Fighting Ebola

Ray Anglesea shared this reflection with the congregation
of St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook on October 12

Last Thursday, 2^nd October, at a meeting at Lancaster House, London, Britain appealed for international help to contain the world’s worst outbreak of the Ebola virus which is now spreading at the rate of five cases an hour in Sierra Leone.  Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was joined at Lancaster House by representatives of five African countries and ten other nations, including American and Cuba. UN organisations, charities, Idris Elba the actor, and William Pooley, the British nurse who recently recovered from Ebola, were also present.

The Ebola virus has, at terrifying speed, killed almost 4,000 people. It has been sweeping across vulnerable African states with such intensity that health experts believe as many as 1.4 million people could be infected by next January 2015. The number of infections is doubling every three weeks. President Obama has already described the disease as a “threat to global security.”

It is perhaps difficult for those of us who live in a country where there are 270 doctors per 100,000 of population to imagine what it is like for those living in Sierra Leone where there are only 3 doctors for the same number trying to deal with such a highly contagious disease. It is not therefore surprising that people look for meaning where there seems to be none, and that they turn to tried and tested ideas about God’s punishment, drawing parallels with the plagues of Egypt, blaming particular social groups and claiming that only those protected by God’s hand will be “delivered.”

In the Bible there are plenty of examples of such connections being made between sickness and sin, and even amongst the generally agnostic population of this country, sudden disease or injury can make us ask why and look for reasons in our own behaviour, rehearsing our regrets about the past and bargaining with God about the future. But, although there may be times when a period of illness or some other crisis can prompt us as individuals, or even as nations, into important thinking about the meaning of our lives, and even into turning away from behaviours which do us and others no good, there is a world of difference between finding the strength to change our own ways through a shock we have received, and vulnerable groups being told by authority figures that they are sick because they are immoral or because God is angry with them.

Such pronouncements may bolster the moral certainties of those who make them, but for those unfortunate enough to fall ill in a poor country through no fault of their own, fast on the heels of the terror of being sick, comes stigmatisation, isolation and the withdrawal of all kinds of help. In the ministry of Jesus, rather than withdrawing from those who were sick or socially outcast, he was constantly crossing boundaries to reach out to people, whether they were lepers who were contagious and considered unclean or haemorrhaging women who had exhausted all their funds on doctors who could not help, or even the morally dubious by the conventions of the time. 

Those who are in the field in West Africa fighting this disease - both Christians and others - deserve our support as they contribute to the fight this disease. Save the Children at Thursday’s conference pledged £70 million of which £40 million is for work in Sierra Leone. Comic Relief has pledged £1 million whilst the UK government has put £125 million into the pot to fight Ebola, including the promise of 700 extra beds in hospital units constructed under the supervision of the military. Four hundred NHS staff have volunteered to help staff them and train local people.

To me, it is clear that if God is to be found in the Ebola outbreak, he is not in the scapegoating of particular social groups, but is alongside those who are the disease’s victims, and embodied in those brave people who take risks to help.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 12: Transfiguration

Ray Anglesea shares the final installment

My 12^th and last blog. It has been an amazing and wonderful sabbatical. Ki and I have travelled over 20,000 miles and have been away from home for 7 of the 12 weeks. Highlights of the summer have included my granddaughter’s baptism, singing on Broadway, Carnegie Hall and the Great Cathedral Church of St John the Divine, New York, observing beavers in Lake Manatoulin, Ontario, eating maple and walnut ice-cream in downtown Toronto, meeting Russ Thomas, a visit to The Mary Rose, as well having wonderful family meals in the sizzling hot sunshine of Bordeaux. And all this in the context of a remarkable hot summer which embraced The World Cup, the Yorkshire Tour de France, Wimbledon, The Commonwealth Games and the rise of the very talented golfer Rory McIIroy.

I am writing this blog two days after the nation observed the commemorations of the start of the 1^st World War. The 6th August is one of my favourite feast days in the church’s year, the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is a story and picture that brings me back home, to Durham and Tom Denny’s beautiful and startling stained glass window of The Transfiguration in the Cathedral. But alas, the feast day also shares another anniversary, the Enola Gay over Hiroshima. A cloud of dazzling light. The transfiguring in a weapon of mass destruction.

The strange story of the transfiguration reveals a dazzling light, but yet a cloud; there is revelation yet things are hidden; a voice, but we do not know what was truly heard. All very ambiguous – the revealed remains hidden, the extraordinary appears in the ordinary, and like Elijah’s experience, God reveals himself in the silence. The transfiguration story ends when Peter speaks; the end of silence breaks the spell.

As I gather up my final reflection through the thoughts of the blogs I have written for the community at Crook, family and friends, listening has been one of my goals of the summer, listening for God for perhaps a new direction as I start my retirement years, listening on the white sun-kissed Bordeaux beaches, listening in the forest wilderness of Northern Ontario, listening in French chantry chapels. In the words of the famous song we learn to listen to “the sound of silence.” Deep prayer is founded on the discipline of deep listening. As I think of the new building project soon to get underway at Jesmond URC, Newcastle I wonder whether it was really Peter’s intention to interrupt the spectacular and awesome vision of the Transfiguration with a building project – “let us build three booths?” Typical, you might think. To every epiphany or revelation there is someone on hand to turn into a religion. This suggestion is rejected by Jesus – it shows a remarkable lack of understanding by Peter. “Let me enshrine the experience,” says Peter, “let us make a memorial, let me speak, let me build!” But Peter is required to do only one thing: watch and say nothing. Listen. It is interesting, isn’t it, that the moment Peter speaks, “a cloud overshadowed them.” And then Peter spoke only because he didn’t know what to say. The story of the transfiguration is about learning to live with the cloud and the light, and learning that the voice of God comes in quiet ways.

