What the Church is really for

This Meissen Theological Conference in Salisbury is proving too full for me to have done an easy digest as we go along. So, I’ll offer a quick summary of themes here and then try to make time when I get back home to write a resume of content.

Bishop Graham Cray opened up a conversation about Fresh Expressions, looking at ‘Ecclesiology, Culture and Mission’. This led into quite serious debate about how the ‘charismatic’ and adventurous ‘margins’ (Antioch) relate to the ‘centre’ (Jerusalem) and where the accountabilities lie in church life. This was given fascinating treatment on the basis of the Acts of the Apostles in a paper given by Professor Loveday Alexander on‘Mission and Unity in the Acts of the Apostles’.

If you want funny stuff, go to a German Patristics scholar working in a Swiss university. Professor Dr Martin Wallraff came at the ecclesiological questions from left-field by looking at media development in Christian history: ‘Mission and Media – Observations on the Expansion of Christianity in Late Antiquity’. Dr Paul Weston (Cambridge) took us back to and through the thinking of the great Lesslie Newbigin in ‘The Missionary Church in the Theology of Lesslie Newbigin’. This led into papers by (the absent) Professor Dr Michael Weinrich on ‘Missio Dei and the Mission of the Church’ followed by Professor Dr Corinna Dahlgrün on ‘Protestant Theology in a Religious Vacuum’.

Today we are looking at changes in the church’s approach to its mission before going on to how the English and German churches are tackling (practically) their engagement with the cultures and societies in which they are set.

The papers have been immensely stimulating, but the real benefit is in the conversation and debate that follows. It is impossible to do justice to the extent of the material, but a couple of quotes might be suggestive of the direction of travel:

Perhaps we have given too much uncritical emphasis on the church as steward of the inheritance from the past, and too little on the church as an anticipation of the future. (Graham Cray)

The fundamental task of mission is to bear witness to Christ – to be, if you like, ‘fresh expressions’ in the world of God’s living Word. (Not fresh expressions of the church!) (Loveday Alexander)

I’ll try to digest the discussions and papers later when I get the space.

 

The Germans are coming

I have just arrived in Salisbury for the Meissen Theological Conference. I attend as Anglican Co-chair of the Meissen Commission, but have no responsibility in this conference other than to participate and enjoy it. How nice is that?

The theme this time is ‘Ecclesiology in Mission Perspective’ – which basically means that we want to tease out our understandings of what the Church is (and what it is for). If that is still too vague, then we will be looking at culture, Scripture, unity, implications of Fresh Expressions, academic thinking in Germany and the UK, systematic and practical theological perspectives, ecumenism… and taking a peek at dead influential theologians (who happen to be both dead and influential) such as Karl Barth and Lesslie Newbigin.

Now, for those outside of church circles who might think this is a weird way to spend the inside of a week, I’ll explain where the interest lies.

Churches – like any institutions or any groups of human beings with a common interest or task – easily fail to address the demands of a rapidly changing world. Their default setting is to consolidate the gains or settled patterns of the past – especially where such gains were hard won or costly in some way. So, it is vital that serious consideration is given at regular intervals to re-examining why we think we are who we think we are and why we do what we do in the way that we do it.

The advantage of doing this here is that bringing two cultures and two histories together provides a perspective that sets the experience and priorities of a church in one culture in the context of the critical light of another. So, what might appear to be (or assumed to be) fixed and ‘given’ in England might look a little more relative when seen through the lens of another church’s theological or historical experience and thinking.

Given that – for both the Church of England and the EKD – our churches are not there merely to maintain themselves as ‘societies’ or institutions with a common identity, these themes become important. The Church exists for the sake of the world and not vice versa. It needs to be built up, grown and supported in order that it can fulfil its primary mission of ‘creating the space in which people can find that they have been found by God’ (in whatever circumstances of life). And we can learn better how to do that by subjecting our own preoccupations and assumptions to the scrutiny and questioning of those who come from somewhere else.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

Missing the gigs

I got back from a great Meissen Commission meeting (in Wittenberg) late last night and have been catching up on the news from the Pope’s visit (as well as emails, correspondence, paperwork, etc.). Tomorrow I’ll be at the consecration of three new bishops at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The juxtaposition of these experiences sent my mind off at a bit of a tangent.

