Much is being done to address poverty and inequality, and God is at
work in churches, communities, and individuals, as God always has
been. But many people continue to struggle in a myriad of ways,
and opportunities are not equally available to all, with poverty
being deepened by a cost-of-living crisis involving soaring energy
bills and housing costs, with a backdrop of a climate crisis. The level
of poverty and destitution in the UK is scandalous, and the hostile
environment for asylum seekers fosters fear and uncertainty,
leaving people in limbo. We find ourselves asking how the Church
responds to this – to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly,
whilst acknowledging that our place in society has changed and our
prominence diminished, and with low confidence in our political
voice on a local level.
One growing response among churches is adopting community
organising methodology, acting for social justice in partnership
with other local institutions and empowering ordinary local people
experiencing injustice to take a lead. This is one way the local
church may be able to regain its confidence in working for social
justice ‘upstream’ and being more politically vocally and active. It
also fits in well with the slow journey of the Church to become less
patriarchal and colonial in its approach to addressing poverty and
inequality.
There are numerous methods for enacting social justice
– marches, community organising, petitions, direct action,
boycotting, working with MPs or local councillors – and these are
used for different reasons at different times. Community organising
is about bringing people together to win change through building
community-led solutions. It’s about shifting the balance of power
back towards everyday people, people power or relational power,
in response to the imbalance of power held by the market and businesses (financial power) and elected power holders (positional
power).
Community organising is for those who want to do something
about injustice, and despite the Church’s record of sometimes
remaining silent or actively pursuing injustice, the Church has
been a powerful agent for social good. Justice is interwoven into
the Bible, our liturgy, and who we know God to be. We see churches
around the UK leading by example; running community initiatives
meeting the needs of others, and praying for change. Social action,
responding to human need by loving service, is part and parcel of
the life of the Church.
What we see less often is Church action which seeks to transform
unjust structures of society. Understandably it is easier to meet the
immediate needs of people in our churches and communities (i.e.
the symptoms of injustice) and much harder to know how to tackle
the root causes of injustice. Social justice work can be complicated,
slow, and often requires long-term commitment. But if the Church
wants to see people flourish, living life to the full, and the ‘peace
and prosperity’ of our cities, towns, and villages, it has a role to
play in transforming unjust structures of society.
Five years ago, the Diocese of Oxford invited community
organisers Citizens UK to the Thames Valley region to see if people
wanted to be part of forming two new Citizens UK alliances; one
in Oxford, and another in Reading. An existing alliance in Milton
Keynes (Citizens: MK) had been active since 2010, and so there was
a vision to grow community organising more widely across Thames
Valley. The Diocese of Oxford hoped that this invitation, and the
seed funding that accompanied it, would see churches join with
others, across difference, united by a shared concern for neighbour
and place, and in the pursuit of social justice.
Through this work, churches have been involved in building
campaigns on migration justice, safer streets, housing justice,
and the real living wage. The work here is only just beginning but
already we have seen organisations like the University of Oxford,
Thames Valley Police, charities like Aspire, and local authority
leaders, agree to work with us on specific asks for the common
good. Church leaders have also been supported to talk with their
MPs and campaign on issues they care about, like child detention
being included in the Illegal Migration Bill. The Diocese of Oxford’s has also enabled us to find homes for over 200 Ukrainian refugees
with hosts across the diocese.
Churches engaging with community organising isn’t new, but
it is growing. Citizens UK is already active and engaging various
denominations of churches across 17 different alliance locations,
from Essex, to Somerset, to Newcastle, and London. And Anglican
dioceses with no existing Citizens UK presence are exploring how
community organising could enable churches in their areas also to
engage with social justice and politics – on critical contemporary
issues like the rising cost of living, migration justice, and climate
justice.
We are realising that it is often easier and more immediate to
offer charity, than to advocate for change and address root causes;
providing a food parcel to a hungry person – as important as that
is – isn’t sufficient alone. Real justice requires us to also understand
and eliminate the root causes of poverty and inequality, addressing
why people are struggling to afford food in the first place. But this
presents churches with the question: ‘but how?’
If we are to be an alive Church, or a younger and more diverse
Church, our response to poverty and inequality cannot be a side
venture or something we do once we are high functioning, but
must be central to all we do. We live in a culture that distrusts,
and is less likely to join institutions, with younger generations who
have not been brought up in Church but expect the Church to live
up to its morals rather than force them on others. We must live out
what we believe, usher the world ‘as it should be’ (or asking God’s
kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven).
By working together, the weight of action is spread across
organisations and individuals, making the burden lighter.
Community organising is part of the Church’s need to decentre
Church action to expand our impact in terms of addressing poverty
and inequality. The Addressing Poverty and Inequality1 report found
how successful community engagement often occurred when
churches worked in partnership, either with other churches or
with external organisations. The decentring of Church action
sees churches partnering on initiatives whilst not necessarily
leading them. Leaders we spoke to noticed that the Church’s role
in society was changing and saw decentring and partnership as an for increasing our impact as we address poverty and
inequality.
Citizens UK seeks to be non-partisan; political, but not party
political, aiming to work with whoever is in power, regardless of
which party they represent. Their action focuses on issues that
matter to local people, aims which the majority of us would agree
on as being good pursuits regardless of where we sit on the political
spectrum. In some political contexts the Church’s beliefs are looked
down on or compartmentalised, whereas the work of Citizens UK
values the beliefs of people of faith (and those of no faith) – they
are seen as parts of the whole person, and key to understanding
individual motivations for involvement.
