This is the text of this morning’s Presidential Address at the Ninth Diocesan Synod of the Diocese of Leeds.
All bets are off.
Not so long ago the UK had elected a stronger government that decided to hold an unlosable referendum on our place in the European Union. Brexit came as a surprise even to many who wanted it. The Prime Minister resigned as the country wondered what lay ahead. The Americans elected Donald Trump – a business man who had no experience of (or apparent interest in) public service or political office – and he has torn up the rule book on international diplomacy, the dignity of high office and truth-telling. Despite fears to the contrary, France voted against the Far Right, and Germany looks to be re-strengthening its affection for Mutti Merkel – despite the immigration crisis that appeared at one point to threaten her future. And Theresa May called an unlosable election in order to strengthen her hand in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, even though the clock had already started ticking.
But, we woke on Friday morning to a world in which all the certainties of the previous months had been overturned. We now have little idea of how we shall negotiate Brexit or how, in the light of this, we will be negotiated with.
Now, I don’t set this out briefly here in order to depress you, but, rather, to make a very obvious and simple point. There is no ‘normal’. The world changes every day, and we need to face the choices and challenges particular to our current circumstances. One hundred years ago the world was fighting a brutal war that nobody wanted and few thought likely only weeks before it ignited.
We need to live with humility in the face of what might be possible – as what might be possible does not always coincide with what we might find desirable or convenient.
I find this particularly pertinent in the wake of an experience during the last few weeks. I was in Germany for celebrations and commemorations of the launch of the Reformation 500 years ago. The Kirchentag brought together tens of thousands of people to Berlin and Wittenberg where Martin Luther allegedly nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Schloßkirche. I began preaching in Halle in the marketplace outside the church where Handel learned to play the organ. We went on from there to Jena, which is where Hegel taught, and Schiller met Goethe. From Jena to Berlin to preside at the Meissen Eucharist in the Gedächtnis-Kirche which was the scene of an Islamist atrocity last year. Then we went to Wittenberg for the grand finale.
This might sound like a tourist guide. But, just think about what the people there have lived through during my – and your – lifetime. A divided Germany in a divided Europe in a bipolar world dominated by US capitalism. Now a world in which the capitalist powers are turning out to be China, India and Brazil. America has gone mad and turned inward, Europe is open, but threatened, migration has changed everything, stability has become a fantasy for most people, and the future looks fragile and uncertain.
When Martin Luther was getting cross with the Pope and exploiting the latest communications technology to change the world, anti-semitism was acceptable and rife. Blood was shed easily, and the populations of Europe knew that life could often be short and brutal. Since his time, the world has endured revolutions, rapid technological progress, the elimination of many diseases, the expansion of lifespan and expectations, the exploitation by empires of huge numbers of people, the generation and abolition of slavery (except in the manufacture of modern clothing and sex-trafficking), the mechanisation of war and the sophistication of mass slaughter, globalisation and anti-globalisation, the sexual revolution, and so on and so on. And terrorism: the singular persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the indiscriminate violence against ordinary people on our own streets, the targeting of young people at a pop concert. And the prospect of more to come because we cannot control the world or people intent on murder.
Every generation wakes up to the realisation that change is a constant. And, as we are seeing at the moment, the constant repetition of mantras about “stability” or “certainty” do not automatically translate into the imaginative consciousness of achievable vision.
And this is where we are. Change is here to stay whether we like it or not. The only question has to do with our faithfulness in engaging with and shaping it as followers of Jesus Christ who calls us to repent: to change the way we look in order to change the way we see in order to change the way we think in order to change the way we live. To be a follower of Jesus involves a sitting loose to some certainties or expectations, and being willing to face the world as it is (or as it is becoming) and not as we would prefer it to be.
For example, and as I expressed in London this week, we cannot rewrite the history of this Diocese of Leeds in the light of what we have either done, failed to do or had done to us. We are very conscious of where we might have been dealt a stronger hand in the management of change or the realistic resourcing of it. There are many lessons to be learned from our experience – both within the diocese and across the Church of England – and the various reviews that will be conducted should help the Church better shape itself for the future. However, we are where we are, and cannot go back. Indeed, we are where we are because so many people – clergy and lay – across the diocese had the vision, courage and sheer northern nerve to give it a good, strong go. I believe we have been faithful to the call God has given us at this time and in this place.
Look at the agenda before us today and you will see that the challenges we face are not insignificant. The motion before the Synod relating to our Diocesan Environment Policy is important because it calls us to take seriously the call of God to nurture the earth and its people. This hasn’t been dreamed up by some trendy conspiracy theorist in order to tick a box. We are not the President of America. Rather, how we tackle our responsibilities for the environment is a massive element of the expression of our responsibility under God for the world we say is his and the people he loves to death and beyond. Loving our neighbor does not stop at stocking the food bank.
