Kay Parris meets up with Harriet Lamb CBE, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation

What began in 1994 with the launch of a single ethically-produced and sold chocolate bar, has mushroomed into 7,000 products carrying the Fairtrade Mark today.

Two of the nation’s favourite chocolate bars – KitKat (four finger) and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk are Fairtrade. So are 30 per cent of our bananas and half the sugar we buy. Major supermarkets – the Co-op, M&S, Morrisons, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s – have committed entire product lines to Fairtrade. All Olympic venues during the 2012 London Games will be selling Fairtrade refreshments.

Harriet Lamb was there from the start. First as a campaigner for the World Development Movement, which, along with Oxfam, Christian Aid and others, founded the Fairtrade Foundation 20 years ago this year; then through her time with Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, based in Bonn, Germany before she joined the Fairtrade Foundation as executive director in 2001.

She was awarded a CBE in 2006 in recognition of her immense contribution to the Fairtrade phenomenon. She is driven by a sense of responsibility as raw and urgent today as it was when I first met her at WDM – that she must do all she can to help end the unjust global trade and financial systems that perpetuate poverty.

She has harangued government ministers, courted retail giants, met and listened to farmers in poor countries around the world, joined in the events of Fairtrade towns, schools and churches (of which there are some 7,000 – 300 of them United Reformed). She appears to inspire devotion among her staff. Her frequent, pealing laughter is a trademark, but she carries around her rage and heartbreak at the often appalling exploitation she has witnessed first-hand among workers who provide the food we depend upon and enjoy. It seems she will stop at nothing until the whole global trading system has been turned on its head to put people and justice first.

Did you ever imagine Fairtrade would grow this big?
It is almost breathtaking, if you think where we were 20 years ago when we started with this mad idea.

People used to say, oh yes, Fairtrade is just for a nice little niche, it’s for the little green ghetto, blah blah blah. But we never really accepted that, because there are millions of farmers and workers who depend on trade. We knew we had to have a bigger impact.

What are some of the influences that have shaped you?
I think definitely, living in India for three years as a child, and then going back at 18, and 21 – it gave me an interest in the developing world and as I got older, a determination that I would like to do something about the gap between the rich world and the poor world.

I just loved India. It gave me a positive view of development, because it was obvious to me that people can make poverty history for themselves if we get the structures of global trade and finance right.

When I went back again much later, aged about 23, I spent two years working in the rural areas with very deprived communities and I spent time, years before anyone had thought of Fairtrade in our way, with a community of so-called “untouchables”, the lowest of the low, who had tiny plots of land that had been mortgaged to the moneylenders and they had lost control of them.

I suppose it wasn’t that long after independence, and the Ghandian ideals and commitment to service were still really strong. Someone from the village helped them get their land back and pool their plots together, and on their pooled land, they started to grow export-quality grapes. They began exporting those grapes to Kuwait, and they were the first people in the whole area to buy a tractor.

And then, they were investing back into getting schooling, building themselves proper housing and so on. It was kind of a prototype. I think it really helped me, because I had that experience in my head of having seen how it could work and drive change.

Do you have any spiritual or religious leanings?
Yes, I am a part of St Saviour’s Church in Herne Hill, so I am part of that community. I have a very ecumenical perspective though. I believe all faiths have a role and people have different faiths depending on where they are born and brought up. It can’t be chance that whole parts of the world follow one faith and parts of the world follow another. It is inevitable, and I think the same tenements underpin all the great religions and actually that’s what matters – it is the fundamentals. The service bit can be different according to whether you are Christian or Muslim or Baha’i, depending on where you are born and what are the opportunities open to you.

What would you see as those fundamentals?
From a Christian perspective, it is love your neighbour as yourself. If you believe there is something greater than the material world or each of us individually, then actually you need to live that out in your daily life. I think that is a faith-based principle, but it can also be a secular one.

Ghandi said, be the change you want to see in the world. And that is the same principle, I think. Ghandi had a very “all-religions” perspective – and that’s all religions and none.

With your love of other countries and cultures, why did you choose to stay in Britain?
I felt it was my responsibility as a British woman – to change British policy and practices. That’s why I was involved in working to get a national minimum wage in Britain, working with low-paid people in Britain. I’ve worked with refugees who have come to Britain, and I have worked with the World Development Movement, before Fairtrade. And WDM is exactly about changing the policies and practices that keep people in poverty – things over which we have control. There are many things people can do for themselves in developing countries, but there are other things that are just unfair.

