Dear friends,

For many years I have sat in the same seat on the Kop at Sheffield Wednesday and, during my time as a parish priest just up the road from the ground, I would be asked by many members of the Sunday school and youth club whether they could come to a game with me and my family. On many occasions, I would be sat with a group of seven or eight football mad youngsters and would get vicarious enjoyment from their excitement. On one such occasion, the match was going well!SheffieldWednesday were winning, the crowd were singing and all seemed well in the world. Suddenly, the opposition equalised via the superbly struck volley of the opposing team’s striker and I was surprised to see the young boy next to me, a young black boy of African extract, rise sharply to his feet and make his way to a steward. A few words were exchanged, and then a man  behind us was removed by a gaggle of stewards. Unbeknown to me, my young friend had heard a racist comment directed at the black striker who had scored the superb goal and decided he would act: I’ve not seen the ejected and dejected fan ever since. That young boy, now a strapping man with a first class honours degree in sports science and himself a successful cage-fighter, often reminds me to this day of that incident long ago.

In today’s world, it all seems so antediluvian when we hear of such racist incidents but, sadly, we do not have to go too far to be reminded that, as proscribed and publically despised as racism now is, it still lurks just beneath the surface.

This reality has, both, come to light recently in the case of the Liverpool footballer Suarez and the subsequent racist barracking of an Oldham player by aLiverpoolsupporter and also in the intimate revelations about the nature of racism during the trial and conviction of the two men found guilty of Stephen Lawrence’s murder. In both these cases, the institutions involved-a football club in one case and the police in the other-have taken all the right steps to try and ensure that such prejudiced behaviour is not systemic and inherent in them. However, the horrible truth is that, in the heat of competition or in the bravado of a deeply disturbed young person’s hateful tirade, the evil of racism still lurks and it is not far from us all.

Such racism was not unknown to Jesus: we are told that he stood at the well with the Samaritan woman; a woman from a race despised by some simply because they chose to worship God in anotherTempleother than that inJerusalem. Jesus cleverly extracts from this ‘hated’ foreigner the knowledge that he is the source of eternal life and the eagerly expected Messiah. On their return to the well, even Jesus’ disciples join in the unconscious and implicit racism, being ‘astonished’ that he was speaking with her.

In William Shirer’s seminal book on The Third Reich, one is struck by the matter of fact way in which the cremators for the killing fields of the concentration camps were ordered from the manufacturers: as simple as ordering a microwave for the kitchen. Such ordinariness combined with horror is rightly named ‘the mundanity of evil’. My young friend in the football match was right to challenge that thoughtless and cruel barb by a fellow supporter for there must be link between these small, mundane, acts and the kind of racism that leads to violence and loss of life?

In the end, the real tragedy of racism is that it de-humanises those we parody and to whom we attach simplistic prejudices. It was the ‘hated’ foreign woman at the well who saw the deep mystery of Jesus and his divinity: when our eyes are clouded by colour, class or creed we fail to see and enjoy the true beauty of the person underneath.

And lo and behold, the scientists have come out in support: the conclusions of the recent Italian study suggest that the image of Jesus found its way on to the cloth via an intense burst of ultra-violet light. All attempts to re-create the Shroud using technology available in the middle ages have failed, for the ability to create this intense beam did not exist for many more centuries. So what’s going on?

I must be clear and explain that I still believe the Shroud to be a human creation, made well after the crucifixion of Christ, but I remain intrigued; for such artefacts undoubtedly feed faith. But how and why? I wonder if it is because objects like the Shroud of Turin, the holy blood of Bruges and the countless pieces of the true cross or spines from the crown of thorns feed the imagination? When we are faced with a relic, regardless of its authenticity, we are urged to reflect more deeply about what they represent, what events they recall and what deeper and eternal truths lie under the ‘accidents’ of the small, perishable remains. In short, such relics help us enter more deeply into the mystery of life and the events of faith-they stir our imaginations. And this is where we part company with the scientists, for they wish, quite rightly and properly, to define and explain a physical cause for all things- the ‘theory of everything’ which we hear Brian Cox and others talk about. The eye of faith, on the other hand, believes in the endless impenetrability of the mystery of existence. We can scientifically explain the biology of reproduction and the physicality of human regeneration, but the love which underpins human relationships is an undefinable, limitless and ongoing mystery which defies explanation and encompassing and is constantly offering new experience and fresh layers. Here is both the meeting point and the present dividing point between the language of science and the experience of faith: the one suggesting all is, eventually, explainable; the other that mystery is forever evolving.

