Editorial
CRISES in various areas are addressed in this issue of SEARCH: the deepening shortfall of vocations to ministry in the Church; the anxiety about populism’s threat to responsible democracy in Europe; and current spiritual challenges to the church and individuals, in the face of falling church attendance and rising suicide rates.
V Revd Lynda Peilow, our Central Director of Ordinands, leads off with an incisive survey of our needs in the C of I, followed by ‘vocations’ veteran Canon Stephen Ferns with some helpful new ideas from the C of V. Revd. E. Paul Draper and Revd. Timothy Kinahan follow up with further thoughts from Ireland south and north. Action required here!
Since Revd Darren McCallig, SEARCH’s former hon. secretary, left his TCD chaplaincy for Denmark nine years ago, we have often thought of him as in exile. Now he writes from his parish just south of London with reflections on ministry away from home. “Thinking allowed” remains his watchword, however varied his congregations and their context- and in Europe a “context” could mean hundreds of miles from one church to another of a Sunday. Canon Jack McDonald, writing more generally of the Church in Europe facing this month’s elections, comments that Irish Anglicans have an increasing presence in Europe, as do those of African origin. It is left to the Ven Leslie Stevenson, in our next article, to comment on the divergence between European and African views on scripture and how mutual listening is needed to avoid schism.
For more specifically spiritual challenges, we are led by Fr Jack Finnegan’s “Deliver us from Evil” to consider how best to help and heal individuals who have been so traumatised that they are led to damage other people and themselves, and increasingly to suicide. The line between psychotherapy and exorcism can be a porous one which only highly discerning helpers can hope to navigate. The hope for “spiritual awakening”, by comparison, remains realistic, even while congregations diminish, as post-pandemic research from Most Revd Richard Clarke demonstrates, before we turn to our Book Reviews.
Finally a big ‘Thankyou’ to V Revd Gregory Dunstan, who will take over as our subscriptions and finance
manager when Michael Denton retires later this year; and to Mr Denton for his years of devoted service.
THE ATTRACTION of answering God’s call to Holy Orders lies in the potential for personal transformation, spiritual growth and a deep sense of purpose. It offers a path towards greater love, compassion and connection with God. Embracing this call has the potential to provide comfort, peace, and guidance in navigating life’s challenges.
HOW TO encourage vocations to the ordained ministry has become a major question for the churches in the modern world. In the hope that an account of Church of England experience in this area can help in the Irish context, this article will outline how from early in this century the C. of E. has been encouraging vocations through the Archbishops’ Council’s Ministry Division. I hope my reflections on my 13 years working there will be of interest in the Church of Ireland as you face your own challenges regarding vocations in your particular context.
AS DIOCESAN directors of ordinands we journey together with those exploring a calling and listen to the story of their felt experiences. We encourage them to go slowly and go deeper. When the disciples on the Emmaus road truncate their sharing with the stranger by asking “Are you the only one who does not know the things that have happened?” Jesus replies “What things?”. Go further, go deeper in. Embodying attentive presence, Jesus has them explore the depths of their experience, and only then does he begin to share with them. Handling what they have shared gently, he reconfigures their experience around his death on the cross, and without jettisoning their emotional investment or the actual events, he opens a kingdom discernment of their relevance.
THE ORDAINED MINISTRY is both attractive and scary. Attractive because it is both privileged and deeply rewarding; and scary because of the responsibilities incumbent on the priest in today’s world. But it also becoming less attractive in a world of dwindling attendances, parochial amalgamations and stretched resources, all of which put huge pressure on serving clergy. The idea of being the rector of a 7-church benefice (to use the English term), rushing from service to service on a Sunday, and driving significant miles around a scattered parish, is hardly appealing.
BACK IN LATE 2014, as I was preparing to move from Dublin to Copenhagen, I was given a farewell gift by a clergy friend - a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “I speak Danish – what’s your superpower?” I thought it was quite funny until I signed up for language classes and discovered just why it is that Danish children start speaking at a later age than almost any others in the world!
SINCE 2022 it has been my privilege to act as adviser on EU affairs to Dr. Robert Innes, Bishop of Gibraltar-in-Europe and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s permanent representative to the European Union, a part- time post generously funded by Lambeth Palace.1 The title “adviser for EU affairs in the Anglican permanent representation to the EU” sounds impressive until we look at how other Churches organise their representation to the EU.
IN 1980 I completed a thesis , “A Divided Church? The Church of Ireland 1968-1978”. In the thesis I pointed to tensions and divisions. Now, over 40 years after ordination, it may be worth revisiting what I wrote then and posing the question: Do those tensions and divisions still exist? Or have they morphed into something different?
AS DALLAS Willard put it, how we live in the world now and in the future is a result of what we have become in the depths of our being, through our spiritual history and choices.1 It is here that the importance of inner healing and deliverance comes to the fore: deliver us from evil. Inner healing focuses on abundant life in God, repairing brokenness, hurt and all that disturbs our relationships with others, God and ourselves.
IT SEEMS clear that the Covid-19 virus has not obligingly ‘gone away’. That said, ‘Covid’ does not at present dominate national consciousness and discourse in Ireland as it did for the first two and a half years of this decade. However, experiencing the pandemic in whatever way unquestionably affected the physical and mental wellbeing of many people throughout the island, and some of the trauma has endured. Both the physical and psychological legacies of the pandemic are being carefully studied as necessary areas for investigation.