Is there anything you miss about those previous jobs, where maybe, for example, you had more freedom to criticise a government or company publicly?
I can, and do, speak very publicly and with as much anger I hope, about the fact there is still so much poverty among cocoa farmers or among tea farmers. What we wouldn’t do at the Fairtrade Foundation is name and shame particular companies. But I don’t miss that. I don’t feel any need to get into a slanging match with particular companies, so long as we can be absolutely clear that as a movement the Fairtrade Foundation does feel it is unfair and unacceptable that there is such poverty among farmers and workers who grow the food and drink that we all enjoy.

The reason we’ve got so much unfair trade is not because people are bad; it is because people don’t know. How are they to know that tea is so cheap because a woman on the other side of the world can’t send her kids to school, because she gets paid so little? Once they know that, they think well that’s wrong. And then you can say, well there is a positive alternative. I am a positive person and I think it is exciting to be part of creating a living alternative, not just shouting about the problems.

When you are dealing with certain companies, it can occasionally cause controversy can’t it, with people complaining about tokenism and so on?
What I would say first about that, is that what we are trying to do as a movement is incredibly difficult. What we are trying to do is to put rules into the market that actually run contrary to the market.

Along the way we are always meeting problems. The farmers have problems with the quality of the bananas, or there are issues about making sure there is no child labour; or about working with big companies where it might be seen as controversial. I think we have to be confident enough to have those debates with the public and to share with them our dilemmas, so they can see we are not doing this because we have fallen in love with big companies.

We are doing this, absolutely clearly, because if you want to drive change at scale for the farmers and workers, you have to engage with the big boys. Otherwise you are forever playing at the margins, and we are not interested in playing at the margins.

Along the way, what we have to be clear about is that our Fairtrade Mark is a stamp of approval on that product – we are not saying anything more broadly about the company. I think the public gets that.

Are farmers ever worse off after joining Fairtrade?
I hope no one has been worse off. But we have quite high standards about the levels of democratic organisation and transparency needed in the groups. So they do have to invest to come into Fairtrade; they work very, very hard to come in – it’s an equal relationship of rights and responsibilities on both sides. With the effort, and sometimes the financial investment involved, some groups may not straight away see enough sales.

An example would be that we’ve struggled to enable enough sales of cotton from West Africa at scale. Those farmers are hanging on in there; they believe in the principle so strongly. It is not that they are necessarily hugely better off in year one and year two at all. It’s the same with many tea estates in India, which are only selling three per cent of their produce Fairtrade – we need to get sales up to drive the change. But overwhelmingly people tend to stick in there because they believe in the principle.

I’m remembering a comment in your book, where you say you recall feeling your brain whirring and your hair going grey with stress. Is it still like that sometimes?
Absolutely, we still have problems. You are trying to reconcile seemingly irreconcileable interests. You try to adjust something to make it better for the farmers, and the trader says, that’s it, I’m pulling out, you’ve made it impossible for me! So then you adjust again and now it doesn’t work for the retailer; you go this way and it’s too expensive and the public won’t buy it. Sometimes it’s really tough to see a way out.

Do you get overwhelmed with the responsibility of it?
Well, sometimes you do think, Oh my goodness! Whereas before you would worry about one banana consignment, which was huge for that group, now it might be about the export of a whole nation! Well I’m exaggerating, but in a way, while it has got less precarious, what is at stake has got bigger.

The problem changes, what’s within your reach changes, and what people expect of you changes. But the reason I remain as energised by it as ever, is that it is still amazingly unique what we are doing. It is an incredible privilege to be able one day to talk to some amazing banana farmers or leaders, and then the next to meet with the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, and the next to talk with one of our Fairtrade groups up in Aberdeen – it is an extraordinary coming together of people across the world, and that’s what’s very inspiring about it. The schools and churches, they are incredible too.

How do issues about fairer trade connect with environmental issues?
We did some research and 76 per cent of all the farmers we surveyed say weather patterns have changed, and that’s negatively affected them. Eighty three per cent say they can’t afford adaptation or mitigation measures. There are definitely more hurricanes, more mudslides, but they are at the more visible end of the spectrum. Farmers are as affected, if not more so, by the fact that weather patterns have changed – they’ve lost the security of knowing what the season is going to do.

