CHURCHES and the nation have been losing the power to disagree without hatred, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said — a path that, if followed, can end only in catastrophe.
Archbishop Welby was participating in a Q&A on the Church of England Education Office’s National Conference, “Growing Faith and Sustaining Hope”, in Hackney, on Thursday, firstly of which he launched two initiatives for schools. The first, Flourish, is a programme to ascertain a network of worshipping communities in schools; and the second, Difference, is a resource, developed in partnership with the reconciliation team at Lambeth Palace, designed to equip students to cross divides, disagree well, and grow school communities.
Asked why he had decided to prioritise reconciliation during his tenure, he said: “When I began in 2013, one in every of the important thing issues in churches and within the nation — and world wide — was that we were progressively losing (and now we have gotten lots worse at) the power to disagree without hating one another. And in the event you follow that path on, you finish in catastrophe, in doing terrible things.”
Growing up in a family “bitterly divided and with real problems” had given him, the Archbishop told the gathering, a deep sense that “top-of-the-line things we are able to do as Christians, isn’t only introduce people to Jesus, but in addition to enable people to deal well with disagreement and argument, in order that, particularly in families, we are able to challenge a few of the ways by which people get hurt and damaged.”
Reimagining reconciliation is one in every of three “habits” within the Difference programme. The others are tips on how to be curious, and tips on how to be present.
Being curious was trying to seek out out someone’s standpoint and understanding it, the Archbishop said, even in the event you didn’t agree with it, and to reimagine a recent way of going forward. Students who had taken part within the pilot programme had said that their confidence had been raised, and in addition their ability to see the larger picture and to empathise.
After questions, Archbishop Welby delivered a keynote speech on these themes. Referring to a global gathering at Lambeth Palace this week, he said: “Our society is ever more complex, ever more intertwined through social media, and evermore struggling to grapple with differences and division in such a way that everybody can flourish. Everyone has a very good probability.”
He continued: “Social media connects us in a way we’ve never imagined possible, but in addition works to drive us ever further apart. . . We know, for the time being, what it’s to be trolled, to be threatened. It happens in class communities. It happens in local communities. It happens at a national and a world level. We can find yourself just retreating to the echo chambers where we hear our own views given. And other perspectives feel frightening.”
He also spoke of political polarisation, and the rapid advance of AI, which he described as “not a threat: it’s potentially a large helpful change, but it could possibly’t work in a society that hates one another. It can’t work because it’ll then only be used to deepen hatred.”
AI may very well be utterly transformative, Archbishop Welby suggested. “Reconciliation is one in every of the ways in which the energy there may be in younger people about climate change, concerning the long run future by which they’re deeply and profoundly invested [can be harnessed]. Reconciliation is one in every of the things they’ll turn into committed to. And they modify the world.”
Young people’s passion for justice was an incredible marker, he said. “They dare to assume and pursue a world where people all have the chance to flourish, and where discrimination isn’t right. They have lots to show the Church in that area.
“It’s essential they’re valued, empowered, and equipped through lasting positive change. The Growing Faith Foundation, which is being celebrated here today, recognises their key role. We try, because the Church of England, to place young people on the centre of what we do in every area.
”We’re gathered today in a spot [St John’s, Hackney, where the National Society was founded] where just just a few individuals had the courage to assume a recent future for education, and thus a recent future for the nation. And what they did modified the nation.”
He concluded: “Education, like reconciliation, is about imagination.”
The C of E’s chief education officer, the Revd Nigel Genders, described the geopolitical landscape as decidedly gloomy. The Church was offering the Difference programme since it recognised that each one schools had an enormous part to play in equipping young people to cross divides, navigate disagreements, and encounter others well.
“For us, leading schools with hope isn’t merely wishful pondering, an optimistic outlook, or a positive attitude towards the long run. It is a deeper, broader, richer concept that’s rooted in God’s love and compassion for all people and for the entire of creation,” he said.
The conference, organised with the Foundation for Educational Leadership, also heard from Laura McInerney, co-founder of Teacher Tapp, an app that every day surveys what teachers take into consideration particular issues in education; and the creator and broadcaster Krish Kandiah (Interview, 8 September 2017), a specialist in refugee resettlement, child-welfare reform, educational innovation, and civil society.
