Sabbatical reflections #8: in between Mirfield and South Africa

The sharp-eyed followers of this blog will notice that so far my 'sabbatical reflections' reached the end of Week 1 (of 12), and then stopped. The first week - on 'individual guided retreat' in silence at the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield - was intense, and generously spacious, enough to generate seven substantial chunks of reflection here, and to effect that 'changing gear', and 'letting go', that I had hoped for.

The five weeks that followed were of quite a different character. I was back home, but not 'working' - while my wife Janey, and the two kids, continued their daily routines of work and school, and the living webs of relationship in our neighbourhood, in which I'm normally significantly entangled, carried on without me.

'Stuff happened' in that time: I wrote a journal article (on 'hosting' and 'commoning' - in the latest issue of Crucible: the Journal of Christian Social Ethics); we visited friends in Liverpool (for a weekend! including an actual Sunday!!); I delivered a day's training on community-building to church folk in Bristol; we welcomed some community-builders from Singapore to our neighbourhood for a couple of days; I joined some of my friends and neighbours on an overnight trip to see the fantastic community growing project that calls itself 'Incredible Edible Todmorden'; we had fab friends from the USA to stay for a few nights; we celebrated both the kids' birthdays (11 and 8); I went to a great friend's ordination to the priesthood and then preached at her first eucharist; I spent several days having conversations with various interesting people I rarely get to spend time with normally; I spent a day in Oxford at a gathering for missional theological educators (I was a bit of an interloper!); and thanks to wonderful in-laws, Janey and I even got a couple of nights away together, on an island in the middle of the Thames!

But believe it or not, the 'slowing of pace' that began in Mirfield was a feature of those five weeks. With just one or two exceptions, I was able to take the kids to school in the morning (the normal pattern in our household) and pick them up at the end of their day (much less common for me). And not having any evening meetings (bliss!), many of our evenings were spent playing games, and - especially with our 11 year-old - baking ever-more-ambitious cakes. And the day - the oh-so-short day! - between school drop-off and pick-up managed to fill itself easily with a bit of reading, a bit of cycling, and the day-to-day domestic necessities of keeping the house going (while in 'normal life' I do my very best to take a fair share of the domestics, I'm very aware that the reality is often somewhat less than a decent 50% - at least in this sabbatical time, the balance was able to shift substantially in the other direction).

And I really, really enjoyed it. Not just the noticeably lower stress levels of not having to do the usual juggling of 101 tasks, and the mental 'holding of stuff' that normally lasts all the way to sleep, and resurfaces in the first waking moments in the morning. But the positive living of a different kind of life - the revitalization of aspects of my vocation (the call to live the whole, particular, fully human life-in-relationship that is uniquely mine and not anyone else's) that had been at best marginalized, and at worst forgotten: the call to be dad, husband and home-maker, the call to play and to bake, the call to take time to read and to give time to listen to others well beyond the local, the call to tread lightly on the earth and to take time out to rest.

The tantalising challenge, of course, is how to give good time to these other aspects of vocation, when sabbatical is over and 'the day job' resumes?

But that was a question deferred, for the moment. Because after those five weeks of 'a different kind of normal', the next phase of the sabbatical adventure would take me to the other side of the world...

theological ecology - something new

Meanwhile... you might be interested in theologicalecology.blogspot.com - a new blog I'm starting, in parallel with this one. You could click on the link above - or read the first post here...

I'm going to try something new.

Since 2010, I've been writing a blog, on and off, rooted in my outer estate neighbourhood on the edge of the city of Birmingham. Often its subject matter has stretched wider - touching at times on national politics, and the internal politics of the Church of England - but its focus has been, and remains, the labour of love that we call "community-building", often across dividing lines of race and class, but with a focus on nurturing relationships between neighbours rooted in particular places. Much of what I've written there over the years has been about what we've been doing in our own neighbourhood (the Firs & Bromford estate, Hodge Hill), and what we've been learning through that doing. Some of that learning became a PhD (developing a "radically receptive" political theology from the urban margins), and that in turn has turned out to be a springboard for some writing and speaking and some fascinating, stretching conversations in the wider world.

