Contemporary Challenges Relating to Church, State and Welfare 

Author: Dr Joseph Forde
 
Whose responsibility is it to clear up the snow? That was the question the Archbishop of York, the Right Revd Dr Stephen Cottrell, asked Terry Drummond and I, at an event held at Manchester Cathedral recently, at which we celebrated the publication of Celebrating forty years of ‘Faith in the City’, [1] the book we had recently edited. So, let us ponder on that question for a moment.
 
As an individual, I think I have the responsibility to clear up the snow in the garden at the back of our house in Chesterfield. And, when my children were living there (they have long since flown the nest), I am sure my wife and my two daughters would have joined me in that endeavour, not least so that we could all have indulged ourselves in a snowball fight, as we often did.  We would also have cleared up the snow in the entry to our house and probably the snow on the pavement outside of our front door, too. And, we often did the same for one of our neighbours; she was an aged and infirm lady who I remember well, not least for the fruit cakes that she used to bake for us as a way of saying thank you. Yet, we never cleared up the snow that was on the public highway outside of our house, or, for that matter, on the motorway four miles away from it, and there were reasons for that, which I shall return to.
 
Let us take this analogy just one step further. What responsibility does the Church have for clearing up the snow? Well, I assume that, like me and my family, if it had a back garden it would have that responsibility and the same would apply for its grounds and probably for the pavements at its entrances, too.  But, like me and my family, it would not have the responsibility for clearing up the snow on the highway outside of its grounds and there are reasons for that.  Here are some of them: it would not have the machinery for doing it on the scale that was necessary; it would not have the trained personnel capable of operating that machinery in a safe way; it would not have the financial resources necessary for doing it, as it is not empowered to levy taxes and to spend money on the public’s behalf; it would not be insured to do it; there would not be a public expectation for it to do so; and, most importantly, as we live in a liberal democracy, it would not be held accountable by the public for doing it and that is an important consideration.
 
Who should have the Responsibility for Welfare? 
 
Now, let us substitute the word snow for welfare, and you will see where I am taking this. Who should have the responsibility for the provision of welfare in a liberal democracy such as ours? Well, I am the view, and it is a view that was shared by the commissioners who wrote the Faith in the City report back in 1985, that Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944) was, and remains, a pivotal source of wisdom on this matter, and much else, too. For it was Temple who displayed a level of intellectual and, to a degree, theological nuance, when writing about welfare, that makes him, arguably, the most important contributor to Anglican social policy in his lifetime and since. Yet, sadly, today, he is too often misinterpreted and misrepresented by some from within and beyond the Church of England, who see it differently. For these thinkers, and I would include names such as the Anglo-Catholic theologians John Milbank and Phillip Blond amongst them, [2] Temple’s vision of a Welfare State was too ‘statist’, something that ceded too much ground to the political sphere and thus away from the Church of England; something that has contributed to the rising level of disaffiliation and reduced religious observance that the Church of England has witnessed since the early 1960s, despite the overwhelming historical evidence that suggests otherwise. [3]
 
Yet, the reality was something other. Temple’s vision of a Welfare State was pluralist. He recognised the important, but very different, roles and responsibilities that individuals, families, intermediate level groupings such as churches, and politicians, both local and national in their respective remits, could, and should, play in a liberal democracy in the provision of welfare. What is more, these roles and responsibilities were to work in tandem, not to be shaped so much by market forces as shaped more by welfare needs. And, in the period since the end of the Second World War, Ignorance, Squalor, Want, Idealness and Disease, William Beveridge’s Five Giant Evils, were, in significant part, tamed via this route. [4] It was a vision that Temple, Titmus, Tawney, Keynes, Attlee, Bevan, Morrison, et al, got behind, and it is why we still have a Welfare State in England today, though, sadly, as we know, Temple didn’t live long enough to see it come to fruition.
 
Now, as you will no doubt have gathered, it is a vision on welfare that I believe the authors of Faith in the City were right to have defended forty years ago, when it had come under sustained attack from advocates in Mrs Thatcher’s government, of a new, neo-liberal vision, that saw the government’s arm of the Welfare State as being too big, too costly, too collectivist in its ethos, and instead sought to reduce it by returning to a more charitable, family and individualistically focused approach to welfare provision. By contrast, I am of the view that Temple’s vision of a Welfare State is as relevant now as it was when he wrote it, and it is something that should continue to shape our approach to welfare in the coming years. To say that, of course, is not in any way to imply that the Welfare State is not continually in need of reform and refinement, to meet the ever-changing welfare needs and expectations of a society such as ours. For example, affordability remains a key concern in an economy that has only achieved modest economic growth since the financial crash of 2008.  But it is to say, that the underlying vision that Temple had for it, remains as sound today as when he wrote it.
 
So, what can the Church of England do to ensure that it optimises its contribution to securing Temple’s vision of a Welfare State over the next forty years?  No doubt there are many things, but I am briefly going to touch on just three.
 
