UCCF again – some recent developments

Back in 2015, in the early days of the blog, I wrote a piece https://survivingchurch.org/2015/09/19/christian-unions-at-university-an-account/ which used a firsthand account of what a student reported about her experiences of membership of a Christin union at university.  The writer of the letter, Kirsty, had googled the words ‘damage caused by Christian union involvement.’  Google had thrown up an article of mine written on Surviving Church about CUs.  Apparently, this was, at that time, the only discussion on the topic easily available. From what Kirsty had to report there was a clear need to discuss the topic even if the internet generally had little to offer on the issue. Kirsty wrote of the ‘emotional and psychological residue’ that she was still trying to process fifteen years after her time at university.  She also spoke of ‘mixed feelings of sadness, pain and guilt around my involvement with this strand of Christianity.’  Alongside Kirsty’s description, which she graciously allowed me to reproduce in full, was my reply.    I confessed to her that the wider church beyond Christian unions and the conservative Christianity taught there often showed little understanding of the problems faced by those who, for whatever reason, fell out of sympathy with Christian union teaching.  I mentioned a particular issue with some conservative ideas about sin.  These could easily undermine self-esteem and the ability to love oneself.   

Looking back on my online conversation with Kirsty, I realise that what she was describing in 2015 is an issue that has never gone away.  Students at university are encountering the presentation of a religious message which, while it seems to liberate some, throws others into a form of depressive bondage.  From my liberal-catholic background, I share the belief that Jesus came to bring Good News, but I have never linked this gospel with a need to fight off constant feelings of gloom and despair.  One writer described the depressive state associated with some presentations of the Good News as an ‘evangelical anorexia nervosa’.  My own theological perspective has given me access to a journey of finding constant newness and adventure.  Over 2000 years, different cultures and races have thrown up an enormous range of Christian ideas in their attempt to make sense of Jesus Christ and his teaching.  For me there has never been a single unchanging version of the Good News.  The Christian faith and the good news contained in it comes in many guises and expressions.  We only need to have the barest appreciation of human language to know that every religious thought or belief is subtly varied according to the language and culture in which it is articulated.

The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) has, over many decades, had a dominant role in the sharing of the Christian faith to students across Britain.  The expression of the faith that is articulated by this organisation is, as we have seen in the October 23 blog and the online conversation with Kirsty in 2015, a strongly conservative message.  UCCF is ‘successful’ in one notable way, in making its brand of Christianity far more prominent than any other.  No other organisation comes close to recruiting and supporting the dozens of young people who promote and organise the work of Christians unions in almost every centre of higher education in Britain.  The work has been going on over decades and, speaking generally, UCCF is responsible for much of the conservative evangelical culture found in many Church of England parishes.  UCCF does all this work independently and it is not under the control of any external denominational structure.  It has thus created its own distinctive way of doing things and it has done this without attracting attention to itself. Nevertheless, new episodes have disturbed the calm at UCCF over the past few months.  The first episode which we looked at in October was the suspension of two of the senior directors, Richard Cunningham and Tim Rudge, in December 2022.  The suspensions resulted in a report being made by a KC and this was received by the Trustees in June 2023. The event was marked by a number of apologies to the workers who had raised complaints, apparently about employment conditions.  Both directors were subsequently permitted to return to their posts.  We commented in the October blog on the way that whole episode had been marked by secrecy.  While we suspect that the problems at the organisation were to do with the non-observance of aspects of employment law, no explanation for the suspensions and reinstatements have ever been given.  There were, however, clear signs of unhappiness at the national headquarters of the organisation.  Over a fairly short period, half the trustees have resigned, including the chairman, Chris Wilmott.

Since October, three new events have emerged which add to the drama that surrounds this currently beleaguered organisation.  In February this year, a former worker and team leader, Nay Dawson, published an account of her part in creating the ‘unhealthy’ culture which ‘damaged’ employees.  Her words seem to have been inspired by the issue at the heart of the organisation – the conditions of employment for junior UCCF workers.  These have required the young employees to work under terms which appeared to be neither legal nor ethical.  The UCCF employment conditions expected all the young people who were salaried to work for a fixed period, three or five years.  They were then expected to resign to make way for a new group of recent students.  Employment law makes it clear that anyone who completes a probationary period in a job satisfactorily cannot simply be pushed aside to suit the needs of the organisation.  Nay realised that some of those under her who were being required to resign, were experiencing considerable distress at the inevitability of their departure.  She began to see that, in her role as team leader, she had been required to be part of this cruel enforcing process.   Her article which articulated her own pain and sense of regret was widely read and it created quite a stir on X/Twitter.  The article was exposing the secretive world of UCCF to open criticism which it would clearly wish to avoid.