This is not necessarily comfortable stuff for everyone. It is hard to contemplate changes in lifestyle or spending. But, repentance is double-barrelled: it is a positive thing that leads us to embrace something, not simply let something go.
If we want to dig a little deeper into why our use of the earth’s resources matters, then we just have to listen to our brothers and sisters in link dioceses who pay the price for our preferences. Tanzania and Sudan face environmental challenges that are real. Sri Lanka does not see the eco-challenge as a merely interesting academic theory to be discussed, but lives with the changing weather patterns and their consequences, needing little persuasion about the state of the world and its resources. I will say something brief later in our agenda about the visit of our link bishops back in April.
And this brings us to a wider question of resourcing. During the last three years or so we have worked hard together to identify, articulate and develop a vision that is gospel-shaped. We have not dreamed it up. We have derived it from the Scriptures and from the faith that draws us and shapes us as followers of Jesus. We have kept it simple: Confident Christians; Growing Churches; Transforming Communities. It is infused with values of Loving Living Learning. I believe these words characterise our approach to all we have done as a diocese during the demanding years since we began – opening up our imagination and not closing it down by promising panacaeas or guarantees.
But, vision has to be resourced by a strategy and that strategy has to be funded. In a conversation in the Church Commissioners office in London earlier this week I suggested that our diocese is really only six months old. It is only since January this year that we have been able to function properly as a single entity with single systems and fully integrated data. So, we are at the beginning, not the end. And, this being the case, we now have to pay attention to the future resourcing of our vision.
As you will see from the papers, we face a challenge to finance what we currently do. We are not paying our way, and there is no magic money tree (!) hidden away somewhere for us to pluck its fruit. Our parish share income does not cover what we have. However, there are two things to be said about this in the light of the journey we are on.
First, you cannot set up a new entity at the same time as slashing its costs and its primary people. During the last six or seven years of uncertainty and then transition we did not look to cut clergy posts. This would have damaged morale and was not an option in the circumstances in which we found ourselves. So, broadly speaking, we maintained the numbers. But, we did this knowing that the number of stipendiary clergy available for deployment across the country is going to dip considerably in the next ten years – by between 25-40%. So, although not primarily driven by finance, we are going to have to start looking more radically at pastoral organisation, clergy deployment, training options, licensed and other lay ministry development, and new models of resourcing our churches. This has an impact on identification, discernment, selection and training of clergy and lay people. It all has to be rooted in discipleship rather than curatorship.
We can either dribble into this gradually, or we do the hard work now of looking at future shaping and resourcing of ministry and begin to work it out now. The Bishop’s Strategy Group has started to work at this, whilst the area bishops and archdeacons (in conjunction with their episcopal area colleagues) are doing what I call baseline studies to see how we might need to adapt appropriately and wisely to a cut of, for example, 10%, 20%, 30% or 40% of stipendiary clergy. Of course, this raises the question of what we expect clergy to do in what arrangements and with what resource in terms of people, buildings and finance.
I said there were two things to be said here. The second is this: we should not have a problem in paying for what we say we believe about the church’s mission and ministry. Levels of giving are not as high in the Church of England as they are in many other denominations. What this means is quite simple: if we say we believe it and claim to want it, then we shall pay for it; if we don’t want it, we won’t pay for it, and we won’t have it. In the future we can only have what we are willing to resource.
Now, to go back to my first point, we have frontloaded the diocese in terms of our offering to parishes, clergy and other ministers. We have appointed people to drive and support creative ministry and mission across this diverse diocese, and we need to give them time to make a difference. I know there are dioceses that prefer to have high-profile campaigns and inspirational slogans; we have chosen to attend to the basic structures and people of our diocese in order to hold our nerve and aim at a longer-term strategic growth dynamic that has a chance of working. Put simply, we need to make new disciples of Jesus Christ who then take the mission and ministry of the gospel into the next generation and beyond. And they need to be inspired – not impressed – by us, our discipleship, our vision, our courage, our commitment and joy.
And all this will be reviewed as we go through the next three years and beyond.
So, as we do our work today, I trust we will do so in the name of Christ who calls us first to repent, to walk together, to discern together the will and ways of God who calls us. May we be faithful. And, in keeping some proper sense of perspective on time, may we recall the words of Martin Luther who famously said: “Long is not eternal.” (Lang ist nicht ewig.)
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