A few blog posts back I discussed the idea of ‘imagination deficit’. In putting forward this thought, I was thinking especially of the way many people, even church people, seem unable to enter into the subjective experience of others. There is here a failure of empathy. But the imagination is also to be used in a quite different way, to imagine the world being better than it is. The Beatles song, Imagine, reminds us about the way that the imagination can evoke in us a sense of hope that the ‘world will be as one’.
Using our imaginations, Beatles style, is a good exercise for all of us. Instead of the cynicism that so often infects us and our institutions, our imagining can help us draw on and take seriously some of the biblical imagining with its constant striving for harmony, reconciliation and peace. We may also try to imagine at the same time what we would like the Church to be. We spend a great deal of time hearing sermons about love and reconciliation but quite often these qualities in people are hard to find. About a year ago I wrote about the breakthrough that came to a church near Manchester after the suicide of a teenage member, Lizzie Lowe, who believed she was gay. The Vicar, Nicholas Bundock, led his Church on a difficult journey of self-examination so that they ended up in a place of acceptance of the LGBT community. Lizzie’s death had forced them to imagine and think about the isolation and sense of rejection which many gay people experience at the hands of society and much of the Church. The old policy of ‘we don’t discuss this issue here’ had been a cause of real danger and tragedy. Having sat with Lizzie’s family in the place of grief and reflected on what the Bible was teaching about the needs of all ostracised outsiders, the congregation, or at least the majority of it, knew that it had to change. The congregation has now adopted a positive welcome to the LGBT community as well as to other minorities in society. By using their imaginations, they had come to see that God’s welcome and acceptance was not just for ‘people like us’. It has been a difficult journey, especially hard for those Christians who believe the Bible has a fixed unaltered teaching about the gay question and other issues. The Vicar still attracts attention from online trolls and attacks for this brave act of compassion towards the minorities represented by Lizzie. I would like to regard this Church’s movement as being like a divinely inspired action based on the exercise of their imagination. Imagining allowed that congregation to sit in a new place and understand the central aspects of the Good News in a fresh way.
Acts of imagination take us to new places that in the real world are normally hard to achieve. Too often the effort is inhibited and controlled by fear. The kind of fear we are talking about may well be expressed in theological language but it normally has precious little to do with theology or belief. It is far more likely to be a sign of personal insecurity. The Church is, sadly, very prone to colluding in a fearful retreat into immobility and rigidity when it is asked to exercise its corporate imagination. Let us, nevertheless, think what kind of world, what kind of Church, we can imagine which would resolve our present crisis of unacknowledged abuse and the existence of many unhealed survivors of those terrible actions.
In our new Church, the one created by an act of our imaginations, there is no space for individuals and institutions to cling on to self-referential status or power. The work of the Church, the task of promoting God’s forgiveness and welcome to humanity can happen without there ever being a hierarchy of manipulation or control in the background. We can imagine how preaching and the other tasks of ministry would cease ever to be a way of enhancing individual self-esteem. There are at present too many individuals in the pulpit who use it as a way of overcoming their personal fragility to receive some kind of psychological boost. Our imagined Church will be one like the one dreamed of by Mary in the Magnificat. The proud are scattered, the mighty cast down and the humble and meek are exalted. Translating these words for today’s survivors might mean the following. In our new Church the survivors will always be honoured and listened to. No longer would they be despised and treated with contempt. The proud and the powerful would come to see that they can longer use underhand methods of demeaning these weakened abuse victims and making their situations worse. The Church, the body of Jesus’ followers, will no longer ever tolerate this kind of behaviour from some of its powerful members. Our imagined Church will thus be at last a true place of refuge, a place of healing for all, because God’s healing will truly flow through it.
