The Church, the World, and Essex.

Important Note: "Essex"The kingdom of the East Saxons, from where the name Essex comes, was far larger than the present county. At one time it included most of what is now Middlesex and a large part of Hertfordshire. So the Saxon King of Essex was a substantial ruler in his own right, alongside the Kings of Wessex, Mercia and Northumberland. But by the time of the Norman Conquest (1066), the Kingdom of Essex had been subsumed into England, ruled by one king.

The county of Essex, though, was clearly defined by the three rivers: the Thames, the Lea and the Stour. The rivers were very important channels of communication - it was much easier to travel along them than to try to navigate the roads. But though there was a lot of traffic along the rivers there would have been no doubt about who owned the land on each side of them and which county one was in. It was not until local government re-organisation in 1965 that the London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Newham, Barking, and Havering were created. So for most of the period covered in this module references to Essex may be taken to include the present county and these boroughs.

Further Reading:

THRELFALL-HOLMES, MIRANDA, THE ESSENTIAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. LONDON: SPCK, 2013.

SAMUELS, Ray, An Amazingly Short History of the Church. (Private publication, ordered through Diocesan office).

SUMMERS, Andrew and DEBENHAM, John, The History of Essex: The Essex Hundred Histories. 2008. Short, two page- chapters on aspects of Essex history, with useful list of contacts and references.

EDWARDS, A. C. A History of Essex. 6th Edition 2000.

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/essex_history.html

http://www.finestprospect.org.uk/Post-Med/Post-med.htm Essex County Council Heritage Association.

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Reading before Session 1

Read 'The Religious Environment of Early Christianity pp

and 'The Roman and Celtic Church in Essex' p.4

If you are able, read: Letter to Diognetus, pp. Constantine, pp. and 'The desert a city,'

The Religious Environment of Early Christianity

The Christian faith was born into a Graeco-Roman world that was in many ways well prepared to receive and spread it. The Roman Empire encompassed all the shores of the Mediterranean, stretching through Gaul (modern France) and parts of Germany to England. The legions kept it relatively peaceful, and the roads along which they marched served also for the passage of traders - and missionaries. A common language, Greek, facilitated communication. The Way, as the Christian faith was known, thus spread quickly and far.

Roman religion was a syncretism (an amalgam of religions): it embraced spirits of the natural world, guardians of the home and of stages in life, the Greek pantheon of gods and the deification of the Emperor. Priests were state officials rather than spiritual leaders. There was little spirituality or ethical teaching. The many mystery cults attempted to fill this spiritual vacuum, with varying success. Most had secret rites; some practised baptism in water, and sometimes blood, and communicated with the god in a common meal. Then there were the philosophies which originated in Greece, e.g. Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicurianism - often with great moral seriousness, but appealing particularly to intellectuals with time on their hands for discussion, as Paul discovered in Athens (Acts 17).

The Empire was generally tolerant of the religions of subject peoples, recognizing them as a cohesive force and realising pragmatically that attempts at suppression were likely to stir up rebellion. These other religions were found in Rome, having been brought there by immigrants. Like others, Judaism enjoyed this toleration; but it was different in being monotheistic and in refusing to integrate the cult of the Emperor, though some did offer sacrifices on his behalf. So long as Christianity was regarded as a Jewish sect it was granted the same latitude. But once Jewish hostility became evident and it was seen to be not a national but an international faith, it was perceived as a threat to the stability of the Empire.

Christians made themselves conspicuous by their refusal to join in temple worship and feasts and sometimes to buy meat from temple sacrifices (1

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Corinthians 8:10-13). They ignored the usual divisions in society and invited men and women, old and young and all races to meet together. Failure to acknowledge the gods of the official cult who were believed to have made Rome great was regarded as atheism, which risked bringing down the gods' anger on society. Christians were therefore bad citizens, antisocial. Since they were forced to worship in houses rather than openly in temples, it was not long before alarming tales were spread of practices including cannibalism, infanticide and incest. Christianity was seen as a pernicious doctrine and believers regarded with suspicion and dislike. Their unpopularity made them a convenient scapegoat in the event of disaster, as when Nero blamed them after the burning of Rome in 64 CE.

Generally speaking, persecution was local and sporadic. Occasionally, however, a particular Emperor would order a general persecution, the last and worst being under Diocletian in 303-4. Books were burnt and buildings destroyed, while the clergy, as the leaders were now called, were made special targets since it was thought that without leaders the faith would die.

Persecution proved to be an ineffective weapon, indeed counter-productive - partly because its implementation depended on the local governor, but principally because the courage shown by individual Christians attracted people into the Church. Hence Tertullian's saying that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. It is impossible to say how many actually died; we know about martyred bishops and other notable figures whose burial places became Christian shrines, but there are few records of rank-and-file martyrs - of whom there were quite possibly fewer than is popularly thought. Nevertheless, Constantine's declaration of religious freedom for all in 313 was a relief to the Church.

Despite persecution and official disapproval, by the mid-second century Christianity was not only firmly established at the heart of the Empire but had spread to North Africa and to Spain and Gaul. In the late second century Tertullian suggested it had reached Britain, though the evidence is sketchy.

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More dangerous to the Church's integrity than state persecution were the tensions within. Maybe it sounds strange to begin a survey of the history of the Church with an examination of disagreement! Surely the church is to be the place 'where all things are held in common .. (Acts 4: 32). But from the earliest days it is clear that members of the Christian community disagreed with each other about how to be faithful to Jesus' teaching and live the life of Christian discipleship. They were fallible humans, not perfect saints, after all! But a further prime reasons for disputes was the radical nature of what they were attempting to do. The early Christian fellowships were unique in the ancient world in being inclusive - all people, slaves and free citizens, male and female, all races could join. There was simply nowhere else which had this mixture of ages, backgrounds and cultures. Though many of the towns of the Roman world had a multi-racial, multi-cultural population - especially the ports and trading centres like Corinth and Ephesus - the lack of restriction on the mixing of the sexes and social classes amongst Christians appeared scandalous to outsiders. It clearly caused

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some problems for the followers of Christ as well: how to behave when eating together, how to choose a leader, how to dress? These issues where well settled in societies where people of similar race and social standing lived and worked together, but when the usual rules no longer applied there could be confusion - and disagreement. Many parts of Paul's letters address these sorts of questions.

Not that it was a complete free-for- all. The Christian communities were also distinctive in the demands on those who became a member. Anyone could join, but a lengthy period of instruction before full acceptance as a eucharistic member and adherence to a strict moral code was then required. Faithfulness within marriage, refusal to sacrifice to the Emperor and a sober lifestyle were some of the habits which marked out the Christians.

Then there were disputes about the nature of Jesus' teaching. From the start there were the Judaizers, who wanted to keep the new Way within the Jewish faith and to impose Jewish Law on converts and with whom Paul had a long and ultimately successful battle. (See Acts 15 and the account of the Council of Jerusalem studied in Module C) Church and synagogue split permanently in about 85 CE; but a distinctly Jewish kind of Christianity continued for a time in the Ebionite movement, which denied the divinity of Christ.

A much more widespread movement was gnosticism (from gnosis, Greek for 'knowledge'. It was not an exclusively Christian phenomenon. There had been earlier syncretisms of belief - for example, that of Philo of Alexandria, drawn from Moses and Plato. Gnosticism appealed to those who found Christianity too earthy and failing to answer all their questions about the nature of the world.

Gnostic religions were ones of individual salvation. They believed this salvation came through knowledge rather than through activity. They didn't all agree on the precise content of the knowledge that brings salvation, and we find various schools of Gnostics flourishing in the early Christian centuries, some quite unconnected with Christianity. There were several systems of gnostic mythology, using Hebrew, Greek and pagan sources.

One belief they held in common was that the material world could have no contact with the spiritual world. The good God of the spiritual could not have created matter, and part of their teaching explained how lesser agents were responsible for creating the world.

As matter is evil, man's good spirit feels itself imprisoned in it and longs for the release which the knowledge of God can bring. The Gnostics in their various ways claimed to initiate people into this knowledge and so to ensure their salvation. The affairs of this world are of no account in this transaction. Some Gnostics inferred from this that we should punish our bodies mercilessly because they cause us to be anchored too firmly in matter if they become comfortable. Others took the opposite view and felt free to live lawless lives because our material actions have no effect on the spirit.

This great divide between matter and spirit (dualism) has a crucial effect on the Church's teaching about the work of Jesus. Gnostics who tried to come to terms with Christianity saw

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Jesus as pure spirit, come to give us the knowledge which will bring us to God. He could not have been a real man, because God can't make contact with flesh. So his whole life, including the cross, was an appearance only. (From the Greek word for ‘appearance’, dokesis, comes the term Docetism, applied to those who deny that Jesus was genuinely human and mortal.)

Many thoughtful and articulate Christians were particularly drawn to Gnostic doctrines. One outcome of the fight to overcome them was that the Christian faith was more firmly defined and ordered.

Letter to Diognetus

"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst

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perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."

From an anonymous letter to Diognetus, possibly dating from 2nd. century.

Constantine

The year 303 brought terrible persecution to the Church under the Emperor Diocletian. In the East of the Empire all churches were to be burned, all scriptures given up to the authorities and no meetings for worship held. The decline of the Empire was being blamed on the move away from the gods towards Christianity; it followed that Christianity had to be wiped out.

But one of Diocletian’s reforms was to split the Empire into two. In the West the persecution was never so severe, and when Constantine gained the leadership of the West upon the death of his father in A.D. 306, the Church enjoyed a peace only rarely disturbed. Constantine’s mother, Helen, was a Christian, and he had a half sister called Anastasia, a name derived from the Greek for Resurrection. Constantine himself worshipped the Sun; but by the end of 312 he was also professing Christian belief.

The story is told that he had a vision before a battle; the vision was of a cross held against the midday sun with the words By this sign conquer. In 312 he rather rashly attacked his rival in the West, Maxentius, who against all common sense marched out of Rome to meet him in battle with the river Tiber behind his troops. Constantine won a decisive victory, Maxentius being driven backwards into the river. Whether or not this was the battle before which Constantine had his vision is unclear, but certainly Christians in general believed that their God had granted Constantine victory as a dramatic proof of his favour. Romans believed he won by the favour of the Sun-god. Constantine certainly believed it was the Christian God enough to have his soldiers carry the chai-ro sign on their shields; whether he believed the Sun-god had nothing to do with it is not so certain.

But by the end of 312 Constantine was most certainly favouring Christianity. It was no longer illegal; it became quite respectable. He made huge gifts to the Church and caused some splendid Christian churches to be built. He passed rules on matters such as the freeing of slaves that showed Christian influence. And in 324 he conquered the Eastern ruler Licinius, an unreformed pagan, and extended the peace of the Church eastwards to cover the whole empire. Less than a generation after the terrible days of Diocletian, the Church was allowed her freedom. It seemed to any thoughtful Christian that God had spoken and acted through Constantine in an unmistakable way.

But of course there was a price for the Emperor’s favour. And it is this price which has made Constantine’s ‘conversion’ a matter of debate and controversy among Church historians. First of all it can be pointed out that while Constantine certainly favoured Christianity and made it the official religion of the Empire, he did not seem to have given up worshipping the Sun. Quite possibly Constantine, with no great time for religious niceties and lacking a contemplative or metaphysical turn of mind, simply never really understood the contradictions. After all Christians worshipped on the day of the sun, and Christian thought was full of sun-symbolism. A blurring of the boundaries

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was inevitable. And because he was the Emperor, blurred boundaries in Constantine’s mind tended to become blurred boundaries in the corporate mind of his subjects.

And no less seriously, there was a great price to be paid in the independence of the Church. Constantine was greatly concerned about the unity of his Empire. And he saw Christianity as a force which could bind together the two rather different cultures, East and West, which made up his empire.

But Christianity, in its Eastern and Western forms, was not necessarily a united entity! In the doctrinal disputes upon which the Church now embarked, East and West often sat on opposite sides of the fence. Constantine did not care too much about the niceties and was quite prepared to impose solutions, exile dissident Bishops and generally meddle in affairs he quite obviously did not understand to any great degree. And so, as Bishops became people of note in society as much as in the Church, access to the Emperor’s ear became more profitable than a cogent theological argument. The battle was on for the patronage of the imperial power. Constantine and his successors wielded power in the Church commensurate with their political power but quite out of proportion to their theological understanding.

By any standards the conversion of Constantine was a turning point in Church history. It most certainly brought peace to a Church which, in the East at least, had been suffering a desperate persecution. But the price it paid, in now being under the gaze of the Emperor and having him exercise his authority within its affairs, was also great. The Church lost something of its integrity and purity. She had to come to terms with political influence of her own, and with people who were willing to use her in order to gain power, influence and authority. It is in no way a story of black and white, of obvious good and obvious evil. How much the Church gained and how much it lost is a matter of judgement and opinion. But gains and losses there most certainly were.

An afterword. Residents of Colchester will know that tradition connects St Helen, Constantine’s mother, with Colchester, as her place of birth. The Orthodox community there reveres her: see www/orthodoxcolchester.org.uk.

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'The Desert a City'

The fourth and fifth centuries saw the rapid growth of Christian monasticism, first in the East, then in the West. Men, and later women, began to live outside the civilized world to concentrate on prayer, fasting, manual labour and spiritual discipline. The first was probably Antony of Egypt (c. 251-356), who settled in the Egyptian desert; his biographer - traditionally identified as Athanasius - said that as a result of Antony's example 'the desert was made a city by monks, who left their own people and registered themselves for citizenship in the heavens'.

Was this movement a genuine development of the Christian gospel? Or was it - as sceptical historians like Gibbon portrayed it - the symptom of neurotic world-hating fanaticism? And why did it arise at this point in history?

Asceticism was not invented by Antony. The Greek word askesis means 'discipline' or ‘training'; and Christians like Jews had always stressed the importance of a disciplined moral and spiritual life (e.g. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Rules of fasting and of times for prayer were general. The Church placed growing value on virginity. Those who went out to the testing desert saw themselves following the steps of Moses and Elijah, John the Baptist and the celibate Jesus himself. And ascetic practices were widespread in other religious and philosophical movements - the Gnostics, for instance, or the wandering Cynic preachers who renounced possessions.

The third and fourth centuries also saw great increase in the size and acceptability of the Church and the end of the persecution of Christians by the State. The 'conversion' of Constantine in particular symbolized the growing fusion of Church and Empire, and it meant that the opportunity for heroic witness in martyrdom was ended. For those disillusioned by materialism and by the Church's own worldliness, monasticism became the new way of witness. So the desert life was in part a protest against civil life and religion, a refusal to compromise between God and Mammon. Antony himself decided to become a hermit after hearing in church the story of Jesus and the rich young man (Matt 19:16-22).

But a large part of Athanasius' Life of Antony is taken up with stories of the hermit's great ascetic feats and miracles and his ceaseless struggles with demons. The stories of the 'Desert Fathers' make it plain that like most of their contemporaries they saw the demons as real beings inhabiting the desert; but they saw them also as dark facets of their own souls, fanning the lust for possessions, sex and popularity. The monks' aim was to continue the work of Christ by conquering the demons, in their own souls certainly but as a consequence also in the world at large.

Not surprisingly, hermits ('solitaries' or 'anchorites') were liable to become eccentric and to see the Church in 'the world' as corrupt. A way of countering both tendencies was the formation of monks into communities and the development of monastic 'rules' approved by the bishop. The pioneer in Egypt was Pachomius. His work was highly successful - by the end of the fourth century the town of Oxyrhynchos was said to be so overcrowded with monasteries that a new town had to be built for 10,000 monks and 20,000 nuns.

Although Egypt is generally seen as the home of Christian monasticism it seems to have developed in Syria at about the same time. Certainly the movement spread rapidly in the eastern Empire, attracting leading churchmen: in the ascetic and contemplative quest they found a way of uniting the Christian evangelical calling with Greek thought. Among these was Basil in Asia Minor; his influence was sealed by his election as Bishop of Caesarea, and his rule is still normative for eastern monks. And a westerner, the great biblical scholar Jerome, was also a monk in Palestine.

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Monasticism spread more slowly in the west. But it became increasingly central to Christian life after the fall of Rome in the fifth century, particularly in the Celtic church. The two people with the greatest influence on western European culture over the next thousand years, St Augustine of Hippo and St Benedict, were both writers of monastic rules.

Christopher Burdon

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The Roman and Celtic Church in Essex: Christianity arrived in Essex with the Romans. There was the garrison at Colchester and a few villas in the northern half of the county. The ruins of a Christian church, built between AD 320 and 340, has recently been excavated in Colchester. But as the Roman soldiers left Britain to try to defend their empire from the attacks which caused its ultimate downfall the Christian heritage was lost as well. The faith returned nearly 600 years after Christ's birth, from two sources: from the Roman Church through St Mellitus and from St Cedd, a monk of Northumberland, inspired by the Irish Celtic Church. These two traditions met - and clashed at the synod of Whitby in 664AD.

In 597 Pope Gregory sent Augustine to England. King Aethelbert, based in Kent, whose wife was a Christian, received him and became a Christian. Bede, writing in 8th century, records how Augustine appointed Mellitus as Bishop of London, with responsibility for the East Saxons. Pagan worship was strongly entrenched. Sabert, the E. Saxon King (nephew of Aethelbert) was soon converted, but later his sons drove Mellitus out after a dispute and he did not return. He later became Archbishop of Canterbury.

A later King of Essex, Sigebert who had been converted in Northumbria, asked for help in bringing the faith to his kingdom and Cedd was sent in 653. He had grown up in the tradition of the Celtic church, planted by Irish missionaries in Northumbria and was the older brother of Chad, first bishop of Lichfield. He sailed from Lindisfarne and landed at Bradwell where he established a Christian community from which Christian believers took the Gospel message to the rest of Essex.

Around 25 churches in Essex have some Saxon feature, but by far the best preserved are the chapel at Bradwell and the wooden church at Greenstead.

The Celtic and Roman Christian traditions had different customs, rather than different beliefs. Indeed, both had grown from early Roman Christianity. The tradition is that Patrick, a Roman Briton, was enslaved by the Irish but after he escaped he willingly returned to Ireland to take the Gospel there. Monks inspired by him travelled to Western Scotland, to Iona and from there established the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. The Celts, separated from their Roman roots, adapted their traditions to suit local needs and circumstances. Some differences would not seem important to us: the shape of a monk’s tonsure, for example, and some would: such as the date of Easter or the structure of baptismal service. The Celtic tradition had no central organisational structures; instead, monasteries were the centre of spiritual life – with the abbot, rather than the bishop, being the highest authority. When Augustine arrived in Canterbury, with a mandate from Pope Gregory to convert the heathen English, he discovered the existence of the British (i.e. Celtic) Church. He

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summoned its leaders to meet him in 602, to try and persuade them to change to the Roman ways, with their centralised authority of the pope, and the relative pomp and richness of their ceremonies. But the Celts found Augustine arrogant and overbearing, and refused point blank.

King Oswy of Northumbria – at that time the most powerful of all the English kings –worshipped in the Celtic tradition as taught by the monks of Lindisfarne. He had married a Kentish princess, whose family had been converted by Augustine to the Roman ways. Oswy faced divisions at court as, while his wife was still enduring the harsh fasts of Lent (according to the Roman calendar), he and his retinue were feasting and rejoicing, celebrating Easter earlier, according to the Celtic calendar. So he decided to settle matters once and for all. He summoned a synod at Whitby in 664, and, appointing himself as judge, called experts in the two traditions – Celtic and Roman – to engage in debate in front of an audience. The Roman side clinched the argument by explaining to Oswy that Christ had given to Peter, the founder of the Roman Church, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, with authority to decide about who should be admitted. ‘Can you show that a similar authority was given to your Columba?’, Oswy demanded of the Celtic group. ‘No’, they admitted. ‘Then I tell you’, said Oswy, ‘I shall obey Peter’s commands in everything . . . Otherwise, when I come to the gates of heaven, there may be no one to open them, because he who holds the keys has turned away.’ So, according to the Saxon historian Bede, was the course of English church history decided for many centuries to come.

St Cedd won acclaim at the Synod of Whitby, translating the Roman’s Latin speeches into Oswy’s Northumbrian speech. Thus he aided the defeat of his own tradition! The Abbey at Barking, which had been founded around 666AD and contained both monks and nuns, also played an influential role in bringing Essex and East London into line with the Church of Rome. St. Ethelburga was first Abbess of Barking. She came from a royal family and she was sister of St. Erconwald, Bishop of London. Barking monks and nuns became celebrated for the study of the Holy Scriptures, the fathers of the Church and their knowledge of Latin and Greek. They were also widely praised for their care of the poor and sick.

