The Bishops were right…





The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, probably isn’t going to suffer the fate of 12th-century Thomas a Becket, happily.  But the response of some to the bishops’ pre-election pastoral letter has been to echo Henry II’s cry ‘Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?’  It’s as if the Church of England has committed a cardinal sin by getting involved in politics.

Let me make it clear. The bishops’ letter isn’t party-political, but it does say important things about Britain today. One East London MP, Jon Cruddas, has called it ‘a profound, complex letter’ and ‘as conservative as it is radical’. It dares to say some important things, even though they’re not fashionable, and calls for people of all political beliefs to work for the common good.

Whether we’re from the Right or the Left, the letter says some challenging things. It argues that neither the post-war collectivism of nationalisation, the NHS and the Welfare State nor the free-market revolution of the 1980s give us all the answers to the problems of Britain in the 21st century. Both have failed. What we need, it argues, is an understanding that people aren’t just commodities or economic units but individuals capable of making decisions, exercising responsibility and living with others in positive relationships that bring peace and prosperity to communities – in short, that we need to build a consensus that we will work together for the common good.

Some will still question why the bishops are getting involved in politics at all. Dom Helder Camara, famously said ‘When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist.’  The Archbishop of Canterbury is no communist, but he is right to be asking difficult questions of our political parties.

As the general election draws near, the media will be full of people turning everything into party-political point-scoring. That’s inevitable. But we need to rise above that and have a long-term conversation about how we can make things better for the common good. That’s true whatever our politics – or our faith.  

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‘We preach Christ crucified…’

Like all good archdeacons, I listen to my betters, so when the Archbishop of Canterbury revealed on Desert Island Discs that he is a fan of The West Wing, I bought the boxed set of all seven series and 156 episodes.

If you’ve ever watched the West Wing you will know that candidates for any senior post in American politics have to undergo a confirmation process in which just about everything they have ever said or done will be raked over. What it leads to, it seems to me, is a culture in which leaders are expected to appear to be omniscient and omni-competent, which means, I suspect, that they are out of touch with the rest of us.

There’s nothing new in that. People have always expected leaders to have done great things and/or to have all the answers. Thus, the Apostle Paul writes (in 1 Corinthians) ‘Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom’ – action and answers – ‘but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’ – Foolishness, not least, because to be crucified was a failure, perhaps the ultimate failure.

It is tempting for church leaders, like leaders everywhere, to try to be people who have all the answers and who can do everything. But that’s not the Biblical model.

Famously, Moses was a murderer, Jacob was a cheat, Peter had a temper, David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah ran away from God, Paul was complicit in Stephen’s death, Gideon was insecure, Miriam was a gossip, Martha was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sarah was impatient, Elijah was moody, Abraham was old (the ultimate sin) and Lazarus was, well, dead. And yet, God was able to work through such people for good.

Leaders in the church do well, in Lent, to acknowledge that we don’t know it all, and that we’re not omni-competent. We make mistakes, as leaders have done throughout history. We’re a bunch of sinners in need of a saviour.

In the Anglican church in East London and Essex, we’ve been encouraging people to use a ‘holding cross’ – the Chelmsford Holding Cross, no less – as a reminder of some deep truths about our relationship with God.

• We hold onto the cross because time and time again it offers the chance of a new start with God.
• We hold onto the cross because it reminds us that we do so as members of the body of Christ.
• We hold onto the cross because it is at the centre of the great story of God and his creation of which we are part.
• We hold onto the cross because we’re called to serve, to love God and to love our neighbours.
• And we hold onto the cross because the love of God is as relevant to what we do out throughout the week as it is to what we’re doing in worship on a Sunday.

We’re human, and we fail. And yet…

And yet, as we know, by God’s amazing grace, when a motley crew of people open to God’s will gather in his name, anything can happen.

The Pope is a sinner!

Yes, you read that right: The Pope is a sinner. He said so himself. When asked once who he was, he said “I am a sinner. That is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”

Lest you think that I am claiming any moral superiority over the Supreme Pontiff, I should say here and now that I, too, am a sinner. I have failed far too many times in my life to be able to claim to be better than anyone reading these words. That’s not the false humility of a Uriah Heap speaking. It’s the truth. It’s at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. “If we say that we are without sin we deceive ourselves…”

But that’s not the whole story. As that great letter-writer, Paul of Tarsus, wrote: “This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.”

One of the oldest and greatest prayers used by Christians over the centuries, the Jesus prayer, puts it very well: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

Christians believe in second chances. And second chances change us, and so those who seek to follow Jesus Christ and who really understand what it is to be forgiven, through the Grace of God, tend to become people who can act with forgiveness and understanding towards others who fail.