From ‘Welfare to Wellbeing’
 
First, I think it should embrace the intellectual perspective that has emerged since 2011, that comes under the title ‘from welfare to wellbeing’, about which I have written in my chapter in our book. So, what do I mean by, ‘from welfare to wellbeing’? Well, in many ways, it’s all about discerning whose responsibility it is to clear up the snow. I first came across this perspective in a book by John Atherton, Chris Baker and John Reader of 2011 called, Christianity and the New Social Order, [5] an obvious play on the original title of Temple’s book of 1942, Christianity and Social Order, [6] in which they distinguish between welfare and wellbeing. The same theme was later taken up by Malcolm Brown, formerly Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the Church of England, in a document he wrote in 2016 called Thinking Afresh about Welfare: The Enemy Isolation. [7] And, more recently, Nick Spencer, the Senior Research Fellow at the Theos think tank in London, has written about it in an article published in Crucible: the Journal of Christian Social Ethics. [8]
 
So, let me try to illustrate the difference between welfare and wellbeing, by way of offering a hypothetical example. If somebody were to come along to a church and say they think they may be suffering from anorexia nervosa, how should the Church officer respond? I would argue that anorexia nervosa is a complex, clinical condition that would require professionally trained and skilled healthcare practitioners to handle in supporting that person towards a recovery. Indeed, to suggest otherwise, would be unethical and potentially dangerous. Therefore, it is very likely that the Church officer would, and should, suggest to that person that they seek assistance from either an NHS outlet (via an appointment with their GP), or a private sector healthcare outlet, with staff trained to provide that kind of support. Hence, this is what might appropriately be called a need for a welfare intervention.  By contrast, if a person were to come along to a Church officer and say they are suffering from friendlessness, loneliness or social isolation, these things do not, in my opinion, require professionally trained people to be able to provide support for that person. The skills needed are likely to be: time, patience, empathy, active listening abilities and, yes, even love — qualities and skills that many people who come to Church will possess in abundance. Hence, on this occasion, the Church officer should be able to say to that person: we may be able to help you! We have a range of group activities that you could choose from: Meet in the Pub Groups, Book Reading Groups, Knit and Natter Groups, Arts and Crafts Groups, Mums and Toddlers’ Groups (this is not an exhaustive list), as well as  a range of church services that you might want to try out. In this way, the Church avoids a temptation of competing with state- provided welfare services for the work that they are doing, in a naive attempt to ‘claw back’ lost, perceived relevance; it’s a temptation that, in my opinion, John Milbank and Phillip Blond have often, mistakenly, fallen for in their writings on welfare.  What is more, these wellbeing interventions have the added value of avoiding the possibility of some people in need of them, unnecessarily ending up in the welfare sector, and overburdening it.
 
The need for Policy Specific Recommendations
 
A second thing that the Church of England could do to optimise its contribution to securing Temple’s vision of a Welfare State over the next forty years, is to take note of the way that the recommendations in Faith in the City were written. They were written in a policy specific way, including those directed towards government, and I am of the view that this is one of the reasons why the report was as impactful as it was, despite not having much influence on reshaping government policy on welfare and related matters. There will always be an understandable reticence on the part of the Church when writing recommendations in a report to government in that way, stemming from a concern that it might lack the expertise necessary for doing so in a way that is credible. Temple wrote eloquently on this matter, stating: ‘the Church is concerned with principles and not with policy’. [9] However, in my view — and here I disagree with Temple — this approach can sometimes lead to bland, and hence easily ignored, recommendations. The obvious way of overcoming this concern would be for the Church of England to ensure that there is enough expertise in the room when the report is being researched and written; hence, by working more collaboratively with experts from outside of the Church in the field of welfare when writing about it, so as to be sure that the recommendations can be policy specific and credible. 
 
Keeping the Focus on Welfare
 
Finally, a third thing that the Church of England could do to optimise its contribution to securing Temple’s vision of a Welfare State over the next forty years, would be for it to focus its attention more on this aspect of its work. In this regard, a key theme of our book is a need for a renewed focus on urban mission and ministry, as well as on the contribution the Church of England can make to the provision of wellbeinginterventions. In this way, the Church of England can be a beacon of hope and a catalyst for social change. What is more, Terry Drummond and I are of the view that there is a need for a recovery of the report’s radical challenge, rooted in incarnational theology — and the strong links between the Church, faith, and society — as the best way of ensuring that the Church of England remains connected to urban communities. What better way of bringing that about than to tap into the healthcare background and welfare expertise of the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally.
 
Notes
 
[1] T. Drummond and J. Forde, Celebrating Forty years of Faith in the City (Durham: Sacristy Press, 2025).
2 J. Milbank, ‘The Big Society depends on the Big Parish’, ABC Religion and Ethics, 30 November, 2010. See also P. Blond, Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain (Faber & Faber, 2010).
3 For more on this, see J. Forde, Before and Beyond the ‘Big Society’: John Milbank and the Church of England’s Approach to Welfare (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 2022), pp. 146-156.
4 W. Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services (London: HMSO, 1942).
5 J. Atherton, C. Baker & J. Reader, Christianity and the New Social Order, a Manifesto for a Fairer Future, (London: SPCK, 2011).
6 W. Temple, Christianity and Social Order, (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1942).
7 M. Brown, Thinking Afresh about Welfare: The Enemy Isolation, (Church of England, 2016).
8 N. Spencer, ‘New Giants: Church, Welfare and Future’, Crucible: The Journal of Christian Social Ethics(October, 2024).
9 Temple, Christianity and Social Order, p. 43.
 
Dr Joseph Forde is the author of Before and Beyond the ‘Big Society’: John Milbank and the Church of England’s Approach to Welfare (James Clarke & Co., 2022) and the co-editor (with Terry Drummond) of Celebrating Forty Years of Faith in the City (Sacristy Press, 2025).

Author/copyright permissions: Joseph Forde
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash