Defer! (Or not...)

Defer, defer,
To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord,
To the Lord High Executioner!

 

He (the LHE) is, as everybody knows, a personage of noble rank and title... whose functions are particularly vital! We love Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado for its wit as much as its music. And we are not many minutes into the opera before it's clear that it's intended as a priceless parody of power and its abuses. You don't have to have your head physically chopped off to be "executed" by those whose power has intoxicated them. There are victims of power in every kind of institution. And this includes the church. (On which, you will find a lot of thought-provoking reading on my friend Stephen Parsons' blog Surviving Church.)

 

Dame Moira Gibb has recently published her report An Abuse of Faith on how the Church of England (mis)handled the reports of the shocking abuses perpetrated by Bishop Peter Ball. It is a dreadful story that has brought shame on the whole church. Many have commented on the report as a whole. I simply want to highlight a couple of paragraphs that leaped out of the text as I read it, and which I think we need to take seriously as a church.

 

We have seen that Ball was:
- older than those he abused; 
- in a position to identify and exploit troubled boys and young men; 

- able to rely on and exploit connections with famous and powerful people.

But, most significant of all, he was a bishop. In the structures of the Church, a bishop has a crucial and central role, underpinned by an essential autonomy. Even a retired bishop could draw on a particular spiritual authority over those he might seek to exploit.

We were struck during this review by a manifest culture of deference both to authority figures in the Church, particularly bishops, and to individuals with distinctive religious reputations – or both. This deference had two negative consequences.  Firstly it discouraged people from “speaking truth to power”. Then, on the few occasions where people did speak out and were rebuffed by a bishop – the summit of the hierarchy – there was nowhere else to go. That reinforced the barriers to stepping up in the first place. (5.6.2-3, my emphasis)
 

This "manifest culture of deference": why is it so dangerous?

 

I once gave a lecture to theological students on wisdom in ordained ministry. (I was invited to speak to them because I had written a book Wisdom and Ministry based on addresses I gave at an ordination retreat not long before.) I warned against deference. I said that not only was it not good for those on the receiving end of it, but that it was even worse for those who were giving it. When I'd finished, there was quite a lot of discussion about this point, beginning with one poor student who had to ask what the word itself meant.

 

I explained that as normally used nowadays, it doesn't simply mean respect or regard or even reverence but carries the more negative connotation of submissiveness and servility. In both good and bad senses, it is clearly a "power" word. But the question here is not so much how power is being exercised but how it is being received and responded to. Deference, in the literature about leadership and authority, means a dysfunctional response to power, whether that power is being exercised in a good or bad way.

 

It's easy to see why deference is bad for the person receiving it. It's a kind of flattery that can distend the ego and distort good judgment. If I am given deference, even if I understand that it belongs to the office I hold, not to me personally, I can be tempted to think that I am beyond criticism. It can feed my hubristic instinct that I tend to be more right than wrong. Again, I can find myself wanting to bestow favours on someone who defers to me. That would make it a kind of bribe which, as the Book of Proverbs says, is like throwing dust into the eyes so as to compromise their vision. Of course, at its least worst, deference is meant as a courtesy. But in an environment where courtesy is (rightly) valued, I can be tempted to take deference too literally, not realising that the pedestal on which I am standing is not at all a safe place but could topple at any moment if I am not careful. "Let those who think they stand take care in case they fall" says St Paul.

 

It's harder to see why deference is bad for the person giving it. But look at it from the perspective of the person deferred-to and it becomes clear that its effect is to pull both parties into dangerous and destructive collusions. For example, if my deference makes it difficult or impossible for me to criticise or challenge the person I've put on the pedestal, then I've given away the power that properly belongs to me as a separate person with my own integrity and conscience. At best I am disabled. Worse, I may be infantilised. Worst of all, I may have sold myself to another. With this can come a loss of dignity which will be damaging to my self-respect.

