John Smith writes: My wife sent me a text message a few months ago: ‘Could this be a possibility?’ Attached was an advertisement for a teaching post at a theological college. She thought that here was an opportunity, in that the college was giving preference to candidates who were female, from a non-white ethnic background, or working class. The post could have fitted me in many ways. And then I wryly smiled looking at the requirements for applicants: a PhD. Which begs the question: how many of the working class have PhDs? Yet again, my class background was held against me.
Not that you would know that I come from the working class. Like many working-class people who want to ‘climb up the ladder’ I try my best to hide it. According to my family history, I come from a long line of thieves, pickpockets, illegal pig skinners and even one female pirate. My grandparents on the one side were a Welsh dockworker and an Irish immigrant; on the other Gloucestershire rural working class and a Northumbrian factory worker—all brought together by the war. Nonconformism and the postwar economic boon gave an opportunity for their children to rise into the upper working class. My father took elocution lessons to try to rid himself of his accent to be ‘presentable’. It helped him get ahead and so raised him to that awkward blurred line between upper working class and lower middle class (think of Keeping Up Appearances). Our ‘outward presentation’ as a family didn’t match our inward capital.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the Blairite university push that the grandchildren had an opportunity for higher education. I grew up with a thick Black Country accent which I never noticed until university. I was a bright child, but because of my background I was always ‘behind’ the other children. I was given the opportunity to go to grammar school by my primary school, though I turned it down because I wanted to go to the same secondary school as my brother and sister. Only in later years would I discover that – according to my wife, who briefly worked there—the school was ‘dog rough’. I didn’t know any different. When it came to university, whereas other middle-class friends were offered opportunities to Oxbridge, Durham, Exeter etc, I went to one of the supposed ‘lower universities’. I would later come to realise that it was class that held me back—my parents knew I was bright but didn’t know how best to encourage it due to their class background and busy working life trying to pay the bills.
It was in university that I discovered something new: having a thick Black Country accent combined with a limited vocabulary was associated with stupidity. Not only did fellow students make fun of me, but I had the intelligence to notice that the lecturers would unconsciously disregard my answers in class. It hit hard on one occasion when I answered a question in my standard way and was told ‘Not quite’; then another student who spoke with elongated vowels made the exact same answer and was told, ‘That’s correct.’ On that day I decided to subtly change my accent over a gradual period (such that no one would notice). After three years, the transformation was complete: I learnt not to upwardly inflex at the end of sentences, spoke from the back of my throat, and elongated my vowels. I also learnt the mannerisms of the middle class—the way one holds one’s head up, where you put your hands, how to cross your legs when sitting – as well as the kind of clothing. I picked up a thesaurus and started memorising words. I learnt to speak confidently and assertively yet with enough tact for the niceties of politeness. The list goes on. By the time I graduated, you would never have known that one of my ancestors was hanged for killing someone in a tavern brawl.
It worked. The lecturers began to listen to me and to acknowledge my answers. I did very well at university—getting the highest mark by a long shot. After having a call into Anglican ministry I decided it would be best to do a bachelor’s in theology and applied for an Oxford college. I got a place. However, government policy changed so that you could no longer get loans for a second degree. All my family’s savings was not enough for a single term’s tuition fees. At this point I felt Dr Johnson was something of a kindred spirit – he too got into Oxford; he too had to leave because of financial difficulties. I didn’t even get as far as leaving. The college seemed surprised that my family didn’t have the money; after all, my accent and my mannerisms were by now nearly impeccable. I spent the next two years working in Perry Barr, Birmingham, for a hire purchase company. In my spare time, I decided to teach myself theology – much like my dockworker grandfather had taught himself philosophy back in the 40s (I have his much-read and annotated copy of Plato’s The Republic on my bookshelf).
