Two articles in Tuesday’s Guardian caught my attention. The first was in the news section:
Young people giving up on their dreams amid the cost of living crisis
The article reports that according to research by the Prince’s Trust young people in the 18 to 24 year old bracket are abandoning their dreams and ambitions because of the cost of living crisis and mental health concerns. The cost of living, the economy and their mental health are named as the biggest factors in lowering their career expectations. The cost of living crisis threatens the futures, aspirations and well being of an entire generation says the report. Young people are left feeling worried and unconfident about ever achieving their aspirations and are thinking only in the short term. When asked about their long term goals, maintaining good physical and mental health and simply living happily were among the top answers.
The second was in the G2 Life and Arts section:
How to be a better human being
The Buddhist monk Mattieu Ricard has been called the world’s happiest man after he took part in a research project in 2004 that analysed his brain as he meditated on compassion. In the Guardian interview, Ricard said we need to cultivate qualities – benevolence, inner strength, inner freedom, discernment, so we are not too fragile for the ups and downs. He said the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis and mental health concerns are a source of anxiety for young people – and not only for young people. The antidote is action: act with compassion, do something, generate an attitude and get together. Compassion and action need to go together in combating climate crisis and in everything. He commented that the contemporary cult of secular mindfulness – drained of spirituality, is very simplistic. What we need is the wisdom and spiritual training to focus on what matters most, enabling us to become a better human being to better serve others.
The articles focussed my awareness on problems I identify with the institutional Church today. The Church of England has other priorities apart from the worries of young people about the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis and their mental health and future well being. It also has priorities that are given far more time and attention than providing the wisdom and spiritual training that enable people to become better human beings and in doing so, serve others better.
The Christian Church should be prioritising these two dimensions in contemporary life – the crises of our times (and they are multiple) and the contemplative spiritual resources that provide the grounding and practice that can enable people to live creatively, compassionately and with deeper sense of self and their own emotional well-being. The Church should be prioritising giving time, resources and attention to these two contemporary dimensions of life instead of the huge resources being poured into the Living in Love and Faith and Fresh Expressions/Mission Shaped Church projects.
Holding the Show Together
I’ve written about these two concerns first because I really do believe they are among the most important things the Christian Church should be attending to today. The first is a matter of justice – one of Jesus’ priorities, and the second is a matter of relationship with God in prayer and meditation – another of Jesus’ priorities. Some parishes are focused here, but the institutional centre is preoccupied with safeguarding and abuse (and spectacularly failing to get it right) and with, above all, unity, with holding the show together in England and in the Communion. That’s what the lengthy, arduous processes of shared conversations and LLF have been about – trying to hold the show together.
The College of Bishops meets later in September and the House of Bishops in October prior to the Synod meeting in November when decisions will be taken about the Living in Love and Faith proposals published in January 2023, the Prayers of Love and Faith and proposed new Pastoral Resources. The prayers are to be entirely discretionary and marriage in church is not part of the package.
The LLF team is clearly anxious about the November Synod, so anxious that at the last minute they have created two new instant processes. The first is a “Living With Difference Group” which is engaged in three more rounds of facilitated conversations. The second is a repeat of the meetings held at the Lambeth Palace Library a year ago with progressive and conservative groups meeting members of the LLF core staff team.
Living with Difference Group
The ‘Living With Difference’ group is composed of seventeen people. They have been invited to a series of three facilitated conversations around the Prayers of Love and Faith. “The group will aim to reflect the spectrum of views held and work to offer back to the Bishops an understanding of how their proposals can be taken forward, reflecting the issues raised in the conversations.” The group has met twice already and will meet for a final time on 28th September. Helen Shepherd, vice-chair of the General Synod Gender and Sexuality Group and a member of the Changing Attitude England steering group has written about her presence as a member of the Living with Difference Group.
“Two meetings down, one to go” is pretty much all I am allowed to say about the meetings of the Living with Difference group which has been convened in the spaces between the College and House of Bishops making their decisions on what happens next with the Living in Love and Faith process.
Helen says she has already heard most of what people have to say, and indeed often it’s the same people. People have reached their positions; although that doesn’t stop them repeating their positions again. The question now, she says, is simply how we can move on?