 

Deference is a risk wherever there are unequal power relationships. This means it's a hazard most of the time, for so many relationships are not equal (nor should they be). In our adult relationships, we can think of teachers and students, bosses and workers, doctors and patients, landlords and tenants, financial advisors and clients, the elderly and their carers, and of course clergy and people. We trust people with authority and expertise to know what they are doing. This is the healthy way of acknowledging who and what they are with a duty of care towards us. But an unhealthy deference magnifies and then distorts the power that exists in the relationship. This was precisely what enabled Peter Ball to practise such appalling abuses. Priests and bishops are in high-trust relationships where it is natural to assume that the person in authority is acting responsibly and justly. But if deference means that questions, suspicions or doubts are not allowed to be expressed, then abuses of power can masquerade as responsible care rather than being seen for the ugly reality they really are.

 

Here's a memory of a little incident from a long time ago. I was at a lecture given by a bishop (now dead) on the subject of authority in the church. It touched on the abuse of power but didn't explore why power gets abused. So I put my hand up and asked if he thought there was a problem of deference in the Church of England and whether this could lead to distortions in how authority and power are understood by senior clergy. He eyeballed me, laughed and asked me in turn, "Do you have an authority problem of your own then, Michael?" That was all I got. I smiled (a trifle too deferentially?) and left it at that. But I wondered why he did not want to engage with my question which was a genuine attempt to understand my own propensity both to give deference and to receive it.

 

"Speaking truth to power", the phrase quoted by Dame Moira Gibb in her report, is never easy. But it is especially hard to interrogate power that is held within the church itself. When you swear an oath of canonical obedience, it is not always straightforward to suggest to a bishop - however carefully and courteously - that he or she might perhaps look again at some decision, revisit some process, reappraise some judgment about a person, or that he or she may simply have made a mistake. The Oath of Canonical Obedience is both a legal avowal and a spiritual promise on the part of licensed ministers to our bishops.  Perhaps it could benefit from being examined to make sure that its language does not inculcate deference but is properly understood in the setting of how institutions are governed, led and managed in the twenty-first century. I hope that bishops would welcome this.

 

In case anyone thinks this post is subversive or even seditious, let me say what I do believe needs to feature in healthy relationships with those who have authority over us in the church. My five virtues are: respect, honour, responsibility, loyalty, and accountability. These are all vitally important attitudes. Without them, no institution could exist for long, let alone be stable and flourish. All of them, I believe, ennoble not only those who receive them but also those who give them. What's good about these words is that they can all be prefixed by the words critical or in conscience. This means that they are given out of an intelligent appraisal and judgment that recognises the claim to authority as reasonable, conscionable, good and right. I don't think you can have "critical deference".

 

When we are under lawful authority and where power is properly exercised, accountability and loyalty are never absolute. They are always subject to other, higher authorities to which we owe allegiance, whether it is the law of the land, the law of conscience or the law of God. This is recognised in the Oath of Canonical Obedience by the phrase "in all things lawful and honest". So "critically" is in no way to limit or compromise these accountability words, simply to draw attention to the necessity of behaving as intelligent people who understand what it means to be employed by or hold office in an institution. If you like, it's about cultivating adult-adult relationships rather than reverting to immature parent-child ones, to draw on the insights of transactional analysis. And as Dame Moira implies, it's a vital aspect of safeguarding the young and vulnerable because in a culture of deference, the risks they face at the hands of potential or actual abusers who abuse positions of power are very great indeed.

 

In the cathedrals I've worked in, no-one now swears obedience to the Dean. But I'm aware, having held a senior church post for two decades, how dangerously collusive deference is. As a Dean, you preside over a Chapter that oversees numerous employees and volunteers, works to a considerable budget, holds property assets, is a significant public presence to its diocese, city and region, and all this in great buildings which hold real spiritual power. I tried to encourage colleagues and worshippers to question, critique or challenge anything in my actions or behaviours that concerned them or with which they disagreed. Some did, some didn't. Those who did were often right, though not always. But I regard it as a mark of grown-up relationships that we should try to work collaboratively. Maybe it's becoming more possible in the 360 degree world we now live in. It needs to be, because every diocese, cathedral or church has no choice but to be an organisation of consent where respect has to be earned and can't be taken for granted. What's good in that is that deference won't sit easily within a ministry that is genuinely collaborative.
 