Can Fairtrade have an impact on problems like that?
We are looking at two things. We in the Foundation and also with our colleagues in FairTrade Africa, we were all in Durban lobbying for the big changes we want to see. In particular, the rich world has got to cut back its emissions on a dramatic level. At the same time, absolutely, we want, through Fairtrade, to help some of these farmers adapt to climate change, mitigate against the worst effects and find new ways of working. Once farmers have come together through Fairtrade and organised in a group, you can start to work with that group – support them, invest, bring in new technology, put them in touch with the latest research, whatever it might be, and there are ways that companies can engage in helping those farmers adapt and mitigate.

But are companies motivated to do that?
Well ultimately it is about sustainability for their products. With some commodities, there is a real danger they will run out. Unless farmers can adapt to the effects of climate change there may soon be no chocolate, coffee or bananas for big companies to sell. And it’s not just climate change – many companies are waking up to the shock that farmers may not carry on growing their crops unless they able to capture more of the value of them.

One of the reasons Cadbury’s first went Fairtrade is because they realised to their horror that the average age of a cocoa farmer in Ghana is 56. I went out to Ghana with the chief executive of Cadbury’s and we met a farmer called Benjamin Atiemo and all the while he was drying his cocoa beans, and he was a bit shy in front of this chief executive, and he explained: All my sons have gone to Accra, they haven’t got jobs, they’re living rough, but they don’t see a future in growing cocoa, they just think it is drudgery for no money. Cadbury’s say that was a complete wake up call for them: no beans, no bars. It was that moment that really made the sustainability case from an economic and social point of view.

I hear Chichester Cathedral is now sporting the first ever Fairtrade gold-plated weather vane.
That was so exciting! The first ever use of Fairtrade gold as an ecclesiastical tool. We would really encourage churches, if you are looking at any gilding, why not use Fairtrade and Fairmined gold?

So what’s been happening with Fairtrade gold?
Five years ago, we were first approached by miners from Columbia, who were trying to mine gold in a more ecological way – not using cyanide and mercury, but they just couldn’t get a high enough price to enable them to do that. So we started working with them on what we call Fairtrade and Fairmined gold.

We’ve now got three groups we are working with – in Peru, Bolivia and Columbia and we hope there’ll be three more coming through this year. We are gradually figuring out how could it work in Africa.

Mining is one of the harshest industries to work in isn’t it – what kind of difference can you really make?
It is a journey, a long process; it is not about overnight change. Gradually, as the mining groups get more income, they can manage chemicals and so on in a safer way. There are people who say, there are so many problems in mining, Fairtrade shouldn’t go there. But we say the opposite.

It’s nearly Fairtrade Fortnight [27 February to 11 March]. What kind of response are you hoping for this year?
For 2012 we are saying, Take a Step for Fairtrade – we are trying to get 1.5 million steps registered on our website. It could be you register because you have just bought a Faitrade and Fairmined wedding ring. It could be a tiny thing – you start buying Fairtrade rice for the first time; or a company might take a huge step, where they commit to switch a whole range to Fairtrade, or to help the producers with climate change.

Churches do so much already, but you could have Fairtrade Communion wine, your surplice could be made of Fairtrade cotton. You could switch to Fairtrade tea and coffee if you haven’t done so yet. Fairtrade flowers. You could virtually do a whole Fairtrade wedding!

When will you finally feel satisfied with what you have achieved with Fairtrade?
It still feels so much as though we are at the start – I can’t see in the next few years being able to say, oh marvellous, job done! I think this is the work of decades. What is exciting about Fairtrade is that so many people are part of it right cross the world. There is absolutely a collective effort of everyone, from the farmers through to the churches – who have supported it from day one, and whose continuing support is absolutely critical if we are going to tip the balance.

A Fairtrade Fortnight guide for churches is available at: http://step.fairtrade.org.uk get-involved/i-am-a-supporter

Hazel Southam discovers how an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is helping its young charges to keep hope and happiness alive

Children run and play in the gravel yard of Hanna’s Orphanage. Some play with disused car tyres, while older children are locked in endless rounds of table tennis, under a shading tree. Two girls holding a sleeping toddler sit and read together on the schoolroom step.

