NEOC CelebrationAfter 33 years the North East Ecumenical Course came to an end with a celebration of its work held in Newcastle on September 19th 2009.
The following is the text of a presentation made by Professor Fred Robinson of St Chad's College, Durham, who is an elder at Waddington Street United Reformed Church, Durham.
I’d like to begin by thanking you for inviting me to share in your celebration of the work and life of NEOC. And it should certainly be a celebration. It shouldn’t be a wake, though, no doubt, there is sadness and regret and also some real anxiety about the future. We are here, above all, to mark the achievements of NEOC and, perhaps no less important, also to think about what should be carried forward into the future.
One thing that NEOC did – and did well – was to get people thinking about what churches are for. It has encouraged people to have grown-up conversations about the strengths and weaknesses of churches and ‘traditional’ patterns of ministry. In particular, NEOC students have been encouraged to think about the church in the context of the wider society – and to think critically about the relationship between church and society.
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. Actually, I’m often not so much fascinated as appalled – though sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised and, from time to time, genuinely excited. 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’d like to think aloud about the role of churches in society and explore the tension between holding on to the past and moving with the times. It’s not, of course, a simple dichotomy or crude dilemma. But I do think that tension is a central feature of where we are and it is at the heart of many of our divisions and much of our dissatisfaction with our institutions and with ourselves.
To explore this theme, I’d like to start at Beamish. I’m sure most of you know Beamish Museum, just a few miles from here 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… If you haven’t been there, or haven’t visited Beamish for a long time, I’d encourage you to go and enjoy the place.
Beamish isn’t just an impressive heritage theme park and a good day out. It’s also a place where you can think about what we were, what we are and, even, what’s become of our institutions – including the church.
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, and sometimes joining in, I thought about what I might say to you today. 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?
When I sit there in the Chapel at Beamish I’m reminded of one of the reasons I like going to church. By nature, I’m a nostalgic day-dreamer. It takes me back to my childhood, to the comforting rosy glow of Hovis adverts and those apparent certainties at a time when going to church was habitual, not optional or an odd ‘lifestyle choice’. I know where I am in all this – indeed, perhaps I really belong in a heritage theme park.
And yet, when I snap out of this rose-tinted nostalgia I’m dreadfully aware of how many churches have got trapped in the past and have failed to respond realistically or sensibly to a changing society. The consequence is not just decline but irrelevance.
Beamish makes you think. As someone said to me: everything you see there has changed over the past century – workplaces, schools, shops, homes. Everything – except the church. To a large extent it’s true – in fact, I attend a church which looks pretty much like the chapel at Beamish. It’s a product of nineteenth century industrial society. No doubt many of you will have much older churches, products of feudal society, perhaps even with pews for the Lord and Lady of the Manor. They’re great photogenic settings for weddings but, honestly, are they – in that awful modern phrase – really ‘fit for purpose’?
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.
I promise that I will get more optimistic in a minute! But first, I’d just like to remind us all – if we need reminding – of how churches can try to move with the times and, yet, horribly fail to engage realistically with the society. Now I’m not thinking here so much of those desperate attempts to be trendy that I experienced in the 1950s and 60s. Our curate doing his rounds on a scooter, strumming on the guitar and trying to control our youth club was a bit of a laugh. It makes me cringe now, but at the time he did succeed in engaging with us and helped us keep on the straight and narrow.
Rather, I’m thinking of how churches have handled big changes in society, concerning notably, the role of women, sexuality and diversity. At a time when society has, in many respects, opened up, the churches have generally presented themselves as reactionary, conservative, self-serving and evidently out of touch. It’s not been a pretty sight. It’s exposed contradictions and disunity, it’s undermined what little authority they had left and the consequences have been painfully destructive.
And yet – and yet – there is life in our churches still – and tremendous potential.