The significance of the Council of Whitby may have been emphasised after the English Church's break with Rome at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century. The idea that there had been an indigenous church, which was overruled by a Roman one, had obvious attractions. It is not uncommon for disputes in the past to assume renewed significance at other times in history.

for further study; Bradwell www.bradwellchapel.org/St Andrew's Greenstead :http://www.greenstedchurch.org.uk/history.html , Barking Abbey www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=39832Bede's account of the Synod of Whitby: www.britannia.com/history/docs/whitby.html

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For consideration: Each of these disputes may be examined to see how believers behaved and whether there are lessons to be learned about how we can behave when disagreeing with a fellow Christian. For example,

Each side acknowledged that they disagreed and attempted to be clear about the nature of that disagreement

Those whose views were not adopted did not break away, but Insights and wisdom from the Celtic tradition may have been lost.

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Reading for Session Two

Week two: Who has the greatest claim on us; the Church or the State?The roots of debate about the loyalty that a believer owes to his or her country can

be found in many places in the Bible. For much of Biblical history the Israelites were exiles in a foreign land, or the land promised to them was occupied by foreigners and the Biblical texts reflect this: The Israelites' time in captivity in Egypt, Exodus 1: 8-22Daniel, trying to live a faith-ful life in captivity in Babylon, Daniel 1: 8-17, Daniel 6: 6-10.Esther compromising her own integrity for the good of her people, (Book of Esther)Resistance to the Roman empire. (Matt 22: 15-22)

Christians have not found it easy to be involved in the world’s affairs, and different approaches have been taken. It is worth reflecting on the contrast in the New Testament between Paul’s situation as he describes it in Romans 13: 1 – 7, and John’s situation as described in Revelation 13. Paul may be talking about a time before Rome’s persecution of Christians and John is reacting to a very different time when Christians and being imprisoned, threatened and persecuted by Rome. They certainly have very different views of Rome.

For Paul, Rome is one of the governing authorities ordained by God as a guarantor of justice in the world. Rome should be respected and the emperor should be prayed for. To resist taxation would be wrong. Paul’s personal experience, as recorded in Acts, is that Rome is his protector. He is a Roman citizen and uses this fact as a defence against persecution by his own people the Jews. In the end he appeals to the Emperor in just the same way as we might appeal to the House of Lords, or Brussels, for a final judgement. No wonder Paul saw Rome as being part of God’s plan. Some might even accuse him of being compromised by the protection he received from the Roman Empire and unable to judge it in a purely Christian light. But what, he could have replied, is ‘a purely Christian light?’ Whether it is possible to have such a viewpoint will be one of the questions that this session addresses.

By the time that John was writing the situation was very different. The Empire had been tolerant of a wide range of beliefs – so long as this did not translate to political activity. Beginning with the emperor Nero (who ruled from AD 54 – 68) Christians fell under suspicion of treachery and were persecuted. Church leaders were asked to swear allegiance to the emperor as a god and the emperor began to seen as divine. For John, Rome and its emperor are no longer the friend but rather ‘the Beast’, the enemy which must be resisted and dethroned. In John’s mind the emperor is now, in effect, claiming to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. For John the Roman State has become hegemonic and leaves no room for dissent. (The word hegemony means a power or a system which claims supreme authority

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over all others.) But if one retreats from engagement with such power what happens to those who are still within it’s grasp – and what influence for good can be made?

Life in Essex and East London 1066- 1381 The Norman invasion – After the defeat of King Harold by William the Conqueror in 1066 the power of Norman Kings stretched over all of England and was closely allied with power of the church. One way in which Norman kings from William the Conqueror onwards emphasised the introduction of a new regime was to replace the priests and leaders of the existing church with Norman clergy and build larger, stone churches. Smaller, wooden, Saxon churches were allowed to decay. An estimated 200 churches in Essex and East London have some Norman feature. The wall paintings at Copford, and the architecture of Rainham and East Ham are good examples of these.

Land was confiscated from monasteries and abbeys endowed by the previous regime, such as Waltham Abbey which was particularly associated with King Harold, and only restored to their former magnificence when all threat of rebellion was passed. Many of the Norman invaders were shocked at how lax the English church was and wished to restore links with Rome and re-establish discipline and ascetic living amongst the clergy, monks and nuns. Monasteries were founded at Colchester, Wix and Castle Hedingham and these were allowed sufficient wealth to enable them to help the poor and sick. Land was seized from Saxon owners in Essex and East of London and given to Norman invaders on a wider scale than anywhere else in the country. Much of Essex was designated as ‘forest’ and new laws introduced by the Norman conquerors severely restricted the freedom to gather food from them. Taking wood for a fire, picking fruit or eating even an animal that had died naturally could lead to extreme punishments.

The Norman court resided at Barking Abbey while the Tower of London was being built. This was a powerful, visible reminder of what had happened at the Norman invasion: the institutional church had become allied with a repressive foreign regime. The Church leaders may have had little choice and they may have seen cooperation as the way to enable them to continue their work for the poor, but the effect was to influence the English commoners attitude to the church for many years: perhaps even to this day.

More on life in a monastery at this time.http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/daily-life-monk-middle-ages.htmhttp://www.timeref.com/religionlife.htmhttp://www.helium.com/items/2177153-what-was-the-daily-life-of-a-nun-in-medieval-england

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Medieval society: Thomas Becket was born in around 1120, the son of a prosperous London merchant. He was well educated and worked for Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him on several missions to Rome. Becket's talents were noticed by Henry II, who made him his chancellor and the two became close friends. When Theobald died in 1161, Henry made Becket archbishop. Becket transformed himself from a pleasure-loving courtier into a serious, simply-dressed cleric.

The king and his archbishop's friendship was put under strain when it became clear that Becket would now stand up for the church in its disagreements with the king. The church wished to retain the right of clergy to be tried in ecclesiastical courts, even for severe offences, whilst the King insisted they should be tried in criminal courts. In 1164, realising the extent of Henry's displeasure, Becket fled into exile in France, and remained in exile for several years. He returned in 1170.

On the 29 December 1170, four knights, believing the king wanted Becket out of the way, confronted and murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

Henry 11 re-endowed Waltham Abbey in 1177 as part of his penance for this murder and it became the richest monastery in the county. Canterbury Cathedral became an important site for pilgrimage and shrines dedicated to Thomas were built. There is the remains of one, built in 1220, in Brentwood High St. One of the windows at Hadleigh parish church has a picture of Thomas Beckett.

Throughout the succeeding decades the barons challenged the power of the monarch. Their wealth and power was expressed in the churches they built, for example, St. Nicholas at Castle Hedingham, the Abbey at Stratford, and the churches of Coggeshall, Beeleigh, Prittlewell, St Osyth. Thaxted and Saffron Walden.

In the middle of the 14th century there was considerable distress as the 'Black Death' - bubonic plague - ravaged all of the British Isles. It is estimated that 30-45% of the population died between 1348 and 1350. Essex and London were particularly badly affected. There were further outbreaks in later years, some of which were especially lethal for children and adolescents.

The drastic drop in population meant both that labour was in short supply and that fewer taxes were being collected. But expensive wars in France had to be paid for. Kings and their advisers tried to limit wage rises and restrict the movement of labourers looking for work and then conceived the idea of the poll tax - a per capita levy on everyone over the age of 15. In 1379 this tax had been 'graduated' - that is to say, it was calculated according to the taxpayer's means. But the next levy, that of 1380-1, was not. It was levied at a flat rate - and a very high one, of a shilling (5p) per head.

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The actions of landlords - both the church and the aristocracy - was also inflammatory. As villeins1 tenants were required to work on their lord's lands at harvest time and to carry his produce to the market. These burdens prevented the tenants from tilling their own land and they were seen as a way in which the lords provided themselves with cheap labour. There is evidence that, on some manors, long defunct villein dues were brought back to counter the effects of the labour shortage.

In 1381 revolt against the burdens imposed on ordinary people was led by men and women from Fobbing, near Brentwood. They attached the tax commissioner, Thomas Bampton, when he came to collect taxes and marched on London. They were joined by rebels from Kent, led by Wat Tyler and a radical priest from Colchester, John Ball who may have been influenced by the Lollard movement2 He preached to them at Blackheath (the insurgents' gathering place near Greenwich) in an open-air sermon that included the following:

When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty. 3

So the rebels had Christian reasons for their actions.

It is not possible to know now exactly what happened. There is information at St Mary's Great Baddow which says that Jack Straw led people from there to Stepney, and uprisings in other parts of the country gathered at various places in London. It appears that many women were at the head of large crowds - the poll tax fell particularly hard on married women.

In the short run, the king's officers offered the rebels concessions, and granted them charters of 'manumission', or freedom. They had to do this to get them out of London. But once the crisis was over, their attitude changed.

The charters were torn up. A 'bloody assize' was organised, to bring the ringleaders to book. New measures were taken to enforce public order and restrict movement of people. Lodging at Writtle, the King set up a court at Chelmsford and over 145 rebel leaders were executed. Their followers were spared if they betrayed their leaders’ whereabouts.

1 from the French or Latin, villanus, meaning serf or peasant2 See Session 3 for more information on the Lollards.3 books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=143812680

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For further study: Find the nearest church, Abbey or other religious house near you that has its origins in the Saxon or Norman era. What can you find out about the relations between those who led the church or Abbey and the surrounding residents?

Waltham Abbey http://www.walthamabbeychurch.co.uk/history.htmBarking Abbey http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/barking_abbey.htmwww.essexchurches.com for photos and essexchurches.info for notes

Have you participated in a protest of any kind? If you have, has your faith played a part in the position you have taken? If you have not, try to find someone who as and ask them what has motivated them.

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Reading for Session three: How do individual believers relate to the wider church?

The last session looked at how members of the church related to those in authority - as allies and guarantors of stability, or as oppressors, limiting possibilities for flourishing. This session will focus attention on the relations within the church: the relationship between individual beliefs and conscience and the church as an institution and source of collective wisdom.

Review the reading on life in the monastery, from last week The Church against which the Lollards and later Protestant reformers rebelled was certainly not all corrupt!