So, if the Shroud was finally proved to be, or not to be, the authentic cloth in which Christ was laid in death after his crucifixion, then this one fact would serve to work against what such objects of faith are about…for it would cease to inspire our imagination about just how great and ungraspable creation is.

At this time of year, we enter once more into the stories about the birth of Jesus…wouldn’t it be a shame if it was ever proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were all literally true|? For our encounter with the limitless mystery of existence would be at an end.

I wish you a holy and wonder-full Christmas!                                                                                   

In a recent Radio 4 series on ‘Capitalism’ its presenter, Michael Portillo (himself an enthusiastic capitalist) had to acknowledge that poverty and monetarism went hand in hand: the one a necessary consequence of the other. Yes, poverty levels differ as economies rise and fall, but if you support Capitalism as a system, then ‘the poor are with us always’. The programme was a public acknowledgement that Capitalism is now at least under the microscope as an economic system and also a nod to the fact that things can be done differently. In times past, stringencies and austerity have largely been accepted by the vast majority of people who suffer most because of cut-backs and redundancies: I bring to mind the sycophantic labourer in the old comedy programme ‘Brass’ saying to the mill owner ‘you are a saint in human form, Mr Hardaker’ as every manner of insult and oppression was visited upon him by his boss. It seems that some people will no longer accept that there should be such a disparity between rich and poor, with statistics telling us that, worldwide, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. It also appears that there are those, some of whom are camped in the steps of St Paul’s, who do not believe that the pursuit of profit and gain is the highest calling of humanity and pose the possibility that it may be possible to have a just, equitable society if we are prepared to look at things in a different way. And here’s the rub, for the guardians of the Cathedral  follow someone who constantly challenged us to look at things from a different angle and not to accept that the status quo was necessarily good or, indeed, how things ought to be. The is the one who said ‘sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath’ and ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’: all the time questioning the, too readily,  accepted totems we erect for ourselves. In looking kindly upon and working alongside those who are asking us to look at Capitalism from a different angle, the Church would be being true to its great Teacher.

In one day, last week, I began by attending a meeting at Lincoln Prison with their priest and a group of supporters who want to create a system of community chaplaincy. Simply put, goodly numbers of men emerge from the relative security of prison life into the outside world without family, friends, permanent accommodation, sufficient resources or adequate support to see them through more than a few dizzying days of re-entry into society. As a result, there is an incredibly high re-offending rate in this period of re-adjustment and an inexorable, dispiriting return to incarceration. I’m delighted to say that one of the Diocese’s funds is going to offer support to set up the scheme, which will not only benefit the ex-offenders but also the society against which they may further offend.

On to the Lincoln University, to talk with a group seeking to set up a research degree into the issues surrounding the Church’s response to social justice issues and the social ills that beset some of our most deprived and marginalised communities. Born out of contact with a project on the Lincolnshire fens, in which the Church is bringing together those agencies who role it is to address social concerns such as migrant workers’ rights and such, the University is sufficiently impressed by our intervention to want to study it.

Onwards, ever onwards, to Scunthorpe to meet with three, very successful,  business colleagues who wish to set up an enterprise to support community-building projects. All the profits will be ploughed back into existing a new endeavours. They thought a bishop would be a good ally to have on board, so a productive conversation ensued.

Finally that day, back into Lincoln where the School of Theology is exploring, at my request, how we can encourage people to offer themselves for ministry in the ‘urban’; areas of our largely rural County. In a part of the land where agriculture and farming are perceived to be the dominant forces, it is a surprise then to find that we have pockets of real deprivation of the sort you would normally associate with big cities. and where the social problems more commonly found in inner-cities are experienced. It was good to meet with fifteen people, mainly the right side of 40 years old, who wished to explore how they might be specially trained and equipped to minister in these areas and to address the specific needs and concerns within them. A heartening response and one which will reap great fruits, I am sure.