I used to be on the management board of the Churches’ Regional Commission in the North East. A few years ago, the Commission did a big audit to find out what churches across the region are doing in their communities – and the results were very encouraging. Many churches are opening up their premises for a wide variety of community uses, ranging from activities for young people to providing space for credit unions and facilities for some of the most marginalised groups in society.
It is heartening to see churches actually working with the old adage that they exist to serve the needs of people who don’t attend them. They recognise that one of the important things they can offer to their local communities is their premises. They see that it’s their duty to open up, as custodians of a community resource which past generations have developed. Such engagement with the world is much more appealing – and, I think, actually much more Christian – than a narrow concern with getting punters in the pews.
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.
And there is a long history of churches responding to changing needs. They pioneered education and healthcare provision long before the state took on those responsibilities. At Beamish we are reminded of the role of the churches, particularly the non-conformist churches, in helping communities to cope with the upheavals and challenges of industrialisation and fight for social justice. In the pit village the Chapel supported the community, alongside the Union and the Co-op store
Today, the priorities in a post-industrial, post-modern society are different – but some of them not so very different. There is still a great need for social support systems and structures, especially for those who are not well catered for by the state or who, all too easily, can miss the safety net of the welfare state. They include asylum seekers and refugees, people with mental health difficulties, homeless people, unemployed people and so on – the list is long and, when you come to think of it, includes millions of people in the UK.
Today, we live in a globalised society with massive structural inequalities. But as an imperial nation, we’ve lived in a globalised society for centuries. Then, churches helped to end the slave trade. Now, we are much more aware of the many forms of contemporary slavery and exploitation and the huge challenge involved in simply ensuring that our fellow human beings actually have a life before death.
I said that there is tremendous potential in our churches. That’s right. But too much of that potential goes unrealised because many churches are inward looking and isolate themselves. They need to engage with the world as it is, get real and overcome that seductive sense of sentimental nostalgia. They need to get stuck into the debates that really matter and embrace the opportunity to be alongside people – as we all worry about the future for ourselves, our society, economy and environment. And the churches have to understand that, today, the marketplace of ideas is big and complex – and they no longer have a privileged position in it.
Once we begin to think through the relationships between churches and their social context it becomes apparent that there are many dimensions and many opportunities. It’s also clear that there is debate and disagreement about where churches should fit in society, what they should be about – how narrow or how wide their remit should be. What seems obvious to me may not seem obvious to you …
At the simplest level, I can’t imagine that there would be much disagreement about fair trade. There again, I did go to my old church recently and found that they weren’t using fair traded tea and coffee. That seems to me pretty inexcusable, pretty basic.
Beyond that, there are going to be arguments. So let’s talk about our different understandings of churches, their role, their ministry. Was Bishop David Jenkins right to get behind the miners in the 1984 strike? Should we let a yoga group, or the local Conservative Party, or militant climate change activists use our church hall? Should our over-worked, exhausted Minister join the Local Strategic Partnership? What can our church do to support the community? What are we well-placed to do---and what shouldn’t we do because we haven’t the skills, the resources or the expertise? How well do we reach out to people who we think aren’t like us, to the stranger, to other faith groups, to other cultures and other social classes? Is it realistic to stop worrying about the church roof and, instead, start worrying a lot more about the problems of people who don’t seem at all interested in us or our church?
It’s questions like these – and so many others – that ordinands (and, indeed, all of us) need to think about and talk about. NEOC provided the space for that and ensured that those going into Ministry had a good awareness of the possibilities at the interface between church and society. Of course, NEOC had to make those connections between church and society. The men and women who came to NEOC to train for the ministry had first-hand experience of the real world, of working in secular jobs and living in communities across the North East and Yorkshire. There was a rootedness—a sound foundation for ministry. We simply cannot afford to lose that engagement, that connection, that idea of the vital importance of context.
Finally, I’d like to wish you all ‘joy in struggle’—whatever and wherever your particular struggles may be. And I hope and pray that Lindisfarne will successfully carry forward the work, the insights and the creativity of NEOC. Thank you.
Fred Robinson
St Chad’s College
Durham University