No Hope For The Church Of England?Early in January a leading Church of England historian wrote: ‘It is a sad, gloomy, and mournful place where our Church currently finds itself. It has not been in such a bad place for centuries. Its standing, as an institution, in society, and the local community has plunged. Its moral reputation has been wrecked. There is a pervasive sense of organisational incoherence, dysfunctionality, dishonesty, and betrayal. Instead of leading the way, as it often has done in the past, the Church of England has lost its way. But (the writer added), although the morale of the faithful in their parishes has been severely dented, many still carry on as best they can and deserve enormous gratitude for that.’ This article prompted quite a backlash in the Church Times. Some acknowledged with a sense of shame and humility that the behaviour of many, including leaders, has been found wanting, and in some cases seriously so. Others pointed out that away from the headlines there remains evergreen evidence of authentic Christian faith seen in the lives of God’s ‘ordinary’ people. Untrumpeted, and missing from the annual Honours Lists, such ‘salt of the earth’ individuals display (unselfconsciously) simple goodness, love and integrity. They live it out in family, neighbourhood and community life at ground level. Perhaps if you stop and think for a moment, some such individuals will soon come to mind.Let’s remember, Jesus taught that the ‘kingdom of God’ (for which we pray day by day) grows unobtrusively, like yeast in a batch of dough or like seedlings which emerge unnoticed. And that St Paul discovered that only in our weakness and reliance on God’s help would the goal be achieved. The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines Rural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
No hope for the Church of England?Early in January a leading Church of England historian wrote: ‘It is a sad, gloomy, and mournful place where our Church currently finds itself. It has not been in such a bad place for centuries. Its standing, as an institution, in society, and the local community has plunged. Its moral reputation has been wrecked. There is a pervasive sense of organisational incoherence, dysfunctionality, dishonesty, and betrayal. Instead of leading the way, as it often has done in the past, the Church of England has lost its way. But (the writer added), although the morale of the faithful in their parishes has been severely dented, many still carry on as best they can and deserve enormous gratitude for that.’This article prompted quite a backlash in the Church Times. Some acknowledged with a sense of shame and humility that the behaviour of many, including leaders, has been found wanting, and in some cases seriously so. Others pointed out that away from the headlinesthere remains evergreen evidence of authentic Christian faith seen in the lives of God’s ‘ordinary’ people. Untrumpeted, and missing from the annual Honours Lists, such ‘salt of the earth’ individuals display (unselfconsciously) simple goodness, love and integrity. They live it out in family, neighbourhood and community life at ground level. Perhaps if you stop and think for a moment, some such individuals will soon come to mind.Let’s remember, Jesus taught that the ‘kingdom of God’ (for which we pray day by day) grows unobtrusively, like yeast in a batch of dough or like seedlings which emerge unnoticed. And that St Paul discovered that only in our weakness and reliance on God’s help would the goal be achieved.The Rev’d Dr Richard HinesRural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
Tending the Garden of our Mind Last year’s BBC Reith Lectures were given by forensic psychologist Dr Gwen Adshead who has studied the minds of society’s most violent perpetrators for more than 30 years. Dr Adshead has come to the conclusion that the capacity for evil is to be found in all of us and in one lecture she suggests that individual minds are like a garden that needs close tending so that its boundaries are not obscured and lost. Neglected weeds so easily choke all else to death in an untended garden, and so she proposes the importance of cultivating goodness in the individual mind, and so more widely in communities. ‘We need to grow goodness by practicing compassionate states of mind which can lead to the growth of tolerance, gentleness and patience. Such virtues act as a protection against violent and destructive states of mind.’ Dr Adshead believes that defending against such states of mind means developing a capacity to take horrible emotions, like rage and hatred, seriously. We especially need to recognise in ourselves the kind of anger that leads to a wish to hurt others, so that we then take care to protect ourselves and one another. She concludes that this kind of self-care is vital given the wilderness of combative attitudes and aggressive ideologies to which we’re regularly exposed. It is perhaps especially important for those of us who have suffered trauma and for whom anger may be a constant struggle to manage – anger which could so easily be the connection with later violence. St Paul urged us long ago in similar vein: ‘Whatever is true, pure, pleasing and excellent … think about these things … and the God of peace will be with you.’ The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines Rural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
As I write, the results of the recent UK General Election are being digested. We’ll all carry from this period in our nations’ history a particular memory of the fast-moving political developments of the last week. For myself, I’ve noted how often our new Prime Minister has referred to the privilege of having been ‘elected to serve’ our country as opposed to his party having ‘won power’. It was Pope Gregory the Great who first described his role as Servus servorum Dei (‘Servant of the Servants of God’), a title that has been used on papal documents ever since, and a designation that disturbs and challenges any inappropriately exalted estimation of the full range of other Christian leadership roles enacted today. And as if, by way of a divine prompt to me personally, my wife has surprised me with a card and a box of chocolates on this, the Fortieth Anniversary of my ordination as Deacon in Norwich Cathedral. I was ordained Priest in the same Cathedral the following year: but, like all priests, I remain in deacon’s ‘orders’ as well as priest’s ‘orders’. I remain essentially a servant. The word deacon means ‘servant’, and given the sobering words of Jesus, ‘Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all’, I have in my own way as much in mind to ponder at present as Sir Keir Starmer. One beautiful Christian prayer perfectly expresses this aspiration for all Christian people, lay and ordained: ‘Almighty God, you have broken the tyranny of sin and sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts whereby we call you Father: give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service.’ Amen to that! The Rev’d Dr Richard Hines Rural Dean for Wisbech Lynn Marshland richard.hines@outlook.com