Just one day! And such a lot of care and compassion being shown by the people I met. I could go on about the rest of the week: about the Mental Health chaplain I was due to meet to talk about ongoing work with those who suffer from this unseen yet dreadful dis-ease, or the group of professional architects, fundraisers and consultants who band together as Living Stones, an organisation designed to help church communities who want to use their buildings to greater effect, or the dedicated parish priest who is working with other, equally dedicated, people in the heart of the city of Lincoln amongst the homeless and destitute. I could go on about them, but that would be to give the lie to those who think the Church is nonsensical, irrelevant, middle-class fantasy and, in this time when the Church is so often pilloried and undermined by the media and others, that just wouldn’t do-would it?

My latest fave rave: Slow Club. Check them out on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9akkn2hrgs  The lead singer wears a Sheffield Wednesday shirt on stage-can’t be bad!

On Tuesday, I found myself in the Gothic, ‘Harry Potteresque’ surroundings of Lambeth Palace: the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Situated across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, the Palace suggests itself as an ancient and alternative source of power and influence to those rather newer government buildings designed by the architect Pugin in the middle of the 19^th Century. Indeed, the event I was attending in the chapel at Lambeth was considerably more ancient than parliamentary government itself. With roots that go back to the 4^th century, a fact about which we were reminded in the ceremony itself, I was there to witness Archbishop Rowan Williams, the 104^th Archbishop of Canterbury, confirm Christopher Lowson as the next and 72^nd Bishop of Lincoln. Clothed in an almost tangible musty and dusty aroma, we were surrounded by be-wigged lawyers straight out of Trollope reciting ancient judgements and using long-dead words such as ‘porrect’ and ‘contumacious’ (which successively mean ‘to lengthen’ and ‘to argue rebelliously’ in case you are wondering). Peppered between this arcane onslaught was a dabble of hymn singing followed by the Archbishop’s Charge, or command, to the new bishop, delivered at a distance of two feet and staring earnestly into each other’s eyes. One could have been forgiven for thinking that we had, momentarily, been transported through time to the court of King Arthur. We may also have been forgiven for wondering what on earth all this had to do with our contemporary world with its world wide webs, interplanetary exploration, X boxes and I Pads. Surely, this was just another expression of how out of touch the Church is with contemporary culture and entombed by the past. In all honesty, what would be different if such ceremonies did not exist? In truth, the answer is probably ‘nothing’: I am sure that the new bishop would still come to live and work amongst us with undiminished authority and perhaps even a little clearer about the task before him without being surrounded by the fog of medieval legalism and tortured ecclesiastical ritual. 

Perhaps it’s time for a re-think? 

In the meantime, I wonder if there is any value at all to be had from such occasions? Well…the service did remind me that, despite our arrogance about our modern world and life, we do all stand in a long stream of history and, as sure as there were those who came before us, there will be those who come after…cleverer and more advanced. It was a reminder of our present day small but eternally significant contribution to human history. Likewise, there were intimations that this Christian faith which seems to struggle on so gamefully at the moment, has its origins deep in history and that, once again, we are only the present day bearers of a message that precedes us by aeons and will continue, however uncertainly and falteringly, well into the future. But most of all, as we emerged out of the gloom and pomposity of the chapel and blinked in the warm light of the later afternoon London sun, we were reminded that, as interesting and as informative as history is, it is always-as Henry Ford said-‘bunk’- only of value if it informs the present and helps us live today in our fascinating, glorious and ever-evolving world.

Perhaps the chief achievement of the film is that it exposes the deep rents and divisions which exist within Islam itself. The four in the film are quite definitely portrayed as a small minority and the majority of Muslims portrayed as people of peace and deep faith. A recent radio programme during the memorials for 9/11 by a young Muslim investigated the deep disgust that the ordinary follower of Islam in Britain felt towards the hi-jackers: followed one young Muslim to a terrorist training camp where he found that his fellow foot soldiers were not all the holy and loyal adherents of the Koran he supposed and quickly returned to England. He also examined the reaction of some Muslims to 9/11, and their belief  that it was, in fact,  a CIA plot and not the work of Islamic terrorists at all, despite all the evidence to the contrary-because they just couldn’t believe that a follower of their Faith could perpetrate such evil.