In the stillness and restraint of the sabbatical and with the overall thoughts of these 12 blogs marinating in the background of my mind can I detect the stirrings of God – as I wait so am I directed?   With the first letter of my Christian name in mind here are three “Rs” which as a result of the experiences of this sabbatical I hope will direct my ministry in my retirement years.

First, Relax. Blog 4 again. I am not indispensable! As I think about returning to ministry in a country and a local pastorate where the vast majority of the population continue to affirm their belief in God and then proceed to do very little about it, I have observed there is still a demand for religion that is public, performative and pastoral and that there are thousands of private spiritualities and beliefs that flourish, demonstrating that faith as statistics may reveal otherwise, does not wither and die in our culture. Rather religion mutates and lives on. So churches need to take advantage of this trend, to be open to the world and not closed to it. And in this regard the sacrament of baptism in my local situation must be offered as publicly and freely as possible, the answer to indifference is not restriction; baptism is a point of entry for the church, not the culmination of an education.

Second, Resilience. I believe that the Christian faith is remarkably resilient in the modern age, religion is still in demand. And again the church at the local level must continue to engage with the community offering shape, colour and articulation to the gospel stories. In an age of wars of religion, where religion is turning into the new global politics the church must be there provide comfort, understanding and support to the confused and bewildered.

Thirdly, Respond. The church it seems to me as I think of my local church can respond to the challenge of an apparently faithless age with a confidence in a society that refuses to leave religion alone. We continue to offer a ministry and a faith to a public that wish to relate to religion without necessarily belonging to it. And of course with rare exceptions this is what ministers have had to work with most of the time; it is both an opportunity and a challenge.

So there we have it. Some thoughts then for the future – relax; have faith in the resilience of God and his church; but also respond to the many tests of faith that dominate every age. But above all keep listening in prayer to the whispers of God in the quietness of your soul.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 12: Transfiguration

August 2014

Sabbatical Blog 11: The Mary Rose

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

One of the joys of spending a long weekend with dear friends in Portsmouth was a visit to see The Mary Rose; one of Henry VIII’s great ships, now housed in the new Mary Rose Museum located just metres way from Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory and the ships of the modern Royal Navy.

Sometime in the late afternoon on July 19^th 1545, the Mary Rose heeled to starboard and sank whilst engaging a French invasion fleet larger than the Spanish Armada 43 years later. Centuries later the Tudor ship captured the world's imagination when she was raised from the seabed in 1982; the Flagship is the only sixteenth century warship on display anywhere in the world. The excavation and salvage of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology. The surviving section of the ship and 19,000 thousand recovered artifacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule. 

As fascinating as Henry VIII’s naval war machine was the building in which she is housed in is of considerable architectural interest too. The £27million museum opened in 2012, an elliptical timber-clad building designed by London office Wilkinson Eyre Architects and built over a late18th Century Dry Dock listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was designed with a stained black exterior, intended to reference traditional English boat sheds of the time, and a disc-shaped metal roof that curves up over its elliptical body.

The new boat-shaped Museum showcases the very best of 21st century architecture and construction, where for the first time visitors can see the starboard section of the ship's hull with its preserving sprays switched off and the final phase of the hull's conservation through internal windows in 3 different stories. The interiors were designed to recreate the dark and claustrophobic atmosphere found below a ship's deck. Spaces feature low ceilings and are kept deliberately dark, with lighting directed only onto exhibits and handrails so that visitors can find their way through the galleries.

Following the painstaking archaeological excavation and recording of the exact location of every find, the project team reunited the original contents - fittings, weaponry, armament and possessions – deck-by-deck. A virtual hull was constructed to represent the missing port side with all the guns on their original gun carriages, cannonballs, gun furniture, stores, chests, rope and rigging. Visitors to the Museum walk in between the conserved starboard section of the hull and the virtual hull on three levels, seeing all the main shipboard material in context as though they are on board the Mary Rose.

The end galleries interpret the context gallery deck-by-deck in more conventional museum display cases.  In them are to be found the most comprehensive collection of Tudor artefacts in the world from personal belongings such as wooden bowls, leather shoes, musical instruments and nit combs complete with 500 year old lice to ship's objects such as longbows and two tonne guns. For the first time, using forensic science, crew members have been brought to life giving visitors the chance to come face-face with the carpenter, cook, archer and even the ship's dog, 'Hatch'!  The complete conservation of the Mary Rose will be finished in 2016, when she will be fully integrated with the new museum environment.

As I walked around this fascinating museum a verse from St. Luke’s gospel came to my mind “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” Chapter 8 and v17.  The Tudor warship that long lay buried in the silts of the Solent has revealed its secrets. For some the idea of disturbing and investigating a maritime grave might appear distasteful - involving huge risks. To uncover what has been carefully concealed, to exhume what time and forgetting has claimed for its own is to risk bringing to light truths that could comprehensively shatter the peace of the day. The exhumations of human remains are complex archaeological issues. An engraved slab of Welsh slate in Portsmouth Cathedral marks the resting place of an unknown member of the ship’s company, who was interred with respect and dignity and one of the 500 who perished when the ship went down. Every year, on the Sunday before the anniversary of the sinking of the Mary Rose, an act of remembrance including the laying of a wreath is held at the Mary Rose grave.