However, the Church of England gave me opportunities like never before. I pursued my vocation to Anglican ministry and, three years after university, I was able to train at a theological college. What’s more, my intellect was noted by the DDO, who recommended I did the theology degree at the university department. My three years of privately reading theology gave me a head start: I was able to have informed conversations and debates as equals with first- and second-year PhD students. I received awards, including one for the highest grades in the department in my final year. Furthermore, I truly tried to present a ‘middle middle class’—I purchased a Tweed jacket (I could only afford Yorkshire rather than Harris tweed), brown brogues, chinos (both M&S), woollen shirt—the whole shebang. I once met a Swedish student with a passion for the clothing of the English gentleman, and I inwardly smiled before thinking to myself, ‘You’re no better!’ One of the best moments at college was when a lower middle-class ordinand said to me, ‘People like you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth’. ‘At last!’ I thought. ‘I’ve made it!’
Naturally, some of the upper middle class and upper-class students at university could tell something wasn’t quite right. For example, I was once picked up for how I say ‘neither’—which I said as ‘niyther’ whereas the ‘correct’ pronunciation was ‘neether’. I could never afford some of the restaurants that university friends invited me to, so I would use my status as an ordinand to make excuses. It wasn’t that I was ‘faking it’—by now, speaking with Queen’s pronunciation was as natural as going home and reverting to the Black Country accent.
The university department felt that I should pursue a doctorate. I was having conversations with some of the leading theologians in the world, each of whom was asking me to consider them as a doctoral advisor. The Principal at my theological college concurred with the department. The university and college would work on ways of getting funding. I spent the summer of my second year planning a thesis. I knew exactly what I wanted to do one day: teach ordinands. Yet, to my surprise, after I returned to college in the Autumn, I discovered that everything had changed. My new tutor and the Principal decided that I should do a curacy first. What is more, the college would not support me if I decided to do a doctorate. I was given 18 hours in which to make my decision. And then, after two years of living life as ‘middle middle class’, the reality of class came bursting in: I knew that unless I had the support of greater institutions, I had no chance. There was certainly not enough money back home to prop me up. I wouldn’t know how to apply for funds. And so, I acquiesced.
I was nevertheless devastated. I had found a passion which I was good at, and a sense of vocation, and in a moment, it had been snatched away. I have never received a proper explanation for the change of mind. Some friends tried to comfort me by saying that I could do a PhD in my curacy or in my incumbency. Others said that I could be like the lecturers at the theological college who teach whilst simultaneously doing a PhD. But it all felt a little hollow. I instinctively knew that trying to pursue a PhD whilst in a busy full-time job is a near impossibility. Indeed, I have known several ministers try and fail in the effort. But perhaps there was some truth in being a theological college lecturer?
Eleven years have now passed since that moment and the world has changed. Many of my friends who were undergrads in the theology department are now teaching in various parts of the world. Now, nearly every theological college lecturer post advertised requires a PhD. As seen at the start of this article, even opportunities for the working class require PhDs! My savings are focussed on trying to ensure I have a house when my wife and I retire – there is little spare for pursuing higher education. I certainly can’t afford a 0.5 or house-for-duty post to pursue a doctorate. And so, I plod on in parish ministry. But I still have this crazy hope that there will be an opportunity opened to do what I passionately feel God has called me to do: teach ordinands. Every now and then I catch myself automatically composing a lecture series on systematics or homiletics, or finding a good introductory book to a subject which I could put on a reading list. I even have a ‘illustrations for lectures’ list of favourite videos on YouTube!
Why do I write all this? Is it to have a moan? Perhaps. There may be something of what the philosopher Roger Scruton calls ‘resentment’. The odds seem stacked against those in the working class in something of a Catch-22 situation: to get ahead, you often need to hide your background and pretend to be something that you’re not; but in order to stay ahead, you need to have institutions on your side, as financially it is nearly impossible to go it alone. I don’t buy that Britain is a post-class society. I cynically sneer when I hear that – usually the warbling of a middle-class person who doesn’t recognise their financial and class privilege. I also get frustrated when I hear people, including bishops, emphasising racial, gender or sexual discrimination. It is not that I don’t believe that there are problems here – and there are – but rather that I know from experience that a black or Asian middle-class woman is far more likely to get ahead in life than a white (or any other race, for that matter) working class man (or woman). Few things irritate me more than someone having all the best opportunities of life complaining about some form of minor ‘oppression’ they may face. Class is a far greater predicator of success than other markers. And the gap starts early in life: what food your parents can afford to buy (which will affect neurological development), how much time they can give in helping you reading and study, what options they open to their children educationally, mental health from your environment, peer support for higher education, how people perceive them depending on their accent or clothes or mannerisms – yet again the list goes on.
