Faith in the City was a report published in the UK in Autumn 1985, authored by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas. The report created a large amount of controversy when it was published, as one of its conclusions was that much of the blame for growing spiritual and economic poverty in British inner cities was due to Thatcherite policies. The term inner-city is often applied to the poorer parts at the centre of a major city. ... Margaret Thatcher Thatcherism is the system of political thought attributed to the governments of Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. ...

Origin of the report

According to the report's authors, the Archbishop's special commission was established with the following aim:

"To examine the strengths, insights, problems and needs of the Church's life and mission in Urban Priority Areas and, as a result, to reflect on the challenge which God may be making to Church and Nation: and to make recommendations to appropriate bodies."

Report Recommendations

The Report made 61 recommendations: 38 of them to the Church of England, and 23 to the Government and Nation. The church was asked to identify its "urban priority area" parishes, according to Department for the Environment indicators relating to 1981 census data. The six indicators were: levels of unemployment, overcrowding, households lacking basic amenities, pensioners living alone, ethnic origin, and single parent households. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church[1] in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Department for the Environment was a British government department. ...

It was to pay attention to clergy staffing levels; to adequate training programmes for ordained and lay leaders; to liturgical needs; to styles of work with children and young people; to the use of its buildings. It was also to look at its work in industrial mission, social services, social responsibility, church schools and education. From the Greek word λειτουργια, which can be transliterated as leitourgia, meaning the work of the people, a liturgy comprises a prescribed religious ceremony, according to the traditions of a particular religion; it may be refer to, or include, an elaborate... A social worker is a person employed in the administration of charity, social service, welfare, and poverty agencies, advocacy, or religious outreach programs. ... Social responsibility is a doctrine that claims that an entity whether it is state, government, corporation, organization or individual has a responsibility to society. ...

The Recommendations to Government and Nation were specific — taking in the Rate Support Grant, the Urban Programme, levels of overtime working, Community Programmes, Supplementary Benefit, Child Benefit, the taxation system, ethnic records and housing availability and allocation, homelessness, "care in the community", Law Centres and law enforcement. Child benefit (or childrens allowance) is a social security payment payable given to the parents or guardians of children. ... Homeless woman in Nice, France. ... Care in the Community was a policy of the Margaret Thatcher government in the 1980s. ...

Reaction and Legacy

When the report was published it caused immediate controversy. An unnamed Conservative Cabinet Minister was reported as dismissing the report—before it was published—as "pure Marxist theology" and another Conservative MP claimed the report proved that the Anglican Church was governed by a "load of Communist clerics".^[1] Margaret Thatcher, a Methodist, told her friend Woodrow Wyatt that "There's nothing about self-help or doing anything for yourself in the report"^[2] and lamented that the report focused on state action. According to the late Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard although the report was loudly "rubbished" by some senior Conservative politicians, these attacks had the benefit of making "Faith in the City famous"(1) Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. ... Methodism or the Methodist movement is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity. ... Woodrow Lyle Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford, (born July 4, 1918), was a British Labour politician, published author, journalist and broadcaster. ... Though the term self-help can refer to any case whereby an individual or a group betters themselves economically, intellectually or emotionally, the connotations of the phrase have come to apply particularly to psychological or psychotherapeutic nostrums, often purveyed through the popular genre of the self-help book. ... Arms of the Bishop of Liverpool The Bishop of Liverpool is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool in the Province of York. ... The Right Reverend and Right Honourable David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool (6 March 1929–5 March 2005) was an English cricketer and a high-profile bishop of the Church of England. ... The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative & Unionist Party) is currently the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament (MPs), and the largest in terms of public membership. ...

The Chief Rabbi of Britain, Immanuel Jakobovits, published a response to the report titled From Doom to Hope: A Jewish view of "Faith in the City". Jakobovits argued that the Jewish contribution to eradicating poverty "would lay greater emphasis on building up self-respect by encouraging ambition and enterprise through a more demanding and more satisfying work-ethic, which is designed to eliminate human idlesness and to nurture pride in "eating the toil of one's hands" as the first immediate targets".^[3] Jakobovits also said blacks should not look to the state but instead to themselves and take reponsbility for their poverty. He argued that they should learn from the Jewish experience of working themselves out of poverty, educating themselves and building up a "trust in and respect for the police, realising that our security as a minority depended on law and order being maintained".^[4] // Chief rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognised religious leader of that countrys Jewish community. ... Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron Jakobovits, KBE (8 February 1921–31 October 1999) was the Orthodox Judaism Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991. ...

The report triggered extensive public and media debate regarding Thatcherite ethics, urban decay, the modern role and relevance of the Church, and the perceived growing divide between rich and poor in 1980s Britain.

One of the most visible legacies of the report followed its recommendation number 25 which stated "A Church Urban Fund should be established to strengthen the Church’s presence and promote the Christian witness in the urban priority areas." The Church of England created this fund in 1988, subsequently raising and distributing more than £55 million to faith related initiatives across the country. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church[1] in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ...

