The case for university chaplains
From the Revd Professor (Emeritus) Simon Robinson
Madam, — I write in response to the excellent article on the importance of protecting university chaplaincy (Comment, 24 April).
It would be easy at times of financial constraint to let this side of the Church’s ministry go. The argument often goes, “If universities want chaplains they should pay for them.” This is often accompanied by a call to focus on mission in the wider community, not on specialist care in a secular institution.
Such arguments miss the point. Universities are a complex and critical part of the community. They can be seen as anchor institutions, supporting their communities economically (through employment, contract, and purchase) and socially (generating dialogue which reflects on community identity). Far from being ivory towers, trading in abstract ideas, universities are focused on reflection and practice, epitomised by the professions that train there. The professions of medicine, nursing, engineering, law, business and so on all have their professional bodies that focus on core purpose, often expressed in terms of service to the community, and contextualised in codes of ethics. Universities, then, are a key and dynamic part of the public square where issues of ethics and spirituality are constantly in debate.
It is simplistic to see them as simply a “secular institution”. On the contrary, they are constantly building and rebuilding bridges across all cultures. This is where the voice of the Church can and should be heard, not least because this is where dialogue is meaningful and people are listening and learning to listen to many different voices.
So please, episcopal leaders, get busy appointing university chaplains who are able to join that dialogue and extend the mission of the Church.
SIMON ROBINSON,
Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University,
Centre for Religion and Public Life, University of Leeds
From the Revd Dr Steven Horne
Madam, — It was good to see such an important article highlighting university chaplaincies, the work they do and the mounting financial pressures harming such posts. It is my opinion that you cannot expect to influence and engage either younger generations and contemporary culture if you do not engage with either at their source. And, as such, I see university chaplaincies both as indispensable and strategically positioned, particularly where Christian mission is concerned, not to mention church growth and at least four of the five marks of mission.
In ensuring the sustainability of such posts, I wonder if a national conversation could take place whereby the current mishmash of funding and temporary arrangements could be replaced by an established national ecumenical fund and structure — an application, appointments, and distribution process not to dissimilar to the armed forces setup. I think it can be done. But then again I would, because I’m quite keen on praying.
STEVEN HORNE
Address supplied
Questions behind pastoral reorganisation
From the Revd Marcus Walker
Madam, — Thank you for your coverage of the Kerrier case, being heard by the Church Commissioners on 13 May in the wake of huge local outrage at the plans by the diocese to turn the entire deanery of 21 churches into one single benefice (News, 1 May). While the article and the Commissioners have focused, rightly, on the legal and pastoral questions raised by this case, there is also a significant theological and ecclesiological question that underpins it and which remains unexplored.
Although for legal reasons the diocese has to claim that it is preserving the traditions of the parishes in question (which they acknowledge are almost all eucharistic and either High Church or Prayer Book), the Bishop of Truro, in his submission, makes great play on how “the dominant expression of Christian life within Cornwall has been Low Church . . . until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” He concludes that regular reception of the eucharist was “relatively uncommon in the life of people throughout the history of the Church of England”.
Laying to one side the question of the relevance of the devotional practices of the dead of the 18th century, and the refreshing honesty that this scheme is intended to force a change in the church traditions of living Anglicans in the 21st century, there is a profound weakness at the core of its own argument.
In the diocesan explanation of its plans, it reassures concerned parishioners that “the good news here is that the Bishops have now agreed that we can have Communion by Extension. . . So for those people who benefit from this spiritual food, it will be more freely available than at present.”
Let us take all of what the diocese says at face value. If it is invoking an Evangelical reformed tradition of Truro, and itself holds to a reformed theology of the eucharist, what does it think is happening at communion by extension? Ripped from the context of the gathered community at the supper of the Lord, and without any theology of the real presence, what is being offered to the people of God in these services of communion by extension according to its own theology? Cranmer, Calvin, and John Stott would all say the same: nothing. There is no participation in the supper of the Lord on earth or in heaven. Their people have asked for bread and are being given a stone.
On its own terms this plan fails; it should not stand.
MARCUS WALKER
London
Prophetic seeds sown
From Canon Christopher Hall
Madam, — Bishop Richard Harries’ most courageous and prophetic act is overlooked in the many tributes made to him. In 1990, himself a Church Commissioner, he was much criticised for taking the Commissioners to court over their unethical investment policies, particularly supporting apartheid in South Africa. Technically he lost the case, but the Commissioners then created the Ethical Investment Advisory Group.
Now the Commissioners and Church of England Pensions Board are leading the global movement of investors confronting big business over their failure proactively to respond to climate change. His court case also had the seismic effect of advising charities generally that they could and should lobby on behalf of their beneficiaries and in so doing also protect their agency from reputational damage. The prophetic seed that Bishop Harries thus planted is arguably the most significant single achievement of his episcopate. God’s faithful servant, well done! O si sic omnes episcopi.