John Wyclif and the Lollards Wyclif was born in Yorkshire in the 1330s and became a theologian at Balliol College, Oxford. He rejected the authority of the Roman church, believing all authority derived from the scriptures. He denied transubstantiation (the change of the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ), believing in a spiritual Eucharist rather than the physical one. Because of his beliefs, Wyclif wanted the church reformed and its wealth removed.

The nature of the relationship between Wyclif and the Lollards is not easy to assess. One of the practical initiatives he suggested in his later writings was the training and commissioning of ‘poor preachers’, laymen whose task was to teach the Scriptures throughout the land. Wyclif’s expressed intention was not to start a new movement or to plant new churches, but simply to fill what he saw as a gap in the established churches. His preachers were to work alongside the parish priests, preaching, teaching and evangelising. Another initiative with important consequences was Wyclif’s determination to provide a Bible in the English language for his preachers and their hearers. At least some of Wyclif’s own writings during the final period of his life were also in English, rather than Latin, consistent with his concern that the discussion of theology should not be restricted to priests and academics. Some of these writings helped to inspire the developing Lollard movement.

The groups that emerged during Wyclif’s final years and proliferated after his death quite quickly became known as the Lollards. This word probably derived from a word meaning ‘to mumble’ and referred either to their practice of learning and reciting Scripture or to their praying. An alternative possibility is ‘lollers’, meaning idle loafers was the insult thrown at them!

There were Lollards in all ranks of society, some part of the King's court and even his family. Some nobles may have been encouraged by their resentment of the power of Rome and the clergy to support a movement which challenged Rome's right to receive taxes and to hold special courts for clergy.

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Lollard beliefs4 Though there was no uniformity of belief in such a loose-knit movement, there was broad agreement within the movement on many issues.

(1) Personal responsibility/biblical authority. In an age when people expected to let the priests do their thinking for them in matters of religion, the Lollards encouraged the development of personal Bible study, taught reliance on the Holy Spirit as guide, and urged members to reach independent decisions on matters of faith rather than accepting ecclesiastical opinions and dogmas.

(2) Rejection of superstition. Lollards used their new English versions of the Bible to contrast the simplicity of the early church with the formalism and complexity of contemporary church life. They rejected anything they perceived as superstitious rather than authentically Christian, including doctrines such as purgatory and transubstantiation and practices such as prayers for the dead. They rejected pilgrimages as a waste of time and a money-making scheme for the priests.

(3) The priesthood of all believers. Lollards rejected the distinction between clergy and laity, and also rejected the authority of the Pope and the Church as an institution. They replaced this with the authority of the Bible interpreted within their communities. The true church was a congregation of true believers. Although there are instances of Lollard groups ordaining their own priests, generally lay people were involved in all aspects of religious life, including preaching, hearing confessions informally, and officiating at the Eucharist.

(4) The sacraments. It seemed obvious to the Lollards that the bread remained bread, whatever the metaphysical explanations behind the traditional dogmas. Transubstantiation was regarded as a recent and perverted development contrary to the teachings of the orthodox creeds. Anti-clericalism led naturally to the rejection of ordination and some opposed priestly celibacy. They valued marriage but some taught that no priestly involvement was needed to witness a marriage. Financial and anti-ceremonial views coincided in the rejection of the need for extreme unction or burial in consecrated ground. In some areas, infant baptism was held to be as acceptable in a ditch as in a font, or rejected altogether, on the grounds that infants were redeemed by Christ in any case and did not need to be sprinkled with supposedly holy water.

(5) Ethical perspectives. There was a strong moral component in the Lollards’ teaching. The book of James, with its practical ethical teaching, was popular. They criticised the low standards among ordinary parishioners and clergy and called for repentance, discipleship,

4 This section is taken from http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/book/export/html/28

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simplicity of life and concern for the poor. On specific issues there was diversity of opinion. Some groups followed Wyclif’s view that war might be justified while others held a pacifist view. They opposed participation in war, making weapons, capital punishment, and self-defence when attacked. Others, though, were willing to support John Oldcastle in his attempt to overthrow the government. Some taught that tithing had no New Testament support and should not be practised; others held that voluntary tithes could be paid to worthy priests.

(6) Mission. Unlike the settled leadership of parish priests, Lollard leaders moved from place to place in order to spread the message and establish new groups and mission was seen as the responsibility of all members.

There were many Lollard supporters in Essex. Lollardy, or similar movements, also existed across N Europe. The writings of John Wycliffe were influential at the University of Prague, for example, where Jan Hus led a rebellion against Roman domination of the church. He was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415, but a five year rebellion against the Roman church by the Hussite movement established a state church modelled on Lollard principles a century before Luther's own rebellion.

The question of how long Lollardy lasted in England may not be the right question: rather, did it ever end? The places where Lollardy had been strong, in Essex, for example, were wholly behind Henry VIII's break from Rome. Anticlericalism, freewill, personal religion, anti-pilgrimages and images, questions of the Eucharist, and an emphasis on reading of the Bible by lay people in the vernacular were commonly held doctrines that found expression in other later dissident voices and groups. Even the Puritans of the seventeenth century may have been a development of this movement

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ReformationInvestigation by church officials in 1527 found continuing Lollard activity in Essex and many were arrested. Easy passage to and trade with the ‘Low Countries’ (now Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and parts of N France and W Germany), meant that events on the continent were quickly communicated. Many Flemish and then Huguenot refugees from the continent strengthened Protestant feeling in Essex.

The catalyst for the decision of the English Church to break with Rome was the refusal of the Pope to annul the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, but underlying this was a Tudor nationalist belief that authority over the English Church properly belonged to the English monarchy. In 1534 the Act of Supremacy declared that the king was “the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.” Between 1536 and 1540 the monasteries were dissolved and the properties were sold, to the advantage of the Crown’s finances and the gentry who benefitted from the acquiring the land.5 Many Essex abbots were quick to acknowledge Henry’s headship of the church in 1534, but all monasteries were still dissolved by 1540. Only the abbot of St John’s Colchester resisted the King and he was hung in 1539. Evidence of corruption and immorality at some monastic houses made it easier to justify closing them. But in those places where the monks and nuns had provided employment, healthcare and food during hardship, the social effects of their departure were the most significant. An English Bible was placed in every church and an English litany was introduced, but the king himself continued to worship in the ways he always had and, though interested in the theological ideas of the Reformers, he strongly resisted changes that that might lead to a questioning of his authority or those he appointed to lead the church.

Ann Boleyn’s father owned New Hall at Boreham, and he was later ennobled as Viscount Rochford. The family was sympathetic to the Reformers' ideas and Anne was well read and committed to reform of the Church. Other Essex families also prospered at this time. William Petre received the riches of Barking Abbey and built the family home of Ingatestone. Richard Rich and Thomas Mildmay acted as administrators of the change and benefitted hugely. Rich acquired at least 100 manors and settled at Leez Priory. Thomas D’Arcy received lands, including those of St Osyth’s Priory, which was re-allocated after Thomas Cromwell’s fall. Success and survival in those days depended on being flexible about one's beliefs.

Events of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth's reigns. In the reign of Henry's son Edward VI the Church of England underwent more

radical reformation, driven by the conviction that the theology being developed by the theologians of the Protestant Reformation was more faithful to the teaching of the Bible

5 The monasteries were often great landowners. Barking Abbey, for example, owned the manors of Barking, Dagenham, Warley, Leaden Roding, Ingatestone, Hockley and Tollesbury.

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and the Early Church than the teaching of those who continued to support the Pope. Two new Prayer Books expressed a Reformed understanding of the Eucharist and the new lectionary encouraged the congregations to grow in their understanding through regular listening to Scripture.

In the reign of Mary Tudor the Church of England once again submitted to Papal authority. There was widespread rebellion in Essex during Mary’s reign, with executions at Stratford, Colchester and in E London. In parts of the country there had been prolonged and violent resistance to Henry's reforms and Mary's reign was welcomed with relief. But this, apart from a few, isolated, places such as the Petre family at Ingatestone, was not the case in Essex.

Elizabeth reversed the policy of returning to Rome when she came to the throne in 1558. The 1559 Act of Uniformity re-introduced the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, attempting to find a form of prayer that all English subjects could accept. The Queen was less concerned with theological correctness than with loyalty to her own person: after the turbulence of the previous two reigns she sought a stable and inclusive settlement. Everyone was required to attend the local parish church, but they were not told what to believe. The Elizabethan Church consciously retained a large amount of continuity with the Church of the patristic (early Church Fathers) and medieval periods in terms of its use of the catholic creeds, its pattern of ministry, its buildings and aspects of its liturgy, but also embodied the Reformers’ insights in its theology and in the overall shape of its liturgical practice. This is often expressed is by saying that the Church of England is both 'catholic and reformed.'

It has been claimed that:The English Church was marked not by innovation but by rejection of the innovations of Rome. Its intention was to get back to the pure faith and order of the early or ‘primitive’ Church.6 English theologians gained a worldwide reputation for their work on the early church and the theologians of the first centuries.

At the end of the 16th century Richard Hooker produced the classic defence of the Elizabethan settlement in his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, a work which sought to defend the Church of England against its Puritan critics who wanted further changes to make the Church of England more like the churches of Geneva or Scotland.

There was one execution of a papist in Chelmsford under Elizabeth. She favoured William Petre, (who remained loyal to Rome), Thomas Smith of Saffron Walden and Thomas Heneage of Copt Hall and Epping. The sixteenth century was a confusing time as within a

6 Colin Podmore, Aspects of Anglican Identity, CHP 2005 p. 4

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few years there were several major changes of direction. But some, including William Petre, at Ingatestone and Richard Rich, baron of Leez, were able to survive all four reigns.

An Established Church

In the 17th century continuing tensions within the Church over theological and liturgical issues were among the factors that led to the English Civil War. The Stuart monarchs were not prepared to allow non-Anglican activity. In 1611 a new translation of the Bible, the King James, or Authorised translation was the only translation allowed. Some with reformist views, such as John Owen at Coggeshall, remained within the Church of England, others left. Many of those who left England looking for religious freedom in America came from Essex, and those that remained strongly supported the Parliamentarian rebellion against Charles 11. Nonconformist sects flourished: Baptist activity in Burnham on Crouch is recorded from 1639 and the Stebbing Meeting House built c.1674 is a particularly fine and complete example of an early Quaker (Society of Friends) meeting house.

