Merits of multi-church parishes
From the Revd Dr Andrew Colebrooke
Madam, — Canon Jeremy Worthen asks whether the multi-church parish actually makes sense (Comment, 3 July). It certainly made practical sense for me when I was rector of a single parish serving seven rural villages with a combined population of 2,300 souls. While this sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from his 86,000 souls, many of the core issues and advantages remain the same.
Small populations do not reduce the number of essential parish posts that must be filled, nor does ancient church fabric deteriorate any slower. A single PCC drawn across the villages encourages collegiality and the sharing of expertise and resources — assets that are even more vital where numbers are few. One PCC with overall churchwardens and treasurer, supported by local district church councils, can find time to focus on wider mission matters that are easily overlooked.
As I was the sole priest in residence, not every church could host a communion service every Sunday. Instead, a basic rota ensured that each building had at least one such service a month, alternating between contemporary worship and BCP holy communion. Many parishioners were willing to travel to the service of their choice, creating healthier congregation numbers and fostering a stronger sense of community. I believe the parish is still thriving.
The drawbacks are obvious: some churchgoers will not leave their village, newcomers may struggle to find where this Sunday’s rotated service is held, and the administrative burdens may eventually invite the question “Why do we need all these buildings?” I do appreciate that, in the countryside at least, the move from loyalty to a building to loyalty to Christ and a gathered congregation can be painfully slow; and yet, for any incumbent short of assistance and wishing to avoid exhaustion, a single-parish model has many blessings and is worthy of careful consideration.
ANDREW COLEBROOKE
Saffron Walden, Essex
Flaws in the Draft Conversion Practices Bill
From Canon Mark Bratton
Madam, — The Bishop of Manchester has welcomed the publication of the Draft Conversion Practices Bill, which would introduce new criminal offences for so-called abusive conversion practices (News, 3 July). But he overlooks the profound flaws that pervade the draft Bill.
The first problem is that the target of the proposed legislation is moot. While aversion therapy, nausea-inducing drugs, chemical castration, and “corrective rape” formed part of a battery of methods to “cure” homosexuality in the past, they are now historical footnotes. If such practices are still carried out, they are rare and easily addressed by assault and coercive-control laws that currently apply.
More serious is the infinitely expandable definition of a “transgender identity” that replicates the protean mysticism of the conflationary acronym LGBTIQ+. It would also represent a novel category at odds with recent legal developments confirming that the law recognises only “male” and “female” as gender categories, and it would introduce a destructive cross-pollination between the criminal and civil jurisdictions.
This is especially so in the context of the exercise of normal parental discretion, where offences under the proposed statute may well engage the investigatory powers of local authorities and Family Court orders, precipitated by normal, well-intentioned family conversation, which can cause gender-confused children distress and disruption because they are not getting what they want. Indeed, this aspect of the Bill may well constitute a breach of parental rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which upholds the right to private and family life.
The lack of any requirement to secure the prosecutorial consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions or Attorney General first will encourage vexatious litigation by trans activist organisations against individuals and organisations that they dislike.
Most seriously, the draft Bill is a gender-conversionist charter rather than a progressive piece of statute law; for it overlooks the robust empirical finding that a high preponderance of children claiming a transgender identity are in fact same-sex orientated. These children are often manipulated away from this identification by social media and irresponsible adults into vague, subjective, indefinable identities that may well propel them along a medical and surgical pathway that will do them irretrievable damage. The draft Bill is not fit for its purpose and should be resisted and rejected.
MARK BRATTON
Hon. Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Law, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick; co-chair of the LGB Christians Core Group
Berkswell, West Midlands
The Chief Rabbi and the suffering of Palestinians
From Mr Tony Greenstein
Madam, — I find it astounding that the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, can say that the vast majority of suffering in Gaza is the result of the Palestinian leadership (News, 3 July).
Which other victims of genocide will we blame? The Armenians, the Herero, the Native Indians, or, indeed, the Jews? He denies the genocide in Gaza. Presumably, human-rights groups from Amnesty International to Israel’s Btselem and the Association of Genocide Scholars are also wrong? I am used to genocide denial when it comes to the Nazi Holocaust. The pattern is the same. Those who deny a genocide do so to justify it.
The horrors in Gaza are unparalleled in modern history: the deliberate shooting of children as target practice, the killing by “mistake” of 15 Red Crescent responders, the machine-gunning of hundreds of people gathering for food (the flour massacres). Were six-year-old Hind Rajab and the medics who came to rescue her also responsible for her death? Were the seven World Food Kitchen workers responsible for their murder?
Israel has set up torture camps where raping Palestinian prisoners has become the norm. At this very moment, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, detained for refusing to leave his patients, is hovering between life and death, tortured, starved, and abused. And then there is Dr Adnan al-Bursh, head of Orthopaedics at Al Shifa Hospital, raped to death.
