The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams recently called for a reformation of the traditional parish system of the Church of England in order to redirect its money towards its mission work. He maade the statement at the memorial service in Westminster Abbey to mark the 300th anniversary of the state’s funding to parishes of the Church, which is known as the Queen Anne’s Bounty.

Dr Williams recalled the significance of the Queen Anne’s Bounty to Church development. He expressed his great appreciation of the generosity of Queen Anne - her offering to the church in financial terms has counteracted “some of the appalling legacy of unscrupulous depredation by the secular power” in the century and a half before. The Church expressed itself to the society as “an agent of holiness and social change” by putting wealth at the service of the most needy - a central aspect of the gospel vision.

“Without the Queen’s cash, the Church of England would have been stuck with the arbitrary, uneven and distorted patterns imposed by both local and national rapacity, the compulsion that intermittently arises in English society to stop the Church thinking strategically and coherently and independently,” Dr Williams continued.

Referring to a number of bible readings, Dr Williams pointed out the correct Christian perspective towards money. He reminded the Church that “The love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil” and “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. Therefore, he urged the Church to use money wisely to work for justice and that can help achieve justice in the world.

Dr Williams frankly spoke about the problem in the Church of England nowadays, “We know that our much-loved and treasured parochial system is not equipped to meet all the challenges of young, mobile populations, whose patterns of life and work are not those of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.”

Dr Williams suggested cutting funding from wealthier bishops and their cathedrals to assist the work of the Church’s General Synod this year.

“We need to ask what resources can be put at the service of new things - not just in the form of supplementary funding for parish ministry, but in the shape of seed money for mission initiatives.”

“It is for dioceses to think creatively about how to connect the old and the new, to encourage traditional parishes to share prayer and energy with new initiatives in church life, and above all to help break down the perennial suspicion between the historic mainstream and the risk-taking innovators.”

“Ultimately we cannot pretend to be living as the body of Christ if we do not constantly scrutinise what we have that can and should be at the service of others less visibly resourced, whether this is money, personnel or skill.”

Dr Peter Selby, the Bishop of Worcester, responded, “The important point about the whole thing is the way we spend our money, how we order our priorities in the use of our resources, tells an awful lot about us in all sorts of ways.”

The Right Rev Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme said, “The priority must always be to give most importance to where most help is needed, namely the poorest parishes.”


[Source: Times]