CHRISTOPHER HALL
Deddington, Banbury
PM’s faith, or lack of
From Ms Pamela Lighthill
Madam, — In her article “Starmer the atheist lawyer lacks vision” (Comment, 24 April), Angela Tilby suggests that it is patronising of Sir Keir to declare that Easter is a sign of new life, because he is a non-believer. If someone visited a church where she was officiating, and said they were not sure about belief in God, but that Easter was a sign of new life, I expect she would give them a warm welcome. Sir Keir may not wish to be guilty of hypocrisy in making a religious oath, so prefers to make a solemn affirmation if required, but this does not mean that he cannot sincerely affirm the life of religious communities. In doing so, he shows himself to be a thoughtful and warm-hearted Prime Minister.
PAMELA LIGHTHILL
London
Arguments for hanging on to church pews
From the Revd Martin Jewitt
Madam, — David Lee’s piece on Bubble Church and the problem of pews brought back memories (Comment 1 May).
It was in the church where Bubble Church has since been pioneered that we decided to remove the original pews, amidst a certain amount of opposition. As I was offering the reasons why, in the course of a sermon, one of our elderly faithful became ill in the front pew. I hadn’t considered that the pew might have been adding to her problem and she might have thus been illustrating my point. However, my reasoning was rendered null and void when the nurses in the congregation came and laid her down on the pew.
MARTIN JEWITT
Folkestone
From Dr Paul Davies
Madam, — Yes, David Lee is right: pews are a problem. However, when a single stacking chair is about £150, removal is out of the question for most churches.
PAUL DAVIES
Address supplied
Bodily resurrection
From the Revd Jonathan Frais
Madam, — Canon Stephen Mitchell invites me to say what I mean by “the bodily resurrection of Christ” (Letters, 24 April). I agree that it is recognisable — with continuity of face, voice, appetite, and wounds (now transfigured) — while re-made for a future world, being able to walk through walls (and a stone, which was rolled away not to let Jesus out but witnesses in).
I also take John Appleby’s point that a purely physical resurrection would neither be unique in Scripture nor to Christianity (Letters, 24 April). So we need to distinguish between Jesus resuscitating a corpse (demonstrating God’s goodness and power) back to this life, one day to die again — as with Lazarus — and Jesus’ resurrection (physical, renewed, undecaying) fit for the world to come.
JONATHAN FRAIS
Bexhill-on-Sea
Retirement injustice
From the Rt Revd Dr Nigel Peyton
Madam, — It is most welcome to hear Dr Andrew Sentance, chair of the clergy retirement Dignity and Fairness review, suggesting that “some sort of remedy” might be due to ordinands required to sell property before training (News, 1 May).
I encountered mis-selling experiences in my research into clergy vocational resilience (Managing Clergy Lives: Obedience, Sacrifice, Intimacy Bloomsbury 2013; Books, 17 April 2014). Tim Wyatt subsequently provided further case studies (The clergy who were told to step off the ladder; News, 10 March 2017).
Prompted, I believe, by the persistence of the Retired Clergy Association on this legacy issue, Dr Sentance seeks “to get a sense of the numbers affected”. Five of my 46 parish clergy interviewees across 42 dioceses spoke of their regret and resentment. Tellingly, they raised the subject, not me. There were 8500 stipendiary clergy in 2010, suggesting that possibly hundreds of stories remain to be told.
I remain troubled that the pressure to sell was so arbitrarily applied, and that amateur financial advice was given to ordinands at vulnerable moments of vocational obedience. The deferential sacrifice solicited was significant, with corrosive consequences for clergy and their families.
NIGEL PEYTON
Lincolnshire
Voting advice
Madam, — The short letter from Mr Billyeald “No voting advice, please” (Letters, 1 May) really needs a bit of unpacking.
First of all, as someone living in Oxford diocese, he may be unaware of the benefits of the spiritual, theological, and pastoral ministry of the Bishop of Norwich, which, I can assure him, are evident in the diocese of Norwich.
Second, there is no need to ask someone else to advise the Bishop. If Mr Billyeald goes on to the website of Norwich diocese, he will find the Bishop’s email address.
Finally, could he please reflect that issues such as climate change (for which the Bishop is the lead in the Church of England) have real and urgent theological and spiritual dimensions, ones that will affect us all, but particularly our children and grandchildren.
COLIN REED
Norwich
DBS forms and the case for a tailor-made system
From the Revd Toddy Hoare
Madam, — I am currently struggling to fill in a DBS form that the diocese has farmed out to an unhelpful organisation called 31:8. At every problem I am between two stools, as the one refers the problem to the other. I cannot understand why the Church of England does not have its own system, tailor made, offering online or paper. It would be more efficient, and the combined dioceses would save money as centrally the Church of England could well afford to have their own system. It would also cut out an unhelpful third party.
TODDY HOARE
Northallerton, North Yorkshire