If I had personally wanted to move on after my October 23 blog, the twitterverse, or whatever it is called today, made sure I was fully aware of everything going on in the past few months at UCCF.  Because my article was attached to many of the X discussions, my inbox was full of UCCF online chatter which was following this drama.  Almost all of it was critical of those in charge at UCCF.  Two further events followed Nay’s article.  This was publicised in Premier News.  Premier also reprinted a confidential internal UCCF document from 2009.  This set out the issues about UK employment law and how these could be made to fit with the actual practice at UCCF of requiring employees to move on after three or five years.  The message of the document had a hard edge to it and no concession was given to employees who might wish to extend their period of employment with UCCF.  Clearly the resignation of half the trustees was probably linked to the internal differences which Nay’s article was articulating, but nothing seems to have changed and certainly nothing has been made public.  Meanwhile one of the reinstated directors, Richard Cunningham, has resigned from his post and we are left to speculate the real reasons for his departure.

Nay’s article in the Premier magazine has been followed up by another letter from one Katie Norouzi.  This appeared on the 11^th March and supported all that Nay had said about the effect of her experiences of employment with UCCF as a staff worker.  Katie was called to an interview/appraisal with a senior member of staff which she felt was set up, even designed as a means to deliberately undermine and humiliate her.  The encounter seemed designed to crush her in such a way that Katie would feel compelled to resign.  In Katie’s words, she asked herself ‘did I have fundamental weaknesses that meant that I couldn’t do the job? Was I failing to serve Jesus well in the role he had given me?’

Katie’s story, which tells of the way that an organisation puts its own interests ahead of the people it was supposed to serve, reminds us of the CofE and its repeated failures in safeguarding.  UCCF has been able, for many decades, to avoid giving an account of itself to outsiders and also to those who work for it.  That may be about to change.  The events that have taken place since the suspension of the directors in December 2023 have created a situation which necessitates it bringing new blood into the organisation.   Those coming as a new Director or as trustees will each need to be briefed on what has taken place over the past 15 months.  They are unlikely to agree to serve in an organisation that has skirted illegality and maybe even colluded with financial misconduct.   Some hints of financial impropriety in the organisation have also leaked out.  No new official would want to be part of an organisation that may soon face scrutiny from the Charity Commission.  Change is in the air at UCCF. Their achievements over the past hundred years are remarkable and important.  Even if I have little sympathy for the theological vision that undergirds their efforts, it does not stop me having respect for the work that has been accomplished. Perhaps a new start the top will create a new healthy spiritual and open environment for UCCF.  The respect of outside Christian bodies is important and that will not be obtained unless UCCF makes a clear ethical response to the crises that the organisation has faced over the past months.

Gospel Reading for Lent 3. John 2: 13-22

by Martyn Percy

There’s a lovely moment in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the three children are introduced to Aslan.  Aslan, let us remember, is a lion. A big one. They eat meat. Including children and other animals. When Aslan is being entertained at Mr. Beevor’s house, Lucy, one of the children, asks rather anxiously and curiously, “is Aslan safe?”. Mr. Beevor replies, “oh no my dear, he’s not safe. But he is good”.  Can you be good, but also carry threat? Well countries manage it. Communities too? I’ve even heard that parents manage it too.

Here are a couple of questions for our time. How do you love and care for a world that mostly enrages you, with all our political failures and social stigmatization and deep social divisions? And how do you care for and love the Church, which far from being that ark of salvation it is called to be, seems to enrage you even more? As the Civil Rights campaigner John Lewis said, ‘there is never a wrong time to do the right thing’.

       But is it ever right to be angry – even furious – at injustice? The gospels answer us: Yes. And John’s account of Jesus cleansing the Temple (John 2:13–22) gives us some clues. Jesus is supposed to be a peaceable and wise teacher. But he creates mayhem in the Temple, and upsets all the people going about their lawful trading in dubious ‘religious tat’ and offerings. He goes the whole hog too, driving them out with a whip that he made himself. That took time, so this is a planned attack.

       The story in John’s gospel is a meditation on Jesus’ manifesting wisdom, and also his alleged foolishness. Because Jesus spends much of his ministry being cast not as a hero, but as something of a loose cannon; and possibly even a deranged prophet. His words and works are prejudged by his critics, because even in first-century Palestine, the social and theological construction of reality seems to prejudice many people’s perceptions of Jesus.

       To casual onlookers, turning out the traders from the Temple is a foolish thing to do: they don’t mean any harm, do they? Why pick on merchandizers selling ‘religious tat’, offerings and souvenirs? Or moneylenders, who we all have need of? We all accept this.  Jesus, in contrast, does not; and as in other cases, behaves ‘rather badly’.  Behold!  He eats and drinks with a bad crowd; he finds himself narrated as a glutton and a drunkard.  So Jesus says, somewhat cryptically, that ‘wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’.

