THE PLAGUEAND THE PARISHAn Invitation to the Churches

MAY 29, 2020

Journal of Missional Practice, The Common

Good Foundation and Together for the

Common Good

OUR SITUATIONPope Francis said last year that we arenot living through an era of change but achange of era. We are entering a newchapter in the history of the world, and ofthe church. In order to act effectively andfaithfully it is good to understand whatthose changes are and how it is differentto what went before. These changes have been building for awhile. In the era of globalisation, theprevious chapter, it was assumed thatborders and place would matter less andless as technology, knowledge, and tradedissolved restrictive barriers. Transferableskills were the key to success in the‘knowledge economy’ and universitydegrees were the means to achieve socialmobility. The future was for the educatedand the working class were viewed as ‘leftbehind’ in the faraway towns by forcesbeyond their control. They were anevolutionary casualty in their inability toadapt to the changes that globalisationdemanded. It was assumed that the futurewould be like the present only more so.Technology, mobility and transferabilitywould intensify these changesindefinitely. This would be underpinned by a legalframework that upheld the priority ofindividual and property rights. Place,democracy, tradition, faith, communityand class did not really matter anymore.The internet, global corporations and newmedia would combine with frictionlesstrade in an increasingly integrated globaleconomy to provide peace and prosperitythat would benefit everyone. If in doubt,do another degree.

But it’s not turning out that way. It turned out that democracy was notdead, that the abandoned people in theneglected places had something to sayabout how they were treated in the era ofglobalisation, something to say about loss,grief and rage. And their vote matteredmore than people thought it would. Andthe most shocking thing of all, it turnedout that it was conservatism and notliberalism that was shaping the future. The coronavirus has intensified all of this. Nation states have a greater ability to actin combating it and workers are morevisible and respected than they have beenfor decades. People find themselvesstranded in the place they actually live in,longing for real physical presence andaware of their neighbours and the naturearound them that renewed itself thisspring. A time characterised by a greaterawareness of vulnerability and ourdependence on others for food, healthand shelter.

INTIMATIONS OFTHE NEWCHAPTERThis is a new chapter of an extremely longand ancient book. Earlier chapters givegreater insight than the one that wentjust before regarding how to engage withthese new realities. There are three plotdynamics that give life to this new era andbring to awareness different aspects ofthe vocation of the church.

AN OVERTURNINGThe first is that what was once invisiblebecomes visible, what was devaluedbecomes important, what was desecratedis reconsecrated. One example of this isthe respect shown to workers: to shelf-stackers, bus drivers, carers, cleaners,truckers and farmers. They were of noimportance in the previous chapter butthey will be key characters in the newone. Another example is that the placesdenuded of value and purpose arerevealed again as a site of meaning, aplace where people live and from whichthey work. The parish has returned as asite of living community, with its land andnature, its character and history, itswounds and its promise. It is theelemental theatre of living community. Itsinstitutions and buildings, includingchurches, are no longer abandonedmonuments to inevitable decline but fullof necessity and hope and the newchapter is played out within its bounds.People and place matter in this story.Their particularity is transcendent.

A VULNERABLECHURCHThe second plot dynamic in this newchapter is that the church needs torecognise that it is vulnerable, that itshares the fate of abandonment with itsneighbours in the parish, and can bewritten out of the story. It shares theneed for mutual protection with others. Itcan be isolated and easily ignored. It canbe merged and bought out. Itsredemption is found in its friends andneighbours ‘of this parish’, who are alsovulnerable and anxious. In relationship, itbecomes stronger. In doing thingstogether it brings meaning to locality, itrewrites its history. The church needs those relationshipsbecause crunch time is coming. Thatprecious mutuality, the recognition ofneglected places and workers could countfor nothing unless we build a constructivealternative that can resist the famine thatwill follow the plague.

"POLITICS" MATTERWhich brings us to the third part of thisnew chapter which is that politics mattersagain. Here, this is to be understood as arelational power that flows from being afaithful neighbour and the pursuit of thecommon good, that is by building amutual space that can defy the earthlypowers. Both the church and itsneighbours are vulnerable to desecration. The state has coercive power and themarket money power. But there is arelational power in a faithfulneighbourhood which evokes a newpolitics.

ANINVITATIONTO WRITE ANEWCHAPTERThese three plot dynamics are convergingto create the possibility of a new chapter.This chapter will come through therenewal of the body politic which mustredefine the meaning of society, and bepursued through the revival of therelationships that are not governed bypower or money. It is a chapter that mustaddress how we limit the damage to civiclife by building up civic immune systems,an institutional ecology that will sustainbelonging, place and meaning - all thesehuman forms of association.

churches, local unions, businesses,business associations, tenantsassociations, farms, sports clubs,hospitals, fire stations, choirs and pubs. During the last forty years the body hasbeen atrophied in favour of the mind, asprofession replaced vocation, as thetransferable was praised over theparticular, money over work, and mobilityover place.

We must write this chapter because thebody politic is emaciated. The church,which should be at the heart of this newchapter also finds itself reduced and inneed of renewal. Vulnerability ispervasive. It defines the time of thevirus. All are uneasy and unsure of wherethey fit into the new settlement, all arewrestling to understand the kingdom tocome. Right now, virtually every aspectof the local economy is on life support. Part of the unique vocation of the churchas sign and foretaste of the kingdom is toparticipate in restoring the body politic, torevive the old bones so they can walkagain. This is the task; the new chapterthat is waiting to be written. The churchmust not enter this vulnerable space inorder to seize power but to resist it, tohold capital and the state to account intheir tendency to centralise andconcentrate power, and to commodifyhuman beings and the natural world. Inwriting this new chapter the church iscalled upon to uphold and defend fellowlocal institutions with whom it has built arelationship of trust - in defiance of

This politics is not party politics, nor is itabout national or even local government. It is not calling out enemies on Twitter. Itis about the restoration, or theresurrection, of the body politic; the civicinstitutions that give substance and formto stable settlement and communities,that enable connections to be madebetween the parish and itsneighbours. The body politic is embodiedand embedded in place: schools,

capital recouping its losses and the stateadministering the debris. In moving fromhost to neighbour, in recognising its ownvulnerability and those of others, thepeople of the church can take a lead inextending the hand of friendship andbuilding the common good betweenpreviously isolated or estranged interests. The civic calling of the church in theworld is to preserve the sanctity ofcreation itself, which is human beings andnature, which can never be owned by theworldly powers and used at theirdiscretion. The parish commune is thatset of relationships that eludes theircontrol – The Kingdom of God. In joining with others to write this newchapter, the church fulfils its mission byacting in the world to ensure that God’screation is not desecrated.

The preservation of love in faithful humanrelationships is the calling of the churchas a civic institution. It passes on thatinheritance to each generation and it isbeyond price. It is its gift to all people. The beliefs and practices bringredemption, but the actions of the churchin the world as a civic institution have theability to disarm the inhumanity of capitaland state through relationships - and thiscan only be done alongside othervulnerable institutions also in fear ofcapture and effacement. It is our gift tothe world.

Alan Roxburgh, Martin Robinson, Sara-Jane R. Walker and Mary Publicover (Journal ofMissional Practice, JMP), Lord Maurice Glasman (The Common Good Foundation, CGF),Jenny Sinclair (Together for the Common Good, T4CG), the Rt Revd Andrew Rumsey andFr William Taylor. This invitation comes out of a series of conversations between us and is framed by agenerous and generative partnership between JMP, T4CG and CGF. It follows a trans-Atlantic webinar on 30 April 2020 featuring Maurice Glasman, co-hosted by AlanRoxburgh, Journal of Missional Practice and Jenny Sinclair, Together for the CommonGood, in which a hundred church leaders participated via Zoom and many more viaFacebook Live.

And, in a fallen world, to ensure that loveis the end and goal of human society, thatit is preserved in the actions of people inrelationship, at home, at work and incommunity.

The Common GoodFoundation