CHURCH BUILDINGS stand, and have often stood for generations, at the heart of nearly every community in the country, speaking symbolically of the Word who became flesh and lived among us. Every church building that is demolished speaks symbolically of a God who has stopped living among us. Every church building that is closed speaks of the no-longer-relevance of God. Every church building that is not open to the public speaks of the unavailability of God.
Of course, our church buildings present huge challenges; but they are an irreplaceable heritage and a missional opportunity. We face an urgent choice about the powerful message that these places will relay in the future.
Therefore, it is vital that any decision to close a church is taken in the most informed way possible, and is not made without proper consultation and advice. Unfortunately, the new Mission and Pastoral Measure (MPM) (GS2394, GS2395), coming before the General Synod next week, would appear to enable decisions, including those that could lead to demolition, to be made in a less informed way. We believe that this is fundamentally the wrong direction of travel, and would, if passed, be damaging to the Church’s mission.
CURRENTLY, the Church Buildings Council (CBC) gives advice before any church is closed. In the new MPM, decisions to close churches could be made without consulting the CBC or its Statutory Advisory Committee (SAC). In some scenarios, they might be consulted only after the decision had been made; by which time it would be too late. Less informed decisions are very unlikely to be better decisions. Given that “the value of the CBC and SAC is well established” (GS2394p), and given that their advice and expertise are given to the Church without charge, why does the new MPM remove or relegate it from the system?
The new MPM allows the advice of the CBC and SAC to be replaced by the diocesan advisory committee (DAC), or the DAC of another diocese, or a single individual deemed (by those seeking the advice) to be capable of giving advice. Not only would that lose the national oversight that the CBC and SAC, as national bodies, provide: it would also introduce a process that could be perceived as enabling dioceses to “shop around” for the opinion that they want.
If it were argued that there is no need for architectural or historical advice before the decision is made to close a church, because that decision is seldom made for architectural or historical reasons, we would want to challenge such a functional view of church buildings.
A building that has stood at the centre of a community for centuries speaks of the inextricably interwoven stories of God and people, in a way that is irreplaceable. A beautiful building honed with skill and craftsmanship speaks the truth about the beauty of the Creator in a way that an undistinguished building does not.
During the pandemic, church buildings that had persisted through many a past plague spoke powerfully of that which is permanent amid the painful happenstance of human history. No wonder, in a rootless society, our young people are looking increasingly to worship in places of beauty and time-depth. History and the mission of the God of history cannot be separated.
Decisions to close churches would seem, under the new MPM, to be not only less informed, but also less independent, with less consultation of those representing the wider community. This is important, not least because the Church benefits from government funding. Currently, the CBC and SAC incorporate government appointees. William Temple famously said that the Church was the only institution that existed for the benefit of its non-members — but we don’t actually appear to want to consult non-members or their representatives.
AS THINGS stand, the Church is exempt from listed building legislation provided it runs an equally rigorous process of its own, with representatives of the wider population as part of that process.
The Church benefits enormously from this ecclesiastical exemption. DACs are required to give due regard to mission, as well as to heritage, which would not be the case in the secular planning system. And the Church receives the professional advice of many volunteers (conservation architects, structural and heating engineers, archaeologists, etc.) — for which anyone in the secular system would have to pay. While GS2394p expresses enthusiasm for the ecclesiastical exemption, the proposed reduction of external scrutiny puts it at risk. If the Church is perceived to mark its own homework, it may not keep the exemption.
In short, our buildings may be financially challenging, but they are also symbolically, therapeutically, and missionally potent.
We urge the Synod to reject these proposals as they currently stand. We cannot afford to get this wrong. We owe it to all who love, value, and need these buildings today, and to all those who have done so down the centuries, whether inside or outside of the Church, to get this right.
The Revd Dr Michael Lloyd and the Revd Dr William Whyte also contributed to this article.