Place

This is the second part of my series began yesterday. The following three posts (including this one) look at some aspects of the Welsh context.

I am very aware that the following is a mere gloss over a complex subject. But worse than offering a superficial analysis of the context is not to do so at all. I am especially conscious that I will say very little about Welsh language. This is not because it is not important but rather because I am poorly qualified to do so. Suffice it to say that we need to take Welsh language seriously. Our approach to the phenomenon of a minority indigenous language community actually gives us some helpful ways to model our approach with minority exogenous language groups, but I am not going to cover that today. 

What I shall offer here are a few general thoughts, not exactly random, but certainly not very carefully thought through. 

1.     Place

David Goodheart argues that the key fault line in Britain and elsewhere now separates those whom he labels ‘Anywheres’ – mobile, usually urban, socially liberal, university educated, status-achieved individuals – and ‘Somewheres’ – communally-rooted, usually in a small town or in the countryside, socially conservative, often less educated, status-ascribed (David Goodheart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics [London: Hurst, 2017]). Somewheres make up roughly half the population of the UK but must surely constitute a big majority of people who live in Wales.

Are we sufficiently aware of the sensitivities of Somewheres? The gospel liberates us from the tyranny of prejudice towards the outsider. But it doesn’t blot out our social and cultural and geographical rootedness. While we should always build a global awareness and concern in our churches, we must never be embarrassed at the localism and apparent narrow-mindedness of people who live their whole lives in the same place and have no desire to eat olives.

Somewheres voted almost overwhelmingly for Leave in the 2016 referendum. Whatever our views on Brexit, we must be attuned to the sense of disempowerment that has been experienced by Somewheres in the whole Brexit process. When I first wrote this I said, “We must be prepared to speak a message of hope in the disappointment.” Now Brexit is actually going ahead, that disappointment has probably replaced with at least a measure of optimism. But it is unlikely that all the expectations of the Somewheres will be realized. So we must expect at least some of that feeling of disappointment and disenfranchisement to return. Are we going to come alongside these people, who bear God’s likeness, and preach hope to them and live hope-filled lives in apparently hopeless situations?

If we are going to make any progress in reaching out to the Somewheres of Wales, we must help them see that the gospel and the church are for them. And that surely means we must get out of our comfort zones and get our hands dirty. (See also Peter Franklin, ‘The Post’ blog, by Unherd, 12 September 2019.)

Furthermore, as Francis Schaeffer wrote half a century ago, we are the church before the watching world. We may think people are ignoring us. And that may be true on a national level. But on a local level, people are indeed watching us. They want to see if our message is matched by our actions. Are we characterised by love, as we are supposed to be? If we are, we will shine all the brighter as society around us becomes all the darker.