This is why though I have much sympathy for a recently presented General Synod paper—I think that much of its analysis is correct, and serious attention should be given especially to the financial problems that are faced by working class ordinands—I have much scepticism. Despite the CofE’s call for ‘a more working class CofE, which better reflected the diversity of the nation it sought to serve’ in many ways what is proposed actually keeps people locked into the class system. In suggesting ways of alternative and less (traditionally) academically rigorous learning, whilst not simultaneously changing the system opportunities, we are ensuring that working class people will never teach at a theological college. Let me reiterate: in making accommodation to a weaker educational heritage, such students may never have the academic capacity to work at a PhD level, and therefore will never pass the qualifications to teach at theological college. It will risk being a system reminiscent of the Victorian school in which the polite middle-class teacher guides the earnest but scruffy street urchins (who speak with Dickensian dialect). Perhaps we may say, ‘Ah, but they could teach mission or pastoral care out of their practical experience!’ But what of systematics? What of Biblical studies? What of church history? Is this the remit of the middle and upper classes alone?
Alternatively, are we saying that working class ordinands are only geared towards working in working class communities? A bright ordinand from the working class may desperately want to leave those communities, not continue to work in them. They may have dreams of working in a plush country parish or of giving their children the opportunity of going to a good school. And why shouldn’t they hope for that? Why should aspirational class mobility be sneered at? To sneer at aspirational mobility is usually a sign of class privilege. A few years ago, when on holiday in a very nice hotel, my wife and I were almost moved to tears when we realised that we were here in part because of the hard work of our grandparents and parents. Why should the CofE deny that to future generations in an effort to diversify education?
To be a church which is ‘more working class’ requires much more than a few accommodations in vocations and training. It requires thorough rethinking. Indeed, in many ways the Victorian church were much more aware of the problems, hence why many of the Oxbridge Colleges and Mirfield were set up with the working class in mind. It decided to spend more money, not less, teaching working class ordinands the nature of academia. They had more years in training, allowing them to adjust and then thrive. It meant that the next generation of teachers included both middle class and working class. It meant that although many would become priests in the inner cities, not all did. Some went on to very plush parishes themselves with their children or grandchildren becoming bishops.
I would argue not that we give ordinands less academic rigor, but rather we give more time—and therefore more money—when it is needed and/or wanted. This may mean, for example, that a working-class ordinand gets the opportunity to learn of the riches of the classical musical tradition such that they may find eventually themselves a job as a Canon Precentor. This does not mean only celebrating middle class culture—no, we should move on from that and celebrate being working class and not having to be ashamed of it. Indeed, it may be helpful for middle- and upper-class ordinands to learn more of working-class culture! But it does mean opportunities should be opened. Oxbridge chaplaincies are the worst for this: often they only accept Oxbridge (or internationally equivalent) candidates. But if you come from the working-class and you didn’t have the upbringing to qualify for Oxbridge when you were 18, then no matter what your academic or vocational achievements, you are forever locked out. Likewise, with theological colleges only accepting candidates with PhDs—we must either drop that immediate requirement and allow opportunities for working-class candidates to pursue PhDs in post, or release moneys for working-class ordinands or clergy to take up full- or part-time doctoral studies.
What would be a greater indicator of a ‘more working class’ church: more working-class priests working in working class areas? Or working-class ordinands having sufficient time and space in rigorous training to become the chaplain of a Royal Chapel, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford or Cambridge, or, dare I say it, the Archbishop of Canterbury? What would be a greater statement of the opportunities and inclusivity of the CofE than to see someone born on the streets of Blackpool or Mansfield crown the King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
John Smith (not his real name) is ordained in the Church of England, and has written his own story anonymously.
For an excellent study of the issues from an experienced practitioner, see the Grove booklet MEv 148 A Forgotten People: Mission, Evangelism and the Working Class by Gary Jenkins.
