The Wardman Wire

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This post - the third in our series about the “Moral but No Compass” report commissioned by the Church of England looking at the role of the Church in the welfare delivery, is an initial response by David Keen, who writes a column here each week.

(Note: I’m trying to find a way to turn these pieces into a “Series” of articles, but my usual “ln Series” plugin doesn’t work with multiple author accounts. If anyone can help, I’d be grateful.)

A First Reaction

My initial response to the first news headlines on Moral but No Compass was ‘oh no, my church is whining at the government‘, but the report is actually very good, and deserves to be read and mulled over by both Church and State.

Welfare Delivery by the Church?

The reason for the report is the increasing encouragement from central government for the Church to be involved in welfare delivery. In seeking to understand the policy environment, the Von Hugel Foundation discovered that policymakers had no information on the Church of England, and a very limited understanding (and lumping together) of ‘faith groups.’ Alan Wilson, Ruth Gledhill, and Thinking Anglicans (also here) have already done a good job of responding to the main points and summarising comment from elsewhere. For what it’s worth, here are my own reflections.

a) Does Government understand the Church? Does it want a Glove Puppet?

The report speaks of national and local government failing to understand what motivates the Church. I remember a Q&A session with the Director of Education in one northern local authority: when asked how the Church could partner with them, his answer was effectively ‘you can promote the council’s education policy‘, and he couldn’t think of anything else. There was no recognition of the Church’s centuries of experience in education, its work with children and families, and the contribution it was already making in local schools.

Speaking to a councillor at the same authority one day, I realised a couple of minutes into the chat that it wasn’t really a conversation, he was simply asking loaded questions to get a ‘vicar supports council policy’ answer out of me. This was all in a Labour stronghold, and the principle attitudes towards the church seemed to be mistrust or co-option, rather than partnership and engagement. It must be said that here in Yeovil, a LibDem council, attitudes are more positive, though the labyrinth of agencies, partnerships, funding streams etc. means you have have a certain amount of time and energy to find your way through it. Equally, there are likely to be examples of positive and negartive examples in local authorities across the country.

It’s interesting that a recent government consultation on ‘violent extremism’ floats the idea that Further Education chaplaincies can play a role in tackling extremism on campus. It’s not easy to see whether this is seen as partnership, or chaplaincies becoming an informal agent of the state in low-level counter-terrorism! If partnership in delivering welfare is no more than co-option as an arm of government, then I have to share Simon Barrow’s scepticism about whether the Church can be part of this and still remain true to itself and to its God.

b) Compass But No Map? Should the report be harder on the Church itself?

The report is far harder on the government than the Church. In some cases rightly so: for government to completely ignore Cathedrals and Dioceses, and the faith motivation of thousands of charities, is a glaring blunder which speaks of a deeper inability in central government to grasp what makes Christians tick.

But it’s slightly rich for the Church to take the government to task for lack of evidence when it is guilty of the same failing itself. Moral, But No Compass notes that, due to an ‘interregnum’ (horrible Anglican word meaning the relevant position is vacant), they couldn’t get a central list of the Diocesan officers for Social Responsibility. For the central Church of England to be unable to provide this - quite simple - information, is rather strange.

The report gathers an impressive collection of evidence for the civic, social, economic and welfare role of the Church, much of it in print for the first time. Apart from a clutch of regional surveys on the economic impact of faith communities (e.g. Faith in Action in the South West - but note that these all collude with the governments lumping together of ‘faith communities’, and don’t provide separate data on the Church), the church hasn’t exactly helped its cause by producing data and evidence. Even the relatively simple (you’d think) matter of the membership of the Church of England is measured by several different yardsticks - electoral roll, membership, Average Sunday Attendance, Usual Sunday Attendance, Average Weekly Attendance - and the latest data is for 2006 is ‘provisional’. Some at Church House are working hard to correct this, but - if the Church is going to have a go at the government for lack of data - this smacks of a conversation held in part between pots and kettles.

The report also notes that the Church hasn’t caught up with government thinking, language or policy around welfare provision. This isn’t helped by government bureaucracy, but it does rather indicate that the Church itself could take this more seriously.

c) Prophecy versus Action.

One tension Moral But No Compass notes is between people who’d see the Church’s role as prophetic - speaking for the poor and marginalised, and people who see our role as practical. The report also recognises that the government is more likely to listen to people with a track record in tackling poverty and disadvantage. Faithworks would argue that prophecy and practice go hand in hand. I do wonder whether the desire for a pure ‘prophetic’ role might be a bit of a cop-out from doing something useful.

Most Anglican clergy are trained to think and speak, and so our responses to things (like this posting) are often verbal more than they are practical.

Wrapping Up

From the Editor: Moral but No Compass is a large report (180pp) covering several years of research work. This piece is David Keen’s initial reaction to the report - I am hoping to persuade him to put forward some further reflections a few weeks further down the line, when it has had the chance to “steep”.

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David Keen is a Church of England Vicar in Yeovil. He blogs at St Aidan to Abbey Manor.