Tomorrow the General Synod is due to discuss the vesture of clergy. One member wants to see bishops throw away their mitres because, he says, they encourage deference. He cites the same section of Moira Gibb's report that I've quoted. I very much doubt whether wearing, or not wearing, mitres will make any difference to the culture of our church. It's going to be a lot harder than that!

But to see what a less deferential church might look like in practice, watch Sean Bean as the parish priest in the recent BBC TV series Broken. To some he is "Father", to others "Michael". He is a flawed man, but precisely because of that, becomes a wounded healer for other people because he breaks through the default deference some (even now) have for a priest. And his parishioners love him. "You marvellous priest" they tell him one by one as they come up to receive communion from him at the end of the drama. Why do they tell him this? It must be because like Jesus, he is among them as one who serves. Tout simple. It's most moving. We should learn from him. 

A Cruise on the Rhine Part 5

Friday
Our final day on the Rhine. Brilliant sunshine once again. We take the bus to Cologne. We were due to moor there but because a berth wasn't available our ship was forced to remain at Bonn. (We had a letter about this before we sailed. It is a tremendous pity. To have arrived by river and be berthed in this great city, to be able to walk from the ship to the Cathedral and round the old town, all this would have been unforgettable. And convenient.)

Köln is Omummy's city, my grandmother. She was born here in the 1890s (nobody is quite sure exactly when) and only moved to Düsseldorf when she married my grandfather. I recall that she spoke proudly of her home town, even though by that time it had been flattened by allied bombing. (Memorable quip from a fellow cruiser later on: "Yes, the Cathedral's very fine, but there's not much else to see or do in Cologne: Bomber Harris saw to that!") I think she regarded it as a cut above Düsseldorf (Cologne being a Roman town, a centre of the Holy Roman Empire, the seat of catholic Germany and all that). She may even have thought of it as "trade" though it was precisely a successful upper middle class trade family she had married into (Otto Leyser owned a factory that made leather goods).

The Cathedral is a huge black apparition which, when you have once set eyes on it, you can never forget. It dominates the skyline for miles around, these two enormous spires fingering the sky. Although it suffered in the war, Bomber Harris deliberately spared it, not out of love for medieval gothic architecture but because it was such a useful landmark on the river in guiding his air crews to their destinations. I doubt if the stonework will ever be cleaned up (though the sculptures are being conserved): the blackness of Cologne Cathedral is part of what gives it its emblematic quality. I had not realised that it was only completed in the nineteenth century, after a pause in building operations of a full four hundred years. The medieval crane remained in position on the unfinished north tower throughout those centuries, and there was discontent among citizens when this endearing icon of their cathedral was finally removed when the towers were being finished.

Crowds swirl about inside, but unlike at Strasbourg you can sit quietly in the nave to take in the immensity of this building. It is extraordinary as a masterpiece of soaring gothic. The light streams through the clerestory windows picking out people sitting in nave and imparting to them a transcendent beauty (or maybe I mean binging out the beauty they already have as human beings). Artists have long noticed how human hair acquires a striking delicate translucency when lit by direct light against a dark background.

There is so much to notice and admire: the sculptures on the piers, not only exquisite in their own right, but positioned at exactly the right height to accentuate the scale; the altars; the tombs, the glass, the paintings, the shrines, the stalls in the quire. The shrine to the Magi behind the high altar is a rare treasure. There is an exceptionally beautiful fifteenth century sculpture of the Blessed Virgin on one of the piers that you could spend hours contemplating as you recite the Glorious Mysteries and sing Regina Coeli. Everything here is magnificent, nothing shoddy or second rate. It ranks with the very finest of the gothic cathedrals of northern France. Indeed, modelled as it is on Amiens, you could say that Cologne is an outlier of that great French tradition, as Westminster Abbey is.