Whatever the ethics of archaeological investigations out of the Solent’s silent world has come some of the treasures of the Tudor world, the leather shoe, a rosary bead, long bows, bottles, coins and part of the doomed ship itself. The memory of the crew of the Mary Rose has also been brought back to life every time a person views or holds the small treasures that the divers had salvaged. The happenings of that past day in 1545 are now laid bare in a beautiful and inspiring naval museum. Today we re-enter relationships with what has been buried.

The artefacts that are recovered, and the stories that go with them, are memorials to the souls of the dead. In effect, each artefact, becomes a meaningful memorial, a testimony to the reality of the lives of those who sailed aboard the historic ship, the Mary Rose.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 11: The Mary Rose, Portsmouth.

June 2014

Sabbatical Blog 10: Le Pain

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

One of the joys of holidaying in France is the early morning walk, to the boulangierie, the bread shop to collect baguettes - a wand or baton of long crusty bread, made from wheat flour, water, yeast, and common salt.  As part of the traditional continental breakfast in France, slices of baguette are spread with butter and jam and dunked in bowls of coffee or hot chocolate. Delicious!

Although baguettes are closely connected to France they are today made around the world. In France, not all long loaves are baguettes; for example, a short, almost rugby ball shaped loaf is a batard (literally, bastard), or a "torpedo loaf" in English.  Another tubular shaped loaf is known as a flute. Flûtes closely resemble baguettes and weigh more or less than these, depending on the region. A thinner loaf is called a ficelle (string). A short baguette is sometimes known as a baton (stick), or even referred to using the English translation French stick.  

                       

At the boulangerie I also buy croissants; buttery flaky viennoiserie pastry named for its well-known crescent  shape. Croissants and other viennoiserie are made of a layered yeast yeast-leavened dough. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry. Crescent-shaped food breads have been made since the Middle Ages, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since antiquity.

The morning lectionary readings around the pool on Sunday 27 July (7^th Sunday after Pentecost) were the many kingdom parables found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 13:31-33, 44-52 - yeast being one of them. Jesus suggests that the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that is mixed in with bread. It is what makes the wine and beer, it makes the dough to rise to make the bread. It is the tiny insignificant catalyst for our basic commodities and the formation of our communities; it is the leaven in the lump; the difference between bread and dough; juice and wine, refreshment and celebration. Yeast is the ingredient that turns the passive into active; the flat into flavoursome; the ordinary into the extraordinary.

When Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God as yeast – and our ministers too – he is not advocating the concentrate in a jar: yeast for the sake of yeast. No, in Jesus imagination, we are invited to get lost. To loose ourselves into something bigger. But not pointlessly. Rather, in “dying” to our context, we activate it. We become the catalyst that brings flavour, strength, depth, potency and growth. Without yeast, there is no loaf, just dough. Literally we die to ourselves for growth: we are what makes bread for the world.

John Paul Lederach, Professor of International Peace building at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, offers a rich meditation on our calling to be yeast. Consider this. The most common ingredients for making bread are water, flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Of these, yeast is the smallest in quantity, but the only one that makes a substantial change to all the other ingredients. Lederach says you only need a few people to change a lot of things. Quality changes quantity. Size does not matter very much. It is quality that counts, not quantity. Small things then make a difference. Tiny spores of yeast change the mass. So yeast, to be useful needs to move from its incubation and be mixed into the process – out of the church buildings into ever day life.  Yeast reminds us that God can do some very promising things with the apparently negligible. This is where God sees potential and hope.

We can be the yeast that is kneaded in to make the bread, that we may all become one. But we must let God set the pace, the bread rises in time; the wine matures only when it is ready.

A few years ago I was privileged to visit Somewhere Else, the Liverpool Bread Church to meet the founder of the project, the Revd Dr Barbara Glasson, a Methodist minister. Somewhere Else in Liverpool's City Centre is a response to the belief that there is a life-giving message in this gospel story. The “church” gathers as a faith community around the making and sharing of bread. While the bread was rising, the conversation would turn to the important issues of life, shared in the warm kitchen. People would read from the Bible, pray for one another. They became companions (= cum panis, with bread). Bread reaches across cultural and social divides enabling those who knead and shape it to explore their experience. A constant flow of visitors to this community has ensured that ripples from the 'bread church" are reaching ever further and wider, locally, nationally and internationally. All are encouraged to bake two loaves: one for themselves and one to share as they feel led. Dr Gleeson stated:

“Making bread has taught us so much – the process of baking mirrors so much in life: the pummelling and proving is about how we engage with one another, the waiting for the dough to rise is about how we give each other time. Churches generally are a bit obsessed with numbers and outcomes. But the bread makes us wait … it needs to rest, to rise. In the waiting time the smell of the bread triggers memories and facilitates story so that people quite naturally talk to each other. And every loaf we make is different. Bread is a sign to the world.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 10: Le Pain, France 

August 2014

Sabbatical Blog 9: Cathédrale St-Julien du Mans, 4th August 2014

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

Le Mans Cathedral (Cathédrale St-Julien du Mans) is a Catholic cathedral situated in Le Mans, France. It is dedicated to St Julian of Le Mans the city's first bishop who established Christianity in the area around the beginning of the 4th century. The cathedral, which combines a Romanesque nave and a High Gothic choir, is notable for its rich collection of mediaeval stained glass and the spectacular bifurcating flying buttresses at its eastern end.

Amongst the great beauty of the cathedral one wall plaque caught my eye in the south transept, a war memorial dedicated to the “memory of one million war dead of the British Empire who fell in the Great War 1914 -1918, and of whom the greater part rest in France.”

