The Government must act on Faithful Cities

As Rowan Williams said at the press conference to launch Faithful Cities, one of the most unjust and far-reaching developments in our country has been the loss of the statutory status for the youth service. Dr Williams described how this has led to a drop-off in funding and a consequence surge in drug addiction, crime and other problems among the young. He had seen this at first hand during his time as a bishop and archbishop Wales. If the Faithful Cities report led to even this alone being redressed, it will have been worth the many hours of painstaking consultation, writing and working that has gone into it.  Our reports in Tuesday's paper are here and here. Here is the website for the document itself. Thinking Anglicans has some good links to other coverage here. (This and other pictures by Times photographer Chris Harris: Two Archbishops on walkabout on typical English summer's day in Camden.)

It is a different style of report to its older sister, Faith in the City, born 21 years earlier. This one has the appearance of a coffee table book, lots of pictures, lively graphics, little 'boxes' of easy-to-read stories. But this is deceptive. It is in its own way as hard-hitting and to me, more shocking. Because when Faith in the City came out, everyone knew how bad things were. It was just that few before the Church had the courage to say so publicly. Baroness Kathleen Richardson, chair of the commission responsible, said: 'We hope that our report will be a catalyst for change too, though it will be seen perhaps to be more subtle in its appeal. There are no big bad wolves in our report.' But maybe she doesn't share my view that Tony Blair can look a little lupine at times. (Athough even he never quite gets that big-eyed 'all-the-better-to-see-you-with-my-dear' look perfected by the Lady.)

But today, although the evidence is all around us, we do not seem to realise that things are in many ways worse. Few people talk in hushed, shocked tones today about what is happening, as we used to do in the 1980s. I'm pretty conservative by nature but even I began attending meetings of the subversive Leveller magazine back then to see if I could do anything to help. The Archbishops are right to suggest we have been seduced by the false promise of consumerism and capitalism into debt, whether social or financial. Blinded repeatedly by stories of the wonders of regeneration in cities such as Manchester, we fail to see what is right in front of our eyes - the desperate poverty of inequality.

The report hits many nerves. In Camden, after a press conference at the glorious neo-Gothic St Michael's, in the cure of Father Nick Wheeler, I went for a walk, aiming to lunch at Camden Lock, a student haunt of mine that I've never revisted. I didn't have the courage to get that far. Big bad 'wolves' eemed to lurk behind every stall selling cut price clothing and bizarre cheap rubber goods, inside every shop. Every pavement was teeming with restless, staring young men of multiple ethnicities. When one (white, aged about 14) began following me and made a move in the direction of my handbag, I turned round and ran for the Underground and fled back to Wapping, a place with deprivation of its own in the streets around The Times and where there have been a number of muggings of News International staff. But it still feels safer than Camden.

Even in Richmond, where we live, there is peril. The other day, sitting outside Starbucks with my four-year-old son playing on the pavement, an extremely seedy middle-aged man made such a sordid proposition that I remained terrified for days, primarily on behalf of my son. Far more terrified in fact than when a group of us middle-aged mums were joined by a man wandering around our brand new Tesco cornershop wearing no clothes on at all but carrying a shopping basket with a French stick. We all giggled, and the police arrived and carted the poor man off. Then a couple of weeks later, a woman in a house nearby suffered an attempted rape at 10pm, putting her refuse out for the next day's collection. Not that the incidents are connected. But if it is like this in a leafy, pleasant suburb of London, what is it like in the reality of our urban cities elsewhere?

The report gives a few tasters. It says: 'There must come a point at which the scale of the gap between the very wealthy and those at the bottom of the range of income begins to undermind the common good. This is the point at which society starts to be run for the benefit of the rich, not for all its members.'

We must be very close indeed to such a point. It is a point at which all but the very rich will start to feel unsafe on our streets. And from there, it is only a very short little full stop before the very rich, too, will no longer be safe. If the decades from the French Revolution onwards were not decades of wars of religion, they were decades of wars of inequality. It has always been the British way to avoid these wars, perhaps due in no small part to the levelling instincts of established church. It could be that the Church has done us all a great favour again. We must now pray that the Government listens and acts, before gross inequality leads to the violence that already threatens. It could make a start by restoring our non-statutory youth service to its proper status.

