already I stand in front of it with colleagues getting them to explain to me how things work. At a simple level it’s showing me the shape of the benefices and how they’re defined; It’s also making clear where boundaries lie. You’ll be familiar with how important boundaries are in relation to ancient habits and assumptions about our neighbours and I already have on my desk a small campaign by parishioners who wish to renegotiate their boundaries. I know this concern about the right boundaries well from a completely different context which is my relationship with the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan where the administrative lines on maps drawn by the colonial British bear little helpful relation to tribal loyalties and the physical terrain which have driven life for centuries. The map on the wall is also telling me exactly where our buildings are placed which begs some important questions of how parish life has developed, and gives me a series of questions you can answer for me in due time; And, of course, when I know more I will be able to superimpose on this map the social realities of different parts of the diocese. I was talking with one of our MPs last week who was able to plot on the map of his constituency how certain social habits such as domestic violence increased as you travelled in certain directions. What I don’t yet know is where you and your community place yourself on this map of mine, not in terms of geography but with respect to the sense of the wider church and of being a diocesan family. It’s relatively easy to tell when someone feels secure in the mainstream of the diocese, feels at home in our structures, our beliefs, traditions and culture. But for all sorts of reasons it’s possible to feel marginal or detached from the core identity of the diocese. Talking of boundaries, those East End parishes I had responsibility for were the very limit of the Diocese of London in the east. Whilst there I sometimes felt a certain sympathy with Pontius Pilate, trying to maintain the imperial identity of Rome on their eastern frontier as I looked over the wasteland of the Lee Valley and viewed the Diocese of Chelmsford in the shape of the Borough of Newham. The only thing inhabiting that wasteland at the time was the Big Brother
already I stand in front of it with colleagues getting them to explain to me how things work. At a simple level it’s showing me the shape of the benefices and how they’re defined; It’s also making clear where boundaries lie. You’ll be familiar with how important boundaries are in relation to ancient habits and assumptions about our neighbours and I already have on my desk a small campaign by parishioners who wish to renegotiate their boundaries. I know this concern about the right boundaries well from a completely different context which is my relationship with the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan where the administrative lines on maps drawn by the colonial British bear little helpful relation to tribal loyalties and the physical terrain which have driven life for centuries. The map on the wall is also telling me exactly where our buildings are placed which begs some important questions of how parish life has developed, and gives me a series of questions you can answer for me in due time; And, of course, when I know more I will be able to superimpose on this map the social realities of different parts of the diocese. I was talking with one of our MPs last week who was able to plot on the map of his constituency how certain social habits such as domestic violence increased as you travelled in certain directions. What I don’t yet know is where you and your community place yourself on this map of mine, not in terms of geography but with respect to the sense of the wider church and of being a diocesan family. It’s relatively easy to tell when someone feels secure in the mainstream of the diocese, feels at home in our structures, our beliefs, traditions and culture. But for all sorts of reasons it’s possible to feel marginal or detached from the core identity of the diocese. Talking of boundaries, those East End parishes I had responsibility for were the very limit of the Diocese of London in the east. Whilst there I sometimes felt a certain sympathy with Pontius Pilate, trying to maintain the imperial identity of Rome on their eastern frontier as I looked over the wasteland of the Lee Valley and viewed the Diocese of Chelmsford in the shape of the Borough of Newham. The only thing inhabiting that wasteland at the time was the Big Brother
Presidential-Address-September-2017.docx