There is an outbreak of joy as half a dozen small children and four dogs of various sizes, chase each other around the compound with glee. Inside the schoolroom, a dozing ginger and white cat opens one eye to watch, but soon drifts back into sleep.

A dozen young members of staff sit listening to Acts 3 on a solar-powered audio Bible device called the Proclaimer, supplied by the Bible Society. Next door, in a corrugated iron room with nylon webbing for curtains, 13 teenagers are huddled round another Proclaimer machine discussing Matthew 5. They listen to the Proclaimer Bibles every week, while the staff gather daily after lunch to listen and discuss what they’ve heard.

Hanna Teshone, the radiant director and founder of the orphanage, says these sessions have helped her own faith greatly. She explains that she was keen the children should also benefit from at least being introduced to the message of the Bible.

“I wanted the children to have the Word of God, to be able to hear it,” she says. “They can decide for themselves [about whether or not they develop a faith] but you have to give them a chance to hear it.

“If they don’t have that chance it will be difficult for their spiritual life – not just that, but for their personal life, their day-to-day life.”

Do we consult the New Testament for guidance about living peacefully, or for confirmation of moral judgements that must be shored up, by coercion if necessary? In this extract from his new book, Thomas R Yoder Neufeld reflects on the treatment of violence in the gospels

It is not an exaggeration to say that violence pervaded the world of Jesus and his followers. Herodian and Roman imperial rule, sparking sporadic resistance, and culminating in the catastrophic war against Rome in 66–70CE, created an ambience of pervasive violence.

In addition to the political and military brutalities, the growing disparities between rich and poor, landowners and landless, form a vivid background to Jesus’ parables, for example. And the conflict between the rural poor and the temple state centred in Jerusalem is reflected in the final days of Jesus’ life.

If what counts as violence is marginalisation on the basis of religion and sex, the pages of the gospels reflect the pervasiveness of such violence as well. The presence in the narratives of Jesus’ life of lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, haemorrhaging women, and Samaritans testifies to what can fairly be called structural, cultural and religious violence. Equally, the landowners, slaveholders, centurions, suspicious and judgemental religious leaders, local kings and Roman overlords populating the narratives of Jesus’ life and his parables represent those in charge of maintaining an order soaked in violence. Violence is seldom if ever beyond the horizon in the gospels.

When we move beyond Palestine into the wider Mediterranean world, and view that world from the vantage point of believers in Jesus, we see that it too is marked by pervasive violence. Even when the Jesus movement benefited from the order and “peace” the security state brought them, making possible the rapid spread of the movement, the violence of that system was never far out of sight. Apart from the hostility and even physical violence early Jesus-believers experienced at the hands of their fellow Jews, Roman authorities also frequently responded to them as a threat to civic order and peace.

Frank Kantor

Christianity and the New Social Order: A Manifesto for a Fairer Future
John Atherton, Christopher Baker and John Reader
SPCK
£10.99

What role should Christians play in seeking to influence and engage in the debate on the financial crisis, welfare reform and the Big Society agenda of the coalition government? The authors of this book present a compelling argument for informed and principled engagement with other disciplines, based on the legacy of William Temple’s vision of a social order in which all human beings can develop and flourish.

They begin by analysing the changing contours of the secular state and identify some of the key challenges and opportunities that the emerging, post-secular, public terrain presents to Christians seeking to engage with others in the creation of a new, just social order. Suggesting an inter-disciplinary approach based on the creative interplay between theology and evidence from the latest social scientific research and economic and political commentary, they challenge attempts to draw firm boundaries between the private and public as well as the problematic language of “religion and the public square”. Rather, as those who understand that the whole of life is sacred, Christians need to challenge (and be challenged) about the underlying assumptions and premises of these arguments and develop criteria within which to frame dialogue between religious and evidence-based views on social policy.

The writers point to the positive contributions religious and spiritual beliefs have been shown to make to human happiness. They also examine the contribution of theology and Christian social ethics to the debate on a more ethical economics in the present financial crisis. Finally, they examine Archbishop Temple’s 1940s vision for a social order rooted in common ethical values (they call this ìremoralisationî) and see it as still offering a valid framework for todayís debate on a new post-welfare social policy.

The current levels of mistrust in financial, political and religious institutions, and the dominant position of the market over the state and civil society may seem to charge these writers with a lack of realism. However, their arguments do offer Christians important tools with which to engage in the urgent debate on how we establish a more just and flourishing society.

Frank Kantor is the United Reformed Church secretary for Church and Society

Sound biography, but lacks religious detail

Lance Stone

God’s Biologist: A Life of Alister Hardy
David Hay
Darton, Longman and Todd
£24.99 (Hardback)

Sir Alister Hardy (1896 to 1985), marine biologist and world authority on plankton and marine mammals, was latterly professor of zoology at Oxford University from 1946 to 1961. His possible interest to Christians concerns a vow he made at the age of 17 to reconcile evolutionary theory with what he called “the spiritual awareness of man”. This book traces Hardy’s life and his attempts to fulfil that vow, eventually establishing The Religious Experience Research Unit in Oxford (later transferred to Lampeter). Along the way he expounded his ideas in the prestigious Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen University between 1963 and 1965, the university where he had previously been professor of zoology.

No doubt the prompt for the publishing of this book is the current interest in the science-religion debate, but the bookís contribution is hampered by two factors. Firstly, as a biography attempting to do justice to a very full life, there is limited scope for exposition of his views. Hardy’s Gifford lectures, which sought to modify Darwin in order to account for the religious or spiritual dimension of human experience, are summarised, but not enough attention is devoted here, or to his work at the Religious Experience Research Unit, to really inform the reader. Furthermore, it is not made clear exactly what Hardy meant by religious experience. Hardy’s religious views, insofar as they are expounded, are frustratingly vague. He disowned the Church of England, and while his beliefs seem to have fallen somewhere between Unitarianism and pantheism, for most of the time they seem to have been kept very much in the background of his life. (Richard Dawkins, one of Hardy’s students, is quoted as saying that he had no idea that Hardy had any interest in religion at all and Hardy’s son is quoted as saying that religion played no part in their family life).

For those interested in the life of Alister Hardy, this is a fascinating read. For those interested in exploring the interface of science and religion, it is of limited value.

Lance Stone is a United Reformed Church minister at Emmanuel and Trumpington Street URCs, Cambridge

Two reflective books on the Passion

Ruth Allen

Love Set Free: Meditations on the Passion According to Saint John
Martin L Smith
Canterbury Press
£7.99

The Nail: Being part of the Passion
Stephen Cottrell
SPCK
£6.99

Both of these short books contain meditations on the Passion. Both are designed for use during Lent, and have six chapters (Bishop Stephen also recommends The Nail for a Good Friday meditation and Saturday vigil). Both go deeply into the story and provide much food for thought and reflection.

That said, the two books are wonderfully different. Love Set Free is based entirely on Johnís Gospel, whereas The Nail uses all four. Love Set Free’s meditations use insights from modern biblical scholarship, philosophy and psychology, and they feed the mind; The Nail’s meditations are an imaginative re-construction of the way some of the main characters might have justified their actions, and they feed the emotions. Love Set Free makes some startling connections in the symbolism worked out in Jesus’ life and quotes from some unexpected sources; The Nail has interesting slants on the feelings of its people (Peter, Caiaphas, Mary Magdalene, for instance) and each chapter closes with a very moving prayer.

As always, itís a question of what we, the readers, are looking for. If itís a book to enrich our experience of Lent and Easter through deep, cerebral reflection, then Love Set Free is excellent material; it might be a little too esoteric, however, for some groups, and better kept for personal use. If youíre looking for something to inspire small groups who are used to exercising their imagination and not afraid of their emotions, then The Nail could hardly be improved upon. Both books do precisely what it says on the tin: Love Set Free’s subtitle is Meditations on Christís Passion; The Nail’s is Being Part of the Passion. And they both do it very well.

Ruth Allen is a retired United Reformed Church minister living in Ilkeston, Derbyshire

Helpful re-framing of religious language

Trevor Jamison

Speaking Christian: Recovering the Lost Meaning of Christian words
Marcus J Borg
SPCK
£9.99

Are you “born again”? Or do you avoid this term? If asked, how would you explain the meaning of the word “salvation”? Marcus Borg believes that much Christian language has become a stumbling block, both to the general public and to many Christians. For him, the original, rich meanings of many Christian words have been reduced and distorted by being put within what he calls a “heaven-and-hell framework”; this framework equates Christianity with finding forgiveness of sins (through belief in Jesus) in order to get to heaven, and is usually associated with a literalist or near-literalistic reading of the Bible.