This is something different.

This is venturing into terrain that I, personally, don't know remotely well. It will be following the footsteps (and, at times, paw-prints) of people (and other creatures) that know the ground much better than me. I come as a late arrival to a "party" - or perhaps it's a walk in the woods, a picnic, a protest, a dance, a lament - that many others have been at for years.

But better late than never. And better something than nothing. As the public-theologians / comedy-rap-jazz-duo Harry and Chris put it:

"They say it's a drop in the ocean / as if that's a reason to stop.

Well maybe they've forgotten the ocean / is literally made up of drops."

So what is it?

When theology is divided into sub-disciplines, it's often labelled "eco-theology".

But many practitioners of "eco-theology" would argue, I think, that compartmentalising it as a sub-discipline is, itself, part of the problem.

An earth-centred (rather than human-centred) theology should change everything: not just the way we think about creation and salvation, but the way we think about God, and Jesus, and the gospel, and discipleship, and church, and mission, and... everything...

Eco-theology reminds us that everything that is, is connected. Interrelated. Entangled. Interdependent.

In Western theology, over the last couple of centuries, the idea that everything in theology is connected to everything else has been expressed in the sub-discipline called "systematic theology".

But the "systems" of "systematic theology" have too often been overly rigid, fixed, rational. Drawn only in straight lines. "Mind over matter", imposing their intellectual categories on messy reality. And captive to a profoundly white, Western, heterosexual male way of thinking about the world.

What if we were to think about theology not as a "system" but as an "ecology"? Where the connections and interrelations are rarely in straight lines, and are often more mysterious, hidden, buried deep beneath the surface? Where nothing is fixed - where everything grows, changes, evolves, dies? Where one thing changing, changes everything else? Where "matter" is what matters, and what thinks, and breathes, and communicates... and grows, changes, evolves, dies...?

This is what I want to call the "theological ecology".

And the blog posts that follow will not attempt, as systematic theology has often claimed, to offer a comprehensive description of all the ecology's elements and interrelations. The ecology is too wonderful, too mysterious, too complex for that to be even possible. And even if it were, I am - as I've already said - a late arrival, a novice, a stumbling beginner in this unfamiliar terrain. Here, then, I'll just offer a handful of fragments, whether picked up from others or glimpsed for myself - fragments of beauty, wonder (and sometimes terror) that I find myself turning over and over in my hand, or straining my eyes to see from a distance.

Some connections between the fragments may emerge over time. I'm expecting this to be a place, though, not just to sit back and marvel at the complex connections. But a place that calls us to jump in with both feet - to immerse ourselves in the overwhelming realities of the one world that we live in - and to action: to be changed and to change; to grow and evolve; to live and to die...

Come and join our Common Ground Community!

[NB. UPDATE July 2020 we’re renewing this invitation for new residents, with any possible start date that is safe and possible for you.]

Who we’re looking for

• Short- to medium-term (minimum 10 months) resident community members – wanting to explore the fun, challenges and life-changing possibilities of sharing a common life together (perhaps alongside studies or paid work), engaging in a rich diversity of pioneering missional activities, sharing your gifts and exploring God’s call alongside wise lay people and experienced Anglican priests, and learning together more about God, the world, and a lived-out Christian faith among our neighbours.

What’s the ‘common ground community’?

• The Common Ground Community is an intentional, missional community, with ‘resident members’ living in our Old Rectory Community House, and ‘local members’ dispersed across the wider neighbourhood. Part of the ‘extended family’ of Hodge Hill Church (an Anglican-URC ecumenical partnership, and a registered Inclusive Church), Common Ground is involved in nurturing what we call ‘homely’ expressions of church locally (as well as larger, more familiar Sunday services), and in developing a new missional expression of church (‘FABChurch’) on the Firs & Bromford estate.
• Together we are seeking to learn and live out rhythms of life shaped by ‘shalom’ (peace, justice, wholeness), and expressed in sharing activity, food and friendship with our neighbours, and reflecting, learning and praying together as a community. We’re involved in community cafés and multi-cultural women’s groups, street parties and forest spaces, community gardening and climate change protests. We learn together, from our neighbours, and from a wider network of travelling companions across the UK and the wider world.