The Church of England was associated with the losing Royalist side and during the period of the Commonwealth from 1649-1660 its bishops were abolished and its prayer book, the Book of Common Prayer, was banned. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 this situation was reversed and in 1662 those clergy who could not accept this decision were forced to leave their posts. These dissenting clergy and their congregations were then persecuted until 1689 when the Toleration Act recognised those Protestant groups outside the Church of England who accepted the doctrine of the Trinity.

The settlement of 1689 has remained the basis of the constitutional position of the Church of England ever since. Nonconformist traditions remained strong in Essex: in 1838, for example, the 'Peculiar People' were founded by John Banyard in Rochford and spread widely across Essex. The Church of England has remained the established Church with a range of particular legal privileges and responsibilities, but with ever increasing religious and civil rights being granted to other Christians, those of other faiths and those professing no faith at all.

Further Reading:

http://www.england.anglican.org/about-us/history/detailed-history.aspxColin Podmore, Aspects of Anglican Identity, CHP 2005

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Reading for Week Four How can Christians be distinctive in society?

This module has already looked at some of the ways that Christian believers in the past adopted a distinctive lifestyle. The openness of the earliest Christian communities to all people, regardless of race or gender or position in society, or the development and growth of the monastic movement are two examples. In the nineteenth century many British Christians found themselves in a society that respected the Church and the teachings of Jesus - but still, they believed, there was a need to be distinctive in their witness.

A time of change – the way people lived. During the 18th and 19th centuries revolutions in the way that the land was farmed and the inventiveness and exploitation of the industrial development accompanied major shifts in scientific and philosophical thought.

Changes which happened between 1750 and 1900 include: Rapid population growth - 1750 - 5.7 million,

1850 - 16.6 million Emigration to towns and the expansion of towns. The census of 1851 revealed that,

for the first time, more people lived in towns than in the countryside, More efficient land use and mechanisation, which meant a surplus workforce

available to work in mines, mills and factories. Better transport as canals and railways were built. Roads were so bad before this

that people often sailed around the coast rather than walk or ride a horse! The invention of the steam engine, the blast furnace, the spinning mill and pumps to

drain mines changed the face of manufacture. British goods dominated world trade. Many people made money, sometimes at the expense of those who had inherited it,

but most often a result of exploiting the labour of those who worked for them. Although the growing Empire was at first a market for British goods, by the end of

the 19th century many parts of the world were producing food, textiles, and other goods cheaper.

You can find out more about changes in agriculture by looking at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/agricultural_revolution_01.shtml

and the development of industry by looking at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/speed_01.shtmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/workshop_of_the_world_01.shtml

Essex and East London, a population on the move.

These changes affected the people of Essex and East London in ways that are evident today. As industry developed and the dockyards expanded many left the villages in the northern

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part of the county to find work in the industrialised region east of the River Lea. But the living conditions there grew worse as over-crowding worsened. In the middle of the nineteenth century this area gained a reputation for some of the most unpleasant and least healthy industries. There were various types of chemical factories, producing things like varnish, caustic soda, soap and tallow. Many of these processes involved boiling resins or animal remains, causing repellent smells. Sugar Refining was another important local industry employing hundreds of people, as did the Thames IronWorks.One of the reason that these industries developed along the Thames was the good transport links provided by the railway and the docks. Another reason was the Metropolitan Buildings Act (1844) which banned ‘obnoxious trades’ from London, so that this sort of factory moved ‘across the border’ to the east side of the River Lea. Industries were attracted to the area because there were so few restrictions on their activities. Overcrowding, bad housing, unemployment, poverty and disease were the result.

South-west Essex in 1850 was still an almost entirely rural area with its land divided among agriculture, marsh, and forest. It contained numerous substantial villages and four places, Barking, Epping, Stratford, and Waltham Abbey, which were called 'towns', but only Stratford had a population of more than 10,000 in 1851. The River Lea, with its many-braided streams and adjacent marshes, was a serious obstacle both to building and to movement. London spread out to the North, East and West far quicker than to the East. Much of the trade with London from the East was sea-borne, and thus the Essex approaches to the City were by-passed.After 1850, though, the expansion of London increased, first around Stratford, and north and south of West Ham. In the 1870s Leyton and Walthamstow also began to grow very rapidly and in the 1870s there was extensive residential building in East Ham. In the 1890s building developed between East Ham, Ilford and Barking, and Wanstead and Woodford grew. The rates of increase in south-west Essex in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were exceptional even at a time when suburban expansion was happening rapidly all over the country. After 1901 south-west Essex did not experience quite such disproportionate growth and its population was no longer increasing so fast as that of some other parts of Greater London. Nevertheless between 1901 and 1911 Ilford's rate of growth was exceeded only by that of Southend amongst all the English towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants.Such phenomenal rates of increase were, of course, the result of large numbers of new residents arriving from elsewhere rather than of the natural increase of the local population. Even before south-west Essex became suburbanized it seems likely that the prosperous vegetable-growing districts attracted a fair proportion of immigrants, though precise evidence is lacking. In 1824 the Roman Catholic church in Stratford claimed to muster an entirely Irish congregation of more than 2,000 persons, Most of the new arrivals in the later 19th century, however, came from other parts of Essex and from London, with much smaller, though appreciable, numbers from Kent, Norfolk, and Suffolk. Throughout this

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period residents were more likely to be immigrants from London than to have been born in the places they lived. The 1911 census noted how many young couples moved out of London, across the Lea, looking for "increased houseroom, and of purer air and more open space for their children." The pattern of moving east was noted: the children of those who had moved to West Ham, for example. might themselves moved to Ilford, some of whom had now made some money and were able to employ a servant girl.Information from: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=42701

In the last 30 years of the nineteenth century farming became less and less profitable. There were two significant periods of depression, caused by poor weather and cheap imports of grain. As the century ended many Essex farms were semi-derelict or derelict and abandoned, particularly on the heavy London clay lands of south and east Essex. Enterprising entrepreneurs bought up these farms at rock bottom prices, and split them up into individual plots to be sold separately.

Advertised as an opportunity to live in paradise, the sales were often promoted by means of cheap train excursions to view the sites, accompanied by free food and drink on arrival. The plots were 20ft x160 ft and were offered at £5. However, such rather anarchic development brought many problems, already in 1898 plotland dwellers were being described as 'squatters' whose style of living 'might do in the Australian bush or the American backwoods but it is hardly what one might expect in the highly civilised county of Essex'.

Many people bought plots for weekend homes, or for retirement. The high point of plotland development came between the First and Second World Wars, and there was a major concentration of plotland settlements in the Basildon area. In the 1950's and 60's Basildon New Town was designed and built to replace these rather ramshackle buildings, especially as there was an urgent need to house people made homeless by the bombing of London and the Estuary.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQMxZddjHHY tour of preserved house at Laindon

http://www.wwmarchitects.co.uk/Downloads/Plotlands.pdf more on plotlands

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A Time of Change – the way people thought about the world around them.Truth as Ancient Wisdom and TraditionIn our Western World during the Middle Ages truth was seen to have its origins in ancient wisdom. The more ancient a text, the more respect it was given. For example, when the ancient texts of the philosopher Aristotle were re-discovered by Christian scholars via the Muslim world they were taken as a source of truth. Their antiquity and their authority went together. Christian theologians immediately set to work to combine the works of Aristotle with the other ancient authority, the Bible. The work of St Thomas Aquinas is particularly famous in this regard. Great age brought great authority then, both for people and for books!.Truth as Reason and ExperienceBut, from around the 16th century onwards (The Renaissance), a real sea-change took place in the understanding of truth. Instead of looking for truth in ancient authority, truth was sought in reason alone. The absolute foundation for truth was experience and the experimental method. An individual or group of people now could think through problems and come up with new solutions, based on their observations and reasoning. This way of thinking became fully formed in what has been called The Enlightenment. It was seen as a time of growing up, ceasing to be reliant on the wisdom of the past, but working things out for oneself. People might say: “I’ll believe it when I see it,” or “Where’s your evidence for that?” This emphasis on the use of reason and freedom gave birth to the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution and the technological and communications revolutions that we are in the midst of today. People observed the world around them very closely and were able to discover the agricultural, medical and scientific truths we now take for granted. Explanations based on divine intervention in the weather and the fortunes of men and women were discarded in favour of what could be seen, understood and repeated. Scientists, Romantics and Agnostics.At the end of the 18th Century there is a split. On the one hand, there were those who followed reason and science ruthlessly. This often goes along with agnosticism and atheism and it is still a very powerful force in our world.On the other hand the Romantics saw this scientific method as too cold and rational to be properly human. They began to stress feeling over thinking, matters of the heart, over matters of reason and logic. This movement flourished in philosophy but also in the arts such as poetry, drama, and music. Romanticism also had a profound effect on Christian theology. Faith, the Romantics said, is not a matter of reason; it is a matter of feeling. Some were even prepared to say that faith is irrational and all the better for it. A “childlike” faith is valued, with worship that contains mystery, improved if you don’t understand it all! This survives in some ‘New Age’ interest in spirituality.

But, in fact, the split between the scientists and the Romantics was not a complete one. Many poets wrote about science, many scientists appreciated art and literature. There was a genuine search for truth, a time of questioning the old ways of doing things. The 19th century saw the development of the theory of evolution, the rise of moral philosophy which denied that belief in a God was necessary for a good life and criticism of the Bible’s historical accuracy and moral value.

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Darwin’s development of the theory of evolution challenged both the literal accuracy of the stories of creation in Genesis and the belief that the world was created by a loving God who had planned out the world from the beginning. Believing in a seven-day creation was, in fact, a relatively new phenomenon – this was an age in which many truths were understood in a literal, even fundamentalist way. It was the thought that it was the fittest who had survived, not through God’s protection but because of their own strength, that was as great a challenge to Christian faith.

At the same time philosophical attacks on the proofs for the existence of God asserted that human beings were unable to know God who, if there was a god, existed beyond the world which we could see, hear, touch and so on. Immanual Kant (1724-1804) had argued that belief in God was only necessary for weaker people, who were not able to live a good life for its own sake without a divine carrot or stick. Developing this, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) envisaged God as the ‘world-spirit’ found in the depths of the world’s processes. The world, in his view, was a manifestation of God. Ludwig Feuerbach took this idea further and said that God was a projection of our own nature that has been purified and freed from all limitations. We may have a religious feeling of ‘absolute dependence,’ but knowledge of God is ultimately knowledge of humanity.

