Categories: uncategorized
Date: 02 November 2011 15:28:55
It was talking to my dad last night, who congratulated me on being on the winning side for once, that I got the first inkling of how the whole Occupy and St. Paul's thing is as important as it seems but also that it is bigger than we realise. Like everybody else I am working through everything which is going on and so at the moment am going to just add a few thoughts about how the changing world we are seeing may be indicative of the start of a New Reformation. I want to do this by looking at everything from 3 angles - the changes we have seen taking place over the last few weeks; the link between the actual new reformation and the one which people have been pushing for and what we need to be aware of in terms of false hopes and reactions against it.
In terms of the changes which have been taking place the most obvious have been seen at St. Pauls but actually go beyond this; David Cameron has been doing his bit too!
The people of our secular nation have shown that they still want the church to have a voice but they want it to have a voice that represents their moral concerns rather than the interests of big business. They have also shown that they want the church, which is a major player in property ownership and investments, to hold itself accountable and be seen to be accountable. They have shown that they want the church to engage in theology!
The monarchy is to be reformed in such a way that it will allow the monarch to marry Roman Catholics, and for gender to make no difference to the order of succession.
From 5th December people will be able to apply for civil partnership ceremonies to take place in religious buildings - where the denomination/ church/ minister, etc are happy to allow it. This is the link to link for the pdf with the full report. Unfortunately even if this change were to mean that Conference next year debated whether to amend the current restriction on this within the Methodist church or CofE I don't think it would go through all the processes in time to enable TOH and I to have our civil partnership in any of the churches we attend. However, it means that we have a huge step forward in this country.
"Marginal" voices within the church aswell as outside are being heard and those employed by the church are taking stands which are being publically acknowledged. As somebody said somewhere this week, "Who'd have thought it would be the Guardian preaching the gospel?"
The impacts of Flashmobs and Social Media have been seen in what has happened both in the UK and elsewhere. There are new forms of being church outside "institutional activity" being born which are beyond those envisaged by the Fresh Expression types. Power is becoming something which is recognised but no longer seen as a barrier in the way it was. Over the last couple of weeks we have seen people coming together to pray together in certain religious spaces, (most noteably St. Pauls) as a way to challenge the authority.
So that's the changes. What's the history?
Firstly, as with the reformation of the 16th and 17th century, this all has to be seen as a process rather than one event. Yes the dean and chapter at St. Paul's miscalculated and yes a certain amount of it is down to one quick comment from Giles Fraser. However, one might suggest that whilst God gives us all choices he does sometimes seem to make co-incidences happen. I want to actually suggest the idea that God might have more of a handle on this one than we'd like to acknowledge. In the bible he set up situations for institutional and societal change to occur - is this one of those times? I think this is all part of a wider set of debates and challenges the church has been facing over recent years.
The likes of Pete Rollins , Brian McLaren and various others, (who you are likely to find at places like the Greenbelt, Solas or Wild Goose festivals), and writers in places like Sojourners and the Fresh Expressions have been talking about the way a New Reformation is occuring, or how God is doing something new which might not be a reformation but is certainly something. They have been focused on looking at how you build something which is different to the models of inherited church we are familiar with. All of their work has primarily been focused around "the challenges" of secularisation and what living in a late/post-modern society actually means. Rollins and Ikon have been most vocal in the need for something big to happen, something which may involve pulling down inherited church as we know it - others have been more measured and reformist in their words. The thing is all of these people have been talking about the need for the church to question itself and for something more relevant and ethical to emerge. Um, folks it seems like it is happening here and now in a way nobody would have foreseen...apart from possibly Jim Wallis, who wrote this open letter which reached progressives on these shores via the Sojo-mail e-mail update just a couple of days before the Occupy demonstration and the incidents at St. Paul's occuring.
Secondly, the traditional denominations and churches are in trouble. The double whammy's of secularisation and the deepening recession are hitting our churches. Steve Bruce and the pro-secularisation theorists of doom have been talking about this stuff for years and saying that we were on a trajectory to irrelevance. Most of us said it that Bruce's doom predictions wouldn't happen, God always finds a way - well guys that re-energising often involves turning the existing structures and ways of thinking upside down because they have gone vastly astray from his principles. I want to tentively address that God might be using this all as his way of getting us back to the basics of the law, (as summed up in various ways but most simply when Jesus said, "love others as you love yourselves) and in the process getting his church back on track. Don't get me wrong I don't think all of this will lead to revival in the sense that we think of it, (i.e. quantiatively) but something more qualitative is happening. God is moving and his ways of doing things are being talked about again. Through this they are also being framed within religious language.
Also in light of the wider changes in society there are moves afoot to once and for all turn churches into denominations and rid them of their overt links with the state and favoured status. What the Con-Dem government have been doing in terms of reforming the monarchy and changing the rules on civil partnerships has been part of this.
So whilst the current situation may end up being seen as the start of the new reformation, (it is our '68), it has to be seen in a much broader context when we look back.
As for false hopes and reactions. I just want to make a couple of quick points:
1) Fear breeds fundamentalism and change/ imagination/ challenge to the established order/ institutions does produce fear in some. There are also those who intentionally breed fear because of their own agendas and predjudices. We need to be aware of that. There will be a reaction against this movement and some who seek to stop it occuring.
2) Neo-Marxist theory, particularly the work of Poulantzas, talks of the way institutional religion will allow change but only to a certain level and of the way it will seek to control that change. I welcome the words of Dr. Richard Chartres and the actions he has institued but I would look closely at his track record, some of the responsibilities he has in relation to the church commissioners and who he is seeking to engage with in order to achive a more just system. He is eco-friendly and I think this is where the positive stuff and wish for change is coming from. However, I think the transcript of this BBC News interview from 2002 is worth reading together with this letter on civil partnerships and of course todays Guardian interview. He is very much a man of the establishment and this should be remembered, faith should be put in him but not too much.
As for the Tobin Tax or Robin Hood Tax as some call it, which Cameron has rejected and Rowan Williams has spoken out in support of...this is something Christians and others have been campaigning on for ages. The media picking up on it and Williams choosing to use it as his way of engaging with the concerns of the Occupy movement has to be seen as positive but.....not all that it seems in terms of something representing a change of thinking.
But to paraphrase what TOH said way back in October "Viva la Reformation".