Where we are

• We’re in the diverse, multi-cultural and rapidly-changing area of Hodge Hill, in East Birmingham, near M6 Junction 5. The Old Rectory (B36 8AG) is in a quiet spot on the edge of Hodge Hill Common.

What happens at The Old Rectory?

• The Old Rectory Community House is:
  •    a shared home for CGC resident members (to be joined, in Autumn 2020, by additional residents in a 2^nd house on the Firs & Bromford estate)
  •    a place of welcome, hospitality and relationship-building – hosting a weekly ‘Place of Welcome’, regular meals and quiet days (for individuals and groups)
  •    our main venue for ‘homely church’ (and CGC) gatherings – smaller, more intimate (but often growing!) gatherings for worship, prayer and learning
  •    a place of hospitality to asylum-seekers (offering up to 6-month accommodation through Birmingham Community Hosting)

Practicalities

• Resident members commit to being worshipping members of Hodge Hill Church, twice-monthly Common Ground Community gatherings, a weekly pattern of meals and prayer in the Old Rectory, and developing a personal rule/rhythm of life.
• Short- to medium-term resident members will be joining the Old Rectory’s long-term ‘anchor resident’, Genny Tunbridge, and will share with Genny in the hospitality and day-to-day running of the house, add capacity to developing and maintaining the garden, and help sustain and further develop the house’s rhythm of prayer.
• We currently have 2 vacant bedrooms (a small double and a single). Residents make an affordable financial contribution (higher if working in paid employment) towards the running costs of the Old Rectory (covers rent and bills, but not food).

Who are we looking for?

• You might be someone exploring what kind of life / vocation God is calling you to (we offer a wide-range of opportunities to experience community, mission and ministry, alongside both lay and ordained people)
• You will bring your particular passions and gifts to enlarge and enrich what is already happening here (you might be a musician, a gardener, or bring experience in adult discipleship or children’s work – or something else we’ve not even dreamed of!)
• You will also need to bring:
  •    A love for people
  •    An emotional resilience
  •    A calm consistency in an environment of diverse happenings and unexpected arrivals
  •    An ability to cope with times of people-intensive busyness, and times when the house is quiet
  •    A keenness to develop your own spirituality and that of others
  •    A commitment to an inclusive church community

How do I find out more?

• Please note deadlines for application at the top of this post.
• Come and visit us! We encourage potential residents to do a couple of ‘taster’ visits – come to church on a Sunday and back to the Old Rectory for lunch; and then come back and stay at the Old Rectory for 3 to 7 days.
• If you then want to explore further, we have a tried-and-tested discernment process (includes references, a couple of ‘interviews’ and a session with a psychotherapist).
• To start the conversation, contact
  • Revd Al Barrett (hodgehillvicar@hotmail.co.uk / 07738 119210)

"Not peace, but a sword": a response to the bishops' statement

There is, I realise, something slightly perverse about criticising a unanimous statement, from the Church of England's bishops, attempting to speak with urgency into a time of profound national division. I also realise it's not the first time I've responded publicly, and critically, to a statement made by my denomination's senior leadership at a moment of political 'crisis'. I'm sure there are words for people like me, and 'irritant' is probably the politest of them.

But these are indeed critical moments in our national life, and thankfully our bishops rarely presume to have 'the last word' in such moments. With whatever authority they seek to speak, their interventions are invitations (implicit or explicit) to further reflection and conversation - and it is to that implicit invitation that I cannot help but respond - with some 'wonderings' that can claim no more authority than the bishops' statement, and certainly no more claim to be 'the last word' of a vital ongoing conversation.

I can only imagine the anguished discussions, in person, on the phone, by email, between the bishops in the process of agreeing this unanimous statement. The felt importance of presenting a 'united front', a single message - when they will no doubt have, among themselves, had passionate disagreements about the content, the tone, and even whether they should be saying anything public at all. I feel for them in those struggles. None of this is easy. To say anything, as much as to say nothing, is risky, costly, weighty in its responsibility.

