George Monbiot mentions a list of community projects but fails to point out that often the local church is the driver or supporter of such schemes (This is how we take back control: from the bottom up, 8 February). In many communities it is the church that has initiated food banks, lunch clubs, clubs for the elderly, night shelters, play schemes and community shops.
In our small rural benefice the church and church members support the local foodbank, a monthly club for the elderly, a monthly “pub” night in a village hall and a holiday club for children. The religious services bring people together to worship, but also to socialise over coffee afterwards. The monthly family service provides breakfast beforehand and a range of activities for the children. Messy church brings families together to chat, eat and have fun. The work of our ministry team in visiting the sick, the elderly and the recently bereaved is also part of the mutual aid which strengthens our community.
In developing countries, such as our link diocese of Kagera in Tanzania, it is often the church that disseminates new farming practices, training local farmers in techniques to improve their yields. It also promotes tree planting and the establishment of savings groups in remote villages.
Of course, many other organisations and individuals set up self-help groups, but please don’t forget the role of the church and other faith organisations in developing the participatory culture which brings people together and generates hope.
Richard Stainer
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
• George Monbiot’s piece about broken communities makes some very valid points. However, in mentioning Men’s Sheds he omits an important aspect. This movement was started by churches In Australia to provide for the needs of lonely older men. Many of the other activities highlighted by Monbiot form part of churches’ service to the community, offered without any preconditions about church attendance. Other faith communities undertake similar work.
Rev Christopher Jones
Salisbury, Wiltshire
• Your editorial on the upcoming debate on gay issues at the Church of England synod has a somewhat bizarre headline: The listening has gone on long enough. It’s time to start leading (13 February). The whole point about these ongoing farces is that the church no longer leads anyone except its own dwindling band of devotees on this or most other aspects of contemporary life. The church has kicked and screamed against almost every progressive and humane aspect of social change in the last half-century. It has been the growing refusal of ordinary people, Christian and otherwise, to any longer live by ossified decrees on what constitutes love, decency and compassion that has been the agent for change. I see very little in the bigoted, cruel attitudes of so many in the church that would encourage me to follow it in any way whatsoever.
Alan Clark
London
• The Guardian recently reported the admirable decision of Hanne Gaby Odiele, a model, to state that she is intersex. According to the United Nations, up to 1.7% of the world’s population is born with intersex traits.
Now there is a report from bishops that upholds the traditional teaching that marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman and that the church insists that gay clergy must be celibate.
Is there a risk that if an intersex person put themselves forward for ordination they would receive the message from the bishops that “God made a mistake” when they were born? Maybe we could ask the bishops to let us know before the report is approved at this week’s synod.
Name and address supplied
• Your comments on the official Church of England’s sad squirming on the subject of sexuality are not unexpected, but very welcome – with one exception, the lumping together of “all the Christian churches” under the sweeping judgment that “none can be said to have succeeded”.
Quakers in Britain in 2009 felt an overwhelming and profound compulsion to work for the right to marry same-sex couples in our places of worship. Soon afterwards our strong campaign began – alongside a small number of other faith groups too. It culminated in a change in the law in 2013 so that Quakers can now celebrate, rejoice in and support the marriages of Friends whether heterosexual or same-sex. Here in York our first same-sex marriage, celebrated in 2016, witnessed a memorable outpouring of love and support for the couple who were marrying one another.
One can only hope that the Church of England will one day allow itself to acknowledge that giving in to hardliners for the sake of “unity” brings neither unity nor truth.
Barbara Windle
York
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