SHOUTING IN CHURCH

I can't recall having been shouted at in church. I guess it's happened on occasions, but not for a long time. I've certainly done things on occasions which have left people angry with me.

I did one (relatively brief) job where I was expecting a blazing row every time I entered the building. Although the row never came the expectation of it made worshipping difficult.

But it seems that being shouted at is not uncommon in the life of the clergy.  In a survey of 200 clergy

When asked about church members being rude, aggressive or passive aggressive to them, 76% reported that this was a regular occurrence, with church members shouting at them on average, once a week. Some church leaders however, said that they were shouted at or spoken to aggressively as many as 30 times a month, with one respondent sorrowfully reporting that it happened ‘on a daily basis.’

Shouting in this context is an act of violence just below the physical. It can be felt as a blow, an assault. It's often born of frustration but it can equally be part of a pattern of bullying behaviour.

It's also, for the most part, an expression of violence for those who want to remain within the community. Perhaps they are frustrated in not getting their own way, or they shout to sustain their control over events, or they hate they way things are changing out of their control. But they don't want to leave.

Yet at the same time such people (even when they're not shouting) destroy the quality of the community they're part of. Trust and security are lost. And it's incredibly hard to turn such a situation around into a safe, nourishing and pleasant community.

No, but might benefit
from a haircut

On a couple of occasions in my career people have left the church following a row and the remainder of the church have been able to relax and breathe again and to build a better (if smaller) community. I recall a group of three in Sheffield who left after a dispute and went to the Cathedral. I told the story to one of the Canons who replied "Oh people are always falling out with their vicars and coming to the Cathedral. They don't stop being awkward buggers here - but they do all get together."

But if the experience of being shouted at regularly is as frequent as the survey suggests (and the post gives no details of sampling or methodology) then perhaps a more collective response is needed. 76% reporting regularly being shouted at cannot simply be down to the individuals concerned.

Nor does the brief report say whether men or women are equally the object of shouting or, as I would suspect, women are noticeably more likely to be shouted at.

It also suggests that prospects for church growth may be significantly hampered by poor, even self-destructive, relationships within too many local church communities.

(The brief report of the survey didn't say whether respondents had themselves shouted at other church members, or even whether they had been asked. But it would be unwise to assume that all fault is on the side of the laity.)

Knowing how others see us

A recent survey looking at the perceived trustworthiness of the police included clergy in the list of comparison groups. (Thanks to British Religion in Numbers.)

It turns out that, in general, clergy are deemed noticeably less trustworthy than nurses and doctors, or the police, but more so than lawyers and accountants.

And, thankfully, they are trusted more than tabloid journalists - the question there is why they are trusted by as many as 13% of people.

This survey should not be comfortable reading for clergy. First, I guess it contradicts the self-image of most clergy. Second it suggests clergy have real image problems with two important groups: younger adults and members of ethnic minorities.

Over two-thirds of younger adults find clergy untrustworthy or don't know. This suggests to me that there is a mountain to climb if the church wants to re-balance its age profile by attracting young people. (Or, alternatively, I suppose churches could work harder to strengthen their links with older people who are positively inclined to trust clergy.)

Summary:

% very/quite trustworthy	UK	London
Nurses	86	83
Doctors	85	84
Teachers	80	79
Armed forces	75	70
Judges	68	65
Police	65	60
Clergy	59	53
Accountants	56	55
Lawyers	52	47
Broadsheet journalists	25	36
Politicians	16	20
Tabloid journalists	13	16

Gender: In the more detailed survey results men and women trust clergy more or less equally but more men find them untrustworthy (30 % as opposed to 25% - the difference is that more women don't know).

Age: Older people trust clergy much more than younger people. In the 18-24 age group just 29% thought them trustworthy (as opposed to 72% of 75's and over). 37% of 18-24 year olds found them untrustworthy while 36% didn't know or weren't sure.

Regions: Geographic analysis shows intriguing differences. The North East and Wales have the highest proportion of people judging clergy to be trustworthy (64%), whilst the lowest figure (54%) is found between these two areas, in the North West, and in Northern Ireland.  (added later: Wales has the largest proportion of the population who reported 'no religion' in the 2011 census.)

Ethnicity: Amongst white people 62% thought clergy trustworthy and 26% untrustworthy. Among ethnic minority respondents 39% thought clergy trustworthy and 40% untrustworthy.

Reforrm and Renewal - the South African way

From the website of the Archbishop of South Africa, Thabo Makgoba:

In just over six weeks' time, representatives from all 28 dioceses, including experts in strategic planning, will hold two meetings, back-to-back, in which the Province will seize a Kairos moment to review our Vision and Mission as a church, to strategise around ways to implement our priorities, and then to make practical decisions on how to implement them in a manner that is productive, holistic and transformative.

Five years ago, the Province adopted a Vision and Mission Statement. In it we declared that the Anglican community in Southern Africa seeks to be:

• Anchored – in the love of Christ
• Committed – to God’s mission
• Transformed – by the Holy Spirit

Archbishop visits victims of Duduza tornado
4 October 2011 (Hope Africa gallery)

We added that across the diverse countries and cultures of our region, we seek:

• To honour God in worship that feeds and empowers us for faithful witness and service
• To embody and proclaim the message of God’s redemptive hope and healing for people and creation
• To grow communities of faith that form, inform, and transform those who follow Christ.