But I fear their statement is both a mis-step in the present fraught moment, and also a symptom of a longer-term issue with what has, by some of its leading proponents, been labelled "Anglican Social Theology" (avoiding the term "political" is, in itself, one of the key issues here).

To take the present moment first, I'm going to quote liberally from a fellow Anglican priest, Revd Jonnie Parkin, who to my mind hits a number of the nails squarely on the head. After beginning by underlining that "there is much I agree with in this statement," and praising it for its "compassion, respect and a passionate concern for the marginalised to be at the centre of our thinking, speaking, and acting," Jonnie identifies six key problems with the statement:

1. "Theresa May's government did try to implement the decision of the referendum but it became increasingly clear that this was exceptionally difficult without doing harm to the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the peace process in Northern Ireland, and the economic, cultural and scientific interests of the UK."
2. "In attempting to be even handed, the bishops appear to have told off the bullied as well as the bullies. Truth, compassion and justice should never be sacrificed for the appearance of even-handedness."
3. "There is considerable concern that the pro-Leave campaigns during the referendum not only deliberately misled the population, preying on their fears and prejudices, but has also since then 'shifted the goal-posts' to a harder Brexit [from] what they were publicly calling for."
4. "The church's attempts to reconcile apparently irreconcilable views cannot always be held up as an example of how to promote unity, as very often that unity is at the expense of the spiritual and personal wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable members of society and our church."
5. "Since the referendum the public voted in a General Election. It is that parliament, voted for by the public more recently than the referendum result, that has been unable thus far to enact that earlier vote. We are a parliamentary democracy."
6. "The bishops' statement could be interpreted as supporting the Conservative Party's policy of not offering any deal to the public for a confirmatory vote. This would be tantamount to endorsing one party's policies over the others."

But what if there's a longer pattern here? What if the bishops' statement isn't just a misjudgement of the complexities of the current moment, but betrays instincts that are more deeply ingrained in the Church of England's patterns of public speaking? And what if the current moment is possibly the most critical yet, not just for the future of the UK as a whole, but for the Church of England's ongoing capacity to find words - and indeed actions - of faithfulness and truthfulness in public conversation?

Back in 1984, just before the CofE's publication of the influential Faith in the City report, theologian David Nicholls (in a brief booklet co-written with one Rowan Williams), wrote this biting critique of the tradition of "Anglican Social Theology" going back to Archbishop William Temple:

"We often refuse to take seriously issues of power and conflict which are central to the activity of politics. 'Social' has a more gentle and consensual ring about it [than 'political'] and, after all, is not Christianity all about caring and meaningful relationships?" Responding to the claim from one of his contemporaries "that the whole Christian gospel can be summed up in the word 'reconciliation'," Nicholls goes on to reflect wryly that "the only persons reconciled as a result of the ministry of Jesus were Herod and Pilate" (Nicholls 1984:28, 31).

The current dilemma for the Church of England is hardly new, then. But here are just one or two thoughts on what feel like the contours of it right now.