The Great War memorials in every town and village both at home and in Europe bring it starkly home to us. The First World War was a huge collective bereavement. The Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red - an art installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies - one poppy for each British and Colonial death during the conflict and planted in the dry moat at the Tower of London is a visual reminder of the enormity of that loss. The generation that lived through the War was a generation both literally depleted by mass slaughter and depleted or diminished in another way by the loss of so much confidence and aspiration. All around were the signs of absent contemporaries; and for many the continuing trauma of having seen friends butchered hideously in large numbers in front of their eyes. There were absent sons and daughters, parents, brother and sisters, husbands and wives, lovers, colleagues, neighbours: a routine intensity of loss.

But beyond that, many believed that the greatest loss in the war was the conviction of human purpose and human meaning. The brilliant golden glow of an innocent Edwardian autumn about which so much has been written and imagined gave way to four cruel, calamitous and merciless years. An automatic belief in national righteousness; the extreme pronouncements of a belligerent deity espoused by Anglican Bishops and German Lutherans; governmental wisdom; the trustworthiness of official communication and popular media alike – all these were shaken beyond repair. The generation that discovered this had to find their way into the twentieth century with maps and landmarks damaged almost unrecognisably. 

For many who actually lived through the nightmares of the First War the war shattered so many illusions of those who suffered in the trenches and further afield, as well as on the Home Front. Many could make no sense of God in the cataclysmic events that unfurled before them. For others who tried to make sense of where God had been in all this realised that losing the safe, problem-solving God who protected nations and empires might itself be a gift, a moment of truth that brought the reality of God closer, recognised or not.

Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy, the charismatic military chaplain universally known as “Woodbine Willie,” was one of those who tried to make sense of it all. In his sermons, his meditations, his astonishing poems, so many of them cast in the voice of the ordinary soldier in the trenches, full of protest and apparent blasphemy, Studdart-Kennedy argues against the bland problem solving God. His commitment is to the God who is discovered in the heart of endurance and pain – not a solution, not a Father Christmas or a Fairy Godmother, but simply the one who holds our deepest self and makes it possible for us to look out on the world without loathing and despair.

Shocking and stark as it was, the way Studdart-Kennedy talked and wrote was pretty well the only religious response that was at all credible to those who were living through the daily nightmare. And this may explain just a little how some of the brave who did come through were able to find some deep foundation for surviving the rest of the century with courage and a kind of new-found faith.

That being said, and taken as a whole, the experience of war effected how people thought about God, about society, and about life. The war changed everything. Survivors were no longer the same people they were before the war. They could not think, see, feel in the same way; and they were not content with the old answers to their questions. Karl Barth (1886-1968), pastor of a rural Reformed parish in Switzerland, declared to a meeting of Religious Socialists in 1919, "The fact that today our eyes are opened wider to life's realities is the very reason why we long for something else."   A young Lutheran theologian Friedrich Gogarten (1887-1967), expressed the bitterness of his generation to his theological elders in a 1920 article, "Between the Times." He wrote:

 “In our need we were often angry with you, because you left us alone--and because your words were so weak and so empty that they sank to the ground before they reached us. But mostly we cried out our question to you through all your answers to your own questions. . . .

The clearest theological response to the religious crisis created by the war in Europe was that of Karl Barth. He was soon joined by others thinking along similar lines, his work had a profound impact on twentieth century theology and figures such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer  — who like Barth became a leader in the Confessing Church — Thomas Torrance, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, Jurgen Moltmann and of course, Albert Schweitzer.

The War had a profound effect on how we and our European neighbours thought about matters of faith for the rest of the century. Christians struggled with questions of the impotence of the Church, the power and mystery of sin, and the ethics of institutional Christianity. In reaction to the Protestantism that endorsed the war, a distancing between Christianity and culture also took place. Questions of the ethics of war relate directly to us today, not simply to human life, but to the survival of all life on our planet. The trauma of the War in Europe initiated a deep searching for spiritual truth, which has shaped the religious history of this passing century.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 9: Le Mans, France 

4^th August 2014

Sabbatical Blog 8: One plus one *

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

On 6 July 2014, the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church, moved forward with its discussions on the marriage of same-sex couples.

This significant issue was considered at the Assembly, including a facilitation group report which was written after Assembly (and chaired by our own Synod Moderator, Revd Lis Mullen) had heard from a wide range of speakers with varying views. On the final day, a resolution was passed which reflects the range of views expressed on the floor of General Assembly. It honours the sense of urgency expressed by those who had hoped that this Assembly would allow same-sex marriages in their churches; it honours the wish of a majority that the celebration of same-sex marriages should be a matter for local church decision; and it honours the deeply-held convictions of those members who remain deeply opposed to the marriage of same-sex couples in church. The resolution gives local churches a nine-month period of consultation to reflect, gather and report on the views of their members. It also allows the November 2014 meeting of Mission Council to call a special “one issue, one day” meeting of the General Assembly without the need to wait for the next scheduled meeting of Assembly in July 2016.

Equal marriage has now become law in England. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 came into force on the 29^thMarch 2014 (see previous blog, http://urc-northernsynod.blogspot.co.uk/2014_04_06_archive.html.

I don’t know what I can add further to the debate particularly after the deeply prayerful way in which the issue was debated at Assembly. But here are some thoughts from a Christian perspective as we look forward to further prayerful considerations at church meetings in the coming months.

