Caught between a rock and hard place

For over a decade I was a member of Tunbridge Wells Churches' Social Responsibility Group.  In my view the Christian faith has a 'positive option for the poor'.  Many of my ideas have been influenced by liberation theology. My involvement in the voluntary sector as strategic and operational levels has been as direct consequence of my opinion of the role of the church in society. 

Inevitably I was drawn into controversy, both with secular and church organisations, particularly the latter as I hold to a postmodernist view as expressed by such writers as Don Cupitt, an ordained priest in the Church of England and a Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

The role of the church is set our well in Faith in the City: a call for action by church and nation published in 1985 by the General Synod of the Church of England.  One paragraph of the report is relevant as we try to understand the problems at St Paul's Cathedral.

Yet while many members of the Church of England have generally found it more congenial to express their discipleship by helping individual victims of misfortune or oppression, fewer are willing to rectify injustices in the structures of society.  There is a number of reasons for this preference for 'ambulance work'.  No-one minds being cast in the role of protector of the weak and powerless: there is no threat here to one's superior position and one's power of free decision.  But to be a protagonist of social change may involve challenging those in power and risking the loss of one's own power.  Helping a victim or sufferer seldom involves conflict; working for change can hardly avoid it.  Direct personal assistance to an individual may seem relatively straightforward, uncontroversial and rewarding; involvement in social issues implies choosing between complicated alternatives and accepting compromises which seem remote from any moral position.  From the nineteenth century onwards, a distinguished line of Anglican theologians has wrestled with the ambiguities of social action; but most of us still feel a lack of confidence in these grey areas.  We have little tradition of initiating conflict and coping with it creatively.  We are not at home in the tough, secular milieu of social and political activism.

See:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8861089/St-Pauls-branded-laughing-stock-as-Dean-Graeme-Knowles-resigns.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100114564/dean-of-st-pauls-resigns-rowan-waffles-c-of-e-becomes-national-joke/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8858510/Bishop-of-London-branded-hypocrite-as-he-backs-St-Pauls-protest...-and-eviction.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8860546/David-Cameron-and-Ed-Miliband-must-be-inspired-by-the-spirit-of-St-Pauls.html

Interesting comments in the article below - by a Roman Catholic who was a priest in the Church of England:

http://www.tunbridgewells-ordinariate.com/blog/?p=1601