Then we visit the treasury. This is one of the most important cathedral treasuries in Europe, like Sens, and it should not be missed. It is built into the Roman and medieval fabric that lies underneath the cathedral, not only its own foundations but the Wall of the Roman city as well. That already makes it a remarkable space in its own right, two entire levels beautifully yielded up by the substrata to create a museum that it would be hard to equal among cathedrals. In it there are vestments, episcopal insignia, sacred vessels, shrines, monstrances, stones, sculptures and manuscripts. I suppose that if you didn't know what all these artefacts were for, you might find it a trifle perplexing, but even so, there is exquisite beauty everywhere and it would be a dull soul who was not inspired by it.

We go back into the Cathedral. Stewards are clearing the nave because a midday prayer service is about to begin. The announcement tells us that we do not need to leave if we wish to join the service. I am sensitive about how people are handled when religion and tourism collide. It is not managed badly here, though it's a pity that a thousand people all leave just when a service is about to begin. I wish we didn't have to be among them. But we have a bus to catch back to the ship. We walk round the outside of this great building. Rounding the east end we come across the railway station with its beautiful wrought iron train shed and the great Victorian girder bridge that carries the railway across the Rhine. This exciting proximity of a great station and a great cathedral, the intersection of the technologies of different eras is hard to parallel anywhere else (though Newcastle is another example, and I suppose St Pancras is also an attempt romantically to imagine medievalism in the context of a railway). I remember that I once changed trains here on my way to Bavaria. I only had an hour and recall how I wished I could have gone inside the Cathedral to have a look. Now I have, and it has made a memorable climax to the cruise.

 

After lunch I walk along the river to Bonn's "Museum Mile". The Museum of the History of Federal Germany where I am first headed is closed. So I go on to the fabulous Museum of Modern Art. Before I even step foot inside the place I know this is going to be a great experience. It is housed in a building of real quality and power designed by Axel Schultes and completed in 1992. It's a beautiful succession of spaces and artfully placed stairways and corridors that create a real sense of unity in diversity. The interplay of light and shade is wonderfully managed as the different rooms flow into one another; and on this sunny day, the effects are especially magical. I just can't stop photographing this building (which is allowed without flash).

 

There are hardly any visitors. Museum staff in uniform stand to attention as soon as I come into a room, and follow me round at a discreet distance. There is no eye contact: in this silent, quasi-sacred space, visitors are regarded as contemplatives who must be left to themselves to experience the museum in our own way. There is something quaint about their studied but watchful politeness, their wish not to get in the way while at the same time being aware of each visitor's every move. Maybe all Museum attendants, like cathedral vergers, are educated in this art, but I've not seen it done to such perfection before. One man looks for all the world like Einstein with his hair cut. I long to photograph him but it would be obtrusive.

 

So I concentrate on the art instead. The top floor is avant garde, much of it interesting and enjoyable, but it isn't where my heart lies. That is on the first floor where there is an impressive survey of Rhineland expressionism, including a large body of paintings by August Macke. He was the leading light of Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) movement, a friend of Kandinsky, Klee and Marc who lived much of his life in Bonn. He was killed at the front in 1914 at the tender age of 27. Such a loss - what might he have produced if he had lived another 50 years?

We enjoy our last supper and start saying farewells. We spend an hour on deck as the sun sinks. A Victorian brick church on the opposite bank glows fiery in the Pentecostal light. The river is ultramarine. Upstream the tall twentieth century buildings belonging to Bonn's era as capital of the German Bundesrepublik throw a reflected light on to the wine dark Rhine. Youngsters throng the promenade enjoying a Friday night out. A breeze stirs and the air is suddenly cool. We are not as young as all these teenagers. It is time for bed.

 

Saturday

Up at dawn and ready to disembark at 7 o'clock. We get to Brussels with over two hours to spare. We check in, go through security and sit down for a coffee and a final chat with some of the people we have got to know on the cruise. Soon our train is rushing towards England. The sun continues to shine.