The Church of our imagination would also be a place where mutuality would mark all relationships between Christians. While some kind of authority structure will continue to exist, among the relationships in the church there would never be space for crude status seeking among those in authority. Our Church would be a place where legitimate authority would be the norm while at the same time cabals, secret groups and controlling networks would disappear. Every single member of the church would somehow acquire an instinctive understanding of the words of Paul when he told the Philippians to treat others as better than themselves. If ever old crimes are revealed, the first instinct of the person who receives this information will always be to seek the welfare and make a compassionate response to the complainant. This would always involve the pursuit of justice, so that, in a biblical sense, God’s righteousness may prevail. The old ‘forgetting’, ignoring or belittling of survivors to protect that church will be no more. The Church in our imaginations would be a place where power posturing has become extinct.
The Church that comes alive within our imaginations when we allow this imaginative process to begin is a wonderful place. Obviously, the gap between what is and what could be is wide. Chief among the difficulties that Nicholas Bundock found when he led his church in a new direction were his encounters with trenchant opposition. Just as the Church is sometimes manipulated by fear-based methods of control, so fear is a factor in stopping people in pursuing a Magnificat vision of the Church in the first place. It will be also an issue for anyone standing up to powerful vested interests. Institutions like the Church will always, as we have seen, have ways of pushing back strongly against those who question the status quo, even if it means ignoring the individuals who have been damaged by its own misuse of its power. Once again, we need the Church to rediscover the way of power that was taught by Jesus. That would bring us closer to the Church of our imaginations, the Church of true healing and safety.
Perhaps I could throw my earlier comment on imagination in. Can we be brave enough to imagine the Church of England non-episcopalian? All clergy equal, all on the same pay scale, all subject to conciliar oversight ?
I am of the opinion that the church’s caste system is a great sin. Yes, it needs to go.
A new heaven and a New Church.
I’d like to imagine into the New Church design, two things that I also imagine will not be particularly popular:
1. Limited tenure. 6 months leadership contracts. Ok maybe a bit longer. No automatic rollover.
2. All senior personnel to be on the toilet cleaning rota. No exceptions.
6-month tenure would militate against long-term planning and the building of relationships. It would also play havoc with family life, children’s schooling, medical treatment, etc. Unless you are talking here about local church, and rotating leadership within it?
Job security, especially if you have a family, is a fine thing. But for most people in the real world it’s an unattainable mirage.
We have to become far more imaginative about how we “staff up” the New church. Freehold tenure appears largely to have gone, but it is still notoriously difficult to remove an ill-fitting incumbent.
I’ve witnessed this happen at close quarters and it was an ugly experience for all involved. Theoretically the balance of power was with the vicar, but that apparent advantage was outweighed by vast swathes of evidence as to his “abilities” elicited by his opponents.
Of course you have to ask yourself what on earth went wrong at the recruitment stage. But at a very simple level the job was just too cosy. Early exit provisions would have been better.
And I do believe we need to be much more honest with ourselves about what we expect from our ministers (and their spouses) and what we are really offering them in return. Job-with-house is obviously worth a great deal more than job-without-house, for example.
Paul kept his hand in with tent-making. He was also quite outspoken about staying single in ministry. I don’t like what he said, but he does have a point.
Smaller local churches are more realistic about this sort of thing. Larger more apparently sophisticated congregations often get it wrong and both sides pay. The Established Churches will have to make changes sooner rather than later as numbers drop but pensioners increase.
I agree that it’s too difficult to remove lazy, incompetent, or narcissistic vicars. It’s also too difficult for clergy who are being bullied or harassed in their parishes to get meaningful support from their superiors. There’s the same reason for both – most of the hierarchy are loth to grasp nettles.
I agree too about job security. However, there’s a big difference between ‘I don’t know if I’ll still have a job in six months’ time’ and being compulsorily moved every six months – job, house, schools, partner’s job, dentist, medical practice, the lot.