Believing that peoples are defined by shared language, he declines to discard the traditional words of the Christian faith and instead, in 23 short chapters, always clearly written, sets out to “recover” their meaning for today. He includes words such as “Bible”, “God”, “faith” and “repentance”, as well as “collections of words” such as “the Lord’s Prayer” and the Creeds. The absence of chapters on the words “prayer” and “healing”, however, is a disappointment.

Throughout, he seeks to be constructive – pointing to the additional metaphorical meanings that can be added to what he terms “literal-historical” readings (his scathing assessment of “the rapture” is an exception). Borg’s framework for faith emphasises sharing Godís passion for transforming individuals and the world in the here and now – a passion revealed to us through the life, teaching and actions of Jesus. The Bible retains its central importance because, for Borg, to cease to see the Bible as authoritative is to cease to be a Christian, but Jesus, as word of God, ‘trumps the Bible’!

Those struggling to hold on to a Christian faith presented in traditional terms alone will find this book helpful, perhaps liberating. Those who place greater importance upon the ìliteral-historicalî aspects of faith, concerning the resurrection for example, won’t always be convinced, though Borg offers much about how we all have to live and speak our faith in this world, not just in a world to come.

Trevor Jamison is a United Reformed Church minister at Billericay, Brentwood and Ingatestone URCs, Essex

A book I will remember by Duncan Wilson

Quarantine by Jim Crace, first published by Viking, 1997

I think it was Christmas. Anyway, I was buying books for friends and needed a third book to qualify for the Waterstoneís ìthree for twoî offer (now, sadly discontinued). The cover design for Quarantine stood out among the heap ñ a lone figure trudging across a desert waste. It also advertised the book as the Whitbread Novel of the Year (1997) with a quote from the Guardian: “A marvellous book”, and so it proved to be.

This is what the back cover told me:

Two thousand years ago four travellers enter the Judean desert to fast and pray for their lost souls. In the blistering heat and barren rocks they encounter the merchant Musa – madman, sadist, rapist, even a Satan – who holds them in his tyrannical power. Yet there is another, a faint figure in the distance, fasting for 40 days, a Galilean who they say has the power to work miracles… Here, trapped in the wilderness, their terrifying battle for survival begins…

The critical acclaim for this book is not misplaced. It is a work, as Nick Hornby testifies, of extraordinary imagination. It is not only the landscape which comes to life but the characters within it. Almost the whole range of human frailties, needs, hopes, dreads and dysfunction are played out before us within the timeless story of cynical exploitation and victimisation. Jesus, seeking only isolation, is unwillingly caught up in it. The story captures the earnestness of his quarantine to paint a picture of a young man, little more than a boy, with echoes of his siblings’ taunts ringing in his ears, searching for God, for vision, for assurance and purification.

Woven gently into all this are Crace’s deft references to Psalmist, Prophet and Gospel (let the reader understand). Both Craceís imagination and humanity leave one indebted. His is the Jesus we meet in Gethsemane.

Duncan Wilson is a retired United Reformed Church minister

Janet Lees assesses what came out of the United Reformed Churchís recently-concluded, three-year initiative to encourage local church renewal

The three years of the Vision4Life process – Bible Year, Prayer Year and Evangelism Year – concluded on 30 November 2011. We’ve been doing an evaluation of the process and preparing a booklet for churches to use to consider their next move. The booklet is on its way to churches and includes four sessions to help us all consider what we have learned from Vision4Life. Our website, www.vision4life.org.uk, which will continue at the same address for at least a year, is also being reorganised so that interested churches and individuals will be able to find all the archived material there.

Twenty three per cent of those invited to take part in our online Vision4Life survey responded – a positive figure for a survey of this kind. My comments here are based on what we learned from the survey.

Altogether, over three years, nine of the 13 United Reformed Church Synods signed up to encourage churches in their Synod to explore Vision4Life. The number of participating churches in each Synod varied from 16 in one to 84 in another.