Having watched ‘Four Lions’, my wife and I left it feeling strangely comforted and not horrified. Indeed, it is very funny and it is that very humour which is the source of hope and light. We think back to the Charlie Chaplin film  ’The Great Dictator’, in which Chaplin  made his burlesque Hitler so comic and ridiculous that they very laughter he engendered was a physical token of the rejection of the vile philosophies and actions of the dictator. My son told me that he watched the film in a cinema surrounded by young Asians, presumably some of whom were Muslims-they laughed as long and as hard as everyone at the comic antics of the would-be terrorists and, with their mirth, would dissipate any respect or mystique for the violent option. The work of the film is done, and laughter has, as in so many other ways and places, cut through the cant and hypocrisy, the posturing and the silliness, to show us the error of human ways and give us a saner way forward.

If you can, watch ‘Four Lions’, it’s not one to miss.

Thought for the Day for Lincs FM…                                                                                                                                                                                     

I love my record collection! Started when I was only fourteen years old, I can trace my teenage years, my twenties: getting married, starting work, getting ordained, children being born, the loss of loved ones and friends. All of these can be located and brought from the back of my memory into the present by the simple playing of a disc: as I play it, I’m back in the long hot summer of 1976 or some such. The media is the message. 

The same is true of books, as I glance along the bookshelves at, in some cases, the dusty tomes or, in others, the brightly coloured dust jackets, I can recall the beach I was sat on when I read that Bill Bryson, the desk at college when I read that book on Church history nor the bed-time reading of that Thomas Hardy. All of the books, a little parcel of instantly recalled memory…waiting for me to pick them up and remember where I was, who I was with and what I was feeling. 

To some extent, this also true of the newspapers…a newsagent’s son, from the earliest age I would pore over every newspaper in the shop as I prepared them for the paperboys to deliver: long forgotten titles: ‘The Daily Sketch’: ones that have persisted until today…the Guardian, once the Manchester Guardian, and the venerable titles which spoke and speak of a rather grander Empire past…the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph. And so, I remember following every nuance of the first Miners’ strike in the Daily Mirror; the rise and fall of Margaret Thatcher in the Guardian. Once, even, when struggling to find and agree a name for my first child, identifying the eventual winner from a discarded copy of the Sun left on a bus top by some appreciative browser of the female form. 

Over the years, the media has played an increasing role in my own life as I continue to plunder its riches and, in the odd occasion, make an appearance in it.  

There has been one constant: throughout the years, whether reading a book, listening to the Radio, enjoying a cd or reading the papers, we have had to rely on them being trustworthy and reliable; honest and with integrity. If I don’t read the Bible itself in this way and as in some way reliable and coming to me with integrity, then it is nothing worth. 

Of late, certain members of the media have besmirched and tarnished this image of reliability and honesty and have trespassed into areas which don’t just interfere in the lives of the rich and famous and, therefore, to the media ‘fair game’. In these instances, the lives of ordinary suffering and distressed people have been invaded. A paper has closed as a result, and the whole media is under the spotlight…can we trust it? 

There are signs of hope and redemption amidst the seedy tactics. Perhaps the media had got too powerful and manipulative? Governments having to keep proprietors sweet for the next election and more. The closure of a paper suggests that the power of the British public can still overwhelm and assert its moral and ethical standards. This is a source of light in a very dark episode.

Dear friends, 

You may not have heard of Dr Peter Brierley, but you will have had contact with him. Peter is a statistician who specialises in crunching the data about church and faith activity in theUnited Kingdom. He produces fascinating information which is used both by the Church and also secular bodies to assess what is happening in the sphere or religion. He maintains an upbeat and hopeful persona, and is quick to remind us of those situations and places where the Church is continuing to have a creative and growing impact. However, the all-round picture does not look good for the institutions of the Church: ‘Overall the picture is one of decline’, we read after the publication of his latest figures and his projections for church life from 2005 to 2015. Should we be bothered? Well, if you believe that the institutionalised Church is the be all and end all, then there is great cause for concern: less people are going to church services regularly year on year, and there is similar, relentless, decline in services like marriage being conducted in church. Despite the recent report ‘Faithful Cities’ upbeat assessment of the faith communities growing impact on national life, it would seem that the Church of England, at least in its traditional role as a national Church with all that means, is on the wane. There is a great danger that we will become a Church with all the trappings of power…bishops in the House of Lords etc, but with no substantial body of people in our pews in whose name this institutionalised Church can speak. The Church of England can begin to look like a modern day rendition of the tale of the Emperor’s new clothes. Can we take heart?