Firstly, I think we need to be more intelligent about thinking biblically in relation to equal marriage. It’s not enough to quote biblical texts by themselves, or quote relevant or irrelevant historic clauses from the Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) as if they prove or disprove a particular view: what is necessary is to understand the direction in which scripture is leading us in the way we reflect on human relationships today. In Jesus’ world there is one thing above all else that marriage was for - it was for perpetuating the male line through the controlled production and rearing of male heirs. It is true that marriage had other social purposes as well; in a patriarchal world marriage protected a woman from isolation, vulnerability and exploitation in a society in which she couldn’t be an independent earner and property owner. And while this may appear to be to an outdated OT biblical model of marriage it is far removed from what the theology of a Christian marriage today might mean and what St Paul had in mind. Put simply - human marriages are meant to be like God’s covenant with us, his people, his church and his world. The metaphor of the marriage covenant tells us that God’s covenant love is a love "that will not let us go." A covenanted relationship is precisely how God marries himself to humanity. This I think helps us understand the purpose of God’s relationship with us, and the purpose and permanence of marital relationships. Shouldn’t the church positively welcome equal marriage as affirming this rich biblical insight into God’s nature and ours?

Secondly: Throughout the history of the church, marriage has always been a social reality that church authorities have to different degrees sought to bless, commend, encourage or control. In recent generations a number of factors have clustered together to change the context of marriage considerably. There was a time when people lived much shorter lives, and a long marriage was 20 or 25 years. There was a time when one pregnancy in five could end in the mother’s death. There was a time when sexual relations led sooner or later to the conception of children, and so sex before or outside marriage was dangerous and socially subversive. There was a time when no woman could contemplate owning property or having an independent life or career. There was a time when the household was the primary centre of economic activity and the welfare of the vulnerable. These things cemented marriages, for good or ill. Those times are largely gone in the West, and few would genuinely lament their passing. But that means the social and cultural scaffolding that used to support marriage has been more or less dismantled. Christians in every state of life – single, married, separated, divorced, married again, lay, ordained – are all struggling to come to terms with today’s reality that marriage isn’t the necessity it once was. Equal marriage is yet another stage in the long evolution of this institution that has been reshaped at different times down the centuries. But its essence is what it always was: the covenanted union of two people for life.

That has not changed.

Thirdly, Assembly heard from individuals and from representatives of groups the pain and anger of gay people who continue to feel excluded by the church’s stance on equal marriage. The recent measure passed by assembly may offer them some light and hope. In time as equal marriage becomes accepted by society and, as the indications are showing, by the majority of lay people in assembly, we shall see a shift in the official stance. In time, the church will accommodate itself to this development, and recognise that by blessing same-sex marriages and even solemnising them, it is affirming the principle that covenanted unions are fundamental to the way we see (and more important, the way God sees) human love. It takes time for change to be received and its theological significance understood. It’s not much comfort to those asking the church for recognition now, but in time I believe we
shall get there.

Fourthly, I recognise from the Assembly debate how hard this discussion has been for many fellow-Christians, some in this country, but especially those from overseas. It is unfair to dub all who dissent as homophobic: there are many people of integrity for whom equal marriage is hard to accept. But I think we should hear the words of the former General Secretary, Revd Roberta Rominger that we need to allow time to listen to each other, to be gracious and kind with one another in our debates and conversations, not to pursue hostile agendas but listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to the church today.   In the meantime we must do all we can to more positively welcome and embrace gay couples in Christ’s name as they find their

home in the church.

And finally. Perhaps when the debate is over and the mind of the church on this issue is known we might not talk about  equalmarriage, or same-sex marriage or gay marriage, just marriage. For marriage today means saying to one person of whatever sex, “We are going to be present to one another – emotionally, physically, mentally, in sorrow and joy, in sunshine and in rain. And we are going to try to live in the present tense – not nostalgic or bitter or wistful about the past, nor naive or overinvested or controlling about the future

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 8:  One plus one. General Assembly, Cardiff

July 2014

*The booklet “One plus One: thinking together about marriage”  – produced by the human sexuality task group for the General Assembly, Cardiff  will be made available to churches to help in their further deliberations.

Sabbatical Blog 7: 42 Years

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

I last met Russ Thomas 42 years ago.

I had shared a house with Russ during my final year at university, in Plasturton Gardens, a wealthy western garden district of Cardiff.  What brought us together in no 22 Plasturton Gardens in 1972 was Voluntary Service Overseas. Before taking up employment in the Welsh Office Russ had returned from the Sudan where he had been employed as a teacher; at the same time I was in the process of making an application to join VSO at the end of my postgraduate year. Years later the social media network Facebook  brought us together. About a year ago Russ contacted me by phone, one thing led to another and we agreed to meet up in Cardiff for 24 hours after the URC General Assembly 2014 had completed its business.

Talking to Russ again, reflecting on our careers, families and grandchildren the conversation reminded me of the last scene of Alan Bennet’s comedy-drama The History Boys (2006) set in the mid-80’s. Hector had died and the final scene changes to an empty hall with only the eight working class boys of Cutler’s Grammar School groomed for Oxford and Mrs Lintott present. She recounts the futures of the eight boys. They had entered a variety of careers. Akthar is a headmaster, Crowther a magistrate, Timms the owner of a dry cleaning chain who took drugs at weekends, and Dakin a tax lawyer. Lockwood had entered the army and sadly died as a result of friendly fire; Rudge became a builder, Scripps a journalist, and Irwin had stopped teaching and had become a maker of TV history documentaries. Finally, Posner reveals he had become a teacher who followed in Hector's footsteps, with a similar style and teaching methods.

