Page 8 - PT Winter 2021-2022

Eva McIntyre

The beating heart

of the community?

he parish system in England is an ancient where we should look after ourselves first, I feel a little
one that we owe to the Roman Catholic like a stranger in society for holding views based on the
TChurch who established it and maintained teaching of Jesus.
it as a system of oversight and care of the people. Believing or belonging? Photo Credit: istockphoto.com/pkfawcett
The system was continued after the English There’s another reason that Matthew Parris is on my mind,
Church broke with Rome under Henry VIII and though. It’s the article he wrote in The Times (20/11/21 )
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was furthered as a fundamental element of about the Church of England. I simply don’t recognise
the new Church of England during the reign of the worshippers he writes about, so perhaps he attends
Elizabeth I. the sort of church that would never have someone like me
It is such a longstanding part of our Church as their vicar. If you’d asked me about people who don’t
actually ‘believe’ attending church 35 years ago, I might
and social structure that we seldom stop to have thought you had a point in some small sectors of the
consider where the word ‘parochial’, from which Church like college and school chapels and some venues
parish developed, came from. where people loved to go simply for the music. In 2021
I see little evidence for this, and his suggestion that we
Its origins are in Koine Greek (the Greek widely spoken at should be focusing on ‘…what it is about their churches
the time of Jesus) in which the New Testament was written. that they love’ he explains this is the fabric, music, and
Paroikía means to stay in a foreign land and the classical the familiar.
Greek from which it comes – pároikos – means neighbouring He then goes on to claim that ‘Many churchgoers are…
or neighbours. This serves to remind us that the work a bit iffy about the actual existence of a deity, let alone a
and life of the parish is to look towards those outside the life to come.’ He suggests that Anglicanism ‘was never
immediate community of the Church, to serve and love our meant for the doctrinaire’, which puts him somewhat at
neighbours and welcome the stranger. odds with the evidence of the English Reformation and
It also reminds us of the tension between our life in the importance it placed on doctrine. I am left feeling that
society and our life of faith; that our call to follow the either Parris hasn’t been to church in a while, or he doesn’t
narrow path will often make us feel like foreigners in talk to his fellow worshippers about their faith.
our own land. Now, I am not a fan of the notion expressed by the
As I write this article, I am reminded of listening to Archbishop of York that the Church of England should
the journalist Matthew Parris on the radio this morning, ‘let our death be a grand operatic death’ any more than
as he insisted that it was reasonable to put ourselves and Mr Parris. However, my reasoning is that it has little to do
our loved ones before those suffering and fleeing their with the Gospel story of death and resurrection, nor does it
own lands to find refuge elsewhere, as foreigners in a embrace that it’s ‘when two or three are gathered’ that Jesus
strange land. Images and words poured into my mind: that is in their midst.
of Ruth, a Moabitess, after catastrophe had struck their I concede that serious issues face the Church of England,
family, following Naomi to live in Israel. In Matthew 25, many of them are actually about property and finance,
we see Jesus repeating the Jewish command that you must but I remain unconvinced that the Governance Review has
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remember the stranger, that the poor are a priority. Of been approaching this situation from the perspective of
course, Parris isn’t alone in holding this view, and when Gospel values. Rather, it appears to be a sign of desperation
I hear people expressing this sort of protectionist view, and some of the ideas mooted appear unresearched and

8 The Plain Truth Winter 2021-2022 Find us online at www.plain-truth.org.uk