Peterborough Cathedral: thoughts on the visitation report

The Bishop of Peterborough has recently conducted a visitation of his Cathedral. His charge is now published. It makes interesting reading.

 

Some may be wondering what a Cathedral visitation actually is. The answer is that it is a legal process whereby the Bishop as the "Visitor" of his or her Cathedral engages in a formal review or audit of aspects of the Cathedral's mission and life. Articles of inquiry addressed to the Chapter set out the scope of the visitation. Written answers will be followed up by interviews and meetings. The Bishop's areas of concern frequently reflect challenges that the Cathedral may have faced, for example in financial management, compliance or governance. But a visitation does not need to be a response to real or perceived problems. A newly-arrived Bishop has the opportunity to conduct a visitation in order to familiarise him- or herself with the Cathedral's aims and plans, its life and ministry, the fundamental question being how it could best support the Bishop's mission in the diocese and how Bishop and Cathedral could fruitfully collaborate for the good of the whole church. 

 

Visitations are often news. The report of the recent visitation at Exeter Cathedral, for example, criticised the Dean in ways that led some of us to ask whether such directly personal comments belonged to an institutional report in the public domain. At Peterborough, the Dean's sermon at his farewell service hinted that his resignation was not simply a matter of personal choice but had been wished on him. The visitation report clarifies that the Cathedral has faced severe cash-flow problems for which financial support by the Church Commissioners has been sought. Make what connection you will. In the circumstances, you can understand why the Bishop wished to conduct a visitation. And if the problems are as set out in the report, then many of the Bishop's directions and recommendations about governance, decision-making, staffing and financial management make sense. 

I can't comment on Peterborough Cathedral specifically. I don't know it well enough, though as a fellow Dean I have always admired Charles Taylor's leadership as a senior priest who understands the mission of cathedrals. I am sorry to see him go. It will be for Peterborough people (not only in the Cathedral) to respond to the detailed provisions in the Bishop's charge. No doubt a robust conversation will be had.

But the last six paragraphs of the charge are addressed to the wider church, not only to Peterborough. The Bishop believes that there are lessons to be learned from the Peterborough situation by the Archbishops’ Council, the House of Bishops, the General Synod, and the Deans’ Conference (para 25). That is an invitation to all of us who care about cathedrals to reflect. So here are some thoughts of my own.　

The Bishop accepts that Peterborough Cathedral seems to have complied with the Cathedrals Measure 1999, but the accountability, scrutiny, and safeguards in that Measure were clearly insufficient to prevent the problems that occurred.  The remainder of his charge is effectively a critique of the legal framework under which Cathedrals operate and a plea that they should be reconsidered. Here is where every Bishop, every Dean (including the superannuated like me!), every Chapter and every member of a Cathedral Council and College of Canons will no doubt take a view. 

Paragraph 27 states: the Cathedral Council and the College of Canons, both of which see the Cathedral accounts, do not necessarily have the expertise, and certainly do not have the specialist staff, to allow them to exercise real scrutiny; and they have no powers to mount an effective challenge to the Chapter. They can have great value in terms of advice, goodwill, and networking, but they cannot hold the Chapter accountable. This is an important paragraph because it assigns to the current governance structure for cathedrals a built-in weakness that is incapable of ensuring the proper accountability of the Chapter.

I want to comment on this. Without going into the long and complex history of how Cathedrals were governed before 1999 (a different story for the different types of cathedral), we can say that one of the clear aims of the Measure was to make sure that Chapters as the executive bodies of Cathedrals charged with holding their strategy and leading their mission would no longer be laws unto themselves but would be properly accountable. So Cathedral Councils were brought into being to represent the wider church and community and hold the Chapter's accountability. Thus the Chapter was obliged to report regularly to the Council, and in particular, the annual budget and annual report and accounts had to be presented to the Council for scrutiny. 

