Manchester, England lays claim to being the birthplace of the industrial revolution. It is also the birthplace of fully-inclusive democracy, workers’ unionization, and with those movements, the emergence of middle-class prosperity globally. Manchester was an early hotbed for activism for the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and more recently, the rights of migrants and the battle against global warming.
John Wesley had little to do with the industrial revolution, but he had an enormous influence on all the rest of this. In the late 1700s, Wesley helped establish a church in Manchester, which would become much more than a church. It would become the first of the Methodist Central Halls, a community center model of church that looked at life holistically: mind, body, spirit and social justice. Methodism was a movement of working-class people who needed a more authentic expression of faith and life concerns than was possible within The Church of England in that era. Karl Marx developed much of his political theory holed away in a Manchester library. Methodism was less radical than Marxism, but they are cousins. They shared similar end goals, even if they envisaged different roads towards the thriving of common people. Marx believed that religion was beyond reform. John Wesley reformed religion toward the values of Jesus.
At one point in the nineteenth century, about a third of the population in the English-speaking world were Methodists. And, truly, it is hard to imagine the birth of so many progressive practices in the modern world, had it not been for the moral weight of working-class Methodists.
In 1941, Hitler bombed out the Methodist Central Hall. This turned out to be a blessing, as they were able to renovate the facility in the late 40s as a less ornate, churchy place, more geared to community needs and traffic, a church leaning outward, a reclaiming of its roots.
I spent a day with Ian Rutherford last week on the streets of Manchester. Ian is the Methodist minister who currently leads Manchester Central Hall. Central Hall remains a vibrant hub of an outward-leaning Christianity.
When Ian first arrived in Manchester in 2017, boots fresh on the ground, a terrorist bombed an Ariana Grande concert. 22 persons perished. Early the next day, Ian was headed across town to meet the canon of the Anglican cathedral for them to pray and organize inside church walls in terms of how to minister to the city in the crisis. But the police had cordoned off parts of the city, so that they could not physically reach one another, nor could either reach the cathedral. The canon said to him (cell phone conversation): “You pray there and I will pray here.” And with that, Ian, in identifiable clergy attire started praying, and others surrounded them heads bowed. The same thing happened on the other end. Then they started praying with people in the streets. This went on at length. At last, the prayer meeting ended, and Ian decided to start walking from shop to shop to see the retail people, who were at work, but whose hearts were broken. Eight years later, they still talk of how meaningful was this presence in that tender moment.
Two bombings: from which God created renewal of life and a rediscovery of the church’s call to serve neighbors.
Ian has helped organize Manchester into nine sectors, not by geography, but by professional disciplines, with a council representing each of the nine: religion, education, healthcare, etc. In each of the sectors, there is constant work helping to rally others beyond siloed visions of purpose to an inclusive, public vision of human thriving, with everyone aligned. It is hard work in every sector to listen deeply to others who represent other organizations, other disciplines, other religions. But in Manchester, the work is paying off. Muslims, Anglicans, Evangelicals, Jews: these are not always easy relationships.
On the day after we walked the streets of Manchester, it was Yom Kippur. I was already up in Glasgow, when I saw the news feed that there had been a terror incident at a Manchester synagogue. Two were dead, then three including the terrorist. Thankfully, the police were able to keep his bomb from detonating.
I knew at that moment, exactly what Ian Rutherford was doing. And he wasn’t at the church office. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.” In other words, Christian faith is about improving life. It is about standing up. It is about speaking out. It is about activism. It is about universal suffrage. It is about showing up for our neighbors, even when their crisis is not on our liturgical calendar.
The story of Manchester proves that people of faith can make an enormous and beautiful difference in the world.
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