If we admit that we often get things wrong, we should surely be generous to others when they get things wrong – whether they’re our friends and neighbours or our politicians and leaders.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we could approach the coming election in that way? Wouldn’t it be good if politicians could confess to having made mistakes without being pilloried, or change their mind without being accused of doing a U-turn? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear leaders in all walks of life admitting their fallibility and being generous when others fail?

After all, as Einstein said, the person who never made a mistake never did anything new.

A version of this article appeared first in the Newham Recorder

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Look what you did!

Last year, I told you about Grace, our friend in Akosombo, in Ghana, who was helping lots of children to learn to read. I told you that she had nowhere to keep the hundreds of books she has collected for the children, or for those children to read in safety. And I told you about the vision to build ‘Grace’s Place’, a base for Grace’s work and a centre to promote literacy.

As I knew you would, you responded in style. Individuals from all over the country found ways of raising funds, along with churches from across East London and Essex. They included Gary Stewart and his colleagues at Manchester-based CMC School Foods, my cousin Martin Cockett and his wife Maggie, and friends at All Saints’, Leyton, St Cedd’s, Barkingside, St Luke’s, Victoria Dock, St Luke’s, Walthamstow, St Peter’s, Aldborough Hatch, St Paul’s, Woodford Bridge, All Saints’ and St Giles’, Nazeing, and – most recently – the congregation at a confirmation service held by Bishop Peter at St John’s, Stratford.

The result of your fantastic generosity is that now, barely 18 months since the appeal was set up, Grace’s Place is a reality! As you can see from these photos, the local people are already flocking there, and the building is already in use, despite the fact that it isn’t finished yet.

All this was made possible by you. On behalf of the children of Akosombo, this is a huge ‘thank you’ for your generosity and kindness. ‘Grace’s Place’ couldn’t have happened without you. Thank you, and may God bless you.

Of course, there is more to do. Some walls are yet to be plastered, wiring needs to be installed and doors and windows remain as a costly challenge to be met. So, if you’re looking to make a donation to mark Christmas and the end of 2014 you can be sure that Grace would make very good use of it.

We will remember them…

Do you remember the story of Jack Cornwell? He was the sixteen-year-old boy from Manor Park, in East London, who died in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry. As a member of a gun crew on HMS Chester, he had seen most of his comrades perish, but remained at his post under heavy fire, despite his wounds. His story, recounted by Vice-Admiral Beatty, caught the nation’s imagination, with stories of his heroism widely told.

Although Jack was buried at first in a simple grave, as his fame grew, it was decided that he should be reinterred with all the pomp of a national hero’s funeral. That service, at Manor Park Cemetery, was led by the Bishop of Barking and attended by the great and the good, with a military band, a firing party, and the coffin on a gun-carriage decorated with the Union flag. In the years that followed, Cornwell’s name was remembered in many ways, not least in the re-naming in his honour of the school that he had attended. To this day, the Scout movement still awards the Cornwell Scout Badge to those who have shown particular courage and devotion to duty, and we still have a street named after him in Little Ilford.

Clearly, there is no-one alive who knew Jack. No-one actually remembers him in person. And yet every Remembrance Sunday, in Newham, we mark his passing with pride and gratitude, just as we remember all those who have perished in conflicts, whether at the Somme, or in Helmand, or on our own streets. We remember, and go on remembering, because it matters.

For many centuries, this time of year has been a time for giving thanks for those who are no longer with us – and not those who have served in the forces or died in conflicts, but our own loved-ones, too. In doing so, we who are left are inspired to live our lives in a way that honours them and the sacrifices they made for us.   May that be true in 2014, just as it was in 1916.

Family Matters in East London

The remarkable campaign of the ‘Focus E15 Mothers’ is a reminder of something that has been all-but absent in public policy in recent years: The importance of family ties.  For if this brave band of young mums is defending anything, it is the aspiration of mothers with small children to live close to the people who love them and will support them in times of need, rather than being shipped out to far-off places.

There is an old Jewish proverb which says ‘God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.’ Back in the 1950s, two academics, Michael Young and Peter Willmott, wrote much the same in ‘Family and kinship in East London’.  Their argument was that family and friends are vital to the health of mothers and children. And those same bonds are vital to the health of the older generation, too, as their children and grandchildren later care for them.

Writing decades later, Young and Willmott added ‘If people wish to leave the city, and their relatives, that is fine… …But if they do not wish to move away from the established social network, and if public policy offers them no effective opportunity to remain, the unhappiness and the social costs are far greater than they need to be.’