(This pic, above, shows Archbishop Sentamu shaking hands with a PC Mark Gledhill, no relation I think, with WPC Nerys Lloyd-George.)

ruth gledhill

religion Rowan Williams Anglican Christianity

Comments

[James]

The vast majority of poor immigrants to the United States are middle class within just one generation. Why? They work hard, they save, they have faith (most are Catholic), they value education, they push their children to do their best, and they keep their families together.

Government can never eradicate poverty by edict, nor by over-generous handouts.

Most of getting out of poverty has to do with faith and family and work values.

That's what churches (are supposed to) inculcate.

James

[Alistair McBay]

I will get round to reading the report, but I do wonder about the wisdom ofArchbishop Sentamu having a dig at the Beckham's charity fund raiser as a way of demonstrating the inequality that exists.

The remark comes from within a Church that justified spending £2.5m on a house for the Bishop of Oxford, without any noticeable pangs of guilt about the inequality that exists in that city.

[Bob Solon]

How I wish we in the USA would wake up! Our own gap between rich and poor is ever widening, and the current administration cares nothing for anyone except the rich. At least the CofE has the courage to talk - no one in the US seems to be saying too much of anything.

[Andy]

This is a call for socialism, which has an unblemished history of failure. They commit themselves to the reduction of "relative poverty" in Britain under what they perceive as the threat of violence (a threat which I don't believe exists), but the opportunity cost will be reduction of *actual* poverty in places like africa, from which there is no threat of violence.

As Christians, who should we be helping? Those living in England with TVs and fridges and cars, but who might threaten us with violence, or those abroad who can't afford to eat, who do not threaten us?

[James]

"This is a call for socialism, which has an unblemished history of failure."

---

Such always reduces the incentive of both the poor and the rich to work and be productive. It always leads to more poverty, on average, not less, and to far less for all.

(That's why, for example, France is becoming more impoverished over time in relation to countries like the United States...)

James

[matt.]

The teaching of Jesus is clear and simple.

Love GOD and love your neighbour.

This love should be expressed in action as well as in thought,

[Tim Cooper]

This is yet another example of the privileged position of the Church of England, and the power and influence of its leaders within the legistlature. Rowan Williams correctly identifies or restates the long-term problems that inner cities face and relates them to the widening gulf between rich and poor. And yes there is no doubt that the current culture of celebrity, as well as arguably replacing religion in some people's lives, is an ever-present reminder to the 'have nots' just exactly how much the 'haves' actually have, against how much they actually need.
But with churchgoers comprising only a very small percentage of the population are these institutions really in a 'pivotal position'? Does positive leadership really combine with any cogent form of management structure? I doubt it.

Moreover, I cannot see why Anglican clerics, representing self-interested faith groups, always seeking to convert, have the right to assume that they can influence governments, who will allow them to address problems on behalf of the wider society. They already receive funding that other groups do not. Indeed, if wealth redistribution and shifts in socio-political values are to be inextricably linked with the policies of unelected church leaders and the crackpot theories that seem to accompany them, I see democracy receding into the distance.

Nevertheless, high profile clerics, in common with many others representing less partial institutions, do serve to draw attention to these continuing social problems.
The message is clear. Successive governments have exacerbated these issues by consistently failing to address them. Spiralling debt, a culture of drugs, crime and poverty, social deprivation, varying standards of education and reduced notions of citizenship are all examples. A strong response seems to be required. But a mockery is made of our democratic process if solutions are based on the spiritually motivated, one-dimensional views of clerics. Whilst they may be powerful figures within their own faith communities, speaking publicly and on behalf of others without a thread of legitimacy should not be an option. Rowan Williams might find celebrity status repugnant, but he has absolutely no right to challenge the freedoms of others who endorse it.