Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 June 2011 09:49:32
Been reading Mark Chaves, Congregations in America,
Watching the unfolding story of the Big Society
And reading the news stories which make me go ummmm.
There's Martyn Atkins talking change in the Methodist Recorder
And the story of Grayling, Dawkins and co's New College of the Humanities all over the place.
And it's made all made me stop a moment and think, re-evaluate and question.
It's all getting me a little twitchy.
The New Right agenda is being put forward in a new way,
It seems that the suck it and see aspect of the political process is being done in public through more explicit soundbites and stuff. The boundaries are being tested and then if they stick great, if they don't it's a U-turn which shows the government is listening.
At the same time with the cuts agenda there is stuff happening which is kind of scary, assumptions are being made which are based on false data and an imagined view of history whilst "safety net" measures are taking us further forward into the New Right wonderland.
The church, (in the widest sense) is unwittingly getting dragged into aspects of this and being neutralised as a debate. It seems like we are sleep walking into a future which is our worst nightmare because we've forgotten history or don't have credible alternatives to offer.
Working through in reverse. The New University of Humanities is more than just a discussion point in our house. Third Party is seriously looking at her choices for 2012 and is possibly looking at doing the vocational and academic mix, but is also looking at doing a pure humanities. She is very sort of Liberal Arts student that the place is looking for.....except she isn't because whilst she is interested in doing Philosophy she is also looking at Theology. As is obvious to anybody who has read what Grayling writes, aswell as anybody who has noticed Dawkins involvement, this place is intended to be the breeding ground for the atheist elite, something the Church Mouse has commented on well. (Note - I have discussed her options and we have discounted her applying to this college and so I am safe to be writing this).
What is apparent is that these atheist fundamentalists have come up with the ultimate business plan to ensure the maintence of their subjects and ensure as the UK HE system moves to being more in line with the US in terms of its market orientation that there is somewhwere prepared. They are doing this in a way which is excluding theology. Were this private "university" to work, which I think it may well do in the end...providing the blue print for the future of HE in this country...there is essentially a new battle line being set up in terms of who will become the British "Princeton" for Humanities students, (or what will be the preferred choice for Oxbridge rejects and those who don't really want to apply for Oxbridge, but are still very capable?).
The changes in higher education have all sorts of implications for religion and the training of ministerial staff. The impact of the fees on our denominations will obviously become clear over the coming months.
At the same time churches are being put into an awkward position by people who know our history and concerns better than we do.
In the 1960's, Mark Chaves, explained how many people in Chicago could not question Mayor Daly and the police brutality going on or welcome Martyn Luther King Jr into their pulpits. The reason? The fact that so many of the good social programmes they had going on were linked into and dependant upon government funding and similar secular funding programmes. To openly criticise would have led to their social justice programmes being threatened. I worry through the big society we are getting ourselves into the same position now.
Yet, and this is the flip side, we need the funding. Despite what Cameron and co have been saying and putting forward the truth is that whilst churches have a history of some social justice work it is more complex than it seems. The key function of churches has been, "being churches"...that is places where people can encounter the grace of God and engage in practices which develop their discipleship. This all take the time and money of volunteers. The extra giving that comes out of churches is dependant in most cases on them being able to meet their core costs. With increasing secularisation this is proving difficult.
Also as Chaves points out, and I think reading things like the UK Church Census it is increasingly the case over here, we have a strange situation. The average congregation size is quite small....but the average person will be in a medium or large congregation. This works out because there are more small congregations struggling on than large ones but because of the size of medium and large ones (over 100 people and over 400 people) most people are actually part of large churches. Even where the numbers don't reach 100 the same principals occur.
In the circuit I'm in most people are part of the "larger" churches, yet the number of churches means the average congregation size would be lower than it actually is for many. The question is how do you address this together with refocusing so that mission becomes a main priority again? That's what Atkins is addressing and it is an issue which needs addressing. Yet, it also has other issues involved about how we value different groups, etc.
The other issue arising and this fits into my previous bits is how do these issues impact our uses of resources generally? 1) How do we use the volunteers we have in churches, not that many of whom will really be activists and many of whom may be becoming physically frail as older age catches up with them? 2) What is our picture of the role of paid staff? Should there be more lay staff and less ordained? What level of training and education do we expect people to have? How should staff be deployed? What are the specific roles we expect our ordained staff to have? and linked to the above questions are we encouraging a professionalisation of certain ministries? If so can we afford this and is it appropriate? If not how will we give the provision and is it appropriate provision to be giving?
These questions are ones not just for leaders of churches, they are questions that we all need to be addressing and thinking and praying about. The church council and circuit meeting, the congregational church meeting, the parish council meeting are all places where these issues will in some form or another be discussed (although probably in terms of how do we do x, y or z or do we need to stop doing x, y or z because we can't find a new volunteer to run it and the old one is retiring).
The world is changing, and changing very rapidly at the moment. There are opportunities and threats emerging for us as Christians collectively and more generally as individuals in society. There are decisions to be made and voices to be raised in encouragement or criticism. There are alternative ideas to be thought up and thrown into debates. But, I think in so many areas this is not happening enough.
Last night when people were setting off flares at an event Grayling was speaking at to disrupt proceedings they were playing right into the hands of those who would take brave decisions without or with only limited accountability, (which we may or may not agree with). At this point discussion on an equal basis is needed and to be on an equal basis we need as many creative alternatives to offer as the New Right and the fundamentalist atheists, who seem to be dominating at the moment. Another example I drop in to this is the English Bac. We are now fighting a rear guard action on saving RE in many of our schools because RE wasn't included on the list of humanities for the English Bac, something which people are taking to parliament.
Yes, I know this is a random set of consciousness I didn't really have time to write today...but I needed to get it out because I am seeing history in this country as well as elsewhere is at a pivotal point. We aren't undergoing a revolution of the sort seen elsewhere, but we are undergoing a different type of revolution - thinks are changing in ways which are potentially exciting but equally challenging. Alot of the excitement comes from new thinking and people taking risks but alot of the challenge comes from the fact it is the New Right and fundamentalist atheists doing as well as thinking in this case.