After a year where there has been endless talk of social breakdown and a loss of values in modern Britain, Enid Robson begins 2012 looking back to years, and especially Sundays, past

Sunday when I was young always seemed special. There were no shops open or any activities. Sunday was kept purely for going to church. Everyone put on their best clothes (hence “Sunday best”). The local Anglican church we attended was just at the bottom of the street so we did not have far to walk. My parents, aunt and grandparents also attended that church.

Our vicar, Mr Bailey, liked to encourage young ones into church. He encouraged us to join the choir. As an extra incentive to attend church he would give us a stamp which we put on a card; when it was full we could choose either a biome, hymn book or Bible story book. We had to go to church three times on a Sunday. Morning service, Sunday school in the afternoon and evening service. As we went regularly, we, like most of our friends, were in the choir. I remember the boys in their black cassocks and white surplices and the girls had to wear a blue veil covering their hair; women usually wore a hat to church.

When I was about 14, my friend Dorothy and I decided we were too old to go to Sunday school. It was no good telling my mum this, so a few Sundays we went out as if we were going to church, but instead we went to the local park and sat there talking – until one Sunday, on returning home, we found both our mums very angry with us. Of course we were grounded for a while, but at least we did not go back to Sunday school.

Carol Andrews asks whether ideas of ìradical welcomeî in the church will be enough to embrace one of the most marginalised groups of people in our society

God made diversity, yet all too often people are more comfortable with conformity. In the natural world, new discoveries are constantly being made and marvelled at, but human beings who vary from the accepted norm don’t always get the same enthusiastic response.

I have befriended and support a group of people who quite often feel marginalised or rejected, demoralised or ridiculed. These people are transgender – born in the body of the opposite gender. Many of them are aware of this condition from a very early age, as young as five years old. A little boy will want to wear his sister’s clothes, but may be ridiculed if he does so. He doesn’t fit in with his peer group and would really prefer to play with the girls but is discouraged from doing so, either by his peers or adults. So he becomes isolated, even as a child, because he identifies as female but has a male body.

Being transgender (TG) is a known medical condition, most probably caused by variations in foetal hormone levels. TG people did not ask to be born this way and it is not a choice. What is more, it doesn’t go away or fade as the person gets older. Very commonly the reverse is true, as most TG people suffer from dysphoria – the conflict between mind and body – more and more with age and so the urge to cross-dress gets even stronger.

In the wake of this yearís Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, just past, David WT Brattston examines the thinking of some of the first Christians, about what meaningful unity might entail

What is Christian unity in the biblical sense? Is it merely two neighbouring congregations of the same denomination sponsoring a joint meal? Or two congregations of different denominations doing so? Intercommunion agreements? Co-operation in the World Council of Churches, and similar national and local organisations?

Or did Jesus and his first followers mean nothing less than the thoroughgoing structural union of previously independent denominations?

Jesus called for unity among Christians – as indicated in John 10.16 (“There will be one flock, one shepherd”) and his oft-cited prayer in John 17: “that they may be one, as we are one”. But these do not tell us exactly what Christian unity is, or how we can know it exists in a particular situation or community.

We must therefore examine the Bible and the earliest non-biblical Christian sources to see what “unity” means and how we can work towards it. Consulting the earliest post-biblical sources enables us to ascertain the meaning of such unity in the practice of the apostles and how unity was understood in the next few overlapping generations.

Elizabeth Welch hails the forthcoming joint Anglican/United Reformed Church service at Westminster Abbey, and considers its significance for future cooperation between the two denominations

On arriving in Venice last August for a holiday, I received a text: “Are you OK?” Hackney, where I live and minister, was swept up in the riots, with the flames of cars burning and the smashing of shop windows filling the TV screens. I spent the next three days emailing back and forth, including drafting an ecumenical church leaders’ statement to go to the press. One of the few remaining ministers in Hackney was the Anglican rector, fulfilling a role of representing all the churches on the streets of Hackney.

On 7 February 2012, Westminster Abbey will host a joint service between the Church of England and the United Reformed Church, marking historic resolutions passed in the summer of 2011 between our two separated churches.

Forty years previously, the URC came into being, with a commitment to wider unity. Three hundred and fifty years ago, the Act of Uniformity led to the ejection of 2,000 ministers from the Church of England. 2012 marks these two anniversaries and will see the next step on the journey of closer working between our two churches – not for our own sakes, but for God’s sake and for the sake of a troubled world.