But there is a difference between hot anger and cold, perhaps righteous anger. Jesus actually went away and made the whip of cords he used on the hapless traders. This is a cold premeditated attack; not a rush of blood to the head. He has, as the Epistle of James puts it, ‘been slow to anger’ – but he’s got there. And now he’s meting out some discipline.

Wisdom is key.  Because the second part of the gospel story outlines how the seemingly wise and righteous appear not to be able to see what is front of their noses, whilst the apparently foolish and unrighteous seem to have perceived.  So Jesus’ action in the Temple – reckless, violent and apparently intemperate – contains quite a radical, strong message.  It conveys wisdom.  That sometimes, breaking our frames of reference with such sharpness and anger is the only way to get people to see how foolish they have been. 

This is the key to understanding the incident: it is about breaking a culture, and smashing the prevailing frames of reference.  So, Jesus is acting something out in this narrative: there was really no point at all in trading up from a pigeon to a dove.  Neither sacrifice would bring you closer to God; you are wasting your money.  There was no point in going for the “three-for-two” (TFT) offer on goats; or the “buy-one-get-one-free” (BOGOF) offer on lambs. 

Much of the gospel of John is all about being reconciled to what has been hidden, and looking deeper into what has been revealed.  And to seeing beyond the apparently obvious: to find the wisdom in apparent folly.  And this is why Jesus’ anger in the gospel is so interesting in this story.  For it seems not be a hot, quick irrational ‘snap’; but rather a cold, icy anger. 

Rather like Arnie (a robot from the future) in the film The Terminator, he’s seen the Temple, and said to his audience: ‘I’ll be back’.  As Harvey Cox noted in On Not Leaving it to the Snake (1968), the first and original sin is not disobedience. It is, rather, indifference. We can no longer ignore the pain and alienation that others in the church experience – and especially when this is because of the church. Indifference is pitiful, and it is the enemy of compassion.

       There are three things to say in relation to Jesus’ emotional temperament here. First, what is Jesus so upset about in the Temple? It seems to me that it lies in assumptions: about the ‘natural order of things’; about status and privilege; about possessions; about prevailing wisdom. This is about, in other words, unexamined lives and practices lived in unexamined contexts. Everyone is blind. Jesus’ action forces us to confront the futile sight before us. His anger forces us to look again. (On this, see Lytta Bassett’s excellent Holy Anger: Jacob, Job, Jesus, London: Continuum, 2007).

       Second, the story chides us all for that most simple of venial sins: overlooking. The trading has been happening for years and years. It is simply part of the furniture; it barely merits a look, let alone comment. Jesus, of course, always looks deeper. But the lesson of the story is that, having looked into us with such penetration, his gaze then often shifts – to those who are below us, and unseen. That is, those with less wealth, health, intelligence, conversation and social skills; or just less life.

       Third, the besetting sin is that the Temple traders accept the status quo. The story has one thing to say about this: Don’t. Don’t accept that a simple small gesture cannot ripple out and begin to change things. Don’t accept, wearily, that you can’t make a difference. You can.

Sometimes the change may be radical; but more often than not, change comes about through small degrees. Reform can be glacial, and adaptationist. We need to stop waiting and start acting. Nigel Biggar writes that:

True prophets are ones who don’t much enjoy playing prophet. They don’t enjoy alienating people, as speakers of uncomfortable truths tend to do. They don’t enjoy the sound of their own solitary righteousness and they don’t enjoy being in a minority of one. True prophets tend to find the whole business irksome and painful. They want to wriggle out of it, and they only take to it with reluctance. So beware of those who take to prophesy like a duck to water, and who revel in the role. They probably aren’t the real thing. (Nigel Biggar, ‘On Judgment, Repentance and Restoration’, a Sermon preached at Christ Church Cathedral, 5 March 2017, and quoted in Martyn Percy (ed.), Untamed Gospel: Protests, Poems, Prose, London: Canterbury Press, 2017)

True prophets can be thoughtful, kind and cautious creatures. And angry. Caricatures of raging fire-storming preachers should be set aside. True prophets are more emotionally integrated. They are pastoral, contextual and political theologians. They care about people and places. They have virtues such as compassion, care, kindness, self-control, humility and gentleness. But they have passion and energy for change too; often reluctantly expressed, and only occasionally finding voice in anger. Pure compassion can be quite ruthless. (Ask any parent who loves their child.)

The scandal of our churches and church leaders is that they prefer to survive rather than be true; they choose optics over justice; they privilege pride our reputation over honesty and integrity. To Jesus, this is a scandal. To the world, it is a scandal. To emerging generations it means a lengthy sojourn in the wilderness of ever-increasing indifference.

This gospel asks us to think hard about how we channel our anger about injustice. Some will call you mad or drunk for doing so. But sometimes, the only response to injustice is righteous anger. Not just shouting and raging. But acting the anger out. “Let the reader understand” (Mark 13: 14).

The Very Revd Prof. Martyn Percy