The Pope clearly went down better than many had thought (or hoped). But, now he has gone, life carries on. Someone pointed out to me that he was in the air on his way here while I was in the air en route to Wittenberg and he was in the air on his way back to Rome as I was in the air coming back form Berlin. Spooky…

But, what I wondered was this: does he ever get do do anything that broadens his horizons or fires his imagination? And I don’t mean Benedict in particular, but the office of Pope. The demands are infinite, the pressures massive and the walls of the Vatican high.

The three bishops being consecrated tomorrow will find that their world changes and it takes some getting used to. The big danger is that we become so churchy and preoccupied with churchy things that we lose the things in life that also feed us. When I became a bishop I virtually stopped doing music – no time for regular rehearsal or playing. Not inevitable, but that’s what happened. So, I have had to work hard at listening to new music, watching films and reading more than theology. The new bishops will have to find their own way, but they shouldn’t neglect their own nurturing.

One of the things that fires me up (and, I think, feeds my ministry) is finding new bands or being pointed towards old stuff I never really listened to. At the moment I’m loving Franz Ferdinand and watching The Wire. I have just finished reading Chris Evans’s autobiography alongside Hans Küng, Terry Eagleton and Tom Wright.

But, how does the Pope ever get the space to watch good theatre, hear new music, watch good films or relax with good fiction? There might be a simple answer to this and it is possible that he has cracked the challenge and has a wonderfully developed ‘hinterland’ that feeds him and fires him. But I wouldn’t bet on it. (The Archbishop of Canterbury does read a huge amount and has an amazing memory: he also knows some interesting and surprising telly stuff.)

Here’s my recommendation to the Pope, the Archbishop and the new bishops: they might not like it, but it will introduce a new world to them.

Tim Hain lives in Surrey, is an interesting bloke and a damn good guitarist. He has also invented a fusion of Blues and Reggae which he calls ‘Bleggae’. He plays loads of small, localised gigs, but he deserves a bigger audience. It’s fun, it’s thoughtful, and it makes you want to dance.

If you bump into the Pope, pass on the link…

 

Then we take Berlin…

… which, of course, is the title of a Leonard Cohen song – best version by Jennifer Warnes.

In England we have this rather sad envy of all things German. In Germany – so the story goes – everything is top quality, everything works as it is supposed to work, the trains run on time and they all speak English anyway.

Well, they do ‘do’ quality – just look at their buildings. Everything works everywhere – and, if it doesn’t, they put it right very quickly. Most speak English – which can be a little frustrating if you want to work on your German. But - and it is with some relief and a certain Schadenfreude that I report this – the trains no longer run on time.

Or, at least, mine didn’t yesterday. The Deutsche Bundesbahn was late!

I took part in the final ‘pilgrimage’ walk with 1000 people through Kassel, concluding with me and Carla Maurer (from Switzerland and on the right of the picture) sending people on their way home with God’s blessing. This final event also involved Bishop Wolfgang Huber and the President of Germany, Horst Koehler and his wife. So, I sat with them on the stage, had a good conversation with them afterwards (in which I suggested he didn’t come to Berlin Cathedral on Sunday morning) and then had coffee with friends before catching the fast train to Berlin.

It took 90 minutes longer than it should have done. By the time we got into Berlin I had missed the lecture I had planned to go to at the Humboldt University by Professor Dr Christoph Schwoebel. That’s ninety minutes late! So, I checked into the hotel, got a meal and had an early night.

This morning I was preaching at the Berliner Dom and I have worried about this for weeks – probably annoying everyone else by moaning about it too openly. In Kassel a good friend of mine, Christoph Roemhild, helped me with the German; so I was able to mount the extraordinarily enormous and intimidating pulpit with more confidence than I deserved. There was a congregation of (so I was told) around 700. I preached on the raising of Lazarus (you can read the basic text on the Berliner Dom website) and when I finished there was spontaneous applause. That has never happened to me before. I think they were so relieved it was over that they couldn’t contain themselves.

The service was wonderful and nearly had me in tears. The choir and orchestra led the setting by Johann Sebastian Bach and the service was led by the Dompredigerin, Frau Petra Zimmermann, and the EKD Bishop for Ecumenical and Foreign Affairs, Martin Schindehuette.

