Building on History: Religion in London

The Value of History for Contemporary Christianity

Prof John Wolffe – The Open University

Building on History: Religion in London

o PHASE 1 Arts and Humanities Research Council Knowledge Transfer Partnership 2008-11

o Knowledge Transfer NOT new research, but sharing fruits of existing research in ways that can ‘make a difference’

o Focus on 19th/early 20th century + Church of Englando Aim to enable Church’s engagement with history at both

local and strategic levelso Partners:

The Open University Kings College London The Diocese of LondonLambeth Palace Library

Building on History: Religion in London

OUTCOMES PHASE 1 o Extensive programme

of seminars, training sessions, workshops

Resources

o Website with Resource Guide

o LOOK, LISTENREAD, RESEARCH

o Parish/Church Audit Methodology

o Forthcoming Grove booklet + other publications

Phase 2: Beyond the CofE 2011-13

Open University development funding (2011-12) AHRC follow-on funding (2012-13)

Partners Open University (John Wolffe, John Maiden, Gavin Moorhead)

Royal Holloway UL (Humayun Ansari)

Advisory group of practitioners and academics

Work with Baptists, Black Majority Churches, Methodists, Roman Catholics + Jews and Muslims

Exploring distinctive and shared histories – vision of promoting better historical knowledge and understanding as resource for present-day ministry and community building

Specific Activities

Exploring and preserving history workshops for Muslims and BMCs

Public seminars for all six traditions Three schools pilot projects – Autumn Term 2012 Small travelling exhibition Development of existing web resource guide to

provide resources for other traditions Two religious diversity seminars (20 Nov 2012, 10

Jan 2013 – OU Camden Town) Prospective Phase 3 bid to Heritage Lottery Fund to

resource more broad based development of community religious histories across London.

Why is it worthwhile?

We often take for granted that things have always been like this, but … to understand the past is to understand how things change.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

It is very important for churches to understand that the identity they have is crucially locked into where they have come from.

Neil Evans, Director of Professional Development, Diocese of London

1. Understanding religious change

• Secularization is not inevitable but change is• Questioning demoralizing myth of golden age of ‘full

church’ and subsequent inexorable decline • Understanding significance of change prompted by

a) social factors – urbanisation; long and short range migration b) spiritual dynamics – charismatic/Pentecostal

renewal • Importance of appropriate timescales for evaluation• Appreciating contingency, uniqueness of each

context and situation: role of human agency

2.Valuing Roots, Identity and Community

• Family History cultural fascination with origins – Christian community similarly needs to know where it has come from

• Hence importance of preserving archives and oral history for future generations – so much easily lost

• Important interface between church and wider community – eg in work with schools, museums, local historians

• Bridging generations – eg using young people to record the oral history recollections of elderly

• Objective evidence to test potentially inaccurate or even divisive mythologies

A process of exploring and naming the historical themes of a church and congregation, its community and neighbourhood

It is not same as a church history An audit will be more of an overview,

identifying and highlighting specific themes rather than a detailed history

3. Exploring Recurrent Themes in Church Life: History Audit

o Evidence suggests that history tends to repeat itself

o High dividends can be paid in naming and understanding these themes

An audit will seek to examine and test ‘received wisdom’ or ‘what everyone says’

The accepted wisdom of what it was like ‘in the good old days’ (or ‘bad old days’!) may not actually be true when researched in detail e.g: myth of the full church; history of Church

Planting  There will almost certainly be issues and themes

which recur throughout the history of a church which no one has ever fully explored and identified e.g: The failure of a project to engage with the

local community. A history audit shows that successive engagement projects have failed; the recurring historical theme is actually loss of nerve

Church attendance Children and Youth Ministry (including numbers, focus,

etc) Style of Worship and Changes in Worship Use of the Church and Buildings; architectural

developments and changes in use Influential ministers (for good or bad!) Recurring themes in magazines, minutes Patterns of Lay Leadership Issues and Initiatives in Outreach, Mission and

Evangelism Social, Funding Raising and other Church Events Finance Church and Congregation Planting Socio demographic changes in locality and congregation

Some Possible Topics

Can recurrent cultural themes be identified and named?

Has there ever been significant, ground-breaking change? If so, what events or actions enabled these to take place?

Are there recurrent sticking points that nobody has ever managed to address?

Issues to Consider 1

Issues to Consider 2

• Location – constraints and opportunities – main street v side road; historic v modern building

• Leadership – ambivalent legacies of dominant founder? Recurrent constraining patterns of behaviour?

• Finance – are there ingrained expectations and assumptions?

• Vision – value of contextualised revisiting of initial/earlier values

• For further details see website and forthcoming Grove Booklet by Neil Evans and John Maiden

Faculty of Arts The Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AA

j.r.wolffe@open.ac.ukbuilding-on-history-project@open.ac.ukwww.open.ac.uk/buildingonhistory