
Sarum, 5 Twyfords
Beacon Road
Crowborough TN6 1YE
From the Revd Paul King
Sir, — I have much appreciated the Revd Dr Helen Collins’s reflections on the Soul Survivor scandal and her own background. I think that she has written very helpfully, and has, in doing so, said something helpful to all who are inclined to over-emphasise some aspect of our faith. A Catholic emphasis is very important to those who incline that way; a “true Bible” emphasis, ditto. Such enthusiasms are admirable and, indeed, desirable and legitimate. But all such camps run the risk of being sectarian and, in the end, sub-Christian.
I write as a lifelong enthusiast for Christian unity, I chair Christians Together for Chesterfield. One minor challenge is congregations who do not include the word “church” in their tile — but that is “something and nothing”. Another is the fact that some congregations are so fragile that they cannot find personnel and energy to engage beyond their parochial affairs. But the biggest issue is actually getting congregations to be more self-critical and more affirmative of others and seeing the whole picture. An undue Pentecostal emphasis, such as has undermined Soul Survivor, is just one of the over-emphases that thwart a wholesome and productive Christian unity. Not one of us has the whole truth.
The General Synod (Synod, 12 July) diagnosed itself as needing to be de-toxified. Come on, Anglicans. You know what is needed.
PAUL KING
10 Rossendale Close
Chesterfield S40 3EL
From the Revd Denise Noble
Sir, — Having returned yesterday from New Wine ’24, I applaud the article from the Revd Dr Helen Collins. I have spent the past week serving in the access team, where many of the delegates have significant social-communication differences or learning disabilities. We have been blessed as a community by a gentle movement of the Spirit among the most vulnerable and powerless.
A disparate group of people from all over the UK gathered in one place. We used a variety of languages, including speech, gesture, Makaton, BSL, behaviour, and echolalia. I have witnessed our delegates worshipping and ministering with a complete lack of ego or thought of what they might “get out of it”. I have seen healing and reconciliation that looks like the movement from a place of fear towards one of safety, or from a place of isolation towards one of belonging.
As a team, we don’t come away from New Wine telling stories that we completely understand, but we have witnessed the planting of a thousand small mustard seeds, and have prayed with church leaders, families, and friends to be empowered by the Spirit with patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
DENISE NOBLE
Assistant Curate, Christ Church, Chester
Address supplied
Commissioning in St Helen’s, Bishopsgate
From Professor Helen King
Sir, — So, St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, has “commissioned” (not, they insist, ordained) seven men for “Christian leadership in Church of England services” (News, 2 August). Besides “teaching the scriptures”, they will “preside at informal church family meals, at which bread is broken and the death of the Lord Jesus is remembered”. Your online edition includes this further clarification from the Revd William Taylor: “These gatherings would ‘take place separately from formal Church of England services’ and would be led by the commissioned men only after the completion of the first year of service.”
Clarification? This is as clear as mud. They are commissioned to lead in the Church of England. But they are to preside — a word that normally has eucharistic connotations — at services that are not “formal Church of England services”. They can do this only after a year of service. If these are not eucharists, but a sort of agape meal, why can’t they lead them as soon as they have been commissioned?
HELEN KING
Synod representative for Oxford diocese
35 Croft Road, Wallingford
Oxfordshire OX10 0HN
From the Revd Dr Charlie Bell
Sir, — In the farce at Bishopsgate, a careful game is being played, to give at least the semblance of legality, and hence put the bishops concerned in an unenviable position.
It is clear that solidarity is not an episcopal charism. It is inexplicable that our Archbishops have chosen not to say a word. It is becoming abundantly clear that Catholic order is simply something not even worth talking about.
We clergy are called to obedience in all things lawful and honest. That does not include enabling pretend curacies, with pretend diaconates for a year, to then enable the celebration of a pretend eucharist. These developments may sit on the right side of the law in its letter, but clearly fail the test of basic honesty.
CHARLIE BELL
Girton College
Cambridge CB3 0JG
Traditionalist’s legacy
From Canon R. E. Tillbrook
Sir, — Were the Revd Martine Oborne (Letters, 2 August) to bequeath £250,000 to a church, I am pretty sure that she would specify that it should go to a church that shared her beliefs concerning priesthood. That is, in my opinion, her absolute right.
I do not, it so happens, share her beliefs about priesthood, but I would not hesitate to stand by her side and defend her right to hold those beliefs. I wonder, would she do the same for me?
R. E. TILLBROOK
Pax Vobiscum
8 Newman’s Road
Sudbury CO10 1UA
Star of David spied
From the Revd Ron Wood
Sir, — In the churchyard of Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, where I was Vicar for 16 years, is the grave of Abraham Isaacs, who, I suspect, was Jewish, as his tombstone bears a large carved Star of David (News, 26 July; Letter, 2 August).
RON WOOD
5 The Paddock, Galhampton
Somerset BA22 7AR