CTC Fellow David Barclay – who co-ordinated our work on responsible finance – blogs on our new report with Durham University on churches, money and debt.
“Any time we talk about money it’s, you know, ‘you should be giving’, and that’s it. Not how should you be living your life, what should you be valuing, where do you put your treasure.”
Dr Julia Ipgrave is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Education at the University of Warwick. Here she blogs for us about her new report, published by CTC…
This summer saw the launch of a new CTC report, Grassroots Theologies of Inter Faith Encounter. The publication was introduced in Hamburg at a conference on inter religious relations in north European cities organised by Hamburg University Academy of World Religions. The CTC report contributed perspectives from Londoners on their experiences and understandings of encounter with neighbours of different religions and cultures in this super diverse city. In accordance with the ethos of CTC the report seeks to break down the idea of ‘theology’ as the preserve of a particular group of experts by putting the voice of those who live and work in deprived and diverse communities at the heart of conversation in theology and public life in general.
Our Development Director, Tim Thorlby, blogs on the launch of our new report ‘Our Common Heritage’ which explores the potential for churches and housing associations to transform the lives of many…
In the UK today more than 5 million people rent their home from a housing association. These not-for-profit voluntary sector housing bodies are a feature of almost every community in the country. They now provide more than half of the UK’s affordable homes for rent, with local councils providing the rest.
It was not always so.
Selina Stone, of our researchers, blogs about our exciting new research into community organising in the Pentecostal Church…
Black Pentecostal churches are growing in both social and political significance in the UK. We are pleased to be conducting research into the civic involvement of Black Pentecostal churches through community organising. I’m writing this report alongside Bishop Moses Owusu-Sekyere of the Apostolic Pastoral Congress and CTC’s Director, Canon Dr Angus Ritche.We’re keen to report our findings but also encourage greater participation in community organising as a way of both developing congregations and transforming local communities.
Across the UK, churches are engaging with community organising and as a result, are being equipped to effectively bring about change in their local communities. Whether campaigning for the Living Wage, tackling payday lenders or targeting injustices in the immigration system, churches are making their political voices heard. For some denominations this comes as second nature, from strong theological and doctrinal foundations. However, for other more recent church groups such as Pentecostals, practical ministry can sometimes overtake theological statements.
David Barclay, the Centre’s Faith in Public Life Officer, blogs on our latest report, which he has co-edited with our Director, Angus Ritchie.
As he explains, the report on exploitative lending has been launched on the very best of days, as our Just Money campaign with Citizens UK celebrated a historic victory!
Yesterday the Government announced that they would be capping the cost of credit, bringing to an end the unrestricted interest rates and penalty fees currently charged by payday lenders. Today it has emerged that the Archbishop of Canterbury played a key role in this decision. So it is a very good time to announce CTC’s latest publication – ‘God and the Moneylenders: faith and the battle against exploitative lending’.
Our Development Director Tim Thorlby blogs on what happened at the first of the Centre’s new programme of seminars for local church leaders.
The seminar tackled the challenge of ‘gangs and street violence’ and also saw the launch of our latest report Taking Back the Streets: Citizens’ responses to the 2011 riots.
On Tuesday 12th November, the Centre welcomed a diverse group of local church leaders and practitioners from across London to take part in the first of our new programme of seminars on ‘Theology for the Local Church’. These seminars – which are hosted at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine in east London – aim to equip local churches with the latest theology and practice on a key issue and then to provide the space for discussion and reflection.
Last month, CTC organised a major conference on “Global Migration and the Building of a Common Life.”
Centre Director Angus Ritchie blogs on the two-day event, and on the resources which are coming out for local congregations and for academics.
Our conference on “The New Cosmopolitanism: Global migration and the building of a common life” is the culmination of two years of work for the University of Notre Dame’s Contending Modernities (CM) research project.
On 12th November, we are launching a new report – Taking Back the Streets: Citizens’ responses to the 2011 riots. It will be the first report in our exciting new series on ‘Research for the Local Church’.
Here, Centre Director Angus Ritchie blogs about the significance of the report.
In the summer of 2011, London experienced riots which were quite unprecedented in their scale. What was new in 2011 was that the police seemed unable to keep order in a significant number of neighbourhoods. Never before had so many Londoners had direct experience of civil disorder; of streets that no longer felt secure.
Policing a population is only ever possible by consent: with the active participation of the community. The riots highlighted both the fragility of civil society and its vital role in keeping our streets safe. They led many Londoners to a renewed effort to reclaim their streets as places of safety and community.