Meetings with the LLF core staff team
The same groups as met in September 2022 have been invited again to Lambeth Palace Library to meet more briefly with members of the LLF core staff team. The invitation says that as work on the implementation phase of the LLF journey is moving towards drafting material “they are keen to listen to those with particular hopes or concerns.” After the invitations were received, the progressive groups discovered that the meeting for conservative groups was on a date prior to the House of Bishops meeting whereas ours was the day after. An alternative date prior to the House meeting was eventually offered and some groups have chosen to switch to this date. As a result, Changing Attitude England and EQUAL will be there on Tuesday 10th October to meet with +Mark Wroe, Mark Betson and Georgie Morgan.
What to expect at the November Synod?
It seems likely that in November the bishops will bring the refined Prayers of Love and Faith back to General Synod along with the beginnings of the new Pastoral Guidance. There will then be what the Church Times reports has been described as an “interim period” – probably the five years agreed by Synod in February: The question for conservative evangelicals is likely to be, will they continue the journey? Or will fracture happen?
The Conservative Evangelical perspective
For conservatives the destination we are arriving at in November is “compromise”. According to a blog on the Anglican Futures website, the question has never has been, “What does God’s Word say about human sexuality?”, instead the fact that there are “different (legitimate Christian) perspectives” is taken as given. There is no ‘objective’ position which can act as a reference point. But this can’t be right in a context where the Church itself already has a committed position, one that has the weight of history behind it, and a position which, in theory, all the clergy and the bishops have themselves signed up to believing, supporting and teaching.
It is clearly still a surprise to conservatives that for at least six decades this has not been true. I grew up in a Church and was confirmed and ordained dissenting from such a position. I have lived with Christian conviction since 1957 in which I was convicted, as a result of my sexual awareness, that “God’s Word is either unclear or is not the final authority.” Evangelicals apparently find, to their frustration, that this ultimately undermines all the arguments of those who disagree. That’s the problem for evangelicals in 2023 – there are many more, the majority, who do not believe in God’s Word as the final authority in the way they do. There’s nothing new about this. Their late-dawning awareness is what has brought us to this crisis. In January the Church of England Evangelical Council asked again for “a permanent structural rearrangement resulting in visible differentiation”.
They have come late to awareness that “when we learn together, we begin to understand each other’s perspectives better and deepen our relationship with and respect for other disciples – other fellow followers of Christ. By defining the relationships in this way, the message is given that any views expressed are legitimately Christian and indeed the very definition of being a Christian is being able to disagree well.” Yup, that’s me, that’s the church I grew up in, delightfully welcoming, valuing me as I am. A church that compromised and was compromised that has always lived with uncertainty in teaching and practice’– that’s the real church.
Changing Attitude England
This is my personal perspective. If the Church of England is unable to recognise God as manifested in the life of Jesus to be the presence of unconditional, infinite, intimate love in creation and evolution, a presence that all human beings are able to experience through the presence woven into creation of what Christianity identifies as the Holy Spirit, then the Church needs to reflect on what, from the Biblical witness to the life and teaching of Jesus in a twenty-first century understanding of reality, God might look like and where the Church has got God wrong. From my perspective of more than sixty years in the Church, it has a very problematic, deficient awareness of God. The climate crisis, the cost of living crisis, the global food and ecology and movement of people crises, the economy crisis and the challenge to mental health, all these are at the forefront of my daily consciousness. Also at the forefront of my consciousness because I spend the first 90 minutes of every day in silence and meditation are the contemplative spiritual resources and practice that are essential in enabling people to live creatively, compassionately and with a deeper sense of self and their own emotional well-being. The Church should be prioritising giving time, resources and attention to these two contemporary dimensions of life.
I also believe in the full and equal value in God’s creation of all people, irrespective of status, religion, colour, gender, sexuality and age – all are valued; all are included in the kingdom of God. Until the Church of England understands and models this, people will not find in church the integrity and spiritual depth they seek, consciously or unconsciously. I am in conversation with friends with whom I have travelled, some for many years, seeking justice in the Church for LGBTQIA+ people and increasingly, trying to understand how the Church can evolve into a more compassionate, open, inclusive, energised, inspired, holy, spiritual movement. Changing Attitude may evolve in new directions, seeking how to embody unadulterated love.