Moderators’ Report

AS IF

1.1 Together with the whole United Reformed Church the Synod Moderators have been reflecting on the calling of the Church at this stage in its life and in this context in the Great Britain of the early 21st century. Our reflections have arisen from our regular task of working alongside local churches and ministers, in preaching and teaching and in sharing ecumenically in thinking and planning for the future. We have also had opportunities through the Belonging to the World Church programme and the synod twinning arrangements to make overseas journeys and to learn from the Church’s experience in other contexts. We share a desire that the quest to catch a vision of God’s tomorrow should shape our agenda at every level of the Church.

1.2 We believe that the Church is called to critique the prevailing culture, but that in order for this to be more than rhetoric we need to understand the situation in which we live and the nature of the contemporary church as being itself a sub-culture, or cluster of sub-cultures.

1.3 It has been said that ‘culture is ordinary’, it is the way we do things. It is why we feel at home in some places and alien in others; stimulated by some differences, threatened by others. Christendom gave a dominance to Christian culture across the western world which has given a particular tone to our experience of being Christian, even though that virtually mono-cultural phase has long since passed away. It leaves its after-glow as the sun sets on that era, and maybe we still hanker for the relative blandness and easiness of the days when the church was the hub of spiritual and community life; but we do well to remember that the centuries of dominance saw major division and persecution, as our own dissenting history bears witness; and the social and political history of Britain indicates that the veneer of Christianity was often very thin.

1.4 From the beginning the Christian faith has always been shaped by its cultural context, and has in turn questioned and re-shaped that context. It has often been the work of courageous pioneers to recognise and give voice to the Gospel’s challenge to specific evils. There is no ideal cultural embodiment for the Gospel this side of heaven; every culture has its positives and negatives. The Church can learn from its surroundings as well as teach, but either way it does need to engage both intellectually and practically with the prevailing world-view.

2. The World as it is

2.1 We live in a secular society; that is, the values, attitudes and pre-occupations of the dominant world-view are rooted in this age, this time, now; it gives little space in its thinking or behaving for notions of God, let alone supposedly revealed notions of God.

2.2 The values which shape our lives are largely commercial; they revolve around a global economy and the capacity of the media via satellite television and the ‘web’ to increase demand for consumer goods. The half-hidden power struggles as nation-states give ground to multi-national corporations create a growing divide between high-consuming societies and traditionally land-based, self-sufficient ones. At a local level people are encouraged to find meaning through possessions (Tesco ergo sum), and work is linked with the capacity to enjoy a particular life-style rather than pride in using skills and contributing to society.

2.3 The prevailing culture which shapes our lives is this-worldly – ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die’. If this life is believed to be all there is then people become obsessed with their rights and their needs, sex becomes a recreational transaction, personal value is measured by wealth, and life becomes increasingly litigious in the blame culture where every error has to be paid for rather than forgiven.

2.4 Focused on this world we seek security through pre-emptive strikes and the power of force; whilst individually people who have dismissed the concept of eternity seek endless life here courtesy of the National Health Service. We are increasingly drawn into the desire for a risk free world, totally sanitised and insured. We have to be warned that boiling water is hot, wet floors slippery, and that you will not always wake up after surgery. If this life is all there is, then clearly to stay alive for as long as possible, as healthily and happily as possible, becomes the greatest good. But there is a growing dissatisfaction with these attitudes: altruism and hunger for justice have not been quenched, and many people see life as having a spiritual dimension.

3. Other worlds

3.1 Within the swirling pattern of contemporary life exist many sub-cultures. The aspirations of some – to be a millionaire, to own a villa in Spain – can be offset by the quest of others for a simpler life-style: to give up the rat-race, to be environmentally friendly, to earn enough to live by and then spend one’s time in making music or art. The Friday night binge-drinker, drugged-up, ‘I am what I own’ life may seem to dominate youth culture since it is fuelled by so many vested interests. But many, many sub-groups exist, among people of all ages, which resist and reject mindless hedonism.

3.2 There is a danger of pinning a Christian label on all virtue. Yet it is possible to recognise the memory of Christianity still influencing and nourishing the values of people who would not wish to be identified as ‘Christians’. The spirituality of some contemporary film, music and theatre indicates that God is not left without witnesses. The search for simpler life-styles showing greater respect for the environment reminds us that there are many people of good-will.

3.3 We need as Christians to engage intelligently with the worlds in which we live, and affirm humbly, but confidently, the good news which gives us hope – preferably in a language comprehensible to the people who hear us. That affirmation will be made both through the articulation of the gospel in conversation and apologetic, and its incarnation in a peculiarly (but not exclusively) Christian way of living. In other words, we are called to be authentic.

4. Another world

4.1 One of the wise voices of modern biblical scholarship is Walter Brueggemann who calls us as believers to live ‘otherwise’; to live God’s alternative way, whatever the prevailing culture, as if that alternative prevailed. We can be signs, and perhaps even sacraments, of God’s reign.

4.2 What might this alternative look like for us, as believers and as a Church? Surely the difference will be both hidden and obvious, private and public. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus calls his disciples to be salt and light; to influence from within, subversively one might almost say; and to shine out in obvious contrast with the world around us, not hidden but public. The life we live and the truth we utter need to be the same reality.

4.3 What does this mean for us as disciples? What is the Gospel alternative which we are called to embody? Here is one view – perhaps it will encourage further reflection since it does not claim to be exhaustive.

4.4 In place of greed let us live contentment. The apostle wrote in the letter to the Philippians that he had learned to be content, in plenty or want (Philippians 4:12). In a world dominated by material possessions and creature comforts Christians need to know how to accept and be grateful for their circumstances, discovering Christ’s strength to live now, whatever ‘now’ may be like. Few of us are likely to experience extremes of poverty or wealth, but we may experience variations – older believers who have lived through times of economic depression or war have much to teach us.

4.5 In place of blame the Gospel calls us to the twin responses of personal responsibility and forgiveness. No-one is perfect, but the prevailing attitude of blame drives people to self-protection. Insurance premiums for professionals rocket as people hunt for those on whom they may exact revenge. Spiritual and emotional health lies in a recognition of our own responsibilities, and the willingness to say when we have made mistakes or exercised poor judgement. The other side of the same coin is the readiness to treat other people as we would like to be treated; to forgive other people’s faults and ineptitude. This does not mean that we fail to confront wrong-doing and wrong-thinking. It does mean that such confrontation, when necessary, flows from a desire for the other’s good. We speak the truth in love, not judgement. We stand with the Christ who does not condemn, who does not bind us to our sins, but who allows the truth to set us free. Michael Taylor, formerly of Christian Aid, once said that “the point of religion is coping with failure”. Nothing brings us closer to the reality of God than the quest for the giving and receiving of forgiveness.

4.6 We live in a society in which many people feel desperately alone. In a world of isolation the followers of Christ can live a shared life (Romans 15:17). The extreme enjoyment of soap-operas is partly accounted for by this pain of isolation; the fictional characters become a surrogate family as we yearn for Friends and Neighbours. Of course the need for drama dictates story lines which constantly reinforce images of dysfunctional family life and betrayed friendship. “The mass of people (sic. men) lead lives of quiet desperation”, wrote Thoreau. We believe in the God who is community and who calls us out of isolation and the despair it engenders into one-ness with God and our fellow creatures. We are created to live our lives in family and in fellowship – to share a common life of mutual acceptance. We are to live as those who can be together in harmony, healing each other’s wounds, including and affirming.

4.7 In place of fear we practise open-ness, the welcome of the stranger and the breaking down of hostility which marks the community of the cross (Ephesians 2:15,16). So often we find it difficult to include and affirm because we are afraid of those who are different from ourselves. When people reach out in friendship across divides of language or faith they embody the Gospel. Such action can be dangerous in societies where people feel driven to defend the status quo, or where the inadequate seek to scape-goat outsiders in order to boost their own identity. Taking upon ourselves the pain of a fractured society, and pleading the cause of the voiceless is to enact the identifying of Christ with ‘the least’, of which Jesus speaks (Matthew 25:40).

4.8 We can be those who relinquish instant solutions and embrace an eternal perspective. Jesus endured the cross ‘for the joy that was set before him’ (Hebrews 12:12). In a world of short-termism it is tempting to look for quick fixes. We can have the courage to appreciate our rootedness in a historic faith which continues to nourish and sustain, whilst trusting the God who is eternal. We are not trapped in the past, but open to God’s future, willing to be re-shaped. We can be those who live in the present, held in God’s eternal ‘now’. We can be those who plant for the future whilst trusting God to define that future’s shape.

4.9 Overcoming cynicism with hope is a sign of the Gospel believed and practised. We live in a cynical age, and we may give in to cynicism as we view the sometimes yawning gap between these gospel aspirations and our own experience of contemporary Church life. We should not despair, either of ourselves or of the Church. St Paul, who lived through more change, disappointment and suffering than most of us could write, “yet always there is hope.” (Romans 8:18-25). It is a personal hope and a shared hope rooted in the cross and resurrection of Christ, and the presence of God with us through the Holy Spirit.

4.10 This way of life to which our discipleship calls us arises from our intimacy with the God who has been revealed through Jesus Christ. This intimacy is maintained in prayer and in listening to God and for God. It is re-discovered as we meet God in worship and meet God’s truth in scripture.

5. Being a Church in the ‘other’ world

5.1 The particular heritage of the United Reformed Church gives us certain distinctive characteristics which we should not lose. But that does not mean that we need to cling to the actual historical issues which gave rise to our separation from the wider family of the church (although some are still pertinent). We are born out of dissent and the desire that the church should be true to its origins in the Gospel as we keep going deeper into our source, expecting more light and truth, and as we keep on changing as the Spirit enables us to interpret and practise the truth in our own context. That attitude should shape us rather than the ecclesiological battle-lines of the past.

5.2 The Gospel always carries with itself the seeds of change. It always questions prevailing culture – and that includes the culture of the institutional Church, or a second-generation faith, or any claims that ‘we always do it this way’.

5.3 The ecumenical venture – the journey towards God’s goal of the unity of all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10), the recognition that we belong together in one household or family – that venture itself may inadvertently blunt the edge of the distinctive witness of an irritant, dissenting, reforming Church. The imperative of the Gospel is that we keep on changing until we arrive in the future God has prepared. Living between Alpha and Omega we do not know how far through the alphabet of God’s purposes we have yet travelled. But seeing in Jesus the revelation in human form of that creative and re-creative purpose, and reading in scripture the record of his subversive teaching and practice, we may feel that we have yet a long way to go!

5.4 The legitimate, Gospel quest for unity must not be allowed to weaken the subversive edge of the Gospel, or to silence the disturbing voice. That is one reason why we should not be ashamed of retaining our belief that the Church should be distinct from the State, free to shape its own life under God, and to speak in prophetic freedom.

5.5 True dissent unites the Church, and we should acknowledge gladly the prophetic voices of sister Churches, notably the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, who have spoken out against war and injustice in recent times. ‘Dissent’ no longer describes one strand of Church; it unites us across the inherited divides. We would do well humbly to acknowledge that our supposed non-conformity and dissent has become locked in the past whilst we have become, in many places, those who cling to tradition as to a security blanket.

5.6 As we seek to Catch the Vision of God’s tomorrow and to be the kind of Church God needs let us be willing, individually and corporately, to live ‘otherwise’; to understand, live and speak the Gospel ‘in ever fresh obedience to our living Lord’.

6. Post script

6.1 Since the last General Assembly we have said farewell to Malcolm Hanson and Graham Cook on their retirements from the East Midlands and the Mersey Synods respectively. They each brought distinctive gifts to the Moderators’ Meeting, and we miss them for their wisdom and experience, and their dynamic leadership. We wish Malcolm and Brenda and Graham and Jean many years of happy retirement.

6.2 We have welcomed Terry Oakley and Howard Sharp in their stead and are already benefiting from their new perspectives.

6.3 People come and go, but the sense of mutual support and friendship in the Moderators’ Meeting continues.