Like the history boys it was now our turn to tell our stories, what had we made of the dreams and plans we discussed whilst drinking beer listening to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, penniless idealistic students in a back storey student garret forty odd years ago? Looking back the sixties and early seventies were crazy years; we lived through a counter revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling, and the relaxation of social taboos especially relating to racism and sexism. The “Hippy” flower power years saw the anti Vietnam movement, Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Apollo 11, a Labour government, the deaths of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, a cultural revolution in China, Simon and Garfunkel, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and in Africa where Russ and I worked with VSO a time of radical political and social change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.

Undoubtedly the changing cultural norms of our society influenced our thinking – so did our Christian family background. Both Russ and I came from non-conformist families – (Russ’s brother the late Revd. Sion Thomas was a Welsh Congregational Minister in the Swansea District). During our conversations it transpired that Russ had stayed with the Welsh Office throughout his career, responsible for promoting Welsh interests in the environment, education and the arts then later preparing for the transfer of powers to the National Assembly of Wales. At the top of his career he had become a private secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales John Morris (1974-79), now Barron Morris of Aberavon, Lord Lieutenant of Dyfed and Knight of the Order of the Garter (2003).

In one of George Eliot's lesser-known novels, Felix Holt, we are given a stirring and enigmatic line: "Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: We are saved by making the future present to ourselves." Russ and I now have grandchildren, I wonder how I can convey to them something of the great debt we owe to our parents, grandparents, inspiring politicians, activists, the lovers and dreamers, musicians and artists that shaped our lives. For Russ it was the safeguarding of a Welsh way of life, its culture, identity and language that inflamed his heart with passion. For me as a post war baby it was a dream to shape the way our cities, towns, villages and countryside are developed and built, helping to regenerate socially-deprived areas and creating new jobs. Both of us in our own way would see this as building up the Kingdom of God.

I left Cardiff and Russ with a song in my head which my Newcastle based choir, Inspiration sing from time to time – from Munchener Freiheit’s 1988 album (a German pop and rock band) Fantasy:-

The hopes we had were much too high;

Way out of reach, but we have to try.

The game will never be over,

Because we're keeping the dream alive.

And I would like to think that some of the dreams we had as students all those years ago have, by God’s grace, come to fulfilment in our separate lives.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 7:  42 years: Cardiff

8^th July 2014

                           

Sabbatical Blog 6 - One Baptism: Two Churches

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

Holy Trinity Brompton, often referred to as HTB, is an Anglican church in Brompton Road, London. HTB is hidden behind the Brompton Oratory and flanked by museums. Behind it are expensive flats and houses leading up to Hyde Park. Close by is Imperial College, Harrods and the Brompton Hospital. Its congregation is not only from the locality; people come from all over London.

The church consists of four church buildings, HTB Brompton Road, HTB Onslow Square, HTB Queen's Gate and HTB Courtfield Gardens, as well as being the home for Worship Central, St Paul's Theological Centre and the Alpha course (it is where the Alpha course was first developed and is one of the most influential churches in the Church of England). Over 4,000 people regularly attend Sunday worship across the four sites. Because of the size of the congregation it is divided into pastorates, which are small groups of about 20-30 people run by members of the congregation, most of whom are not in full time ministry. They meet fortnightly for prayer, worship, teaching, Bible study, food and fellowship.

St Pauls’ Onslow Square (Grade II Listed, Gothic in style in Kentish Ragstone and designed as an integral part of the Square) is where my son and daughter in law, Jamie and Gemma worship regularly. First opened in 1860 the church was declared redundant in the late 1970’s. With the permission of the Bishop of London HTB Brompton Road planted a congregation; the congregation has now grown to several hundred.

Sunday 29^th June was the date set for my granddaughter Gracie’s baptism: morning worship took place in HTB Paul’s Onslow Square, the baptism in HTB Queen’s Gate. My wife and I love going to Onslow Square. The worship is informal, welcoming with an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation, with many young, friendly families, coffee and croissants are on hand at the start of the service, seats available on nave chairs or leather armchairs/couches or a floor cushion if you prefer. The words for the songs and prayers are projected onto a large screen and on numerous TV monitors. (Revd) Nick Lee’s sermon (trained in Cranmer Hall, Durham) was excellent, delivering a witty, sincere, thought provoking and biblically based sermon. And of course the worship was marvellous. It was a Spirit-filled time of rejoicing, praise and worship. The leader of the musical group was superb, sensitively directing the singing, and there was some clapping and arm raising, which was done with feeling and sincerity. The worship blew me away, moving me to tears.

If worship was held with family and friends at Onslow Square, the baptism of my granddaughter took place not far away at HTB Queens Gate (it’s complicated – don’t ask). A whiff of incense greeted us as we walked through the main door of the church. Formerly St Augustine’s Queen's Gate, Kensington, high Anglo-Catholic, the former church began to be administered from Holy Trinity Brompton following an invitation by the Bishop of Kensington in 2010, where Nicky Gumbel was made priest-in-charge. In March 2011, St Augustine's was formally merged into the parish of HTB. St Augustine's Church (Grade II*) was a favourite of Sir John Betjeman. The tall, narrow nave has a lovely west end on Queen's Gate, with alternating bands of brick and stone rising to a double belfry. Designed by the celebrated Victorian church architect William Butterfield, it was completed in 1876; it is a high Gothic masterpiece. Although the exterior is decorative, it is hardly a preparation for the interior. This is an amazing example of polychrome work, worthy of the nearby Natural History Museum. Everything is coloured, using stone, mosaics, tiles and marble: walls, floors - even the pulpit. Geometric patterns frame a series of biblical scenes on the walls and clerestory, leading you towards the spacious and dramatic chancel, and an astonishing gilded reredos.

                 

Widely appreciated as probably the second-best surviving church in London by William Butterfield, St Augustine’s church at Queen’s Gate, Kensington hides a special surprise for 20^th century fans. Alterations and re- ordering in the late 1920s and then post- war repairs resulted in some impressive church fittings linked to a movement retrospectively dubbed ‘Back to Baroque.’  The immense reredos and altarpiece, the backdrop and tester for Butterfield’s pulpit, the Stations of the Cross and the Lady Chapel altar and triptych in the north aisle, are all very distinguished interventions by Howard Martin Otho Travers (1886-1948). It is argued that Travers’s fittings of counter-reformation extravagance are “just as worthy of preservation in their own right as Butterfield's work.” Precisely for these reasons, and wearing my synod LBAC hat, the upgrade of the Grade II* building to Grade I should perhaps be considered.

It was a real joy to be present at my granddaughters baptism with family and friends. Jamie and Gemma felt so supported; a beautiful lunch in the church hall followed the service with their (top tier) delicious wedding cake magically turned into a baptismal cake for my beautiful granddaughter. It too was a real joy to be to see how historic and architecturally important Listed Buildings can be adapted to contemporary forms of worship, attracting hundreds of people weekly to hear the gospel preached in an easy going manner, to enjoy a variety of traditional and modern-day liturgical styles whilst pastoral groups engage in numerous programmes of social/inner city outreach. HTB is of course the home of Justin Welby, many influential speakers, sports and TV celebrities, politicians and world statesman and inner city bankers worship there; it is a rich diverse international community, attracted to Jesus Christ and his enduring love message for our times.

The Alpha course has undoubtedly become a global brand of Christian initiation through the energy of Nicky Gumbel and his team and considering its evangelical roots has taken a decided therapeutic and relational turn. Gone is the “get up out of your seats and come to the front” style of crusading popularised by Billy Graham. Gumbel has replaced the big ritual of the old fashioned revivalist rally with something more intimate, homely and personal. On my visits to HTB Onslow Square the worship seems progressive and consumerist, a chance to sample Christianity, and then buy; a church theology that is expressed in its style, not its substance – it is a church very much intra-related to social and cultural values. I feel blessed by worshipping there. I love getting out of my seat. In planning terms so to speak -  I feel Grade II when I arrive - when I leave I know the world, with Jesus Christ, is Grade I.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 6:  One Baptism: Two Churches, Knightsbridge, London.

29^th June 2014

Sabbatical Blog 5 - An indispensable Ascension

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

St. Mark's Church, Niagara-on-the-Lake remains the oldest Anglican Church in continuous use in Ontario and is part of the oldest Anglican community in the Diocese of Niagara. It was established by the first resident missionary of Niagara, Rev. Robert Addison, in 1792. The church was completed in 1794 but was damaged by fire during the War of 1812 and subsequently restored. It was not until 1828 that St. Mark’s was formally rededicated. And it was to this church that my wife and I together with my Canadian family went for morning worship and communion on Trinity Sunday.

In his sermon, the rector Canon Dr. Robert S.G. Wright, otherwise known as Father Bob, drew attention to the stained glass window in the south transept of the church which depicts the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Why asked Father Bob had the artist only depicted 7 disciples with Jesus before he bodily rose from earth and not 11? One of the reasons suggested by Father Bob was to be found in Matthew 28v16 “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.”  Perhaps the missing four disciples from the window were the ones who doubted? Matthew asserts that some of the eleven didn’t believe, and by implication they did not worship Him either. Father Bob suggested that Jesus gives the Great Commission to both groups – to worshipers and doubters alike. We are all commissioned even if we don’t fully comprehend the doctrine of the Trinity or if we are unable to understand the Creed or even if we waver in our own faith.

In my own reformed tradition there are mixed emotions about the celebration of the Festival of the Ascension on a weekday (Thursday); reformers like Calvin wanted to banish all such feast-day observances. While that as may be the gospel account of the ascension is pieced together from different New Testament accounts. Mark and John tell us nothing about it. Matthew records a final conversation with the disciples but doesn’t tell us what happened next. Luke seems to record all his Easter stories as happening on one day; Paul assumes that Jesus who was raised is now at the right hand of the Father. The book of Acts gives us a time frame, placing ascension forty days after Easter and Pentecost 10 days after that.

As I sat and listened to Father Bob’s excellent sermon I thought of my own situation in church that morning and reflected of another take on the ascension story. Here I was in this historic church on the other side of the world enjoying the first months of retirement (I have joined her majesty’s work and pensions payroll scheme). The ascension story speaks to me of retirement.  Dr Sam Wells, Rector of St Martin in the Fields, London in a recent published article suggests that the ascension notifies us that “Jesus’ work on earth had stopped, it had finished. He had done everything he needed to do; he had given us everything we needed to receive.” I have to confess that most of my thinking about God concerns the work he hasn’t done, what he hasn’t given us rather than the work that Jesus had completed, for example an end to hunger, disasters, AIDS, and  war.  But yet the story of the ascension seems to speak of Jesus who went back to heaven from whence he came because his work was finished. He didn’t hang around to work on a few more jobs of salvation because there was no more to do. So what had Jesus done for us – Well’s puts forward the view that “he has taken the poison out of the sting of salvation, shown us the heart of God, broken through the wall of death, given us creation, given us forgiveness, given us eternal life.”

In other words he had done what only God could do, what matters most – and he had left the rest to us. This on reflection seems a good deal to me. The logic of this way of thinking, that Jesus stopped when he had finished means that none of us is indispensable. Jesus is indispensable – he did what no one else could or can. But I am not indispensable. Nobody is indispensable. It is a harsh fact of life to learn but a real one. I am not the only person in the world who can do the things I do. Every person is in a replaceable situation when they base their value on what they do rather than on who they are. While it can be damaging to my pride to realize that there are people qualified and capable of taking on many of the tasks I feel I must it’s also freeing. If there are others who can carry some of the load, then I am free to do what God has uniquely called and equipped me to do.

If we live our lives thinking we are the only one who can save the world or serve the church we are not just insulting our colleagues, wearing out our family members and heading for burnout ourselves – we are denying that Jesus has already saved the world. It is a lot easier to retire when you recall that Jesus has already done the real work. Yes, we are all commissioned both believers and doubters alike to carry on the work of Jesus Christ in the world, but it is worth remembering, as I contemplate the years of retirement ahead that salvation remains today what it was on Ascension Day; Jesus had finished and completed his work in the world. That notion inspires me; it gives me a life with a faith to look back on, a hope to look forward to and a love to live. 

Ray Anglesea

Ascension, Niagara on the Lake, Canada

June 2014

Sabbatical Blog 4 - Cardinals

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

I have never seen a Cardinal Archbishop before, let alone been introduced to one. And just to prove the point here I am with the Cardinal Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Christopher Collins. It was on the January 6, 2012, that Pope Benedict XVI announced his appointment to the College of Cardinals; he is the 16th cardinal in Canadian history.

The chance meeting came about because my nephew’s wife, Michelle works as a part time secretary at St Augustine’s Seminary which was celebrating its centenary by hosting a college open day. The Seminary was established in 1913 as the first major seminary built in English-speaking Canada for the training of diocesan priests. For more than eight decades, the seminary has been a renewing source of study and reflection enabling men of faith to mature both in knowledge and commitment. It was interesting to note that the college chapel is modelled on the refectory of Queen’s College Oxford.

The 17^th World Youth Day, July 2002, a Catholic Youth Festival was held in the Seminary’s grounds in 2002. An estimated 400-500,000 young people from all over the world participated in the week-long festival which was attended by Pope John Paul II. It was to be his last World Youth event. He led the Saturday evening vigil and presided over Mass on the Sunday, delivering a homily which focused on entrusting the future of the Church to the youth. A crowd of over 850,000 was in attendance.  

I was introduced to the Cardinal as a reformed minister (I jokingly said we were still good friends). The subject of our conversation centred on Pope Francis, whom we agreed was proving to be a pontiff of surprises. He may be conservative on doctrine but he is the opposite in style. We agreed his grand gestures of humility – carrying his own suitcase, making calls on his mobile, staying in a hostel, washing the feet of prisoners including Muslims, providing food for the homeless endeared him to a wider audience outside the church. On Copacabana beach he attracted 3 million people – perhaps more than World Cup beach viewers. His series of new appointments in the Vatican, removing the old guard and replacing them with more open minded officials was to be welcomed as indeed his rejection of small minded rules and the rule of the Curia. Pope Francis has shown both imagination and resolution for change within his church. Although he is not abandoning traditional teaching he is urging his church to get its priorities in order. He is a Pope reintroducing the essence of Christianity to the world. He is a transforming Pope, of this we both agreed.

As I walked through the seminary I was interested to see on the walls of the cloisters annual photographs of catholic priests ordained to the priesthood, ranging from the multitudes of priests ordained in the 30/40s to the present day. Last year the 2012 photograph revealed two priests had been ordained that year. Despite the popularity of Pope Francis the latest figures from the Vatican show that there are 300,000 fewer nuns and priests in religious orders than there were 40 years ago with a marked decline in Europe, the US and Oceania. In my own church the roll of ministers admitted to the ministry of word and sacrament for the years 2012 – January 2014 was 21, averaging 10 ministers a year to serve the three nations; their average age 40+. As churches face declining numbers they look to new ministry models to make ends meet.

For many years it was accepted that Christianity was all but dead, its foundations destroyed by modern science and rationalism, left behind by the cultural and sexual revolution of the Sixties. The figures seem to bear this out. Church attendance — which stood at around 50 per cent in the middle of the 19th century – had declined to around 12 per cent in 1979, or 5.4 million. Despondent churchmen judge that in an era of materialism and selfishness there were just too many alternative attractions — Sunday shopping, sports fixtures and the relentless secularism. 

But change is afoot.  The dramatic decline in church attendance over the last few decades has nevertheless slowed. Peter Oborne, writing in The Telegraph, January 2012 states in an age of austerity there is still that yearning for faith. Giles Fraser, who famously resigned as the Canon of St Paul’s argues that a hunger for spirituality and meaning lies behind the recent rise in church attendances. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, agrees: "When the material world gets knocked people are forced to think again and that’s when Christianity does have something important to say. The ground is now more fertile for the spread of the Christian message.”

This new hunger for faith has spread into Britain’s cathedrals too. According to Lynda Barley, the head of research at the Archbishops’ Council, attendance at Britain’s 43 cathedrals rose by seven per cent last year, with 15,800 adults and more than 3,000 children attending Sunday service.  

Churches today are also finding new kinds of ways of connecting with the local community; and more than 1.5 million people now use their churches as a base for voluntary work, according to the National Churches Trust.

There are wistful and positive signs that there may well be a return to church going in our changing culture, perhaps not in a traditional sense, but nevertheless churches of the future shaped by the message of the gospel. As seminaries and ministers training colleges close in today's recession-dominated ministry where funds are not as easily available for stipend-dependent ministry, new models and leadership of church life are beginning to emerge. That surely must be encouraging news for Cardinals and the United Reformed Church.

Ray Anglesea

Toronto June 2014