A day of legislation at the General Synod of the Church of England is a prospect unlikely to get the pulse racing. So, at least yesterday began with apparent delaying tactics: we had to listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury for half an hour before spending the rest of the morning in small groups for discussion and worship.
In fact, the Archbishop’s address infected the rhetoric of the rest of the day’s business. He wants us to “love the church”. How weird is that? (So weird that joining in the group work – for prayer, Bible study and discussion – was beneath the dignity of some Synod members who decided not to turn up.)
The Archbishop began in Congo where, during the horrors in which four million people died, children were forced into unspeakable violence and innumerable women suffered rape and abuse, the only people who cared was the church. That was what he was told by those who had been violated, corrupted or damaged… and then found that they had not been abandoned by the Christian community. Space was found for healing.
In the Congo and other places churches which had no resources were characterised by “the strength not to abandon” – a church “in love”. So, if the Church of England was not here, what would be lost?
Basically, Rowan’s appeal was simply that the church needs to grow “in the power to show God’s fidelity”, inviting others to “walk with us as we walk with Jesus”. Taking seriously Timothy Keller’s “Christianity is not advice, but news”, he summed up this news as “God does not abandon us” – news that “changes everything”. This set the ground for some penetrating questions:
- What does it mean to us that God has not abandoned us?
- Where do we see the church locally act like this?
- What does it mean to keep faith with society by not abandoning the deprived and marginalised?
Rowan then went on to defend church schools, ministerial presence in all our communities, and to urge the church to keep it’s preoccupations in proportion. God’s faithfulness to us is to be lived out in our faithfulness to others. He urged us to “love the church” – to my mind a necessary admonishment to those who happily kick the church endlessly from within.
This address built on an opening address on Friday by the wonderful Archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All Albania. Holy men, passionate about God and his church, reminding us of what our business is about. And a challenge to those who pick away at the church from within in order to privilege their particular obsessions.
We need an abandonment to faithfulness.
July 10, 2011 at 5:10 pm
We need to love the church as it ought to be, not necessarily as it is. Where it falls away too badly – by rejecting secions of God’s humanity, for instance – we need to take action to make it right.
July 10, 2011 at 6:17 pm
The Church (not just C of E) in this country needs to become more of a diaconal church, a servant church. Needs to remodel itself, then maybe more people would find it easier to be “in love” with it. There is much to learn from the examples the Archbishop witnessed in the Congo.
July 10, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Yesterday our congregation rallied round a young immigrant couple to give them a wedding they could not afford and to share their day when their families could not be there. It was a real experience of showing them that wheresoever they be, the love of the Church of God is there for them. I suspect we were having a better time ( on many levels) than many at Synod!
I also suspect that this marriage will outlast many of the £30k jobbies we hear about.
July 10, 2011 at 7:39 pm
that sounds like good news to me. thanks for sharing. I’m hoping you’ll report on how Bradford’s request to admit unbaptised adults to communion goes too.
July 10, 2011 at 8:49 pm
I agree with Archbishop Rowan and Bishop Nick…but with some reservations. I agreed that we should love the church when it is at its best an does what it does best, but also love the church enough to challenge it when things aren’t good and love it enough to stick with it when the going is tough,. It is very easy to love the church that Archbishop Rowan observed in action in Congo. There are also churches in the Horn of Africa which will be doing immensely important stuff during the current crisis with hardly any resources.
However let’s not forget that there are secular NGOs and agencies doing great stuff too.
However Nick I do feel that there are issues that need to be addressed here. Should we love a church which is “considering” …..interesting word that….whether to “withdraw it’s £3.5m investment in News International” something I only discovered that we had done this afternoon and which I find gobsmacking!…what are we doing investing in Murdoch’s empire given the scathing nature of some of the comments on here re the NOTW. Just how “ethical” is rest of the Church of England’s portfolio? Does this not seriously damage our national mission? It is very difficult to hold the government to account when our own house is not in order! We can’t berate others if we are investing heavily financially in the machinations that we have been so strongly criticising can we, in order help pay our clergy provide them with housing, and resource various work and ministry. Or am I missing something?
It is also difficult to love a church that unashamedly tries to bump up the cost of church weddings without a cast iron guarantee that the services provided will guarantee value for money in financially straitened times…but we can love a church which has a Synodical system which refuses to pass the motion!
Also, my Dad, a long time committed church member for many years, like many, and justifiably so too, left the church after being worked to the bone and taken for granted on top of his job and family life. He never stopped loving Jesus, he did stop loving the church as an institution for a while . That is not “sniping from within” Bishop Nick…that is dealing with the fallout from church which has failed to love, care and pastor its people in return. He eventually returned some ten years later to a different church, thankfully also Anglican, which was far easier to love than the one he had left. He died 3 weeks ago having returned to a living faith and active church membership some 18 months ago. It is OK to fall out of love with the church…permission can be granted..not everybody is in it for their own ends or to seek advancement and preferment, and they often get disillusioned by what they see going on around them.
Having said that, the church, at its best is very easy to love when it functions as it should, especially amongst the poor and the marginalised, but also at other levels of society too. That is a church we can love and promote.
July 10, 2011 at 9:14 pm
Phil, thanks for this. Rowan wasn’t romanticising the church – which you will see when you read his text (I will put the links in later). There is much that is flawed about the church – any church – and we have no lack of people to identify very loudly and repeatedly what those faults are (and who is to blame). But you are right that critique should come out of love for and commitment to the church – and the immense value of the church also needs to be articulated. I am sorry to hear your dad’s story, and he is not unique. But the poor care he experienced demands better from the church.
The church didn’t try to bump up costs of weddings, etc; it tried to get rid of unjustifiable fluctuations in prices in order to better serve people and make things easier. The proposals were flawed, but the committee only did what the Synod had asked it to do. The outcome of the vote creates other questions.
It will be ‘interesting’ to see what effect the Church’s pressure on and challenge to News International will have – as shareholders with a right to clear answers. We might not be shareholders for long…
July 11, 2011 at 12:15 am
I trust the bishops kept an attendence register for study and prayer groups. I for one would like to hold the no-shows to account and challenge them to be church together before voting on church.
July 11, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Thanks for your very quick reply Nick and especially for your kind thoughts about my Dad. Much appreciated. It is really good that blogs like this help us understand and appreciate quickly what is going on at Synod etc and how the process of decision making is carried out. Thanks too for providing some reassurance that we may not be shareholders in NI for TOO much longer and that the Church Commissioners shall be asking some probing questions of NI. I hope we are not alone.
It is a salient point that it was the withdrawal of a number of huge advertising accounts that helped to bring the NOTW to its end, resulting in a huge loss of revenue. If a number of key shareholders, including the C of E, withdraw their investment and place it elsewhere, the wider Murdoch empire would be adversely affected surely.
As for the cost of weddings vote, I do think that parishes in urban areas especially should be free to keep costs as low as possible. I think the charges for “extras” need to be kept in check too. What I am glad about is that the defeat of the motion and the questions it creates may well be better in the longer term if this is seen as a “first stab at it” so a better solution is eventually reached, debated and passed by Synod.