Within the context provided by that statement, we declared our Provincial priorities in the succeeding decade to be: 

• Renewal for transformative worship
• Theological education and formation
• Leadership development
• Health (HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis)
• The environment
• Women and gender
• Protection and nurture of children and young people
• public advocacy

==========

To me the tone and substance might have significant and constructive lessons for the CofE, if we could hear.

1. To begin with God-orientated vision. Not fear of collapse.
2. A history of Kairos (remember the Kairos document of 1985?): embracing the possibility of transformation (wiki). As opposed to cautious and arthritic legislative reform and tinkering.
3. To look equally inwards and out: to see that the church is only whole when it is engaged in a transformative - and reflexive - manner with the injustices of the society in which we live.
4. And, as a united church, to be prepared to address public issues which are neither easy nor one-sided but where there is the possibility that the church could make a substantive and positive difference to people's live.

And, frankly, a sense of excitement. 

I don't doubt that in the cities and the deep countryside there will also be significant anxiety about what all this will mean for them. The view through the Archbishop's eyes is most unlikely to be the same view as a worshipper in a village outside Olifantshoek, say, or in the centre of Bloemfontein.

But we are buried under too much sediment: not only our history but also the weight of being the State church.

Elections for General Synod

General Synod is the governing body of the Church of England. It is a largely elected body with three 'houses' (chambers): Bishops, Clergy and Laity.

Clergy are elected by vote of almost all ordained clergy. The exception is ordained clergy with no permission to officiate. For electoral purposes at  least - they're nobody. They have no standing as clergy and cannot vote as laity.

The laity have an electoral college - Deanery Synod members - who alone vote for representatives of the laity on General Synod. In my view this is wholly unacceptable and embodies the marginalisation of the laity. (I've wittered on about this elsewhere.)

(Curiously, at least on a quick look, I couldn't find a general page about Deanery Synods of the CofE official site - only a leaflet (pdf) and the rules.)

Undoubtedly this new Synod is going to be busy. It has to begin the process of dismantling and rebuilding the CofE.

I personally hope it goes for wholesale reform but that's not the Anglican way: look for slow, piecemeal and insufficient change.

Here's some more talking heads:

Religiously motivated violence

Archbishop Justin Welby at Lambeth Palace

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has given a considered lecture on aspects of religiously motivated violence, entitled

‘The Abolition of the Global – Learning to Live in the World in One City’

Amongst other things he calls the idea of "a war of civilizations" a dangerous myth, which I would heartily endorse.

The phrase is largely intended to reinforce 'us' as the good guys against an amorphous 'them', the enemy. It suggests a gulf which isn't there, and boundaries which don't exist.

His argument is based in part on an understanding of the way the world has changed:

let us start with reflecting on the nature of electronic media. Electronic media makes everything local. The global has been abolished, ...

What was once something happening to some stranger on the other side of the world is now happening to a friend of a friend on Facebook. 

When we face each other, deeply and sincerely, we begin to catch a glimpse of our creation, our Creator, and thus our shared humanity. 

However, at present the result of digitisation is

diversity but without facing each other. 

He goes on to put a lot of emphasis on "facing one another." which "enables us to perceive selfhood in others. To see that the person we're looking at is a human being of infinite dignity." He cites a Church of England project called Near Neighbours intended

to bring people together who are near neighbours in communities that are religiously and ethnically diverse, so that they can get to know each other better, build relationships of trust and collaborate together on initiatives that improve the local community they live in.

In sum, a consequence of digitization and digital communication is both centralization and centripetalism: it brings together and creates new divisions, it crosses old boundaries and reinforces old ones. In particular religion (implicitly replacing nationalism) becomes the plane on which the 'outsider' is identified and which 'justifies' violence - itself facilitated and intensified by the same changes in technology.

Therefore, the Archbishop's proposal is, effectively, that those seeking peace and mutual respect in our differences must themselves also dissolve the old language and seek new ways and words. We need a "narrative ...underpinned by a commitment to human flourishing." which is not bounded by the old lines of religious division.

In turn this entails a need for a new literacy on matters of faith amongst governmental players.
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When I began this post I had not intended to simply summarise the Archbishop's lecture - better to read it in full - but I found on more careful reading that I agreed with him  more than I expected.

However I think his references to economic and political forces too slight (accepting it wasn't his theme), They remain powerful and self-serving, marginalising far too many people. I also think that whatever eventually emerges won't be quite what anyone had planned or campaigned for.

ISIS's apocalyptic theology is such that it cannot listen to outsiders. Christians should be able to understand this because Christianity holds the same capacity for such thinking. In the short-term violence seems likely to grow rather than diminish.

And it is precisely because the task seems so great, the violence so horrific, the ideology so absolute that we need to re-affirm the value of love in public policy: respect, affirmation of, consideration for strangers and enemies solely because we are all children of God. Somehow face-to-face valuing of the person in front of us needs to be translated to digital communication and global ordering.

A scene from religiously motivated violence in Egypt