Karl Marx was at first a devotee of Hegel, but his studies of the abuses of capitalism persuaded him that the basis of reality was neither absolute spirit, not nature, but matter itself. The significant factor in people’s lives are the economic relationships they have – whether they are employers or employees, in control of what they produce, or not. Religion was irrelevant.

The Bible was also criticised during this time, as inaccurate and misleading. Scientific and archaeological studies raised questions about the historical and the discovery of other ancient texts showed that some of the stories, such as that of the Flood, were not unique. Many Old Testament stories were now read as violent, even obscene. There was also doubt that much could be known about the ‘real’ Jesus, beyond what the later church had written about him.

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How did Christians live distinctively in this changing world? The following are examples of some of the responses to this challenge.

The Salvation Army at Hadleigh Farm. The Salvation Army was founded in London's East End in 1865 by former Methodist minister William Booth and his wife Catherine. Booth wrote a survey of conditions in London and a proposed solution in his work: “In Darkest England and the Way Out.” People would be offered training and shelter in a City Colony before being transferred to a Country Colony and eventually offered land in the Overseas Colony, usually in Australia or New Zealand.

The farmland around Hadleigh, in south Essex, was notorious for its poor quality and was known locally as the, "Hadleigh badlands." William Booth chose the location as it was within reasonable distance of London where the City Colony was based and had access to water and a railway. Just as importantly, the clay soil made it ideal for market gardening and crops requiring a heavier soil, perfect for the various disciplines taught at the Country Colony.

Building began in 1891. In just 9 months the farm went from 48 volunteers from the East End to nearly 250. The idea of Hadleigh Farm was, "to give employment (and food and lodgings in return for his labour) to any man who is willing to work, irrespective of nationality or creed."

During the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 the British government agreed to look after a number of Basque refugee children. Some of these children ended up under the Salvation Army's care in East London and at Hadleigh. In 1939 the farm also provided accommodation for nearly 70 Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Germany and Eastern Europe.

The role of Hadleigh Farm changed slightly after the Second World War, and during the 1950's, the farm helped to train former youth offenders and boys on probation. In 1990, the Hadleigh Training Centre was opened on the site of, and in conjunction with, the farm. The centre works with local authorities to train people with special educational needs in contemporary subjects such as IT skills, carpentry, and life skills.

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There are many examples, as well as those described here, of distinctive Christian living - you may know of those in your local area. If so, in what ways are these the same and in what ways different to the ones described here?

"We passionately believe that no one is beyond hope, however great their problems. That disadvantaged people are given respect and access to the practical, social and spiritual support they need to realise their God-given potential and recover their personal dignity." from http://www.hadleighfarm.org.uk/about-us/history-of-hadleigh-farmHow has Christian faith shaped what is done at Hadleigh?

The Oxford Movement began in the early 1830s as a rediscovery of sacramental theology and liturgy, worship with the senses as well as the mind. Its leaders were spurred into action by protest at what they saw as the secularisation of the Church through interference from the State. Seeking to re-discover the catholic, i.e. universal roots of the Church, they became known as Anglo-Catholics. Many early priests were distrusted by the Church's leaders and they took unpopular parishes others and engaged with poor. The Establishment was resistant to more ritual in worship, believing this signified the influence of Roman Catholicism, but this increased the sense that Anglo Catholicism was a church for the working class, responding to sights, sounds, smells taste and textures, rather than the written word.

These ideas were taken further by F.D. Maurice, and the Christian Socialist Movement. Stewart Headlam expressed it this way: Christ was incarnated as a poor person, identifying with the lowest. Salvation is to be found as a community, it is not solely an individual quest. Therefore the kingdom of God might be an earthly reality as well as a heavenly one. Believing in real presence of Christ in the sacrament, Anglo Catholics also sought Him in the streets and fields. As Bp Frank Weston of Zanzibar put it: "Go out and look for Jesus in the ragged, in the naked, and in the oppressed, in those who have lost hope, in those who struggling to make good. Look for Jesus. And, when you see him, gird yourselves with his towel and try to wash his feet in the person of His brethren.”7

There are many Anglo-Catholic parishes along the Thames estuary, some of which trace their origins to the influence of Anglo-Catholic parishes in London's docklands. Some, such as Rev. Bryan King, rector of St. George’s-in-the-East, in Shadwell, whose parish contained 733 houses, of which 40 were gin palaces and 145 brothels, had been established for years. In addition, mission churches were founded. St. Peter’s was the first Anglican mission to the poor of London, begun in 1856 by The Revd CF Lowder who helped to found the Society of the Holy Cross. The Society had the express purpose of banding priests to a common rule of life and prayer in mission service. The clergy and Religious Sisters provided practical care through schools, clubs, cheap canteens and child care and spiritual care focussed on the Mass at the Mission Churches.

Wapping was one of the poorest districts in London, a haunt of prostitutes and petty criminals, living alongside those who earned a precarious living from the docks.

In 1866 the new Church of S. Peter in Old Gravel Lane (Now Wapping Lane) was consecrated. Soon afterwards cholera struck the East End. Lowder organised Sisters of mercy and others to care for the sick and raised funds for a tented hospital. The Priests and Sisters took great risks and worked without stint for the people of Wapping. At the end of

7 http://anglicanhistory.org/weston/weston2.html

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the cholera people were calling Lowder, ‘the Father’ because he seemed like the father of the whole community. This soon became ‘Father Lowder’, the first known example of an Anglican priest being thus addressed.

Conrad Noel, the Vicar of Thaxted from 1910 - 1942 was an enthusiastic supporter of Christian Socialism. He recognised the revolutionary nature of the Gospel, the good news that God 'has cast down the proud and raised up the lowly.' Luke 2: He worked hard to draw people together in liturgy as a sign of their living together in community. He was not satisfied with alleviating poverty and hardship but also campaigned against the working conditions which had created that poverty. He was an early member of the Labour Party and encouraged his parishioners to be active in politics as well. But perhaps his most well known act of protest was to fly the Red Flag of the Communist party and the Flag of Sinn Fein with the flag of St George, from the tower at Thaxted. Though born into the aristocracy Noel was always ready to witness to a God who disturbs complacency, disrupts our lives, and leads us to identify with the poor.

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"You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle if you do not pity Jesus in the slum."Bp Frank Weston

How does this quote sum up the way Anglo-Catholics believed they should live distinctive lives?

Elizabeth Fry was born in 1782 into a Quaker family. After her marriage she made her home in Plashet Pk, East Ham. She was recorded as a Minister of the Religious Society of Friends in 1811. As a natural part of her Christian discipleship she collected old clothes for the poor, visited those who were sick in her neighbourhood, and started a Sunday school in the summer house to teach children to read. In 1813 she visited Newgate prison. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, thirty to a room, some of whom had yet to be tried. They did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept on straw. She able to found a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents, she ensured the women were supervised and required the women to sew and to read the Bible. In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, widely described by biographers and historians as constituting the first "nationwide" women's organization in Britain. The society opened a school in prison, ensured the women were properly supervised and provided materials for the women to make items to sell. She was able to contact politicians and addressed the House of Commons. In 1823, prison reform legislation was finally introduced in Parliament.

Elizabeth Fry also campaigned against the death penalty, which was the punishment for over 200 offences. For more than 25 years, she visited every convict ship before it left for Australia, and campaigned for reform of the convict ship system. She worked to improve nursing standards and established a nursing school which influenced her distant relative,Florence Nightingale.

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'Quakers believe that humans are inherently good. Sin exists, but even the fallen are children of God, Who works to kindle the Light within them.'

http://christianity.about.com/od/quakers/a/quakersbeliefs.htm

The politicians and prison guards of Elizabeth Fry's day shared her Christian beliefs, but believed punishment of criminals was more effective. What does your Christian faith tell you about the treatment of 'the fallen?'

Kamal Athon Chunchie, who lived from 1886 -1953 became a Methodist pastor and founder of the Coloured Men's Institute, Canning Town. He was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), the eldest son of a Muslim family. Whilst convalescing in Malta in 1917 he converted to Christianity. After the First World War, significant numbers of black and Asian people had begun to settle around the docks and in Canning Town. Some black soldiers had been demobbed here and also decided to stay.

In 1921 Chunchie was appointed to the Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest, where he was given responsibility for work among black and Asian sailors, partly because he was fluent in four languages. He visited ships moored in the Thames and the Docks, as well as lodging houses and slums. He also visited the sick in hospitals in Canning Town and Greenwich. Chunchie was especially concerned to relieve the poverty of poor people and did a lot to help with their welfare, collecting food and clothing parcels and money for medicine.

Chunchie set up the Coloured Men's Wesleyan Methodist Church in a rented hall in Canning Town. This was used for social events and for Sunday school work. The work grew from 50 to about 200 black and Asian people. Later, Chunchie received approval and secured funds to purchase a former lodging-house. The building was located in 13 -15 Tidal Basin Road and opened in 1926.It became a centre for social, welfare and religious activities with Chunchie as its first pastor and warden.

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Chunchie was far from his home and family while in Canning Town, and suffered some discrimination and lack of understanding. How did he use these experiences to help others?

University Settlements: During the 19th century many university students responded to the plight of the urban poor by living, for a few months or longer, in settlements in working class areas. At the invitation of local clergy they aimed to share their education and faith, while gaining a genuine insight into the lives of others. Some notable MPs and reformers spent time in London settlements, including , Clement Attlee, Prime Minister from 1945 - 1951, Richard H. Tawney who was central to the development of the Worker’s Education Association and William Beveridge, the economist who wrote the crucial government report on social insurance (1942) which established the welfare system.

Christianity was at the core of much of Settlement activity, but Settlement ‘residents’ believed that actions were what were most important, not preaching. They also believed in working in solidarity as equals alongside poor people, rather than in providing charity.

