THE General Synod voted on the Wednesday morning to ask the Ministry Development Board to develop a national strategy for “the encouragement, development and support of vocations, lay and ordained, of people from working class backgrounds”.
Introducing the debate, the Revd Alex Frost (Blackburn) spoke of a desire to dispel two myths. A working-class vocation did not mean “a diluted programme of learning for someone who is a bit thick, or who lacks cultural awareness”, nor was it something “less rigorous or formational”. Working-class people “know who they are”, he said. “They do not need to be means-tested or interrogated for validation.”
The motion was about encouraging the Church to develop a national strategy to grow leaders in working-class communities. Fr Frost drew on a survey conducted by the Revd Dr Cris Rogers, which had found that working-class ordinands preferred mixed-mode training, and that classroom-based options were the least popular.
Ordinands felt that they were negatively perceived by the Church as “risky or misunderstood or unconventional or hesitant or unsuitable or unappreciated”, he said. One had told him that, during the vocations process, he had been asked who his favourite artist was, to which the response had been “Eminem” — a name not known to the interviewer. In another example, a working-class woman attending an open day had found ordinands playing croquet on the lawn. In another, a man had been unable to attend his course, as he had to work on Saturdays.
Fr Frost had himself been made to feel “inadequate” during his own training, despite 20 years of experience working at Argos after leaving school at 15 with no qualifications. He told members: “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.”
There was something “wonderful and outstanding” in urban ministry, he said, “standing up for the most vulnerable people”. But, in many places, the Church spoke “in a language of snobbery and elitism”. The apprentices of Jesus Christ came from the working classes, he said.
The Archdeacon of Salford, the Ven. Dr Rachel Mann (Manchester), spoke of the “cringe” that never left you: “that odd sensation that people of working-class heritage sometimes experience in certain cultural contexts”.
She could, she said, do “a pretty good impression of a middle-class person these days”, but “I’ve never mastered the cheat codes. I feel not quite good enough.”
Education was a good thing, but it was not a panacea that would address structural inequalities. “Until we are led by the all sorts, the ragtag wonder of full humanity, we are a partial body.” It was not pity or sympathy that was sought, but solidarity. “We want to be seen for who we are. We want to be understood and not stereotyped.”
The Revd Anna Norman-Walker (Southwark) had worked for seven years in Streatham within a “strong working-class presence”. This included Nehemiah House, where men recovered from time in prison or addiction. The men often worshipped at her church, including “Ronnie”, who brought friends with him in a “really effective ministry”. Those gathering around him were more like him than she was, Ms Norman-Walker said. Ronnie sensed a vocation, and was well-supported by the diocese, but he was already expressing anxiety “about whether his face will fit, whether his accent will let him down, or whether he will be considered educated enough to manage any sort of academic training”.
The Revd Ayo Audu (Oxford) spoke to challenge the “implicit cultural lens through which candidates for ordained ministry are viewed”. He had almost been barred from selection because he had “stumbled” during an answer to a question about the last theological book that he had read, despite having several academic qualifications. His failure to demonstrate the “required airs and graces was taken to imply a deficit in the mental acuity required to undertake theological formation”.
The Archbishop of York said that he had taken a decision not to sign any private members’ motions, but that he really wanted to sign this one. He had gone to a secondary modern school in Essex, and had left with three O levels, as he was “work-shy”. He managed, however, to get into the boys’ sixth form, achieving three A levels, and was the first boy from his school ever to get a degree, from a polytechnic.
During the vocation process, he had been told that he could not do a degree in theology, as he needed to have a degree already. He had not grown up within the Church. “You have to learn the culture of the Church, and many, many people are turned away.” He recalled, during a mission week, attending a karaoke night at a local pub, and being told by the DJ: “Why do you sing songs that nobody knows?”
This was about the Church, “about our language and our culture”, he concluded. The Church had “a lot to learn”.
The Revd Gary Waddington (Leeds) spoke of nuances. There was a need not to “fall into lazy stereotypes and tropes” and not to offer “training lite” that would “entrench social differences and exacerbate othering”. While working in Portsmouth, he had found that half of the adult population were functionally illiterate. In the country, eight million people had the reading age of a nine-year-old, he said. There was a danger “that we become nice middle-class people . . . who are in fact condescending”.
He knew this feeling well. “Good old-fashioned snobbery is alive and well in the C of E today.” For instance, a candidate might be described as right for an estates parish, “but not quite the sort of person who should come here”. He had grown up in a council house on free school meals, with parents who could not read him books. He hoped that the debate would help change the narrative that working-class people could not reach certain positions.
The Revd Jody Stowell (London) said that her mother had a sense of shame for being poor, something that Ms Stowell had not inherited. She had lost count of the times that she had received “euphemisms” with the word “prophetic” often used as “maybe that’s a way of saying you are acceptably bolshie and opinionated, but only acceptably so as long as you stay slightly on the margins of the structures.”
Training at Cambridge, she had found that elitism was “absolutely inherent to that structure”. God came from the places that were marginalised, she said. “You will gain something if you receive people as they are, and don’t try to change them into your image.”
The Bishop of Chester, the Rt Revd Mark Tanner, welcomed the motion, which he had seconded. The Ministry Development Board was committed to co-operating with Fr Frost and others. Vocation was not just to explicitly ministerial positions. He warned against assuming that to be working class was necessarily to be disadvantaged, or to pretend that there were no social injustices that needed to be addressed. There was a danger of “pigeonholing” people.
The Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark) said that training in an Oxford college had “jarred” with his experience of working for 15 years in the care sector with people who had learning disabilities. The years in Oxford had not trained him for what he encountered ministering in south-east London. Well-intentioned top-down initiatives were “flawed”: there was a need for working-class people in positions of influence and ministry.
Nicola Denyer (Newcastle) had grown up in a council house in Newcastle. She had started going to church in 2012, and “didn’t have a clue what anyone was talking about. . . I didn’t understand the language. I didn’t know when to stand up or sit down.” It was rare to hear somebody at the front speak with her Newcastle accent.
People in working-class communities “may have a deeper knowledge and love of God than some other people in more privileged circumstances. They live in pain, in hunger; they live without things that other people would expect to have. . . These people know God, and these people all have a vocation to lead others to Jesus.”
Nadine Daniel (Liverpool), brought up on a council estate in north Liverpool, gave thanks every day for the fact that hers was a generation that had “full social mobility”. She had gone to a direct-grant grammar school run by the Church of England. When she became a barrister, “the cringe really kicked in,” as well as in her position as national refugee officer at Church House. She said that, when the Bishop of Warrington had interviewed her before her BAP, she had turned her down, saying: “I am not hearing the right language, Nadine. I don’t really know who you are, Nadine.”
The motion was clearly carried.
That this Synod welcome work that has already been done to encourage the ministry of people from working class backgrounds, and request the Ministry Development Board to go further in developing a national strategy for the encouragement, development and support of vocations, lay and ordained, of people from working class backgrounds and report back to Synod to debate that strategy within 12 months.
