Going with the flow?Going with the flow?Fred Robinson
I’m not a theologian, I’m a social scientist. And, as a social scientist, I’m fascinated by the relationship between church and society. The relationship between church and society can, I think, be dreadful – a terrible, sometimes laughable, failure. But it can be wonderful, fruitful, life-affirming and inspirational.
I’m sure most of you know Beamish Museum in County Durham. It’s a celebration of industrial society in the north of England, mostly set in 1913, the time of peak production on the Durham Coalfield. There’s a reconstructed town centre, a colliery, pit village, railway station and trams too.
I go to Beamish every summer, taking a big group of students from St Chad’s. And on each of these visits I head for the Methodist Chapel in the reconstructed pit village. Often there’s a visiting Methodist choir there singing hymns – as there was this year. As I sat there listening to them I thought about the church in its changing social context and I wondered: what are churches actually for? What is, could be or should be the role of the churches in Britain today?
On one level, the answer to the question, What are churches for, seems clear enough. The church is the body of Christ; the churches are places of worship. But churches don’t exist in a vacuum. They are human institutions which exist in a social context and relate more or less well – or badly – to the society around them. At the Methodist Chapel at Beamish, there is a striking and bold statement on the wall above the choir and pulpit. It says, simply, ‘Jesus Christ: the same yesterday, today and forever’.
Of course, that’s re-assurance for the faithful. But, as our society changes and as our understanding of the world has changed, isn’t it obvious that our interpretation changes? And, in relation to our churches, aren’t we looking for something dynamic, creatively responding to social change? And, even more than that, aren’t we looking for something that responds to change and also that can be the driving force for change...working towards a New Earth?
So long as successive generations were brought into the churches – socialised into being churchgoers – the form of the experience wasn’t too much of a problem. But many people today don’t know much about it – as is apparent when you look at some of the bemused faces of people wandering into the chapel at Beamish.
So those churches which make few concessions to contemporary expectations are unlikely to be attractive, unlikely to get rave reviews on the Ship of Fools website. Such churches can, and do, hang on as, sadly, sometimes little more than social clubs for the elderly – beleaguered congregations. Churches like that have their attractions---it makes a nice change for me to feel relatively young! But, eventually, these churches are likely to go the way of many corner shops and Working Men’s Clubs.
And yet there is life in our churches still – and tremendous potential. And living churches are involved in talking about – and acting – on all kinds of important issues. Christian Aid’s motto – ‘we believe in life before death’ – says it all really. And, yes, of course it’s about getting involved in politics – it always has been. The churches ought to have a lot to say about inequality, fair trade, climate change, rural and urban problems, the economy and social justice. They should provide opportunities for debate; their business is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable – without pretending to have all the answers.
Churches have to move with the times. Of course there are continuities, but there has to be a meaningful response to social change if the churches are to be real, true to the faith they seek to uphold and be of service.
Professor Fred Robinson is an elder at Waddington Street Durham
This is an extract from a talk given at the NEOC Commemoration Day at Newcastle on 19-September-2009