On the afternoon of 13th September I left Southwark Cathedral and headed for the Tube. I’d been attending the Festival of Preaching, a conference sponsored by Hymns Ancient and Modern, that promised we would, “explore how the pulpit can be a platform for justice, truth, and transformative hope. Stand firm. Speak boldly. Preach truth to power.” Outside the cathedral, the city was filling with other people who intended to stand firm and speak boldly for blood and honour, to fall silent for Charlie Kirk, cheer Tommy Robinson and hear the words of Elon Musk.
It had rained heavily at lunchtime. Flags became raincapes. The woman just ahead of me on the descending escalator wore scarlet hair extensions with a Union flag on a stick stuck into her scrunchy and carried a placard with the word “WHITE” on it. I entered the train and was immediately offered a seat by the doors. A group of grizzled men wrapped in Union flags followed me in, and, as the train started moving, one, a little shaky on his feet, sat down heavily on my lap. His friends clocked my collar. And this meant that, on a crowded Tube train, on the way home from the Festival of Preaching (“Speaking Truth to Power”), I had to engage with these elderly football hooligans. I had to meet their eyes and have a word, for my own sake, and because other people in the carriage were paying attention. What would speak God’s truth here? And what would defuse the situation? What would you have said? I said, “God bless you.” The man got to his feet and moved away, and I felt a little lame. It was, I suppose, better than saying “God damn you.”
For clergy of my generation, the wind was blowing in the direction of urban ministry, and woe betide the cosy and bucolic theological college coming up for inspection. The ordinands would have to pack their bags and head off to Salford or Leicester for a while to learn what real ministry was all about. My first curacy, in Redditch, was gritty, but not as grotty as all that. Though the church I served has since been demolished, we were given a new house on an estate in the parish next door. Likewise, my second curacy in Kidderminster, where the carpet-making industry was declining precipitously, and the hospital had just been tagged for closure. The neighbourhood where St Mary’s, the minster of Kidderminster, was built had been gradually getting poorer over the years. It was the Horsefair, and, at the time I arrived, it was just a bit notorious. Life was tough for people there.
Looking back, I see how much what we did and how we did it was influenced by Faith in the City, the Report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas, which was published 40 years ago this year. When I was newly ordained, it was about 20 years old and still making ripples. The nation (its subtitle was “A Call to Action by Church and Nation”) still remembered how much Margaret Thatcher had disliked it. It didn’t hurt at all in those days that there were MPs labelling it “Marxist”. It was Faith in the City, a title with a double meaning, that inspired young clergy to go and serve in the most deprived urban estates and gave them ideas for how to go about it. Work together with other churches and other clergy. Serve the community you’re in for its own sake. Be active in town centre chaplaincy, and industrial chaplaincy. Get an Interfaith resource group going. Get to know people of other faiths in your area, and support them, especially when they’re anxious and threatened. The Church is there for them too. Work for better housing. Put a sharps box on the churchyard gatepost.
Most of Faith in the City is still right on target, and just as useful in my country parishes as in Kidderminster and Redditch. I know, though, that I’m a dinosaur: sitting as a trustee on the almshouses board; digging into the rector’s discretionary fund for someone’s pest control; making friends with the people of other faiths.
Now the Church of England is in Fort Apache mode. It’s more than a decade since a decree came out of Lambeth saying that what had previously been called “community outreach” would now be referred to as “penetration”. Hold the fort. The only thing that matters is the survival of the institution. Even now, bishops (I could name a couple) are writing articles wondering whether showing a little more public sympathy to the concerns of the 13th September marchers–illegal immigration, Muslim grooming gangs—might bring them back into church. Bless their Christian Nationalist hearts.