Over the last few years I’ve increasingly embraced the fact I grew up working class – my parents were ‘aspirational’ working class, so when I started school parents were entry level traditional working class jobs, and by the time I left in my 20s they were higher level professionals in those fields. I have also served all of my ministry in working class communities.
I definitely see much of “John’s” observations in my own experiences – I particularly resonate with his comment; “I also get frustrated when I hear people, including bishops, emphasising racial, gender or sexual discrimination.” In my own context a significant proportion of prejudice and barriers for working class people’s participation in church life comes from GMH church members. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a safe place within the church to be honest about the tensions between different cultures, especially how it impacts working class people, without legitimate concerns being labelled as prejudice (for example different approaches to timekeeping and the impact it has on church life; or attitudes to pets; or environmental issues; or Remembrance Sunday – which is a big one in our community!)
I have heard it said before that it was Tony Blair that enabled working class people to go to university. But I went in 1969, and my full board accommodation and university fees were paid by the government. Because both my (working class) parents worked it was assessed that they should contribute £12 a month — which (amazingly) apparently amounts to £240 a month today.
But even so I seem to remember I could manage without it as the allowance contained in my grant was generous. This, coupled with the ready availability of holiday work in the summer, I left university debt free, complete with a (albeit old) car.
Ditto, though don’t know the parental contribution, which was not needed nor received.
A doctorate does not a person make; not a theologian.
What I find remarkable is that in the legal profession to my limited knowledge there were few PhD’s even as teachers.
Some of the best teachers I encountered were on a short course. They were partners in multinational law firms, and specialists in the subject, yet whether they had PhD’s was not known, nor published: it was irrelevant.
What is likely, however, is that class would have been a factor in their education and contracts, connections. indeed in their present position as senior partners in one of London’s ‘magic circle’ of law firms.
I think the law particularly has been like that for a very long time, ‘connections’ mean everything. But I would also like to think that is gradually changing, given more people without such connections are entering the law profession.
Blair be blowed, my mother went to Girton from working-class Sheffield. At Cambridge she met my father, whose own father had begun as tea boy in a medium-sized company and worked his way up to boardroom.
I think his and subsequent governments encouraged more working class people to attend university. That is why now about 50% of school leavers go on to university, when in my day it was 10%. Whether having so many graduates is a good thing is debateable, as it seems a significant number can only get jobs which have no requirement for a degree. But for most the university experience is a good one, but perhaps job expectations should be lowered.
I too got a full grant for living away from home and felt rich! You could even claim dole money during the holidays.
I dont have a particular problem with fees now having to be paid by graduates given the hefty bill others would have to pay if they didnt, due to the high increase in student numbers compared to a few decades ago. The issue seems to be more around day to day living costs which in my view does put working class students off, as often just to be able to live parents have to give £thousands to their kids over those 3 or 4 years. Accommodation costs is a significant part of that problem.
I wonder if the writer has considered if it is really worth working in an organisation that has treated him with such obvious disdain.
It is a good article but I think the author as he is ordained could ultimately get a post in most Parishes anywhere in the C of E. It is more being a lecturer he needs a Phd for and as he points out at the top of the C of E, the senior Bishops and royal chaplains and in Oxbridge chaplaincies it is still very Oxbridge degree heavy
Realistically – how is an ‘established’ church founded by the king of the time, and with the current monarch as ‘Supreme Governor’ going to be anything other than class-biased???
PhD’s do not guard against false teaching. They may foster, replicate, multiply false teaching and provide a platform for it, with its appeal to the fallacy of authority, with
the resulting impoverishment and infertility of gospel, pastoral, parish ministry. And all other offices within scaffolding.
As for foundations they are undermined and subjected to subsidence: demolition.
Why not be content serving God where he has placed you?
“When we look at all the inner clutter that is in our lives, hearts and souls, what do we find? We find resentments. We find remembrance of wrongs. We find self-justifications. We find these in ourselves because of pride. It is pride that makes us hold on to our justifications for our continued anger against other people. And it is hurt pride, or vainglory, which feeds our envy and jealousy. Envy and jealousy lead to resentment.”
