Reflection from Revd Helen Cameron, Moderator of the Free Churches Group

In a long ministry of more than 35 years in a wide variety of contexts which has meant me preaching in all kinds of locations and on all kinds of occasions, I have learned many things.

I have learned to carry a torch in winter so that I can light my path to the church building in order to see where I am walking and not fall over into mud or on one glorious occasion - the village duck pond.

We all need light to flourish, to be healthy and to grow, and that is true not just for plants but also for people. My husband, whose hobby is astronomy or star-gazing, tells me there are very few locations in the UK that are truly dark – many urban communities are over-lit and light pollution can be a problem and stars cannot easily be seen. The little island of Sark in the Channel Islands promotes visits to its “dark skies” for those who want to see and study stars. Darkness is therefore not always a bad thing and sometimes we learn things in the dark, from the dark. Dark is necessary.

It is, I think, what we do with darkness that matters. Most of us get to rest then, and we are thankful for those who work and serve others in the night. Some people abuse the darkness to do evil things and that makes some people nervous of the dark. Darkness itself is not evil but what we choose to do in it and with it can hurt others. The darkness can feel overwhelming, can exacerbate our hurts and fears until we no longer feel able to tell if we are running from monsters or frightened of shadows. This time of year can be hard. Christmas as a season can be hard when you feel dislocated from the joy and celebration of others.

But because Christmas is not all about feeling cheerful, or pretending we’re not hurt or afraid, I think that is understandable. Christmas is about hope, about recognising that even the deepest darkness is no longer impenetrable because the light has come. The light that comes in Christ will prevail, the darkness will be quenched. We can say, even when we don’t feel it, that hope has come to us.

In the opening verses of John’s Gospel we read the hope-filled and stirring words,

‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”

We are, as God’s beloved children, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, called to give an account for the hope that is in us as I Peter 3:5 reminds us. In the darkest of days for all the citizens of the world the light of Christ will shine brightly in us and through us so that we reflect the glory of God.

Hope is not always about being able to remove the darkness in our lives, and the life of the world. There is a lot to be sad about. However, we can and must give an account of the hope that is in us even when so much is uncertain because we believe God is author of all, the giver of life, of every breath and he holds us all in a loving embrace. So we believe no-one is ultimately lost and we believe nothing can separate us from the love of God seen in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are people of hope. We have a hope that is based not on how the world looks on any one day, or on the progress of humanity to think of others rather than themselves but based on the word made flesh and come among us. Our hope flows from our knowledge that God is with us, bearing our burdens and healing our wounds. God is with us transforming us, redeeming us, making a place for us in the eternal life of God and at the very last, bringing us safe home.

So what do we do in the darkness?

A friend of mine was born and raised in Wales, he speaks Welsh first and English as a second language. He told me a story once I have never forgotten. He was visiting his grandparents on the island of Anglesey and they had taken him with them to their chapel where there was a festival of hymn singing going on.

 The Chapel was full, everyone singing in 4-part harmony. It was wonderful and beautiful and stirring. Then the lights went out and the entire chapel was plunged into darkness. What had happened? A power cut!

My friend said he has never forgotten what happened next – there was no hesitation, no laughter, no interruption, what happened was that people went on singing in the dark. They went on singing, in the dark.

They could do this because they were familiar with praise. This group of Christians were determined and faithful, not easily put off their stride, they persisted. The light of their faith continued to shine despite the darkness around them.

So, what of us in this Advent and Christmastide 2024?

We are called to be persistent in our faith and in our prayer in and to keep praising God, to be kind and generous, to reflect the light of Christ in our relationships, our communities, our nation. The light shines in the darkness and it cannot be overcome.

Reflections from Revd Bob Wilson, Secretary for the Prison Chaplaincy & Free Churches Faith Advisor

Christmas is …

What words come to mind to you when someone says this? “For the children”, “Too expensive”, “So commercialised”? Or maybe some more positive remarks, “a time for family”, “a time of peace”, or “a time of giving”. I would say that the most common one I hear in prison is “hard”!

Christmas, the time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus as a baby, to Mary and Joseph, in temporary accommodation, in an occupied country, is a wonderful time, but it can be a hard time. It is hard to remember what we don’t have, what we have lost, where we would rather be. All true for Mary and Joseph, and maybe true for us too. Many of us will have lost friends, family, maybe our liberty this year.

But “To us a child is born, to us a son is given” and that birth was unlike any other birth in the history. The child born is the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of the world. A birth that will change time itself. Not a birth that turns back time, but a birth that gives us hope that time is no longer our enemy; neither hard times, nor good times. We no longer need to see the hands of time as a countdown to be feared, but we see that today, this is the time for life.

Christmas, above everything, is a time for change. A change that God can bring, a change that will bring a whole new order in our lives, a change to how we see everything.

