Tag Archives: Justin Welby

Love, no matter what…

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking in the House of Lords, appears to believe that the new Gay Marriage Bill will undermine family life.

Welby told peers the bill had created confusion, adding: “Marriage is abolished, redefined and recreated – being different and unequal for different categories. The new marriage of the bill is an awkward shape with same gender and different gender categories scrunched into it – neither fitting well.

“The concept of marriage as a normative place for procreation is lost. The idea of marriage as covenant is diminished. The family in its normal sense predating the state and as our base community of society is weakened.

“For these and many other reasons those of us in the churches and faith groups, who are extremely hesitant about the bill in many cases, hold that view because we think that traditional marriage is a cornerstone of society and rather than adding a new and valued institution alongside it for same gender relationships, which I would personally strongly support to strengthen us all, this bill weakens what exists and replaces it with a less good option that is neither equal nor effective.”

Welby said that his concerns did not stem from faith but from what he believes is the best for society. He said: “And so with much regret, but entire conviction, I cannot support the bill as it stands.”

I have never really understood this argument. How does allowing same sex couples to marry undermine or devalue marriage for the rest (the majority) of us? How does it create confusion? Am I less committed to love and to my children because same sex couples also are able to formally cement life long relationships? I say this with respect to the archbishop and to friends of mine who have the same views, but your argument does not make sense to me.

I am forced to conclude that the real issue is not really the ‘sanctity of marriage’ (which is a highly confused concept all on its own) but rather a pervasive discomfort with the morality, theology and physiology of homosexuality itself. People I speak to who take this view, when pushed, often reveal a conviction that being gay is not ‘natural’, and marriage needs protection from some kind of creeping militant homosexual liberalism. I DO understand this argument. Change of what we hold to be right and true is always tough- particularly when deeply held religious beliefs are involved. Our culture has been on a journey of change over the past decades in relation to homosexuality and this kind of change takes time, conversation and mutual exchange on all sides.

I have made my contributions to this debate already on this blog, but as the vote in the House of Lords draws close, I will add this thought- are there higher considerations? Is not the greatest thing that we celebrate as humans love? 

Michaela and I watched this last night- grab a cuppa and watch;

 

The voice of the Church…

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p9_uk_poverty

Over the last few days, a rare thing has been happening- leading voices in the Church have started to speak out, and the media has been taking an interest. More remarkably, the issues that they have spoken on are not the usual internal contortions around homosexuality and the role of women in Church hierarchy; instead the Church is engaging in a debate about things that really matter.

First the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, challenged the British Government over planned welfare reforms, saying that the poorest children in the country were most at risk.

Next the new Pope started to challenge the culture of elitism in the Catholic church, and refocus his mission on the poor- first washing the feet of female inmates at a detention centre (including a Moslem woman) then calling for “peace in the whole world, still divided by greed looking for easy gain, wounded by the selfishness which threatens human life and the family, selfishness that continues in human trafficking, the most extensive form of slavery in this 21st century. Peace to the whole world, torn apart by violence linked to drug trafficking and by the iniquitous exploitation of natural resources”.

uk-poverty-image

Now, step forward the Evangelicals and non-conformists…

On the eve of the most sweeping and devastating raft of welfare cuts and reforms since the beginning of the Welfare State in the UK, a coalition of churches, including Methodists, United Reformed, Baptist and Church of Scotland raised their voices;

Paul Morrison, public issues policy adviser at the Methodist Church, said the churches were concerned that the benefit cuts were “a symptom of an understanding of people in poverty in the United Kingdom that is just wrong”. Speaking to the BBC, Morrison said: “It is an understanding of people that they somehow deserve their poverty, that they are somehow ‘lesser’, that they are not valued. The churches believe that they are valued and we believe that they should be treated much more fairly than they are being.”

Morrison and other church figures were promoting a report published recently by the four churches accusing politicians and the media of promoting six myths about the poor: that they are lazy; are addicted to drink or drugs; are not really poor; cheat the system; have an easy life; and that they caused the deficit.

“The systematic misrepresentation of the poorest in society is a matter of injustice which all Christians have a responsibility to challenge,” the report says.

Morrison said: “We saw that people who we value, who we believe God values and God loves, we saw them being insulted day in and day out in the media, and that needed to stop. The consequence of the attitudes towards the poor is that welfare cuts like this become more acceptable, so it’s right that we criticise that too.”

Well said.

The church- on the side of the Angels- who knew?

The Government here seem rattled. Grant Shapps, Chairman of the Conservatives has been pushing back– suggesting that there is a moral case for rewarding those in work. Good old Victorian values those- make the workhouses so bad that it is better to shove our kids up chimneys.

Let us remember that at the same time as all these cuts, the government has reduced the top rate of income tax paid over a certain level of income by the very highest earners) from 50% down to 45%.

It all fits the rhetoric- reward the strivers, punish the skivers. Justify this by vilifying those who receive benefits. It matters not that the rhetoric does not fit reality, or what casualties line the roadside.

And those of us who are comfortable, well provided for- we are being told that we dangle over a precipice, and that all this is necessary.  It is not.

The Church should be at the loving heart of this matter- our conscience- a mirror to hold up before those in power. Whilst I feel a shame at what our government is doing, I find hope in the voices coming from Christians.

Welcome to the new Archbishop…

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At the time of writing this, we await the likely announcement that Justin Welby, the current Bishop of Durham, will be the next leader of the Anglican Communion. There is a 15 min radio profile on him here.

Here is my gathering of a few facts about him;

Eaton school. Most expensive fee paying school in the land, where the rich and autocratic send their kids.

Trinity College Cambridge. Member of the Christian Union, a very Evangelical Grouping known as ‘the God Squad’. The dean however (in contrast to Dean of John Robinson, was a liberal radical, famous for a controversial liberal theology book called ‘Honest to God’.)

Evangelical. Attended Holy Trinity Brompton, Charismatic in outlook.

Joined an Oil Company, became treasurer. Very rich.

1989 gave it up to become parish priest.

10 years ago, fast rise up church hierarchy- Dean, Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop of Durham (less than a year.)

Now Archbishop?

Where does he stand on those totemic issues that have the capacity to rip the church apart? Apparently he is supportive of women in ministry, but his views on homosexuality are less clear. He has suggested that he supports the ‘churches position’ on the matter, which might suggest he holds to traditional teaching.

However, others have suggested he has really good skills relevant to the post- being a great communicator, intermediary, good with managing money and engaging with issues. This as contrast with the outgoing Archbishop, Rowan Williams, who was a brilliant, deeply spiritual, cerebral character.

Leadership matters. We only have to look at the things happening in the Roman Catholic Church at the moment under the leadership of Pope Benedict as he tries to roll back changes made in the church over the last 40 years since Vatican II.

The Anglican Communion is a very different animal however- much more about the vicarage kitchen table than the Papal palace. I hope and pray that Justin Welby will be a leader who we will look back on with same affection as most will be doing on his predecessor.

Capitalism; a conspiracy against the common good?

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Interesting interview with the current Bish of Durham in the Guardian.

Justin Welby, who is apparently one of the favourites to become the next Archbishop, has an interesting background at the centre of UK establishment- Eton school, Cambridge University, The City of London as an oil executive, along with stints working in the oil fields of Nigeria.

All of which would suggest that his perspective on economic ethics would be rather right of centre. Not so however- this on the Occupy Movement;

“Occupy reflects a deep-seated sense that there is something wrong, and we need to think very hard about what’s wrong.” I press him on this, just to make sure I am hearing him right: “Were Occupy right that something is wrong?” He doesn’t hesitate in any careful, diplomatic Anglican way. “Of course they were right. Absolutely. And everything we are hearing now says that.”

His time as an oil executive in the centre of the City must give him a particular perspective on Capitalism, red in tooth and claw. The interviewer asked him if it all was not just one great, big conspiracy against the common good; profits privatised, losses socialised, to which he had this to say;

“When one group corners a source of human flourishing, it is deeply wicked. It applies to the City, to commodities traders, and to churches who say only this way is right.” This is pretty strong stuff. He continues: “The City is unspeakably powerful. The longer I go on, the more I am aware of the power of finance.”

Talk of the common good is exactly where Bishop Welby is at, ethically. He cites Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 letter Rerum Novarum as the greatest influence over his moral thinking. In this letter, a response to the exploitation of workers in industrial societies, the Pope sets out that the job of the state is to provide for the benefit of all, not least the most dispossessed. Though it rejects socialism, the theology it advocates lays out what later came to be called a preferential option for the poor: “The interests of all, whether high or low, are equal. The members of the working classes are citizens by nature and by the same right as the rich; they are real parts, living the life which makes up, through the family, the body of the commonwealth … therefore the public administration must duly and solicitously provide for the welfare and the comfort of the working classes; otherwise, that law of justice will be violated which ordains that each man shall have his due.”

There is also an interesting discussion about how Christianity is intertwined with capitalism- how the cultural inheritance of Christianity made us who we are, including our greed and excess;

(He quotes a) letter from the economist John Maynard Keynes to Virginia Woolf. The Bishop tries to recite the quote from memory: “We are the lucky generation, we have inherited the benefits of our father’s faith but don’t have the moral obligations. The next generation will be lost in their lust like dogs. We have destroyed Christianity, they will reap the cost of that.” In other words, Welby suggests we are living off and running down the cultural capital of Christianity. I point out to him that Stephen Green (Rev’d Stephen Green, now Lord Green, trade minister and author of Good Value, a book about ethics and finance) ran HSBC when it was laundering Mexican drug money, and Roman Catholic John Varley was CEO of Barclays. Christianity may offer little mitigation against City wrongdoing or morally significant mistakes.

Can Christianity, through the voice of people like Justin Welby, really start to become the faithful, engaged critics of our generation? Can we propose or model a real live alternative? This is my hope, although what this alternative may be is still so hard to visualise, so entwined are we with the culture we have both spawned and feed from.