(Archimandrite Jonah)
I find this a problematic answer. Yes, it is true – contentment is a vital part of the Christian life. However, the problem isn’t a lack of contentment here so much as unnecessary thwarted opportunity to exercise giftings. Paul said that some are given the gift of ‘teaching’; imagine a situation where the church does not allow that person to exercise that gift because of matters outside that person’s control. Would Paul advise the person to ‘be content’ with their station, or would he reprimand the church for its foolishness? In saying, ‘Just be content’ to the person whose giftings have been thwarted and are hurt and in pain that their background rather than their abilities are being unnecessarily ignored, are you not just heaping on guilt?
John: a lot more people qualify with PhDs than can find work in the very limited world of British theological education. A PhD is no guarantee of a teaching post.
And there were no higher degrees (or any degrees) among the teachers in the Pauline churches.
If you are in a parochial post, you already have a teaching post, to be exercised in preaching, catechesis and other ways. The gift must be developed.
Thanks for the comment, James. I agree – a PhD is no guarantee of a teaching post. The problem is that in today’s theological climate, not having a PhD is a guarantee of not having a teaching post. The problem isn’t that there’s not enough jobs going around – that would be an acceptable problem. Instead, it’s that restrictions are put up which mean that such posts are inaccessible to the working class unless aid is given – which is usually not the case.
Regarding the parish ministry – it is a comment I have heard every time I have raised this issue with others. I listened to it, accepted that this is what the Lord wanted, and applied myself to catechism and preaching for the last eight years. However, the calling to train ordinands has not gone away. Nearly every morning I wake up and without even wanting it, I feel its tug. In the meantime, I have seen middle class clergy who I trained with, often married to fellow professionals in the middle class, take time out in a 0.5 post to apply themselves to a doctorate, and then get a teaching job at a theological college. My wife and I could not afford that.
As such, this article has been written after a long time of growing frustration and sadness. After a while the argument ‘apply your teaching to parish ministry’ has come to sound like an excuse for not sorting out a system which is stacked up against the working class.
John, I agree that if you have the gift of teaching then you should teach and that it would be life to you. But we might not agree about what to teach. Academic theology is death. Bible teaching is life. Of course, I salute anybody who learns and teaches church history and the Hebrew and Greek languages in which scripture is written.
Now there’s a topic for a Doctorate thesis: “How Academic Theology Brings Death to Ministry.”
Not too hard: look at the end of 1 Corinthians 1.
John Smith – the most disappointing sentences in your article: “And so, I plod on in parish ministry.” You’re a young man who should be using his talents to bring others to Christ, not living in a shadow of disappointment at where God in His wisdom has placed you for now.
And I don’t think St Paul would focus on the institution or counsel defeatism in answering an authentic call from God (Philippians 4:13). It may be a hard, uncertain and rocky road, calling for sacrifice from you and your wife, but isn’t that the cost of discipleship.
George Carey was from a very working class background. That did not hold him back from doing a PhD or becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.
The problem of the lack of upward mobility for working class white boys is due in large measure to the abolition of grammar schools by Tony Crosland and the Labour Party. Many more working class children made it to Oxbridge in the 1950s and 1960s than today, thanks to the grammar schools. The grammar schools also enabled these kids to learn foreign languages and Latin and even Greek, ‘elitist’ subjects that Labour seems sworn to abolish.
‘John Smith’ seems to have had a choice and made the wrong one at the time. Understandable – eleven year olds want to stay with their primary school mates.
Using Church Commissioners’ money to create jobs (at Trinity, Bristol?) earmarked for black females may earn that college DEI points but it’s a violation of basic Christian fairness, that the job should go to the best person. I don’t know if such a move would succeed in attracting more black female ordinands, which I think is the purpose of this discrimination. A more urgent question is why comparatively few Caribbean and African Christians are attracted to the Church of England compared to Pentecostalism. (That’s a generalisation, of course. In my own parish there are several Nigerian members but they are well to do professionals, doctors and lawyers.)
I echo this comment about grammar schools.
My family is no longer working class but 3/4 of my grandparents were. My grandads both left school early and worked hard – both retiring after careers at high street banks.