Our Prison Chaplains this year will see many who are struggling in their lives to see beyond the gloom and darkness that is real and everywhere. They will be encouraging thousands of men, women and children to take a little time to pray, a little time to look for and at the Christ child. Maybe we all need to do this anew. Pray as I alone know how to pray, in my own words. Pray that the God who gave us the gift of a saviour at Christmas will step into my life again to lighten the darkness, to scatter the gloom. Maybe we can pray, along with our chaplains, our prisoners, our brothers and sisters that, just as a child was born to Mary, something new and life-changing might be born in our lives this year.

Or maybe just pray that, while Christmas will be hard, you will be able to see a way through to the other side!

And maybe then, rethink the ending to the sentence …

Christmas is …

A happy and peaceful Christmas to everyone

Revd Bob Wilson

Free Churches Faith Advisor to HMPPS

Life on the Breadline

Reflection from Revd Helen Cameron, Moderator of the Free Churches Group 

I was glad to be sent a link to the report from Coventry University sharing new research called ‘Life on the Breadline: Christianity, poverty and politics in the 21st century city’ in the form of a report for Church leaders in the UK.

 The report is available to read and download here.

 This has been written for Church leaders across the UK to support Christian responses to poverty and to develop more effective anti-poverty responses. Importantly, it is about Christians responding to poverty experienced by people of any or no faith, not simply Christians working with Christians.

 Life on the Breadline was a research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that from 2018 analysed the nature, scope, and impact of Christian engagement with poverty in the UK in the context of austerity. The research team combined three theologians (two of whom are former colleagues of mine) – Dr Chris Shannahan (project lead), Professor Robert Beckford, and Professor Peter Scott – with Dr Stephanie Denning as a social scientist, and it has been the most in-depth empirical theological analysis to-date of poverty in the UK. The research included interviews with over 15 national church leaders in the UK, an online survey with over 100 regional church leaders, and six case studies with Christians responding in differing ways to poverty in London, Birmingham, and Manchester.

On the project web-site you can find the report and as well a toolkit for churches, an anti-poverty charter and an austerity time-line, a Lent course written for 2022 but adaptable for Lent 2024. In addition to these resources, there will be further resources published later this year for theological colleges, for students to engage with as part of their ministerial formation.

The Church, with its provision of foodbanks and warm spaces in cities, towns and villages, has become an increasingly important player in the societal response to the challenges of poverty and continued austerity. This social capital possessed by the Church might be harnessed further if the Church took its vocation as prophetic community more seriously. The report contains a powerful challenge to consider government austerity as not just a political process but also “a form of social sin requiring a deliberate, direct, political and theological response”. The relationship between the Church and politics is a contested one: the report suggests that “political theology is integral to the prophetic mandate of the Church”. We are invited to critical reflection “to confront and overturn unjust policy, which leads to or maintains impoverishment”.

The report writers and researchers suggest that the development of A Kairos document Against Poverty could help church leaders “to develop a holistic, systemic and intersectional theology of poverty in the way that the 1985 Kairos document confronted the injustice of the church’s response to South African Apartheid and enabled an articulation of a theological and practical commitment to liberation by the Church.

There is clearly a range of different approaches and modes of engagement adopted by a variety of churches and Christian NGOs. These are identified in the research as “caring”, “campaigning”, “advocacy”, “social enterprise” and “self help” approaches but these kinds of engagement are not closed and several approaches might be deployed by the same Church at the same time. Two case studies highlighted, Hodge Hill in Birmingham and Inspire in South Manchester highlighted a distinctive approach of “long-term incarnational solidarity and an asset-based community development approach”.

Participants in case studies and a number of Church leaders who were interviewed highlighted two examples of Jesus challenging poverty. In Mark 12:30-31 Jesus summarises the Commandments and called his hearers to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength..” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Participants also identified Matthew 25: 31-46 as a key text where Jesus suggests that when people feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and clothe the naked they welcome, feed and clothe Christ himself.

How such approaches undo or address and transform social injustices in order that our caring does not leave systemic poverty untouched needs to be a challenge to us all. The report suggests that the Church, so far, may have left the causes of poverty unmet.

So, how might the Free Churches Group, with a wide and diverse membership reflect together on this challenge? Among us we have quite a range of responses to poverty, differing theologies of poverty and ecclesiologies.

How might our different voices, all of them, be heard in the public square?

How might we overcome our hesitancy to work together for proactive action for social change? Who might we work with collaboratively – wider networks such as the Joint Public Issues team, Church Action on Poverty, the Poverty Truth Network, the Trussell Trust or Citizens UK, the Breadline team?

I am grateful to the authors of the report for sending the link to the report my way. I continue to reflect on their invitation as to how God’s preferential option for the poor might be translated by local churches and by denominations into “contextualised responses to poverty that are characterised by an ethic of empowerment, affirmation and solidarity”.

Revd Helen Cameron 

Moderator of the Free Churches Group

Images from Aaron Doucett on Unsplash and Life on the Breadline website.