Living in ‘free’ tied accommodation may seem a perk, but it has downsides. You can’t choose a house to fit your family size and budget, and can have large utility bills for living in a draughty mansion. Many vicarages were built in the days when clergy had servants, and are difficult to run without them. You have to replace carpets and curtains every time you move – and twice I’ve also had to install towel rails, toilet roll holders, and other fixtures and fittings, You make improvements just to be able to live in the place, but it’s not yours and you get none of that money back. Vicarage gardens can be the size of a small public park, and you’re expected to keep it maintained. Worst of all, you have no privacy. People call at your home at all hours of the day (and sometimes night) and expect you to deal with them then and there – even if you have flu and you’re in your dressing gown. I’ve enjoyed some of the church houses I’ve lived in, but it was a huge relief to retire and feel my home was truly my home (even though I’m renting).
Yes.
I wonder how many current ordinands or those considering ordination know this?
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with you Janet on the supposed “perks”but if you do away with tied houses who is going to to afford a house in the stockbrokers belt – we don’t really want our clergy to live 50 miles away from the parish?
I really like your article. Interestingly I know of a number of churches out there that have dispensed with hierarchy enshrining equality and – even some C of E churches. The results are wonderful. Imagination flowers and in turn people flower. Lots of inspiring community projects and people heal, grow and develop much faster – better discipling. The leaders behave like coaches more than leaders. The vision comes far more from the congregation.
Narcissists and sociopaths are attracted to positions of power and and authority and the more the power differential (power distance) the more imagination gets stifled. These alternative churches would not be attractive to them, because the way they are run automatically means that they would not get their Narcissistic supply.
I love this post/blog… “Once again, we need the Church to rediscover the way of power that was taught by Jesus. That would bring us closer to the Church of our imaginations, the Church of true healing and safety” Amen
I suggested at the beginning of these comments that a departure from the hierarchical episcopalian system of the Church of England might be imagined but in truth that merely looks at the area of people management. Can I throw in something else – property and money – for the institution, if not built on them, lives in them and with them.
Even if there was a degree of acceptance of difference within the body the subject of who manages the two heads of property and money comes immediately to the fore. The institutional management at the top (spell that out as you will) has legal handles on where and how that is managed. Congregations have no direct locus in this.
For example if a congregation en mass feels it would like to do things in a different way it will find itself stymied. The obvious case, though not necessarily the only, would be the long standing evangelical congregation who wished to distance itself from the direction in which it viewed its diocese or national church moving. If it tries to move it will find that congregations are not allowed to do this – only individuals. Congregations who over a long period of time have poured substantial amounts of money into their facilities find that they have to leave these behind for others .
What happens is that a battle field is set up with different groups within the national church trying to get their hands on the legal levers so that they can say that they are the “True Church” and have the power to win the tug of war over property and money.
A more equitable way would require entering the imagination zone again . A conciliar acceptance that grasping power for one’s own is not the right way and that the patrimony of the Church belongs to the worshiping people under God not to the institutions of yore.
Not sure how that would work, Leslie. A congregation does indeed put a lot of money into the maintenance of a listed building, and the electric bill, and the cleaner’s wages. But it doesn’t give them part shares in the ownership. As far as what I describe as the caste system is concerned, I mean the way the church is so driven by status. The high status people give the orders, the low status people have no value. Hence why abuse is not tackled. And if you are low status, your gifts are not recognised. Which is no way to run an organisation well.
On your first point Athena, there are some congregations that have done far more than provide maintenance and paid energy bills of a building. Some have put millions into the refurbishment and additions to their old moribund bricks but have not been able to take that benefit into the future. The power over their money has lain elsewhere.
The NT churches presuppose complementary ministries according to gift, so there was never any need for Anglicans to deviate from the prototype in a more exclusively hierarchical direction. (HIerarchy is also present in NT churches, but that’s another story.) Apostle – prophet (similar to preacher in certain key ways) – evangelist – pastor – teacher – catechist – mercy ministries etc etc.
