Active Citizenship

Lord Bishop of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

As the third of the Guildford trio, my Lords, I warmly welcome this debate. If we are to discover the meaning of the big society, we shall also have to look at the meaning of civil society. A society can be inward-looking, even a club—one of the meanings of the word is one group of people over and against another. Civil society, however, is about civilisation, being civil to one another and living together in civitas—a city. Active citizenship is about learning to live together in the city that is our society, whether we live in London, Guildford, Addlestrop or Zennor. I am therefore supportive of the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for the retention of citizenship education in the core curriculum in secondary schools.

I want to make two observations on active citizenship from the point of view of a bishop. The first is an almost unnecessary apologia, though no apology, for why people of faith—specifically, members of the Christian churches—should be engaged in constructive citizenship, and the second will be to illustrate to your Lordships’ House, as others have been doing in this House today, how this is actually happening on the ground.

First, why should a bishop be bothered about citizenship when we read in sacred scripture that our citizenship is in heaven or that here we have no abiding city? Certainly, some Christians and other religious groups have been so otherworldly as to be of no earthly use. Not so, I trust, the church. Such disengagement with the city that is our society is a false spirituality. Yes, we look for a city to come, and here I am delighted to be in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Bannside. The great St Augustine wrote his eternal City of God as he saw the civilisation of late antiquity crumbling around him, Rome itself overrun by barbarian hordes. But he and bishops after him have always looked to the present city as well. In the Book of Revelation there is the new city, the new Jerusalem. It comes down indeed from above, but it is not out of this world. Visionaries and prophets have prayed for the coming of the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven”, as we have already prayed in your Lordships’ House this morning. William Blake—not a comfortable conformist believer, I grant you—gives us “Jerusalem” to sing:

“Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land”.

As we sing that to Hubert Parry’s marvellous tune, that means Wales as well.

Secondly, what are we actually doing about it? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has already spoken in strategic and national terms and in relation to Leicester itself. Every Bishop in your Lordships’ House could list numerous local projects and partnerships in their dioceses, either initiated by the churches or where the churches with other faith communities are willing and constructive collaborators with all of good will in their local communities. Such lists would be very extensive. I flag some that I am personally aware of as Bishop of Guildford.

Street Angel Groups are mushrooming all over the country. In my diocese, for example, they are in Guildford, Staines, Epsom, Aldershot, Camberley and Fleet. On Friday and Saturday nights, trained groups work closely with clubs, pubs and the police and are on the streets from about 10 pm till the early hours of the morning. Street crime actually plummets—that is official. In Woking last week, the first Muslim volunteers joined their emerging team of Street Angels.

There are after-school groups for children, parents, carers and teachers. There are Sure Start groups, including various community networks. Poverty groups such as the Besom tackle isolation and abuse as well as homelessness. Debt counselling is offered in Guildford by the churches through the instigation of the court services. Churches in Farnborough and Guildford have long-term investment in local community action groups. Town-centre chaplaincies and outreach centres are developing. Woking People of Faith involves the oldest mosque in England. Family support groups are emerging through the churches. The Mothers’ Union supports chaplaincy and support for families in prisons, not only women’s prisons. Elsewhere in the country, as well as in my part of the world, police chaplaincy supports community policing.

In Surrey we have a long-standing volunteer scheme with Surrey Police to provide adults to attend custody suites for interrogation at any time of day or night, where minors or vulnerable persons are not supported by parents or carers. This has been in operation for over 15 years, and last year there were more than 1,000 responses. For 35 years the dioceses of Guildford, Portsmouth and Winchester have also co-ordinated Hampshire volunteer care groups, and this is matched in many other parts of the country.

The South East England Faiths Forum has just published a survey of the economic contribution of faith groups to society throughout the region, Faith Communities: The Hidden Contribution. I repeat that my diocese is not untypical; the other Bishops in your Lordships’ House could all tell similar stories.

Behind this long and emergently tedious catalogue lies independent research indicating that about 10 per cent of adults in Surrey—I believe that the figures hold elsewhere in the country—volunteer for community-building activities. Of such volunteers, 70 per cent are motivated by their faith. To illustrate this, I relate a conversation I had only last week with one of my clergy about a community development project in Cobham. Working with their local Member of Parliament, Dominic Raab, the local community groups developed a project with the county council. It is not badged as a faith project, but the churches are the most active participants and active church members are key to all the community groups.

To conclude, my point is simply that in the creation of the big society, active citizenship is, of course, essential. Within the faith communities and the churches—and the Church of England therein—up and down the nation, there is an almost limitless reservoir of active citizenship, not only potentially to be tapped but actually getting on with doing the job and building civil society. We are not only singing Jerusalem.