• The CofE has a deep natural tendency to be supportive of state institutions (e.g. government, parliament, law courts) - it is one of them, after all. But what happens when those state institutions come into conflict with at all (i.e. government vs parliament and the law courts right now)?
• Similarly, the CofE has a deep natural tendency to seek to be a voice of peace, harmony and calm, especially in turbulent and divisive times, and to avoid 'taking sides' in any way that might be perceived as politically 'partisan'. But surely its stated concern (even in this latest statement) to "listen … especially with the poor, with the marginalized, and with those whose voices are often not heard in our national conversation" requires a power analysis that can't always sit on the fence?
• One of the particular dangers of this present moment, however, is the way the political conversation has become dominated by the populist binary of "the people vs the liberal elite". However simplistic, even untrue, this binary might well be, the CofE's bishops are surely desperately anxious to avoid being labelled as being on the side of the "liberal elite". But even outside the binary populist narrative, that, inescapably, is who they are. Who we are. Of course, both "liberal" and "elite" could do with some unpicking, but class is a huge issue for the Church of England - and an issue because the Church is dominated by those from the upper end of the class ladder. Even many of us clergy who live and work in low-income areas have sufficient socio-economic capital that we have chosen to live here - and could equally choose to re-locate somewhere else. For the vast majority of the Church of England (and especially its clergy and bishops), even where we share day-to-day life with those with direct experience of poverty, it is not the life we live ourselves. This gap can paralyse those of us within the CofE that want to speak into political conversation - and doubly so when the "people vs elite" binary sets the terms of the debate.
• So the bishops may desperately want to be "on the side of the people", through lived solidarity and attentive listening, but again the populist binary lays a trap. On the side of which "people"? Which "poor", which "marginalized", which of the "often not heard"? And here, as well as the class complexity of the Brexit vote (detailed research suggests that the Leave vote was as significant among 'middle-class' as 'working-class' voters, if not even more so), there is inescapably a race dimension too - and here the Church of England's makeup is no less problematic. Leave voters were overwhelmingly White - and so, still, is the makeup of the Church of England's leadership. Brexit became, through the machinations of the Leave campaign, focused on immigration above all other issues, and the rise in race-related hate crime since the EU referendum has exposed the extent to which (as Anthony Reddie's new book highlights with unflinching clarity) the Leave vote was entangled with a fierce nostalgia for some imagined glory days of a homogenously White "Great Britain" at the centre of a global Empire. In the Brexit campaign and ongoing, increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, class and race intersect - almost always meaning that the voices of people of colour (who are also more likely than White people to be among the poorest) are "marginalized" and "not heard" even more often than the voices of White working-class people. The Church of England could choose to take a vocal and visible stand in solidarity with those on the receiving end of every-more-vicious racist attacks - but, paralysed by our own institutional Whiteness, and institutional racism, it again seems hard for us to be able to speak convincingly - and certainly impossible to speak innocently. Perhaps aware that the majority of White churchgoers voted Leave, the bishops may also be worried about alienating a large part of their own 'core constituency' by challenging the inherently racist Whiteness of much Brexit-related speech.
• The language of a "divided society", then, masks profound imbalances of power. Appeals for "respect", seeking "reconciliation", and even the call to "love one another", without rigorous analysis of how power is unevenly distributed, risk legitimising the 'status quo' (however fleeting) in favour of those currently with most power - and entrenching class stratification and societal racism / White supremacism.
• There is one further dimension to highlight - with both long-term and short-term dimensions. At the heart of the current incendiary rhetoric is the present Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. A white, upper-class male, well-schooled in patronising and bullying all those around him, especially those who have less power than he has (which, in his current position, is just about everybody). There is a gendered dimension to add to those of class and race - seen most clearly in his sneering dismissal of the fears of female MPs for their own safety, dealing with daily verbal abuse and threats of violence and murder. Again, the Church of England that is still crippled by an innate patriarchal sexism, finds itself in a position from which is very difficult to make criticism of others.
• If, in addition, there have (and I'm speculating here) been any threats from the Prime Minister's office to reduce or remove the constitutional privileges that the Church of England currently enjoys (bishops in the House of Lords, for example), as part of what appears to be a threatened "bonfire of institutions" (see e.g. the overt threats to the future status of the Supreme Court in the wake of the latter's judgment last week), then that can only be an added pressure on the Church of England's bishops to avoid specific criticism of the Prime Minister in their public statements.

Here, then, is the dilemma confronting the Church of England, in a nutshell: how do we 'own up' with penitent honesty to our own profoundly imbalanced and compromised social location and institutional reality (dominated by White, upper-/middle-class men), while seeking complex solidarities with diverse and marginalized 'others' who present challenges to both the church and wider society, and courageously challenging the powers-that-be where power is both concentrated and abused? The answer must, surely, include a willingness to give up - or be stripped of - most of the traces of institutional power that the Church of England, especially, continues to benefit from - even that of presuming to speak into political debate with some kind of 'authoritative voice'. It must also, equally certainly, include an unshakeable commitment to listen acutely, attentively, enduringly, and with a radical receptivity, to the many within, and beyond the Church who are not White, or not middle-class, or not male, in ways that challenge and change us, to our very DNA. Only in the context of that ongoing commitment to listening, repentance and change can we humbly and courageously seek to 'speak truth to power'.