The phrase used by Desmond Tutu, ‘there is only one way to
eat an elephant: a bite at a time’ illustrates how any big, seemingly
insurmountable task should be broken down into smaller, more
manageable steps. This is what community organising does, by
taking a problem and working out an issue with a clearly defined
and achievable ask to be presented and negotiate over with a power
holder. And social justice is not just about setting wrongs right,
it is also about restoring and maintaining right relationship with
each other and, as we would believe as Christians, also with God.
Building relationships is central to the community organising
methodology, for in the lack of financial or positional power, civil
society must seek to raise relational power. But beyond that it is
about understanding each other better, working collaboratively,
sharing our experiences and hearing those of others, understanding
our own motivations and drivers for our involvement.
The way that the Church, and indeed the broader third sector,
has attempted to tackle poverty and inequality, locally and globally,
has been shaped by our colonial and patriarchal history (and, to
some extent, present). This has seen us create solutions from our
own perspectives, with limited consultation or involvement of
the people at the sharp end of the injustice or poverty. We have
not questioned whether we know best, believing that it is enough
that we’re seeking to serve others. We expect the recipients of our
actions to be grateful, and are hurt, even angry, when they are not.
We other those who are experiencing poverty and inequality, and
present them as helpless.
The wider third-sector context is seeing a gradual shift, where many charitable organisations that were set up with a paternalistic,
even colonial, approach to poverty and inequality, are actively
working to change their model. In 2022, Oxfam, Christian Aid,
Save the Children, and other aid and development organisations
signed up for Pledge for Change, committing to make more of their
organisations’ power, money and decision-making sit locally. The
aim is to work more collaboratively with local partners, ensuring
authentic storytelling which avoids exploitative imagery, speaking
on others’ behalf, and portraying people as helpless victims.2
When it comes to issues of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia,
and transphobia, many organisations and decision-making bodies
have realised they can’t just talk about people. Decisions and plans
must be made with and by people who have ‘lived experience’. I see
the Church attempting to do this, appointing people to roles and
organising working groups with greater representation and lived
expertise, but we must continue to do this better. Community
organising aligns with the desire of the Church to listen better, and
to be led by individuals and communities who hold lived expertise.
Conclusion
So now that Reading and Oxford Citizens alliances are launched,
we in the Diocese of Oxford are starting to think about what is
next for community organising in the Thames Valley. How else can
churches be supported to utilise community organising principles,
to hear what is really making people’s lives difficult, and to work
with others to be part of that change, and how less urbanised areas
might use community organising? And as we wait for the next
General Election to be called, we consider how hustings and voting
might serve as a catalyst for long-term justice work.
For some churches, tackling social justice continues to feel ‘too
political’ – the church is there for everyone, regardless of political
affiliations, and church leaders express the difficulty of engaging
with politics without being party political, or share how they have
been on the receiving end of criticism for sermons that included
comments about the Rwanda plan, the suicide of an asylum seeker
on the Bibby Stockholm barge, or about the climate crisis.
It is easy to see why we might feel this way, when we are told
Archbishops have no right to speak against political policy, that it’s
inappropriate for bishops to hold seats in the House of Lords, or when Miriam Cates MP, herself a Christian in politics, shared how
she believes the Church should stay out of politics! Yet with the
Church’s historic role in the public sphere and the opportunity we
have to seek justice here, we are encouraging churches to rebuild
their confidence in political engagement, and to utilise community
organising methodology to do so.
The Church has something to say about human flourishing
and has a calling to speak out and stand up against injustice and
poverty. Community organising certainly seems like an obvious
tool for the Church to act with others, and the investment in this
work with Citizens UK in the Thames Valley is beginning to bear
fruit.
Postscript: A snapshot of poverty in the UK
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report that 13.4 million people
were living in poverty in 2020/21 – that is one in five people in
the UK.3 As well as poor financial outcomes, experiencing poverty
is connected to worse living standards, physical and mental
health, educational attainment, and social outcomes. Those
receiving Universal Credit, in rented accommodation, of a UKME
background, and in households including a disabled person or an
informal carer, are disproportionately experiencing poverty.4
Whilst for many, the reality of struggling to afford essentials
such as heating, school uniforms for children, and even food, is
not new, the cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated this. The lowestincome
households had limited or no financial buffer to adapt to
rising costs pushing many to pay for essentials with credit or going
into arrears, and, in some cases, parents reducing the number of
meals they eat to ensure their children have enough food.5
Meanwhile, foodbank use continues to soar, with the Trussell
Trust providing 1.5 million emergency food parcels to families and
individuals across the UK between April and September 2023, a
16% rise from the same period the previous year.6 The Trussell
Trust warns that ‘food banks are at ‘breaking point’ as more and
more people find themselves unable to afford the essentials.’7
Additionally, Joseph Rowntree’s research shows that 3.8 million
people in 2022 experienced destitution, when people are struggling
to meet their most basic needs of staying warm, dry, clean, and fed.8
And it is disproportionately affecting the unhoused, those in social housing, single parents, migrants, and people with disabilities.
Many will find it surprising that it is not just those on Universal
Credit who are struggling. One in ten experiencing destitution are
working; their wages are not enough to even meet basic needs. The
report also noted the crushing impact of debt pushing people from
poverty to destitution.
The Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation have
joined together to ask the UK government to reform Universal
Credit to ensure that our social security system is sufficient for
people to afford essentials, including after any deductions or caps.
Our current system means that 90% of low-income households on
Universal Credit are going without essentials because they cannot
afford them.9
In line with these findings, senior leaders from churches and
charities across the UK (including Christian Aid, Churches Together
in England, and Tearfund) are calling political leaders to create and
share their plans to eradicate extreme poverty and halve overall
poverty by 2030, both in the UK and globally.10 This feels like a
huge undertaking, but with the political will, many believe this is
possible. It is a national, and international scandal that we are still
allowing such widespread and deep poverty.