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Committed to prayer, place, and the poor
Philip Welsh commends this look at the role, not just of priests, but of all the C of E
 Heavenly inspiration: Caravaggio’s painting
of St Matthew and the Angel is on the jacket of Wisdom and Ministry, reviewed here |
| Praying for England: Priestly presence in contemporary culture Samuel Wells and Sarah Coakley, editors Continuum £14.99 (978-0-567-03230-0) Church Times Bookshop £13.50
THIS COLLECTION represents the Littlemore Group, which was founded by the volume’s co-editors, and is characterised by “a rootedness in parish ministry, notably in the context of poverty; an interest in academic theology, particularly among younger and emerging clergy; and a sense that there was something that could be called ‘the imagination of the nation’”. Of the emerging clergy who contribute essays here, one is Archbishop of Canterbury, one is a distinguished laywoman, six are in senior academic or diocesan posts, and one is a parish priest. Sarah Coakley’s fine introduction is an affirmation of priesthood within an English parochial context, with a “commitment to prayer, to place, and to the poor”. It leads into the powerful story of a fatally depressive resident in the parish she served in vacations — though this was the start of a slight unease I came to feel about several contributors’ fondness for the dramatic end of the pastoral spectrum. Stephen Cherry explores the representa-tional role of the priest in relation to a parti-cularly hideous teenage murder. It certainly illuminates the pastoral power of simple presence; but, for me, the extremity of the situation limited it as a critical incident. There was also a certain macho attitudinising: “Some clergy feel especially confident wearing their clerical shirts and collars — whether it is accompanying police in body-armour on a walk around a housing estate, or stepping into the middle of a knife fight in a town centre.” Peter Wilcox reflects on the world of football. Samuel Wells claims, “When I was in poorer communities I felt at peace” — a statement that invites explanation. Edmund Newey writes thoughtfully about funeral ministry, and the “overlooked fact about the Church of England . . . that across the country day by day, clergy are being welcomed into the homes of people they have never met before”. This is followed by the highly charged example of a young man’s suicide. All priests remember pastoral dramas that have been formative in their ministries, but by now I was longing for some recognition of the ordinary. Oddly enough, this came in a marvellous chapter in which Jessica Martin reflects on her relationship with her heroin-addict daughter: “I see, speeded up and exaggerated, my own, ordinary, supposedly unaddicted habits looking back at me: self-deception; unwillingness to face difficulties; readiness to condemn as a defence against shame; short-sightedness; fearful preference for symptomatic relief over healing.” It leads to a powerful conclusion on some-thing we don’t hear enough about — the spirituality of coping: “I am not being required to solve anything, or to perform great feats of faith or marathons of nagging the divine about this or that trouble. But, just for today, I have been given the strength to hold them all towards the unsettling compassion of the Person I let myself encounter from time to time.” Grace Davie makes explicit what lies behind various contributions: the priestly role of the Church of England itself within the nation, the “vicarious religion” that is performed by an active minority on behalf of a much larger number (and which she uses to cast fresh light on the sexuality debate). Rowan Williams contributes a deeply felt epilogue that confers upon this rather disparate collection of essays a unity that seemed not to be there at the time. “For human beings, priestliness is now bound up with faithfully occupying the area where human and divine action decisively overlap in Jesus, and making sure that the human world knows that there is such a place . . . But in case anyone might suspect that the heart of priesthood was simply an emotional wasteland in which the ordained priest did nothing but carry the load that society can’t bear, we are also reminded here of the one irreplaceable action that makes the priest what she or he is: the animation of the believing community’s thanksgiving.” The book ends with four poems by David Scott, two of them about undemonstrative incidents in his life as a priest. They ring true, both as poetry and as pastoral care. The Revd Philip Welsh is Vicar of St Stephen’s, Rochester Row, in Westminster. To order this book, e mail details to CT bookshop |