This service was, however, more than an opportunity to hear an Englishman speak German in public – which is usually good for a laugh. It represented yet another opportunity for German and English Christians to worship and serve together. This month represents a number of anniversaries: 70 years after the outbreak of the Second World War; 60 years of the German Constitution (Grundgesetz); 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; and almost 20 years of the Meissen Agreement (bringing together the German Protestant Church and the Church of England in a common service of the people of Europe).

In my sermon I did draw attention to the fact that much of the reconciliation after the war was only possible because of the readiness of the churches to admit guilt, reach out and provide a rationale and locus for forgiveness, reconciliation and hope. We take it for granted now, but I found myself deeply moved by the unity we demonstrated and genuinely felt as we worshipped together this morning.

While waiting for the bus to the airport (where I am writing this) I looked again at the Berlin television tower – an embarrassment to the East German authorities during the Communist years. Every time the sun shone on it, the reflection took the form of a cross!

Incidentally, the reason I advised the German President to worship elsewhere this morning was because it is Election Day in Germany and he told me he would normally go to church before voting. I thought he might prefer to hear a German sermon rather than an outsider’s ruminations. I hope he had a good morning – he is a very nice man.

 

Present, engaged and hospitable

Having got back from the Communications Conference in Rome, I am now chairing the annual meeting of the Meissen Commission at Whalley Abbey near Blackburn.

The Meissen Commission was set up almost twenty years ago with an agreement between the Protestant Churches of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and the Church of England (neither federal nor democratic!). The national committees meet three times a year, but we join up once a year, alternating between Germany and England. Last year we were in Meissen, this year in Blackburn.

One of the focal points of our work at the moment is to learn from our different experiences how we address and live with Islamic communities in our respective societies. Following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture on Sharia a couple of years ago, I was in Germany doing meetings and promoting one of my books that had just come out in German. Hard questioning and discussions made me realise why the Germans were so upset at what they thought Rowan was proposing. (In a 45-minute radio interview in Hannover I kept repeating that he hadn’t ‘proposed’ anything – he had posed a question…)

Germany has a written Constitution (Verfassung) – a Basic Law (Grundgesetz). This means that everyone is subject to the same law and this renders this element of ‘public space’ neutral. I had to explain that in England we have no written constitution and that we have what can best be described as a ‘negotiation based on precedent’. Furthermore, Islam in Germany derived from the (mainly) Turkish Gastarbeiter, whereas in England Islam is connected with the consequences of colonialism and involves communities from a wide variety of countries. (Yes, I realise it’s a bit more complicated than that, but sometimes you have to simplify it to understand it.)

The central theme of this Meissen Conference is Islam and our engagement with Muslims in our different contexts. So, we visited Blackburn Cathedral this afternoon and had a long and stimulating session with Canon Chris Chivers and Anjum Anwar, Dialogue Development Officer and the first Muslim employee of a Cathedral. This was followed by a rivetting session this evening with Dr Michael Ipgrave back at base. I now feel a renewed sense of pride in and gratitude for the Church of England – for three main reasons:

1. We still try to maintain a presence in every community in the country (in some form or other – including buildings, schools and people). We don’t just go where we think we’ll ‘grow’ our numbers, but stay where we need to serve. Anglican ecclesiology starts not with ‘the church for the sake of the church’, but with ‘the church for the sake of the world’. So, when an area becomes inhabited almost entirely by people of another faith such as Islam, we don’t leave and go away. Presence matters – even when it is immensely costly – which is why we have C of E schools with 100% Muslim population. Christian presence is important in such places – and it also gives us an unparalelled understanding of what is going on at the grassroots of our communities.

2. Presence by itself doesn’t do much. So, we engage in our communities and work hard to know and love our neighbours. This sort of engagement is risky business; any genuine encounter leaves you open to change and some people don’t want change (unless it is in those with whom they disagree). Engagement in such areas does not bring the great rewards of big numbers of bums on pews, but it is vital to the witness of the Christian Gospel that Christians engage fully in their communities in terms of service and love. Engagement creates relationships.

3. Such Christian communities – often very small – bear witness to the great Christian gift of hospitality by sharing themselves, their time, their lives with communities of people who are not like them. This is, again, where hospitals and schools come in.

There are too many stories to tell about what this looks like on the ground. But it is late and I’ve said enough for now.

A couple of years ago the Church of England produced a short booklet as an attempt to describe its theological approach to Presence and Engagement. Called Generous Love - an Anglican theology of Inter Faith Relations, it is more than worth a read.