Mansfield House has been based in Plaistow since 1889. F.W. Newland, the Canning Town Congregational minister, had been bringing theological students to the area since 1884. The House took its name from Mansfield Theological College, Oxford and Fairbairn Hall on the Barking Road E16 was named after the College Principal, Andrew Fairbairn. It developed into a large, thriving, male-orientated institution providing welfare, sporting, social, educational and political opportunities. A range of buildings were used. Two shops in the Barking Road E16, were used as residences and a hall was built behind them. The first 'Boy's Club' met in the disused Walmer Castle pub in 1893. Fairbairn Boys Club moved to converted premises

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at 310-316 Barking Road E13 in 1895 before Fairbairn Hall was built there in 1900.

One of the first volunteers, the barrister Frank Tillyard, ran a free legal clinic on one evening a week. Meanwhile the Coal Club allowed residents to bulk-buy coal at wholesale prices, a Sick Benefit Society meant workers could subscribe and then claim sick benefits if they became too ill to work, and a Penny Bank enabled residents to build savings. The Settlement also ran clubs for hundreds of children every night, and provided them with cheap dinners.

In 1903 the Settlement took over the Wave Lodging House at 234 Victoria Dock Road and ran it for as a ‘home for working men’ — essentially a hostel for sailors, casual dockworkers and homeless people searching for work. The Wave was known among sailors across the world as a place where a clean, cheap bed could be found. Since there were no local baths, The Wave also offered hot baths to all local residents.

For adults, Mansfield House operated an orchestral society, a choral society, a dramatic society (later supported by George Bernard Shaw), a gymnastic society, and rambling, cricket, football and cycling clubs. The Settlement opened The Brotherhood Society in 1892, and this later became the Civic Union. They also held weekly lectures and discussion groups, and many of the Settlement activists went on to play a part in local and national politics. All of this played a part in the fact that, in 1898, the first ever Labour council was elected in the borough of West Ham.

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Canning Town Women's Settlement was founded in 1892 as an extension of the activities of the Mansfield House Settlement. It provided health and welfare services to women and children, including a dDispensary in Quadrant Street and a small hospital and outpatient's clinic in Balaam Street. It provided other services such as adult education classes, an employment agency and advice for young mothers.  Canning Town Women’s Settlement operated on the money raised by its members - wealthy middle class ladies - who paid subscriptions and held fundraising events such as garden parties.

The Mayflower Centre has been a familiar landmark to many Canning Town people. It developed from the Malvern College Mission, a public school whose intention when setting up the mission was 'to carry on the church's work amongst her people from both a religious and a social point of view and to be a centre of religious influence and social good.' The Malvern College Mission developed into the Docklands Settlement run by Sir Reginald Kennedy Cox. He formed alliance with other settlements in the London area. But the bombing of the Second World War and the establishment of the Welfare State made a considerable difference to both the needs and the resources of the area. After struggling for some years, the Settlement was transformed into the Mayflower Centre in 1958. It grew in size, in numbers of users, employees and buildings and made a substantial contribution to the national debate about inner city wellbeing. But this too became redundant and the premises are now owned by congregations of the Elim Church.

From http://www.ju90.co.uk/ctfolk/ctfolk2.htm and http://www.newhamstory.com/node/2584

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The university students who came to the settlements often came from very privileged backgrounds. They were motivated by their Christian faith, but also by curiosity about life in East side of London and a belief that they could 'do good.'

Do you think it matters if people's motives for acting distinctively are a mixture of good, poor and confused?

'Barnados' in Barkingside At the age of 16, after converting to Protestant evangelicalism Thomas Barnado decided to become a medical missionary in China and so set out for London to train as a doctor.A few months after he came to London an outbreak of cholera swept through the East End killing more than 3,000 people and leaving families destitute. Thousands of children slept on the streets and many others were forced to beg after being maimed in factories. In 1867, Thomas Barnardo set up a 'ragged' school in the East End, where poor children (those in rags) could get a free basic education. One evening a boy at the Mission, Jim Jarvis, took Thomas Barnardo around the East End showing him children sleeping on roofs and in gutters. The encounter so affected him he decided to devote himself to helping destitute children.In 1870, Barnardo opened his first home for boys in Stepney Causeway. He regularly went out at night into the slum district to find destitute boys. One evening, an 11-year old boy, John Somers (nicknamed 'Carrots') was turned away because the shelter was full. He was found dead two days later from malnutrition and exposure and from then on the home bore the sign

'No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission'.

Barnardo later opened the Girls' Village Home in Barkingside, which housed 1,500 girls. By the time a child left Barnardo's they were able to make their own way in the world - the girls were equipped with domestic skills and the boys learnt a craft or trade. Tanners Lane in Barkingside remains the Head Office and these cottages still exist as part of the site.

Thomas Barnardo strongly believed that families were the best place to bring up children and he established the first fostering scheme when he boarded out children to respectable families in the country. He also introduced a scheme to board out babies of unmarried mothers. The mother went into service nearby and could see her child during her timeoff.

1905-1939 – The charity after Thomas Barnardo’s deathBy the time Thomas Barnardo died in 1905, the charity he founded ran 96 homes caring formore than 8,500 children. Some children were sent to Australia as emigrants, and given the means to start a new life there. These ideas continued largely unchallenged until after the Second World War when the emphasis shifted towards keeping children and their families together in the community.

1945- 1960 – The charity after the WarEvacuation from war torn London brought 'charity children' and 'ordinary' middle and upper class families into contact with each other and they gained a greater understanding of their circumstances. The disruption of war also improved understanding of the impact of family break ups and effects on children brought up away from home.Then in 1946, a national report (The Curtis Report) on children 'deprived of a normal home life' was published, prompting a revolution in childcare. For the first time, children were acknowledged as the nation's responsibility. This report paved the way for the Children's Act

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of 1948,which placed the duty of caring for homeless children and those in need on local authorities. So, during the 1940's and 1950's Barnardo's began working more closely with families. The charity awarded grants to families in difficulties because the breadwinner was unable to work due to illness or an accident. In the mid 1950's it developed a scheme to house whole families affected by ill health, housing problems, unemployment and crime. By the end of the decade almost a quarter of the charity's work involved helping children to stay with their own families.

1960-1999 – Changing timesThe 1960s were a time of radical change for Barnardo's. Single parenthood was becoming more acceptable; greater use of contraception meant that there were fewer unwanted children and improved social security benefits meant that it was no longer necessary for parents to hand over their children to Barnardo's because they could not afford to care for them.The number of children received by Barnardo's was decreasing and so a commitment was made to cut down on residential services and develop new work with disabled children and those with emotional and behavioural problems. By the end of the decade plans were made to close down large numbers of homes and to convert them into specialist units.

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Statement from Barnado's"In the 1990s, society became aware, through a number of high profile criminal investigations and public enquiries, that a significant number of children in residential care homes in the UK during the last century were victims of physical and sexual abuse, neglect and discrimination. Some of those children were among the 350,000 cared for in Barnardo's homes between the 1870s and 1980s. Barnardo's deeply regrets the maltreatment which some children suffered. Where allegations of abuse are brought to our attention, Barnardo'simmediately informs the police and co-operates fully in any subsequent investigation. Our Making Connections service specialises in providing those who were in Barnardo's care with access to their records, and offering support to those trying to come to terms with their past particularly those going through a process of disclosure of abuse.Today we know how institutional care can rarely be a substitute for a proper family life, hence our shift of focus to working with families and communities. But, in the circumstances of the time, we believe that the vast majority of those in Barnardo's care had a more positive experience and received a better preparation for life than they would have donewithout the part that Barnardo's played in their lives." www.barnados.org.uk

Do you think an organisation should act - and risk getting things wrong, or not act at all?

Session 5 How might the Church develop in the future?

Post modernity - a new way of seeing the worldThis whole movement of scientific fundamentalism and Romanticism described in the last session's reading is often called Modernism. There was confidence that there was a single answer to life’s great questions, even if people disagreed about what that was.

But what are we likely to hear now?‘I don’t share her faith, but I wouldn’t stop her’‘It’s whatever works for you, isn’t it?’‘He’s got a right to his own opinions’

The essence of post-modernism is a freedom to make your own rules. There is doubt now that science will have all the answers, or that “one size” will fit all. This is called a rejection of the ‘meta-narrative’ the big story that all will sign up to.

Here are some of the areas affected:Consumer Choice It is now possible to buy goods from all over the globe and even souvenirs from many periods in history. Native Indian dream makers, Victorian lace seat covers, Malaysian batiks and Indian sea-shells may all have a place in our living rooms. We can take what is precious and sacred in one culture and turn it into a table ornament, or we can enjoy the music of the past without any connection with its religious or cultural background. This consumer choice enables us to create our own identity - and perhaps change it several times in our lives.

Cultural Identity Some take this choice of identity much further than the choice of how they decorate their living space. It is possible to travel, live and work abroad; you could own a French small holding, farm in New Zealand, work in the Netherlands, run a business in the States or a hotel in Spain. You could “re-invent” yourself several times. There has always been a movement of people around the globe, but the majority of them have been forced by poverty or war to seek new homes. Now emigration from and within the wealthy countries of the world is driven by choice.Does it matter if one wants to be a rap artist, but was born a white person? Does it matter if one hates the name given at birth? Did you make a mistake, about the partner you chose, the occupation you trained for or the accent you have? Never mind! You can choose a new cultural background, a new name (or a number), a new partner or job. You can choose who you are.

Art, Literature and Music. There was a time when you could know whether you were reading “serious” literature, or not. You would be taught at school which novels and poetry were enduring classics. Music was divided into “classical” and “pop” and few people claimed to like both. In contrast, it seems as though there are no values by which anything can be judged, certainly no values which are agreed by all. Why not use Gregorian chant as an aid to relaxation in the bath, play classical music during TV advertisements, write novels with multiple endings or exhibit a video of oneself? “Anything goes!”

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Morality in Society The sense that you can choose what you believe has resulted in thinking that belief is an individual affair: “If it works for you, that’s OK”. But where does that leave common moral standards? By what criteria can anything be judged right or wrong? There used to be quite a number of actions that were condemned: adultery, homosexuality, many expansionist business practices, for example. What remains as unacceptable behaviour in the public or private sphere? If there is little agreed criteria for moral decisions it is very hard for a Government to legislate according to the wishes of the electorate, but, ironically, in an age of uncertain morals there are greater demands that Governments should do so. Should genetically modified crops be developed? Should material from human embryos be used for research? Church leaders, too are asked for judgements. By what criteria can decisions like these be made?

Post-modernism and the Bible One place where the meeting of post-modernism and Christianity shows clearly is the field of biblical studies. From the time of the Enlightenment until quite recently the agenda for biblical scholars was dominated by a desire to find evidence for the Bible’s authority. Much effort was put into discovering the original text, or the real authorship of Biblical material.

But some were critical of this. In particular many "ordinary" Christians (including a lot of clergy), came to feel that, the further the biblical scholars pushed their investigations into the nature and intention of biblical literature, the less available the Bible became as a faith-resource for ordinary people. If the meaning of the Bible depended on its historical context and could only be grasped by those who knew Hebrew, Greek and academic techniques, then the ordinary believer could be forgiven for giving up reading it!

Of course, people didn’t stop reading the Bible altogether, and nor did they cease to find comfort, reassurance, challenge and relevance in its words. In practice a gap increasingly grew between the way the scholars said the Bible ought to be read and the way ordinary people continued to read it. They still looked in it for words that spoke to their situation and found them.

And then, along comes post-modernism. Questions about what the author was trying to say and what the context was in which a text was produced are ruled irrelevant to the text’s meaning. Since we cannot know the answer to these questions with any sort of certainty anyway, better not to ask them in the first place. Meaning is about what the text says to us.

So the Bible is rescued for the ordinary reader. I can read the Bible for what I can find there. The meaning is what it says to me. The Bible is reinstated as the vehicle by which I hear the word of God.

Or is it? If meaning depends on what I read there, how can the Bible be a vehicle through which God communicates to me? Aren’t my prejudices and spiritual poverty going to get in the way? Don’t I need other people and an understanding of external authority?

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The Church in the 21st Century. This unit has shown that the Christian Church has changed over the centuries, responding to different needs and meeting new challenges. At times it has seemed strong, at others weak - but it has not always been apparent until afterwards which of those states the Church was in. In 21st century Britain there is much talk of 'secularisation,' the end of religious faith in Britain and yet the Church has not disappeared as many predicted it would. It can be said with confidence, though, that the church of the future is unlikely to look exactly the same as it has done in the recent past. There will be continuity, as there always has been, but also a new look, one more version of God's Church. This session will look at two features of the present day church which may indicate the direction it will take in the future.

Essex - a people on the movePopulation movement has been a feature of Essex life for many centuries.

Patterns of population movement in the 20th century.Reading for the previous session has already shown that many people moved around the county of Essex in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Migration from the North and East of the county to the South East and then along the Thames estuary re-shaped the county as existing villages expanded and new towns were built. There was some immigration from central London, Ireland and from other parts of England. There have been large scale movements of people in the 20th century, by those seeking asylum as well as those looking for work and improved housing. Around 2.5 million Jews, for example, fled tsarist Russia between 1881 and 1914, and about 200,000 settled in the East end of London. Many moved to Newham and then to Gants Hill and to Chigwell. Between the two World Wars, many residents from the North of England moved to north and east of Colchester, looking for work, while the displacement caused by war in Europe increased the numbers of those who found refuge in Britain. Large scale social housing was built at Becontree in the 1920s and at Harold Hill after the Second World War.

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A young wartime refugee:Eva Kobrak arrived in London just before the outbreak of the Second World

War. She was 17 years old. Her parents had been in contact with German church leaders who were active in the struggle against Nazism and knew that if Hitler invaded their home in Poland they would be arrested. They sent their children to England through the organization of Bishop Bell of Chichester. Eva arrived in England, determined to excel in English. She became a teacher and then head-teacher in Surrey. Both her parents were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died.

Eva had strong Christian convictions. She was determined that her school would be a place of reconciliation, where all were respected. Since there were many displaced families around she was able to employ Germans and Poles on the staff and there were Polish, Jewish, Dutch, French, American and German pupils. The motto of the school was "That which touches one, touches all." This, Eva believed, expressed Christian solidarity with people of all nationalities.

In both world wars tens of thousands of people from all parts of the British Empire had fought in the British Army. Many nationalities had made their home in London, and during the 20th century these communities were boosted by servicemen and women who stayed in this country and by those who responded, after each conflict, to appeals from the government, for help to rebuild the country's industry and agriculture. The Empire Windrush landed at Tilbury on June 1948, with passengers from Jamaica who had responded to such an advertisement. The 1948 British Nationality Act gave British citizenship to all people living in Commonwealth countries, and full rights of entry and settlement in Britain. There was a labour shortage in Britain, but there was, however, also a housing shortage and competition for housing, rather than for jobs, fuelled anti - immigrant feeling. Many, though were able to settle in West Ham and Forest Gate.

The movement of people from London to the east and north continued after the war as Harlow was built in 1947 and Basildon in 1949 to house the homeless of the East End of London.8 The population in (the present county of) Essex grew five times as fast as the national population in the 1960s. The 'baby boom' really was a time of expansion!Many from British India travelled to East Africa in the second part of the nineteenth century, recruited to work as administrators or as labourers building the Uganda railway. Hostility developed between this growing community, which was often identified with the British colonial power and the African populations in the countries that had developed their own independent identity. Between 1965 and 1967, 23,000 Kenyan Asians left Africa for Britain. On 4th of August 1972, Asians in neighbouring Uganda were ordered to leave the country within 90 days by President Idi Amin. Over half those leaving held British passports and had the right of entry and abode and many settled in E Ham and Central Park. They were allowed to carry £50 and a suitcase with them, and anything they could ship by other means. Substantial Muslim and Hindu communities were established.From the 80s onwards both East and West Africans came to East London- and many more black led churches developed. In the last 30 years those coming from India and Pakistan have included Christians coming from countries which there has been a Christian presence longer than in this country! Many Anglican congregations in the south west of the diocese now have a significant proportion of the congregation who have with different Christian roots to each other.

In the 1970s there was significant population growth in the North and East of the county, with many new homes built in Maldon, Tendring, Braintree and Colchester. Harlow and Brentwood declined, though this may have been reversed in recent years. Within the county movement is from the urban south to the more rural north.

In the twenty first century there been an even greater rate of change. Nationally, almost half of those living in the country who were born abroad arrived here in the last ten years. There have been many arrived in East London from Eastern Europe. and the borough of Newham has the second highest percentage of people born abroad in the country.9 The population of the county of Essex has doubled since mid 20th century.10

8 Wilmott and Young, Family and Kinship in East London, describes the way of life of these people.9 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2068155110 http://www.essexpartnershipportal.org/pages/uploads/JSNA/Full%20Essex%20Trends%202011.pdf

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‘Fresh Expressions’The publication in 2004 of the Church of England report 'mission-shaped church:

church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context' was a landmark in the development of a new strategy for Christian mission in Britain, by Anglicans, Methodists and others.11

The church is called to present the Good News of Jesus Christ to every generation in language and action that communicates with each changing age. It is also called to be faithful to the message revealed in Scripture and handed down through centuries of Christian witness. This may seem like two, sometimes contradictory callings, but the Church of England and the Methodist Church are working together at both. The conviction of many is that ‘fresh’ and 'inherited’ forms of church can co-exist and energise each other.

It has been apparent for many years that some ‘parish’ churches were gathering people from a wide geographical area because of style of worship, teaching or particular facilities. Most of us live in very mobile societies. The Mission-Shaped Church report recognised that many people now relate to others in networks of relationships which cross geographical boundaries, rather than in discrete locations. These may be networks of age, employment or occupation.

Much of the Church of England’s mission in the past has assumed that people will want to come to the church of the parish in which they live, for baptism, marriage and funeral. The Mission-Shaped Church Report is a recognition that the place where someone lives is not necessarily the centre of their network of friends and colleagues. A different way of connecting with people is needed.

11 Published by Church House Publishing.

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A fresh expression is a form of the church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church: It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission, and making disciples. It will have the potential to become a mature expression of the church, shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context.

Think of the people you know best. The people you share leisure time with, or who you work with. Do they all live close to you – or are they spread over a wide geographical area?

How well do you know your actual neighbours? How do you keep in touch with your friends? Do you rely on accidental meetings in

shops, pubs or other local places? Or do you use the telephone, letter, email, or other electronic communication?

Are you part of any groups because of a shared interest – sport or a hobby, for example?

Examples within Chelmsford Diocese: Many churches host a ‘Messy Church’ an opportunity for adults and children to explore a biblical theme through getting messy; a celebration time which might involve story, prayer, song, games and similar; and a meal together.

If you want to know what this and some other forms of church; a ‘cafe church’ and a skateboarding church, look like see http://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/ministers/fresh-expressions/Fresh expressions are not intended to be a bridge to traditional church, a way of bringing people in. (Though these may be good in their own right). They are a form of church in their own way. A fresh expression must be missional, (reaching out to those who do not come to any church), contextual, (appropriate for a local situation), formational (growing disciples) and ecclesial (becoming new church or new congregation of existing church). www.sharetheguide.org/section1/1 contains many examples. But there must be connection with wider church fellowship and accountability for development of a fresh expression. Bishop’s Mission Orders exist to authorise a fresh expression that operates across parish, deanery or diocesan boundaries. The majority of fresh expressions, however, are parish based initiatives and so connected to the parish church.

Other ‘new’ forms of church Fresh expressions are not the only way that Christians are finding to meet together in new groups.Fresh expressions are intended to be a new form of church within historic churches of Britain, but post denominational communities are springing up, made up of those disaffected by traditional church. Sadly, many are composed of people who have left church because they find little depth of prayer or compassion there.

Some Christians are finding support in making more formal recognition of their commitment to a way of life and their accountability to each other. This ‘new monasticism’ includes existing communities in which the members make vows or promises either of stability, conversion of life and obedience (in the Benedictine tradition) or poverty, chastity and obedience (the 'evangelical counsels'). The members share in a common life and live together, though not necessarily all in one place and have a Rule and Constitutions which provide for the ordering of the life of the community.Other communities are more diverse in their practice and lifestyle. In most cases the members are dispersed, with opportunities provided for meeting together. In some communities, all the members are single, with a vow of celibacy, whilst in others members may be single or married. Some members of what is otherwise a dispersed community may have shared worship or work in one place. Many such communities have grown from a calling to live with a particular section of society: the poor or homeless, for example.Questions for consideration:

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Are these ‘churches’ or communities with the potential to become churches?How can a ‘mixed economy’ evolve, so that fresh expressions and parish churches are complementary and mutually enriching?

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