Lent 2 28th February 2021
Lent is a time for self-examination. What have you learned about yourself in three lockdowns and this Lent? For myself, I have learned what I already knew – that I don’t have one single shopping gene, either online or in shops, and that the simple pleasures of nature, walking and food, will sustain me. One of my friends says he can count on one hand the number of times he has got out of his pyjamas in the last year. The lure of TV can keep you in your PJs – not least Adam Curtis’ stunning series Can’t Get You out of My Head. On a more serious note, I have also learned how quickly governments can establish a “new normal” in the collective mind.
This Lent the focus of our prayer and action is persecuted Churches. Christian persecution is a growing global phenomenon. Within that bigger context, what I want to say in this sermon is a reflection on how the Church of England has handled the situation, at the national and local level, and some thoughts on why this reflection will carry significant ramifications into the future.
So first, some history. The first (and until last year) the only time churches in England were closed was on March 23rd, 1208 – incidentally, the same date as the Government closure in 2020. Churches were closed for 6 years, until 1214 – not as a result of a pandemic, but as part of a dispute between the Pope and the English King, John, as to who had the right to appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury. The suspension of the sacraments for 6 years did great social and economic damage. A chronicler at the time, Ralph of Coggeshall wrote, “O what a horrible and miserable spectacle it was to see in every city the sealed doors of the churches, Christians shut out from entry as though they were dogs.”
It was directly as a result of the enforced closure of Churches, that the English Barons worked to produce Magna Carta in 1215, which you could describe as a kind of English Bill of Rights. Now, 800 years later, only 4 of its 64 clauses are still in effect in English Law. One of them is the first clause, on freedom of religion. I quote: “FIRST, THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.” What the Barons were saying in 1215, and what has been the accepted constitutional practice until 2020, was that no Monarch and no government in this country would be able to determine when and how the Church’s life would be carried out.
Stop. Fast forward 812 years to March 23rd, 2020, and 800 years of this precious freedom was swept aside as the UK Government announced the first lockdown as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. This lockdown included the enforced closure of all churches. I call this phase ‘Stop’. The response of the Churches varied. In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, for example, the clergy were allowed to enter their Churches and to record or livestream the services. In the Anglican Churches of the other three nations of this United Kingdom - Scotland, Wales, and in the Church of Ireland (one church, covering the Republic and Northern Ireland) the same provision was made. Only in the Church of England were clergy expressly forbidden from even entering their churches for any reason – and in some Dioceses, this also went with the threat of disciplinary action. This order came from the Archbishop of Canterbury, not the Government. Unless clergy were fortunate enough to be in a Diocese where the Diocesan Bishop allowed them access, they were, in effect, ‘locked out’ of their churches,
There had been plenty of time to plan for the arrival of the pandemic in this country. In January 2020, I raised, in this Diocese, the question of what we were planning as a Church for the arrival of the pandemic - the topic was swept aside. The immediate question arises “Why didn’t the Christian Church make preparations and public statements ecumenically – i.e., together, as one? This would have been a prophetic and effective witness. It was left to other Christian Churches, without the involvement of the leadership of the Church of England, to challenge this enforced closure of churches and places of worship.
Go. Partly as a result of that challenge, a different approach was taken by the leadership of the Church of England in November 2020. I call this phase ‘Go’. A statement was made by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, together with the Bishop of London, in November which said this “The sacramental life of the Church is not an optional extra for Christians.” Realising that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ban on clergy entering their churches was unenforceable and uncanonical (and was made without reference to the lawyers), live streaming was permitted. In similar lockdowns in Germany, France, and the United States, church closure orders were overturned by the Courts on the basis of human rights legislation, as they breach article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights which secures freedom of religion. Those who defended the closure invoked public health, but it was established on a local level that there was not one case of the transmission of the virus in any place of worship in the two Boroughs of RBKC and Westminster. This finding was never made public!
The closure of places of worship was entering murky constitutional and public health areas! Perhaps aware (or advised) of this, the leadership of the Church of England moved to its third phase in January 2021 which I call “Don’t Know” . In other words, it is now down to each individual Parish to make its own decisions on whether to continue with public worship. The leadership absolves itself of responsibility. Thus, we have three phases – Stop, Go. Don’t Know.
Why does any of this matter? After all you may say it is past history. I believe it is a matter of vital importance because the past year has reminded us forcibly that the right of freedom to worship must be defended or it will be lost. It must be defended because it touches on something at the heart of Christian belief – that humanity is created in the image of God. The nature of God in the Christian tradition is that God is three and God is one – in other words, as relation lies at the heart of God, so we, created in the image of God are built for relation. Further, that, in the Christian tradition, this organic relationship to God and to each other is expressed through our incorporation into the Body of Christ through Baptism and Eucharist, neither of which can be done online (though, of course I am aware of the provisions of spiritual Communion for situations in extremis). Those who say that the future of the Church is online are simply wrong. We will need a substantial independent study in the future (not Church commissioned) to examine the relationship between the closure of churches and the loss of regular worshippers. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Luxembourg, himself a sociologist by training, estimates that in Northern Europe, the closure of Churches will result in the loss of around one third of regular worshippers and the advancement of Europe’s secular agenda by around 10 years.
This pandemic has set an extremely dangerous precedent for the closure of churches and places of worship in the future. It seems that we have learnt nothing from the militant atheism of the twentieth century, evident in both European and Chinese history. We are left with the question, ‘Is the Church a creation of the state or does it have an independent life of its own?’ In theology, we call the subordination of the Church to the State Erastianism, and we know from experience that Erastian Churches do not survive.
Quite apart from the known benefits to mental health of live worship and singing, we know that living the Gospel and serving our neighbour flows out of our live worship. “The worship of God is life-giving and transformational; it informs who we are at our very core. For those who believe, it is the very opposite of inessential — in the most literal meaning of the word ‘essential’ — It is of our essence.” This is why the closure of churches is not just a health and safety issue. It has everything to do with the proclamation of the Gospel. As Irenaeus said in second century Gaul (itself a time of persecution) Gloria Dei est vivens homo - “The Glory of God is a human being fully alive”. It is our incorporation into the life of God through the sacraments which makes us fully alive and no government or Archbishop can take this away, in any time or in any place. This is our message from the top of this hill, and we will continue with it, “in season, out of season.” Thanks be to God.