If Israel treats its prisoners according to international law, then what is its objection to admitting the Red Cross to its prisons? Israel is a state whose military chief rabbi, Eyal Karim, defended rape during wartime, and where rabbis justify the murder of children to prevent future “terrorists”.
There is no criticism of Israel which is anti-Semitic. Israel is not a Jew, but a state.
TONY GREENSTEIN
Jewish Network for Palestine
Brighton
Different opinions on the diaconate and its origin
From the Revd Gill Kimber
Madam, — We “distinctive” deacons (not heading for priesthood after a year) are always glad of the support and insight of the Revd Professor Paul Avis. Some information has been omitted from his letter (3 July) which can lead us to a different conclusion from his, however.
Of course the seven in Acts 6 are not called “deacons” at first. There is, however, no doubt that they are chosen by the whole Church and commissioned by the laying on of hands by the Apostles, to be set aside in a very public ceremony to meet a particular need. This is the original inspiration for our ordination ceremonies ever since.
The Hellenistic Jewish widows had been pushed to the margins; so it was a matter of both justice and poverty that they should be cared for. These are two issues at the heart of every deacon’s ministry today, with our call to be on the margins, in “the forgotten corners of the world”, as our ordination service says.
Also very early on, the deacons were seen by the Church in general as leaders, as in 1 Timothy 3. So the diaconate was certainly a recognised ministry in its own right by then. The number of seven deacons was seen as a pattern later on: Canon 15 of the Synod of Neocaesarea (c.315) states: “The deacons ought to be seven in number, according to the canon, even if the city be great.” This was based explicitly on the ruling of Acts 6. Perhaps our diocesan life would be enriched by bishops’ having deacons on their staff.
At no point in the New Testament is there any suggestion that deacons were somehow subordinate, and they are never seen as a foundation for other ministries. The fact that they came to be seen in that way owed a great deal to the Roman cursus honorum, a system of working one’s way up through social categories.
“Distinctive” deacons are those of us called to exercise our vocation alongside other ministers, with our focus on the margins of Church and society, and a passion for those suffering from poverty and injustice.
GILL KIMBER
Founder, C of E Network of Distinctive Deacons
Bradford on Avon, Wilts
Trust and accountability
From the Revd David Ackerman
Madam, — Your story “Tied hands harm trust in bishops” (News, 3 July) on Professor Veronica Hope Hailey’s report Trust and Trustworthiness in the Church of England: Listening and responding to usual and unusual challenges notes that it was based on 74 interviews. I wonder whether any of the clergy interviewed was a parish priest?
It is extraordinary and offensive of the Professor to suggest that we face “a lack of accountability, both formally and informally”. Has she not heard of ministerial development reviews? Furthermore, we are accountable all the time, not only to PCCs, archdeacons, and bishops, but to everyone with whom we have contact, at services, occasional offices, and everything we participate in.
If anything comes of a report based on fewer people than attend my church on a good Sunday, then trust on the part of the clergy can only be more damaged, because, of course, this report sees us as the problem: to be supervised into depressed silence and submission.
DAVID ACKERMAN
London W10
Seats, screens, songs
From the Revd Jonathan Frais
Madam, — I appreciated Canon Angela Tilby’s comments on neurodiversity and the value of “predictable set texts” (Comment, 3 July). But there is no Prayer Book mandate to “sit/stand/kneel”, because pews were not yet standard, and we are told only to stand or kneel (although side positions were available for the weak to “go to the wall”).
What is threefold, however, are the themes of 1662 holy communion, as “sin/grace/faith” beats out through Collect for Purity/readings/Creed, then confession/absolution/Sanctus, and then Prayer of Humble Access/communion/Gloria. These “dependable friends” offer gospel security.
JONATHAN FRAIS
Bexhill-on-Sea
From Mr Neil Inkley
Madam, — Canon Tilby (3 July) makes the point that screen worship services leave worshippers with no idea of when the service might end. I have not thought about this before, but I am sure that she is right.
I have, however, on one or two occasions, after a couple of screened “songs” — supposedly worship songs, but not actually related to religion — wondered whether the service had started.
NEIL INKLEY
Much Hoole, Preston
Football and its rituals
From Ben Whitney
Madam, — Chris Bowlby’s article (Viewpoint, 19 June) about deeper meanings to be found in football prompts me to share what happens at West Bromwich Albion (“The Baggies”) with those who may not know about it. There are various stories about its origins — it may have something to do with when games were first played on a Sunday — but before every game (and on the rather too rare occasions when we score), the crowd sing the first verse of “The Lord’s my shepherd”.
It is also sung with a little more significance during tributes to those connected with football who have died, and the inscription appears on numerous plaques in the ground’s memorial garden at The Hawthorns. The importance of rituals and remembrance is certainly part of its on-going appeal. It may not be a particularly “religious” activity, but it clearly still holds some personal and corporate significance at a human level.
BEN WHITNEY
Lichfield
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