They gave their children the opportunity to go to university, the first on both sides of the family to do so. In my parents’ case though, it didn’t lead to high income jobs.
Thankfully aged 11 I did go to the local grammar school – cliché alert, taking an elitist Latin GCSE! – and from there I gained a place at Cambridge, having had not a penny spent on my education by my parents.
They are not perfect by any means but to my mind there should more grammar schools. That said, the current 11+ tutoring arms race is another matter squeezing out working class children…
Thank you for publishing this article, much of which resonated with my own experience! I would say to the author, however, that it IS possible to do a part-time PhD whilst in a full-time parish post, and that the government will pay the fees via student loan. It does involve sacrifices, yes – but for those who are called to love God with their minds, it’s actually something which enables a wider ministry, not something that thwarts it. Please do pass on my contact details to the author if he’d like to compare notes.
I did my PhD while working roughly half-time as an unpaid curate. A very busy but exhilarating time.
Britain may not be a post-class society but we de-powered our aristocracy without blood, which is a very great achievement indeed when you look at the Continent.
About 70% of admissions to Oxford and Cambridge are from State schools today. Most of the other 30% come from fee-paying day schools, not the elite boarding schools.
Two points:
Firstly: Has there been a definition of ‘working class’?
When I attended lectures in sociology, our lecturer suggested it included receiving your wages in cash, putting a low value on education because you wanted your children to contribute to the household as soon as possible, and wearing your underwear in bed at night.
Of course, there are other values — but not necessarily all working class values are positive?
Just us with the diversity agenda— not all diversity is good. I notice that there is now a push against first cousin marriages common among Muslim communities?
Secondly: PhDs are research degrees and in UK universities are supposed to contribute to the field of knowledge in a specific (usually very specialised) area. And therefore, not any indication at all of doctrinal orthodoxy, pastoral, or teaching ability. But they are now virtually mandatory in the tertiary education sector simply because it is supposed to demonstrate that you are capable of sustained study and critical thinking.
Thus, there are a great many professions outside education where you can get to the top positions without a PhD — for example I suspect that most medical consultants/surgeons and barristers do not have a PhD.
So I would suggest a PhD is irrelevant for any position in the church outside seminary education.
Grief… i suggest your sociology lecturer was talking out of his mortar board…
I was born and brought up “working class”. “Wearing your underwear at night “. I’ve no doubt that those in deep poverty might have needed to… but my grandmother, born in industrial poverty in the late 1800s, would have been horrified by this. It might be something forced on some people but not a “class choice”
This is a passionate and angry post saying a lot of things that need to be said. My own Dad delayed his retirement from ministry in order to support his working class curate through theological training until his ordination. He eventually became an Archdeacon. I don’t know what the answer is, but as a member of a frustrated minority myself, (distinctive deacon) I too want to throw my hands in the air in despair at the CofE’s apparent inability to move or change. We’re stifling and strangling ourselves.
If that picture is another AI generated one, then it must have a penchant for beards.
‘airy facial intelligence
As a general point, whilst some original research might be useful, I dont see the necessity of a PhD to be able to teach theological students. Such colleges should rethink their requirements.
But if God has really ‘called’ you to this, will it not happen? But perhaps not in the way you expect.
PC1,
“I dont see the necessity of a PhD to be able to teach theological students”
You are probably right, certainly at undergraduate level. I suspect it is a case of too many applicants and it is one way of filtering the excess numbers out.
I related to John’s background: one wage council house, five children, 11+ and grammar school, only person in village to go to university, Dad who thought university graduates we’re stupid and wouldn’t give me the expected grant support. But I never found that background or my awful accent held me back in the school teaching profession. Is John highlighting a particular problem in the Anglican Church?
I wonder what the subject matter was for the proposed doctoral thesis, and whether that had any bearing on the and withdrawal of support.
I think we are in a dangerous cultural bubble where education, research and truth are undervalued, often valued *less* than their opposites and “freedom of speech” has become this wierd belief that all opinions are equally valued. About the only area this is no longer the case is if you are about to undergo surgery.
I agree that there is still a class element to education, but I don’t think that means lowering qualifications for a job.