There are two important aspects to the functioning of the Cathedral Council that the Peterborough report doesn't do justice to. In the first place, the Chair of Council is an independent lay person (i.e. not a member of the Chapter) who is appointed by the Bishop after consultation with the Chapter. So it's really up to Bishops to make sure that they get the Council Chairs they want and need, people who are capable of the careful scrutiny and if necessary, challenge that is the proper job of any body that holds accountability. In the second place, the Bishop him- or herself is a statutory attender at Council meetings. Bishops don't have a vote (because as Visitor this would compromise the Bishop's role), but they are expected to be present and to speak. This is a powerful role for a Bishop to occupy. His or her voice is always influential. If the Council lacks expertise in particular areas, then let the Bishop insist that the best people are appointed to make up the deficit. But all this only works if Bishops are consistently present at and committed to Council meetings. It is not the Chapter's fault if they do not exercise their rights under the Measure. 

So it is not true to say, as the next paragraph (28) suggests, that the Bishop, despite the Cathedral being known as his or her seat and Church, has no powers except the draconian one of Visitation. The Bishop's seat on the Council is precisely positioned where it needs to be in order that he or she can be part of the structure that calls in accountability without having to manage the institution directly. What is more, the Measure requires Bishops and Chapters to liaise regularly about the mission of the cathedral. This can mean their attendance at Chapter meetings from time to time so that the Bishop can overhear the Chapter's business and contribute to it (I wouldn't recommend all the time, though an earlier paragraph in the Peterborough charge seems to look for this). It can mean informal gatherings specifically to discuss how Bishop, Cathedral and Diocese could align their mission and collaborate more effectively. It can mean the circulation of meeting papers and documents, another request the Bishop of Peterborough reasonably makes. In my view it ought also to include regular (and frequent) meetings between Bishop and Dean. In my time as a Dean I have valued these "audiences" enormously. 

There's another point to add. Since the revision of senior church appointments processes, the Bishop is now an ex officio member of the panel that is set up to appoint Deans. He or she has a veto on the appointment, so while the Bishop may not always get "his" or "her" preferred candidate appointed, it is not possible for a Dean to be appointed against the Bishop's wishes. This process ought to ensure that the Bishop always has a Dean with whom he or she can work fruitfully in a relationship where there is from the outset a high degree of trust and a good personal rapport. 

It is true (paragraph 28) that the Chapter is exempt from scrutiny by the Charity Commission. The Church Commissioners, even though they pay for the Dean and two Residentiary Canons, have no standing powers or right to scrutinise. The Diocese, whose mother Church the Cathedral is, and which risks serious reputational loss if the Cathedral has problems, has absolutely no standing in all this. But to draw the consequence that in practice the Chapter is accountable to nobody goes well beyond the facts. As I have said, the Council, whose chair is the Bishop's appointee and on which the Bishop sits, has this responsibility. I'd say that it's up to Bishops and Council Chairs to liaise regularly (as I know some do) to make sure that the structural accountability provided by the Measure is working in practice, and that the right questions get asked of the Chapter. 

In paragraph 29 the Bishop tells us that in this Charge I have made some provisions to bring Peterborough Cathedral, for the time being, under a degree of oversight and scrutiny: to make it accountable to the Bishop and the Diocesan Board of Finance. The Church Commissioners’ conditions for their support include another level of accountability. All these are, I believe, necessary steps for Peterborough Cathedral at the present time – though I hope that they will be seen and felt as a matter of co-working and mutual cooperation within the body of Christ, rather than as the imposition of accountability. No-one will argue with the final sentiment. But I'd want to press that its logic is taken seriously. The fact is that while the Measure is no doubt not a perfect instrument, it goes a long way towards ensuring accountability in just the way the Bishop rightly urges. It's a question of making the existing systems work better. To introduce yet more levels of oversight with all the risks of heavy-handedness and micro-management seems to me to be a mistake. 

What is more, all the ordained members of the Chapter and other Cathedral bodies hold the Bishop's licence which, premised on the oath of canonical obedience, is itself an instrument of accountability and discipline. The Dean is a member of the Bishop's staff, Bishop's Council and Diocesan Synod. In practice, Bishop, Dean, Cathedral and Diocese form a closely-integrated system. But no system is better than the people who inhabit it. And this is the key point. A cathedral, a parish, even a diocese, can get into serious financial, compliance or reputational difficulties if its senior officers take their eye off the ball. The only answer is close collaboration, mutual respect, and accountability between people as well as committees. 

The Bishop concludes (paragraph 30): I urge the Archbishops’ Council, the Church Commissioners, and the House of Bishops, to look at whether the current Cathedrals Measure is adequate, and to consider revising it. The Peterborough situation has convinced me that the high degree of independence currently enjoyed by Cathedrals poses serious risks to the reputation of the whole Church, and thus to our effectiveness in mission. A closer working relationship of Cathedrals with their Bishop and Diocese would be of benefit to all, both practically and spiritually. I am not against revisiting the Measure: it has been in operation for fifteen years and it would no doubt be good to review after the experience of a decade and a half. And I entirely endorse the sentiment that the closer the relationship between Cathedral, Bishop and Diocese, the better for all concerned, and the better for the mission of God. 

But I dispute the conclusion that the degree of independence enjoyed by Cathedrals poses the risks the Bishop identifies. We are regularly told that the mission and outreach of Cathedrals is one of the big success stories of the Church of England; indeed, in their press comment on the Peterborough visitation, the Church Commissioners go out of their way to underline this. Cathedrals they say offer spiritual sanctuary for millions of people each year and are the jewels in the nation's heritage crown. Cathedrals must be doing something right! Whether or not that is related to their freedoms from direct episcopal or diocesan control I leave it to others to judge. 

But as a priest with nearly thirty years' experience of full-time ministry in (three different) Cathedrals, I can I think speak about the good health of these great institutions and the outstanding ministry they exercise towards a public that is otherwise largely untouched by organised religion. The Cathedrals Measure has helped, not hindered this. That isn't to say that Cathedrals can afford to be complacent, nor that there aren't problems that some of them are facing. But radically to tamper with the delicate checks and balances between Cathedrals, Bishops and Dioceses that have evolved over centuries of English church life would in my view be a mistake. I doubt it would guarantee that Cathedrals never faced problems in the future. Ever more centralisation is not usually the way to sustain what is life-giving and flourishing. And I doubt it would do much to strengthen the mission of these altogether wonderful and remarkable places.

Evensong

It isn't quite the BBC's longest running show - which is The Week's Good Cause. But it is the Beeb's longest running outside broadcast. 90 years ago on 7 October 1926, the BBC broadcast Choral Evensong for the first time. By the time I was old enough to be vaguely aware of ethereal singing mysteriously seeping out of the big valve radio in the corner of the living room, it had been going for more than 30 years. At the age of 90 it's more popular than ever.

Last week the national cathedral attendance statistics for 2015 were published. They showed a striking increase in weekday attendances, up by 18% over the past decade. This includes weekday celebrations of the eucharist and the daily office, including of course choral evensong. (Sunday attendance remains "stable".) In some choral foundations you have to turn up in very good time to be sure of a seat in the quire. 

What is it about evensong that continues to draw people to cathedrals, greater churches and college chapels? I can't put it better than the writer of a letter to The Times, quoted by one of the producers of BBC Choral Evensong, Canon Stephen Shipley:*

I turned on Choral Evensong by accident one afternoon a year or so ago and I’ve been listening ever since. The music is beautiful, but the special quality of Evensong lies in other places too, in the paradoxical contrast between the sinewy intricacy of 16th century language, and the simplicity of the thoughts it expresses: prayers for courage, for grace, for protection from the dark, for a good death. These are things to which our minds have particularly lately turned in the aftermath of recent terrible events, but they were there all the time in the psalms and collects of Evensong. For almost 500 years the same words have been repeated by people in times of trouble or of triumph. The presence of that cloud of unseen witnesses lends an intangible quality to Choral Evensong. You could call it calm or spirituality. You could call it holiness. But it’s very precious.

In retirement, I'm often asked what I miss most from my working life. It's a question that can be answered on many levels. There's so much that I miss, however rich life is also becoming in new ways. But in terms of the way time and prayer have been shaped and ordered day by day and week by week, I unhesitatingly say that what I miss most of all is daily choral evensong. After almost 30 years of full-time cathedral ministry, with six years before that living and working in a cathedral close, it's been fundamental to my praying. Days still feel oddly empty without it.  The incomparable blend of finely wrought words, music and architecture somehow touches the human soul in a very deep place - well, it touches mine anyway. Which is why the weekly broadcast of evensong on Wednesday afternoons on BBC Radio 3 has become such an important part of the spiritual life in retirement, as are our midweek journeys to Hexham Abbey to attend evensong there. 

I was first drawn into its powerful and redemptive magic as a boy chorister in the early 1960s. Once enticed, I never looked back. Even in my most fervent evangelical Christian Union days when I sat a lot looser to formal liturgy and relished the spontaneity of the prayer meeting, I never lost the sense that evensong was a wonderful gift of the English Church to her people. My farewell service in Durham Cathedral a year ago took the form of choral evensong with music by those quintessentially English church composers Herbert Howells and Edward Bairstow among others. Nunc Dimittis sung to the Gloucester Service felt extraordinarily poignant. A lifetime of evensongs seemed somehow to be gathered up that afternoon. Looking back, I wonder how I got through it.

There is something very Benedictine about Anglican choral evensong. In cathedrals and on the radio, you feel you are tuning in to the Opus Dei, the "work of God" that is the whole church's continuous offering of praise and prayer day by day and hour by hour. All its parts are in a beautiful and delicate balance with one another: music and words, praise and prayer, scripture, psalmody and silence. And let's scotch a myth about evensong straight away. People sometimes say that it's liturgy you don't join in. How wrong that is! You do join in. But in a contemplative way, by listening, paying attention, allowing yourself to be transported into another place by what you are hearing and experiencing. 

And when the Prayer Book psalms for each of the thirty days of the month are chanted in full, you catch Benedict's vision of daily prayer that is organised around the songs of the Israelite community that are collected up in the Psalter. Celebration, lament, despair, thankfulness, comfort, anger, trustfulness, bewilderment, joy, hope and love are all there in the Psalms. They gather up all the quotidian experience of life - as it was in ancient times and as it now. I used to say to choristers in the cathedrals where I served: make the Psalms your special joy. They are like Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, the 48 Preludes and Fugues. If you can play those, you can play anything. And if you love them, immerse yourselves in them, learn some of them off by heart, they will nourish you for a lifetime. 

The surprising thing is this. I've found that choral evensong can be a powerful tool for evangelism. I've met many people over the years who have found faith through coming to this service. Maybe they came tentatively at first, not quite sure what they would find, relieved perhaps that they didn't have to open their mouths and sing or say very much. Gradually they found themselves drawn into the inward logic of prayer which is that it takes us to places beyond our immediate experience, and by doing so, helps us to see things in a new and life-changing way. For some, this has come as nothing less than a fresh expression of lived Christianity. Looking back, I think the seeds of faith were sown in me at evensong too. 

Among those who became committed Christians have been the parents and families of choristers themselves. They came at first simply to enjoy the music and support their children. As a former chorister parent myself, I can entirely understand that. Gradually, they began to see that there was more to this strange world of prayer and worship than they had imagined. Perhaps the growth in attendance at evensong is precisely because cathedrals offer the possibility of "liminality" - finding your own way of approaching the thresholds of faith and making the journey from being a member of an audience towards being a participant and a pilgrim. 

Late in life, I am still on that journey. I'm profoundly thankful for this lifetime of choral evensongs. Thank you to the cathedrals, greater churches, college chapels and other places of worship - not just in the UK but across the world - that guard our precious "English choral tradition" so lovingly and so well, and contribute so much to the rich spirituality of Anglicanism. And thank you to the BBC for its continued commitment to broadcasting the service week by week. Happy 90th birthday!

*http://www.choralevensong.org/90_years_BBC_Evensong.php