Church Social Responsibility in the South West of England Over the Last Four Decades
ADRIAN SLADE, ANDREW YATES, COLIN BRADY, DAVID MAGGS, MARTYN GOSS
Introduction
During the 1980s through to 2020, the Social Responsibility (SR) ministry of the Christian churches in general, and Anglican dioceses in particular, made a considerable impact on community life. Much is undocumented and, in the absence of diocesan archives, is not well recorded, although some of the work continues to this day and has developed into new initiatives in mission. This article is an attempt to articulate its operation in the South West through these years.
The work of SR, or ‘Church and Society’, was a powerful expression of mutuality, partnership and contextual theology. During most of this period, the UK was an active member of the European Union, with its emphasis on ‘regionalism’. Subsidiarity from the national state sees the outworking of autonomous governance through the EU, varying from regional parliaments to linguistic areas, from economic strategies to cultural festivities.
The same was partly true in Britain after 1997, with the establishment of national parliaments, semi-elected regional assemblies, development agencies, government offices and regional MEPs. Churches engaged with some of these structures and even had elected positions on influential bodies. A South West Churches Transport Group, for instance, fed into the Regional Assembly and shaped some of its policy decisions at that time.1
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