I have a PhD, for which I worked very hard and sacrificed having any sort of income for a good portion of my 20s. My parents were a farmer and a clinician. My grandparents were an iron monger and a railwayman.
My (overvalued) opinion in this is if the job says you need a PhD and you really want that job then go get a PhD. No, that’s not easy to do, but that’s part of the reason it is required.
I am aware of no evidence that freedom of speech means anything other than what it says, and it is under severe threat from deceitful persons who like to use so-called hate speech as an excuse.
Anton
As an example, my sister, who is a nurse is finding pregnant patients unwilling to have a particular vaccine because some unqualified people on tiktok told them it was dangerous (in reality it’s dangerous not to get it).
Im not saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to speak. I’m saying we no longer value education, qualification, evidence or facts.
What vaccine?
It is the tsunami of postmodernism, emótive subjectivism -truths, emanating from the schools of philosophy and sociology where absolutes are denied, denounced, where qualitative and quantitative analysis collide
Thanks so much for this – I recognise many of the things you write about. I’m working class, and have had similar struggles. I successfully completed a doctorate and a couple of other postgraduate degrees while working – it’s extremely demanding, but it is possible. I also did manage to teach ordinands, which I greatly enjoyed.
I’m not the only person I know who is working class and turned out to have academic gifts. This is why the pontifications of middle class Bishops who already hold Oxbridge degrees, yet claim so-called academic courses of study are ‘inappropriate’ for working class ordinands, while all the time claiming to be champions of the poor, make me sick. They have already had the opportunity, so why do they think they can deny it to others, based just on an over-simplistic, patronising and paternalistic view of class? Academic courses are inappropriate for SOME working class ordinands, just as they are for some of other classes/backgrounds, not all. Many others just need to be given the tools to negotiate the terrain and some encouragement and support.
I am less in tune with your views on other expressions of discrimination, though. In my case, having ‘successfully’ battled the class discrimination inherent to the C of E, to some degree, I became disabled later in life, and found myself right back at square one. My degrees no longer mattered and nor did my experience. All people saw was a disabled person, and opportunities dried up almost overnight. It was almost impossible for me to even ‘plod on’ in parish ministry, as you put it – not because I couldn’t do the job – but because I needed to do it a little differently to the norm and people didn’t want to know. Most wanted that mythical ‘enthusiastic energetic’ (for which read able bodied) Vicar they describe in most of today’s adverts, not one who can hold a full church (or half empty one for that matter…) while preaching, among other things, but needs to use a scooter or rollator to move around.
The post I did secure turned out to be toxic and I was bullied out of it because of disability – not because of my class.
I’m not saying this to minimise the class discrimination – it is most certainly there and most definitely endemic. But there isn’t a hierarchy of expressions of discrimination, in my view, even though some expressions inevitably end up ‘flavour of the month’ for discussion, funding and action, while others remain ignored. There is just discrimination, and it is well past time for it to stop.
I always fancied Cathedral Ministry and at the end of my first curacy sent off for details of a Minor Canonry at St. George’s Windsor. The details revealed that I didn’t know as I thought about liturgy and music and that dogs were not allowed, presumably to avoid damage to the manicured lawns. I ended up in a ministry of over 40 years in just two ‘working class’ parishes where the rural working class backgrounds of my wife and myself were totally affirmed in an urban context. In my second job I ‘plodded on ‘ until the last five years of my working life when due to a ‘coincidence’ of several events the lid came off’ and resulted in a period of sustained, challenging but fulfilling growth. Since retirement we now worship in a cathedral which we love, but it has taught me that it was quite right that I should never have been let loose anywhere near one. Part of the reason is that even the best of them operate in a ratified atmosphere which easily becomes an exclusive bubble and this characteristic is shared with theological colleges. So my point is be careful what you wish for. Your experiencec and credentials as a priest from a working class background is a huge gift to the church in ways that you don’t recognise because you are to close to them. There will always be people who teach or want to ‘train others’ but few who seem to be called to work with the challenges of the inner city or the depths of the countryside, especially with the authenticity those contexts deserve. You can.