John’s Notes: Clapham Village Newsletter, February 2021
The Church doesn’t do so well in pandemics. The Black Death intensified because the people believed that the way to be rid of the plague was to appease the deity by coming together for mass and pilgrimages. When in time people realised that their prayers had had the opposite effect they turned on their clerics: at least, those few who themselves had survived and hadn’t fled the parish when the plague arrived. The church - bonded to the landlord class - was a prime target of the subsequent Peasants Revolt led by radical priests such as John Ball preaching liberty and equality for the common people. Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury who had introduced a poll tax, was hunted down and beheaded by protestors.
The 1918 flu pandemic saw many churches close across the world (‘Churchless Sundays’ they called them in the States) and there was plenty of dispute about the rights and wrongs of doing so. In Egremont, Cumbria, where the death rate was appalling, the medical officer asked the rector to stop ringing the church bells every time there was a funeral because he wanted to “keep people cheerful”, whilst some London churches remained open throughout the pandemic, on the grounds that during a crisis people should turn to religion, not be excluded from it. Some congregations took their worship outdoors, much to the ire of local authorities. Giving went down. Tensions rose between traditionalists (insisting on the church’s right to be considered exceptional to the lockdown rules) and innovators (accepting the restrictions and finding new ways to communicate the gospel, eg by telephone). Attendances dropped in a society whose faith had already been shattered by the most brutalising world war. Does all this sound familiar?
This time around, some commentators have criticised Archbishop Justin Welby for his perceived weak leadership during this Coronavirus outbreak. A.N. Wilson in The Times recently lambasted Welby for lacking any ‘display of loyalty to what the church historically stands for’, and instead speaking out ‘wokely’ on social issues and introducing funding to support innovative forms of ministry such as sports chaplaincy. Quoting T.S.Eliot, “The Archbishop shall be our head, dispelling dismay and doubt,” Wilson lamented Welby’s lack of such persona, and quoted sociologist Stephen Bullivant as saying that decline in church attendance, well entrenched before the pandemic, is probably now irreversible.
It is true that we could have heard more from Archbishop Welby to address the genuine concerns of those for whom closing churches is unconscionable, even in a pandemic. Instead, Archbishop Welby’s focus has been on encouraging us to find other ways to pray, in our homes, eg by using the Church of England daily telephone prayer line (which I know some parishioners here do use, and value). Overlooked in this argument is Archbishop Welby’s willingness last year to publicly discuss loss, disability and depression and explore how to find ways through them. In 1983, the Welbys lost a seven-month-old baby, Johanna, in a car crash. Twelve months later another of their children was critically ill. Their daughter Katharine has mental health difficulties and Ellie, learning disabilities. It has often led him to question his faith.
Welby’s confessional approach contrasts sharply with the temporal power exercises of Eliot’s Thomas Becket, but his empathic vulnerability has been a genuinely appreciated ministry to so many people reeling from loss and caught in doubt and turmoil. Does this sound familiar? Another church leader once said, “The greatest among you should be like the least, and the one who leads like the one who serves.” The church will emerge, scathed as ever, from this pandemic. But this model of humility, prayerfulness, and empathy, might just be the kind of leadership we need through which to rebuild.
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