In the late 1950s, a priest called Edward Wickham started the Sheffield Industrial Mission (he later became my bishop when I was a young priest inManchester). The Mission was designed to address the Church’s mission to the ordinary working man, for Ted had done his homework and found that, in fact, the Church of England had never adequately captured the hearts and minds of the British working classes. His book ‘Church and People in an Industrial City’ gave damning statistics demonstrating that the Church was a largely middle-class phenomenon and inferred that it was obsessed by privilege and position and failed in its duty to the marginalised and poor. I would argue that little has changed since he propounded that view, and a hard look around many of our Sunday morning congregations might make us wonder about the social balance contained therein. On the one hand, therefore, Dr Brierley is not telling us anything new.

Recently, I conducted the funeral of a friend of mine who had been killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 38. He had been a professional boxer, a successful university student, a member of a motorcycle club, a father, a doorman, and had started a health club. His funeral was attended by nearly a thousand people from all the walks of his popular life. These were not people you would normally expect to find in their parish church on a Sunday morning at the Eucharist! Indeed, it is possible they would have had a dim view of religion generally. However, the conversations I had with them after the ceremony were packed full of theology…they talked with me of hope in death; the eternal meaning of human life; the sorrow and pain of human existence, and much more. All of this was expressed, not in the language of liturgy, but in heartfelt and plain manner. The reality is that there may not be a lot of religion out there, and certainly little belief in the established Church, but there is an awful lot of faith. The question is what does the Church of England do with this knowledge to enable it to become, once more, theservantChurchof all the people of this land? For the ground is fertile and ready. Many of the answers will lie in the priorities that local churches establish in their ministry and in greater willingness to be inclusive and to follow through with hearts and minds willing to encompass all. However, perhaps a real start might be made if our Church calls itself back to our calling in Jesus to be a Body which brings ‘good news to the poor’?

+Tim

Thought for the Day for Lincs FM…

This week has witnessed a lot of talk about ‘right’s: the rights of an individual to maintain tight-lipped secrecy in matters surrounding their private life; the rights of the Press and others to have free access to matters of public interest and, also, the rights of all to freedom of speech and to name and shame if necessary. This is of great interest as, it seems to me, there are only two ways in which human rights can be established. On the one hand, the faith communities hold that human rights have their origin in the will of God for all humanity. The Ten Commandments can be seen as a bill of rights, as God is taken to offer that which helps humanity prosper. On the other hand, human rights are merely a human construct: we agree together that there are certain things which, although having no eternal status, should be basic to human existence. Luckily, these two views as to how human rights come about are often in agreement. So, we can all agree, whether divinely inspired or not, that we have a right not to be murdered or treated with violence and that we have a right to live in appropriate freedom with adequate water and food, and so on…

What is worrying in the current debate about whether an individual should be able to legally restrain information from being made public is that it seems to lower the bar and diminish the importance of human rights. So, the Magna Carta held in Lincoln Cathedral was the first great bill of rights and it provided protection for the ‘little man’ against the power of a despotic king or lord and prevented arbitrary violence against them. Many years after, but in its wake, came the American Bill of Rights: those amendments to the American Constitution which guaranteed rights of freedom of speech; of association one with another; of practising religion in freedom and the right of people to be secure in their home and safe in their family.

When rights were first considered and committed to paper we were painting on a big canvass and great injustices were being addressed.

In the light of this grand vision for human rights and the knowledge that even today people in their thousands are sold into slavery; that countless more suffer and die for want of food or clean water; even more are homeless and without an address; in Africa and elsewhere women’s bodies are abused in the name civil war and, in India, very young children work in hard sweat shops… in the light of these great abuses, and the countless others which daily deny big basic human rights to powerless people, it does seem rather small beer and self-indulgent of us to make such a big thing about the rights of the Press to feed our insatiable desire for gossip and prurience and the rights of an individual to have the details of their peccadilloes exposed to the public glare. In lowering the bar in this way, I wonder whether we do an injustice to the real human rights abuses happening out there?