According to The Right Reverend George Henry Cassidy, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, in a speech to the House of Lords a less immediately obvious legacy of the Faith in the City report can also be ascertained. He opined that although the report focused on urban areas, the message of the report "was, and to a great extent remains, universal" - prompting the Church of England to make similar work in looking at problems in non urban areas. The sucessful model for links, dialogue and cooperation between faith organisations and urban local communities in in the wake of the report and the establishment of the Church Urban fund were mirrored later in rural areas following the recommendations in the subsequent report " Faith in the Countryside" According to the Bishop, in the same speech, this "...enabled, for example, parish-based ministry, working with others in local communities, to respond quickly and by all accounts effectively when many such communities were traumatised by blows such as BSE, foot and mouth disease and swine fever" Furthermore "The substantial body of evidence and commentary drawn together 20 years ago in the Faith in the City report...continue to be the subject of work and engagement right up to the present day." ^[5] Arms of the Bishop of Southwell The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham is the diocescan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham in the Province of York. ... This article is about the British House of Lords. ... Rural area in Dalarna, Sweden Qichun, a rural town in Hubei province, China Rural areas are sparsely settled places away from the influence of large cities and towns. ... Bombay Stock Exchange Bovine spongiform encephalopathy ... Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), sometimes called hoof-and-mouth disease, is a highly contagious but non-fatal viral disease of cattle and pigs. ...

A tribute to the postive results of the Faith in the City report was aslo provided by The Dean of Norwich The Very Revd Graham Smith in a civic service in June 2005:

"At one level it provided the churches of the inner city with a voice, and the voice was to articulate what was being felt and experienced by some of the poorest and most dis-advantaged communities in Britain... Faith in the City began a movement which was partly political (with a small p), partly theological and partly spiritual. In all three senses, it was a beacon of hope to a lot of people: local authorities felt that the dilemmas that they faced with limited resources in the face of overwhelming deprivation were being recognised; the churches on the ground felt that the rest of the Church was waking up to the realities of inner city ministry; and, most important of all, people who were locked into the poverty trap of deprived inner city communities began to feel that perhaps there could be a national understanding of the paralysis which gripped them. Faith in the City began a discussion across the nation and a movement within the Church. It showed that our common concerns could be harnessed in the common good." ^[6] Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ... Theology is literally rational discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, rational discourse). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... Look up spiritual in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The term inner-city is often applied to the poorer parts at the centre of a major city. ...

Authors of the report

• Sir Richard O'Brien (Chairman)
• The Right Reverend David Sheppard (Bishop of Liverpool)
• Wilfred Wood (bishop) (Bishop of Croydon)
• The Reverend Alan Billings (Deputy Leader Sheffield City Council)
• David Booth (Executive Director, BICC)
• John Burn (Headmaster of Longbenton High School, North Tpeside)
• The Reverend Andrew Hake (Social Development Officer, Borough of Thamesdown)
• Professor A.H. Halsey (Director of Barnett House and Fellow of Nuffield College,Oxford)
• The Reverend Dr Anthon Harvey (Canon of Westminster)
• Ron Keating (Assistant General Secretary, National Union of Public Employees)
• Ruth McCurry (Teacher in Hackney; Clergy wife)
• Professor R.E. Pahl (Research Professor in Sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury)
• Professor John F. Pickering (Professor of Industrial Economics, University of Manchester *Institute of Science and Technology)
• Robina Rafferty (Assistant Director, Catholic Housing Society)
• The Reverend Mano Rumalshah (Priest-in-charge, St George's, Southall)
• Linbert Spencer (Chief Executive, Project Fullemploy)
• Mary Sugden (Principal, National Institute for Social Work)
• The Reverend Barry Thorley (Vicar of St Matthew's, Brixton)
• Secretary: John N. Pearson (HM Civil service)

The Right Reverend and Right Honourable David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool (6 March 1929–5 March 2005) was an English cricketer and a high-profile bishop of the Church of England. ... The Rt Rev Dr Wilfred Denniston Wood KA (15 June 1936, Barbados- ) was Bishop of Croydon from 1985 to 2003, the first black bishop in the Church of England. ...

Notes

1. ^ John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady (Jonathan Cape, 2003), p. 390.
2. ^ Woodrow Wyatt, The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume I (Pan, 1999), p. 22.
3. ^ Hugo Young, One of Us (Pan, 1990), pp. 423-4.
4. ^ Ibid, p. 424.
5. ^ House of Lords debates 30 June 2005
6. ^ Norwich Cathederal Civic Service - Sunday 5 June 2005

References

• Steps Along Hope Street - David Sheppard, Hodder & Stoughton 2002, ISBN 0-340-86116-9

External links

• The faith in the city report (PDF download)
• The Church Urban Fund