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CNI - Reflection - 10th December 2013

Reflection -

What the Tories could learn from St - Charles Moore writes in about the college founded by Bishop Chartres and Archbishop Welby

Just as the season of Advent began last first wholly non-residential theological week, I found myself in a large church in college. Earl’s Court. (I was there to give a speech about Baroness Thatcher and God – two The idea – which, like most “new” things, is strong characters whose relationship actually extremely old – is to train would- interests me.) The church is dedicated to be in while at the same St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. time making them work in parish churches. Sometimes people put the Church of The study is academically rigorous – England in that sad category over which St Hebrew, Greek and all that – but always Jude presides. balanced by ministering to actual people. It is But although the From my university days in the the godly version of Earl’s Court church Seventies, I remember Anglo- learning clinical is still called St Catholics as rather camp and medicine scientifically Jude’s, what goes evangelicals as rather hearty, while also treating patients. on inside it has the socially uniform and anti- name of a different saint. It is called St intellectual. It is also new in Mellitus College – combining the Anglo- Mellitus being the Catholic wing of the first bishop of – and it is heaving with the evangelical with youthful activity. What is happening Protestant wing. Two groups which had there is the very opposite of a lost cause. It traditionally been at war had come to see may be the future of the Church of that their differences were mostly trivial. England. They realised they were united in what they like to call “a generous orthodoxy”. St Mellitus College was formed in 2007 by Indeed, at St Mellitus, they aren’t distinct Mellitus’s latest successor, Richard groups at all any more. You will find them Chartres – the man who preached at the attending services which are “charismatic” marriage of Prince William and Kate and involve waving your arms in the air, Middleton and at the funeral of Margaret and others which are liturgically Catholic, Thatcher. His diocese and that of with what used to be called “bells and Chelmsford got together with the famous smells” (incense). evangelical church of , which nurtured the Alpha From my university days in the Seventies, I Course and the new Archbishop of remember Anglo-Catholics as rather camp , Justin Welby. They formed the and evangelicals as rather hearty, socially uniform and anti-intellectual. Talking to

[email protected] Page 1 CNI - Reflection - 10th December 2013 ’s students, who are multi-ethnic, It is rather touching, on their website, to multinational and no longer male- see these sane, pleasant young people dominated, I observed none of these talking about things like “bringing God’s characteristics. They were friendly, grace to the people of Woking” (no humorous and full of keen questions, suggestion – I hasten to add – that Woking seeking straight answers. Some of them, is strikingly more sinful than anywhere struggling into the church with an else). They do not speak in a cloyingly enormous Christmas tree, stopped to join born-again way, but in a matter-of-fact one. that sort of conversation. They are businesslike, almost as if they were helping improve delivery systems for The most obvious success of St Mellitus is Sainsbury’s or Tesco. They want to get on in terms of numbers. At present, there are with the job. only about 1,200 people training to be clergy in the whole Church of England, There is something else one notices, divided between 25 theological colleges about getting the right relationship and regional courses. Of this number, 142 between the present and the past. Being are currently being trained at St Mellitus, firmly based in mainstream, Biblical and its figures are rising fast. Nine Christianity, St Mellitus College owes students entered in its first year, 70 last nothing, in one sense, to modernity. Like year. The college also has a new campus all orthodox Christians, it teaches that the in the North-West, life, death and established by Justin In the next 10 years, 40 per resurrection of Jesus Welby when he was cent of the current serving 2,000 years ago are all . that is needful. Anglican clergy will retire. So, In the next 10 years, to keep the present levels, new On the other hand, it is 40 per cent of the ordinations across the C of E a curse of many current serving need to rise by more than 10 traditional churches that Anglican clergy will they mistake their mere retire. So, to keep the per cent a year. At St Mellitus customs for the truth present levels, new last year, they rose by 30 per and start quarrelling ordinations across cent. about secondary the C of E need to matters, losing touch rise by more than 10 with the world as it is. per cent a year. At St When Jesus argues Mellitus last year, they rose by 30 per cent. with the Pharisees, he criticises them for This is starkly against the long-term not being able to read the “signs of the broader trend, in which vocations have times”. It feels as if St Mellitus College been dropping for 50 years. does read those signs – the desire for unadorned, unfussy speech; a readiness Why this success? Partly, it is a simple in electronic communication; a classless matter of commitment. One of the openness to all. The idea is to understand difficulties for the liberal wing of the the way we live now in order to Church of England is that it has a natural communicate how we can hope to live for tendency to weaken itself: if you are highly ever. The creed has modernised without sceptical about traditional religious damaging its essence. formulations, you are much less likely to devote yourself to a clerical career. At St In secular terms, this is what the Mellitus, the students feel no such Conservatives are constantly trying to do, postmodern angst. They have an and constantly bungling. They should unironical approach to their life and work. study the example of St Mellitus, and apply it to the wicked world of politics.

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