No-one should pretend that there are easy answers to London’s housing problems. They are as old as London itself. Nor should we listen to those who scapegoat immigrants, for they – from the Huguenots of the 17^th century to the Eastern Europeans of our era – have been central to the growth, prosperity and diversity of London.

What we do need to say, though, is that dumping young mums in distant places where they have no family ties and no connections is not the solution – at least not one that we should contemplate. Quite apart from the unhappiness that it causes, it is likely to lead to the spiralling social costs that Young and Willmott warned us about years ago. With the NHS and Social Services struggling to meet our needs, family ties are more important than ever.

This article appeared first in my column in the Newham Recorder and is reproduced here by kind permission.

Perfection isn’t always best

 

 

 

 

 

Back in the Stratford of the 1960s, I remember a shop where they kept a box of tins of food that had been damaged. Some had lost their labels, some were dented and some had just got a bit scuffed. There was a sign on the box, saying ‘Damaged goods. Cheap!’, but not many people bought those tins, They preferred the perfect-looking ones on the shelves.

I always thought that a shame, because there was nothing wrong with the food in the tins in the box. Outside, they might look a bit battered, but inside they were every bit as good as the perfect ones on the shelves – perhaps even better. After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, isn’t it?

I confess that I often feel that way when I watch politicians at party conferences. Naturally, they want to present the best of themselves to the voters, but all too often they can all end up looking and sounding a bit too perfect. This is despite the fact that, over the years, it has often been the politicians who have been prepared to admit to being human who have been the most successful at engaging with people.

The truth is that it is often people who aren’t perfect, who have lived a bit, and who have been battered a bit by life, who actually turn out to be better at making decisions on behalf of us all. That’s not surprising because, if we’re honest, all of us have to admit that we have made mistakes, whether big or small, and had to learn from them. All of us have picked up a few knocks as we go through life. And all of us fall short of perfection, whoever we are.

As a Christian leader, it seems to be that God really isn’t interested in superficial perfection. He looks at the inside. However battered and dented we are, we’re not ‘damaged goods’ to him. We’re just forgiven sinners who, if we have any sense, are learning to be better day by day, and helping others to do the same, by the grace of God.

An edited version of this piece appeared first in the Newham Recorder.

A Foretaste of Heaven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I moved back to East London, having lived in Essex for seven years, one well-meaning friend said I was ‘very brave to be going there’. It was clear that what he meant was that immigration in recent years had made East London no place for an Englishman like me.

Now, I’m proud to be English. But I’m also proud that among my ancestors is a man who, when his life was in danger in his homeland, came to London as a refugee and asylum-seeker. This all happened in 1750 and he was a French Huguenot – a Protestant Christian in then-Catholic France. He came to London, where he found work as a carpenter among the growing French community around Spitalfields, and married a French girl. Interestingly, the family were still speaking French as their first language sixty years later, in 1810, when his granddaughter, Marguerite, married a young local, William Cockett. That French heritage is still reflected of course, in street names such as Fournier Street and Fleur de Lis Street.

Now, East London has seen several waves of incomers since then, each bringing their own flavour and way of life. Some have learned English quickly, while others – like my ancestors – have taken a generation or two to assimilate. Some came because of persecution, while others simply came in search of a better life. Whatever reason we came for, we have one thing in common, which is that whatever we were before, we are all now Londoners, and proud of it.

As a Christian, I am inspired by a vision of Heaven, described in the book of Revelation as a place where there is ‘a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language’. And when I worship in many of our churches in East London, I take great joy in seeing that vision being lived out on Earth. The wonderful diversity of East London has its challenges, certainly, but it also brings great blessings. I’m proud to live in a place which, if we take the Bible seriously, should be seen as nothing less than a foretaste of Heaven itself.

(This article first appeared in the Newham Recorder)

Grace’s Place is looking good!

Over the past 18 months or so, churches in East London and Essex have been raising funds for a project in Ghana. The plan has been to build a new centre in Akosombo, by the Volta river, where local children can come to read and study in peace and safety.

Today, I received this photo from Grace. From being nothing more than a dream last year, the centre is now well on the way to being finished. As you can see, the walls and roof are up, and the plumbing and electrical work is next. Grace tells me that the vegetation around the building is the builder’s attempt to keep the weeds down by planting Maize!

All this has been made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you for your kindness – and if you would like to donate further to this amazing project, you can do so very easily. Just get in touch with me by email at a.westham@chelmsford.anglican.org .

Elwin