Building on History:
Religion in London
The Value of History
for Contemporary
Christianity
Prof John Wolffe – The Open
University
Building on History:
Religion in London
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PHASE 1 Arts and Humanities Research Council Knowledge
Transfer Partnership 2008-11
Knowledge Transfer NOT new research, but sharing fruits
of existing research in ways that can ‘make a difference’
Focus on 19th/early 20th century + Church of England
Aim to enable Church’s engagement with history at both
local and strategic levels
Partners:
The Open University
Kings College London
The Diocese of London
Lambeth Palace Library
Building on History:
Religion in London
OUTCOMES PHASE 1
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Extensive programme
of seminars, training
sessions, workshops
Resources
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Website with Resource
Guide
LOOK, LISTEN
READ, RESEARCH
Parish/Church Audit
Methodology
Forthcoming Grove
booklet + other
publications
Phase 2: Beyond the CofE 2011-13
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Open University development funding (2011-12)
AHRC follow-on funding (2012-13)
Partners
Open University (John Wolffe, John Maiden, Gavin Moorhead)
Royal Holloway UL (Humayun Ansari)
Advisory group of practitioners and academics
Work with Baptists, Black Majority Churches,
Methodists, Roman Catholics + Jews and Muslims
Exploring distinctive and shared histories – vision of
promoting better historical knowledge and
understanding as resource for present-day ministry
and community building
Specific Activities
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Exploring and preserving history workshops for
Muslims and BMCs
Public seminars for all six traditions
Three schools pilot projects – Autumn Term 2012
Poster – on display in libraries/archives
Development of existing web resource guide to
provide resources for other traditions
Two religious diversity seminars (20 Nov 2012, 10
Jan 2013 – OU Camden Town)
Prospective Phase 3 bid to Heritage Lottery Fund to
resource more broad based development of
community religious histories across London.
Why is it worthwhile?
We often take for granted that things have
always been like this, but … to understand
the past is to understand how things
change.
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
It is very important for churches to
understand that the identity they have is
crucially locked into where they have come
from.
Neil Evans, Director of Professional Development,
Diocese of London
1. Understanding religious change
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Secularization is not inevitable but change is
Questioning demoralizing myth of golden age of ‘full
church’ and subsequent inexorable decline
Understanding significance of change prompted by
a) social factors – urbanisation; long and short
range migration
b) spiritual dynamics – charismatic/Pentecostal
renewal
Importance of appropriate timescales for evaluation
Appreciating contingency, uniqueness of each
context and situation: role of human agency
2.Valuing Roots, Identity and
Community
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Family History cultural fascination with origins –
Christian community similarly needs to know where
it has come from
Hence importance of preserving archives and oral
history for future generations – so much easily lost
Important interface between church and wider
community – eg in work with schools, museums,
local historians
Bridging generations – eg using young people to
record the oral history recollections of elderly
Objective evidence to test potentially inaccurate or
even divisive mythologies
Sharing experiences across traditions – eg affinities
between past Catholic experiences and present-day
Muslim ones?
3. Exploring Recurrent Themes in Church
Life: History Audit
 A process of exploring and naming
the historical themes of a church
and congregation, its community
and neighbourhood
 It is not same as a church history
 An audit will be more of an
overview, identifying and
highlighting specific themes rather
than a detailed history
Evidence suggests that history
tends to repeat itself
o High dividends can be paid in
naming and understanding these
themes
 An audit will seek to examine and
test ‘received wisdom’ or ‘what
everyone says’
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The accepted wisdom of what it was like ‘in the
good old days’ (or ‘bad old days’!) may not
actually be true when researched in detail
 e.g: myth of the full church; history of Church
Planting
There will almost certainly be issues and
themes which recur throughout the history of a
church which no one has ever fully explored
and identified
 e.g: The failure of a project to engage with the
local community. A history audit shows that
successive engagement projects have failed;
the recurring historical theme is actually loss of
nerve
Some Possible Topics
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Church attendance
Children and Youth Ministry (including numbers,
focus, etc)
Style of Worship and Changes in Worship
Use of the Church and Buildings; architectural
developments and changes in use
Influential priests (for good or bad!)
Recurring themes in magazines, minutes
Patterns of Lay Leadership
Issues and Initiatives in Outreach, Mission and
Evangelism
Social, Funding Raising and other Church Events
Finance
Church and Congregation Planting
Socio demographic changes in locality and
congregation
Issues to Consider 1
Can recurrent cultural themes be
identified and named?
 Has there ever been significant,
ground-breaking change? If so,
what events or actions enabled
these to take place?
 Are there recurrent sticking points
that nobody has ever managed to
address?
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Issues to Consider 2
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Location – constraints and opportunities – main
street v side road; historic v modern building
Leadership – ambivalent legacies of dominant
founding priest? Recurrent constraining patterns of
behaviour?
Finance – are there ingrained expectations and
assumptions?
Vision – value of contextualised revisiting of
initial/earlier values
For further details see website and Grove Booklet by
Neil Evans and John Maiden
Faculty of Arts
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
j.r.wolffe@open.ac.uk
building-on-history-project@open.ac.uk
www.open.ac.uk/buildingonhistory