A Minority

This week, the UK Office of Census and Population has announced that for the first time, those identifying as Christians are a minority in this country; 46% put down their religion as Christianity in the 2021 census, compared to 72% in the 2001 census. I suspect I am not alone amongst vicars in being surprised that the figure saying that they are Christian is as high as 46%; it sometimes feels more like 4.6%. The number of people who regularly attend church has certainly been falling for many decades, but I suspect the census is actually showing us that people are now more honest about their spirituality, at least up to a point, by admitting that they have nothing that they want to call a religious faith.

When we consider what we believe in, be it the God of Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or humanism and power of reason, it is essential that we are honest with ourselves. If the census now reflects that honesty, I welcome it. But questions remain. What are the values that we really follow? What is it that inspires us, moves us, drives us? My suspicion is that for many of the 46% who still identify as Christian, the daily inspiration for their lives is not Jesus Christ, although doubtless they have some connection with him. Equally, for the 34% who identify as having no religious faith, there will be a significant number who will recognise something spiritual in their lives, even if they prefer not to call that “God”. That is a decision that I hope I always respect, but my faith is that we cannot shut what I call God out of our existence. What I call the Holy Spirit is active in all lives, calling us to become more fully human, to live richer lives. Perhaps that Holy Spirit is also not to bothered what people chose to call her/him; the Spirit simply wants us to respond.
Rev David Poyner

Values or Virtues

I am very grateful to the Rev Ashley Buck, vicar of Cleobury (and a friend of mine since we were both 7!) for allowing me to reproduce his letter from this month’s Kinlet News.

After the dignity of the funeral services for Queen Elizabeth, I write at what may be termed a moment of political confusion. I suppose it could also be said that the confusion has really been in place for some time in our national life. I wish to make no comment about the politics of the present situation, but it has to be understood that the drama of our domestic turmoil is all the more dangerous because it is played out against an international backdrop of triple crises. The war in Ukraine poses extraordinary dangers for the whole of Europe and beyond, it has combined with other factors to create a global economic downturn, and more importantly than any of these things, the environmental and climate emergency is fast approaching a point of no return.

When discussing all this people tend to set out their position in terms of ‘values’. Some will talk about ‘conservative values’ or ‘liberal values’. Our schools are required by law to teach ‘British values’ although I have never yet found out what makes them distinctively British.  And then ‘values’ seem to get lumped together into further things called ‘value systems’. Those who use the term seem also to believe that the sharing of value systems is one of the markers of being one of the many ‘communities’ which are being identified as subsections of society.

It all seems horribly vague and imprecise to me, and desperately susceptible to ‘words meaning what I want them to mean.’ ‘Values’ seem often to be most valuable as weapons to hurl at those with whom we disagree.

Some of us would propose a different way of looking at morality. Instead of a value-based culture could we not ground our ethics on virtues? Virtues are easier to understand and more precise in meaning. Courage is a virtue. Generosity is a virtue. These are good things. Tolerance is taught as a value, but it is fraught with dangers, because it carries within it arguments about how permitting freedom for some may hinder the freedom of others. The current arguments about gender identity fall into this category. So in the place of the value of ‘tolerance’ I would advocate the virtue of ‘kindness’. Other virtues like ‘honesty’ and ‘diligence’ might begin to lead us out of our current mess, who knows?
Rev David Poyner

Beyond the Road to Hell

The secretary-general of the UN has recently spoken bluntly about our progress to limit the effects of climate change to an increase of “just” 1.5C. We are not remotely on track for that; realistically the climate is likely to increase by twice that amount; as he put it, we are firmly on a road to hell. Many years ago, when global warming was just appearing on the agenda, an acquaintance of mine, a professional geologist, wrote about how this could turn into another “geological” event like the ice ages or the events that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs; the planet would survive, but it would become a different place which would just have to adjust to. A number of individuals and groups are now thinking about just what that could mean. Perhaps it will not happen; I certainly do not think the worse-case scenario is certain, but I would agree it is a scenario we now need to think about.

Religious faith helps us to think about the unthinkable; we are called to consider hard questions of life and death, hope and despair. Thus religious leaders should be able to contribute to this debate. The story of the Bible is, at least in part, about finding hope and life in the face of setbacks and disasters. It is not that God will magically remove all difficulties; in the current case that there will be a miraculous reset of global carbon dioxide levels. God gives us freedom to make our own choices, for good or ill. Instead, our faith is based on “God with us”, that whatever problems we may cause for ourselves, through accident of nature or our own stupidity, God will always be with us (yes, I know I said this last week as well, but some truths bear repeating…). If we do end up at the far end of the road to climate hell, in the worse-case scenario, God will still be with us. That is the ground for our hope.

Rev David Poyner

Remembrance Day

Hard on All Souls and All Saints, those most Christian of festivals, comes Remembrance Day. The timing is a coincidence, Remembrance Sunday is the Sunday nearest to the Armistice on the 11th of November that marked the end of the First World War; this turned into Remembrance Sunday after the Second World War. The events of this day, the poppies, the two minute silence, the words “they shall not grow old…” are all strictly secular; many war memorials are set apart from churches. We sometimes offer prayers as part of the act of remembrance, but in our benefice, two of these acts will be led by lay members of the churches; a development I fully support.

It seems to me that it is no bad thing that the church, at least the organised church, does not grab the limelight in remembrance services. We honour all the fallen; non-Christians, those of no faith and it is hardly respectful to them not to acknowledge this. Whilst I will be saying prayers in Highley, I do not expect those who do not share my faith to join me. A message from the Bible and of 2000 years of history after the death and resurrection of Jesus, is that God will not force himself on anyone. Instead, God does something far more important; God is with us, loving and reaching out to us, whatever we may think or do. God was alongside those who fought in the two world wars, he is alongside those who currently serve, he is alongside those who are involved in current conflicts. And he is alongside all those who remember, whether a vicar is present or not, whether they are at a war memorial or not.

Rev David Poyner