It is a team mentality. In a football team each player brings their own specialism to the table, but that is always in the interests of the optimal functioning of the *whole*. The left half and goalie do not exist in isolation but only as they contribute to the larger whole. So it is not just any motley combination of complementary gifts we are speaking of, but there is a sort of ideal blueprint in mind which is some kind of full complement including the ministries named above, with all functioning in harmony. Hence 1 Cor 12.
For example, the leadership in the famous Brownsville church was one pastor, one teacher and one evangelist. One man band is the worst model. See Michael Green, Called to Serve, revised as Freed to Serve.
This is a church. Here on ‘tinternet.
She has many of the components of a physical congregation: fellowship, giving of gifts, some warmth and love. No sung worship as such, although some comments make me sing!
Technically all are welcome. And we have a moderator.
I’m still waiting for that cup of tea though…
You are right. The internet is church for me and for a lot of people. And SurvivingChurch is a ‘local’ branch. It works.
😆!
Is the Church about buildings? What should she look like?
The paternal provision of priestly property seems quite contentious. Who should own where a minister lives?
At the moment it’s either the CofE, or the PCC, or part-owned by the priest (via mortgage or wealthy friends) or fully owned by her, or rented by any of the above.
Ignoring ancient precedent for a minute, whoever else owns a house can sell it or rent it to someone else entirely and invest the proceeds in a home of the priest’s actual choice in the form of an allowance.
Who gets what on the staff team in theory shouldn’t be contentious, but living in the real world I know it is.
There are many assumptions embedded in property provision. I’m suggesting they’re outdated, anachronistic even.
It’s ridiculous, for example, that the incumbent should be providing gardening services to enable parish meetings to be held at the vicarage.
Should the vicar be on call 24-7? For what? I’m sure some will embrace this and love it, but many (spouses and children) won’t. Boundaries need to be explicit in the contract.
Larger congregations have a vast pool of untapped talent, even gardeners, longing to be involved in serving the Body.
Having comfortably endured several interregna (translation: periods with no vicar), I was impressed how much ability there is out there. So what does the priest do? Is she actually essential?
I would expect the person in charge to set direction. In recruiting her, I would be explicit about this. In attracting and retaining her services I would expect to pay as much as I could afford. Let her decide how she spends her salary/allowance.
However if it’s just about maintaining the status quo, save your money.
The Church has shown imagination in funding new initiatives (of some magnitude) away from the conventional model. For example over £1million was invested into a city centre church plant recently part-funded centrally. So they can do it if they choose to. Whether or not you agree with this development is another question.
I’d better stop now before I stir things anymore!
The CofE has this system where Stipendiary clergy are not employees, they are office holders and therefore self-employed. So you can’t do the usual stuff about set hours of work and so on. To be fair to the tied house system, it really would be hard to move people around otherwise. And think of the stress!
Obviously I understand people are wedded to the system they know, even if they don’t particularly like it.
In our town we have a fast-growing independent church. It appears to populated by many disaffected people from other Anglican churches in the Diocese.
It was funded by seed capital from a well known London C of E church and is expanding rapidly planting other churches into the local area.
None of these churches pay a quota to the C of E.
Another town centre Anglican church, formerly paying a substantial quota, has negotiated a 40% reduction with the diocese.
I regularly walk past a large town centre Baptist church. They appear to be in good health currently building a large extension.
Hillsongs have an expanding congregation locally. I could go on. The point is people are leaving the Established Church in droves. With their money. The Anglican Church is even competing against itself with surreptitious seed capital. The example I cite is not only one in this area.
I have no particular allegiance to any of the above, but I would like to see a thriving local non-dysfunctional church of whatever colour.
If the C of E wishes to survive and other churches to thrive, then they need to think bigger, much bigger than arcane anomalous employment arrangements and get back, as has been mentioned, to NT church serving Christ and His people.
The ironic thing is that the progressive church (their description) has said to others “keep your mouth shut about our theology but keep giving us your money”. When this hasn’t happened and the money has gone elsewhere it can’t cry foul; what did it expect?