St Paul's and the Campsite

And so, after a long period of not blogging I feel the need to come to this.

St Paul’s Cathedral and its reaction to the protestors against capitalism.

To me this seems to be a case of a well-meaning cathedral getting in over its heads. In many ways it shows just how ill-equipped our clergy are at dealing with media.

So what has happened (from my perspective – sitting in my flat in Coventry miles away from the actual scene)?

Well a number of protestors decided that they wanted to send a message to bankers that they weren’t happy with capitalism. – a separate post about their message etc will appear (one day). And these people tried to set up camp outside the financial centre, however police moved them on – due to geography http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56206000/jpg/_56206135_1c0e5f4b-1135-4542-856c-8d3549873a4f.jpg the cathedral is just next to the stock exchange and so was a natural area for protestors to start congregating. The police at this time prepared to move the protestors on again, however a Canon (note A not THE) of the Cathedral told the police to move on and supported the right of the protestors to a peaceful demonstration.

A week on and the Cathedral had decided that they wanted the protestors to move on – I’m not certain as to why – this call was echoed by the Bishop of London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The cathedral then decided they wanted to close because of health and safety reasons – and called on the protestors to leave so that they could re-open. Now they have re-opened because suddenly they realise that HS isn’t a problem.
On top of this the Canon who welcomed them had decided to resign because “he didn’t want a scene like Dale farm on the steps of St Paul’s”. Essentially saying that the church will try to evict them eventually and he wasn’t happy with that.


So - what do I think should have happened?
Well for a start, when 200 odd people with tents appear outside your building you should ask questions before saying “yes you’re welcome to stay”.

Secondly it should surely have been the Deans decision, not a Canon, whether or not they are invited to stay.

Thirdly, if they want the protestors to go, be clear about that but don’t make up rubbish to do with HS rules.

Now onto the first two areas of concern.
A Canon, should not be casually making statements like “we welcome these protestors” without thinking it through. He should have thought “What will happen in a weeks’ time, or in two weeks?” But he didn’t, he wanted to appear inclusive and now the church is paying the price.

Clergy need to think about the consequences of their actions. And especially what did the Dean think? This isn’t the largest problem in the world, but to me it highlights a lack of foresight that in the “real world” would result in disciplinary proceedings.

As to the third point – this is actually two points.
What do they want, and Health and Safety (or HS for short).
I’m going to deal with Health and Safety first. If there’s one thing I learned from working in various churches it’s that health and safety concerns are very rarely connected with health and safety. A certain church “does not have a ladder” because it hasn’t been risk assessed, however if the warden feels it’s time to sweep the leaves of the flat roof extension suddenly a ladder appears quite miraculously from a cupboard. When another church wants to remove old fixtures they are ‘temporarily stored’ in a shed with the express hope that enough fungus will grow on them so that they can be disposed of due to HS. They don’t just bin them because other rules would prevent that.
Health and safety is often brandished by Vicars when they need to slow something down or stop it, but can’t find a suitable reason. It is equally brandished by other Vicars when they need to go above other rules that would stop them doing what needs to be done. But when it comes to the mundane they are often ignored because that roof won’t clean itself.

So when I hear that a church is worried about Health and Safety I have grown sufficiently sceptical to not believe it has anything to do with either the safety or the health of people.
That bias is further fed in this instance when I observe the complete lack of co-operation by St Paul’s http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/10/health-safety-cathedral-camp
From the article it appears that the protestors take HS very seriously, in fact so seriously I’m half confused/wonder if they knew people would complain about it. St Paul’s on the other hand appears to have taken advice from random people they dare not name, and doesn’t seem to want to help the camp in becoming more safe (they kept saying they had numerous concerns of liability or fire risk etc, but when asked by the protestors how they could reorganise to help silence was the answer).

Another classic problem was the clerk of works after being consulted on where new porta-loos should go, then decides to go home early on the day of delivery with no clear person from the cathedral designated to oversee what was going on, then a Receptionist being the one to say “we’re not going to help you, put the loo somewhere else” at the last minute. Was and Receptionist making it up – has she been disciplined – or was it that the clergy were too cowardly to send someone of importance to break the news.
This seems to be a classic example of HS being used by priests for non-HS reasons.

But – why did they close? Well firstly the loss of 120k isn’t going to hurt them (you can find financial reports online, and they had very healthy surpluses in 2010 and 2009), so don’t say they wouldn’t dare do it unless it was important.
Some people suggest that they are influenced by bankers – although to be honest I don’t imagine bankers care much about the protest to worry about it being removed.
Some suggest that it is to do with the Cathedral wanting to look nice and pretty – possible, but are they that vain? I don’t think so (or rather I hope not).

I suggest that they realised they didn’t want to become a home to someone else’s protest – and where simply wondering how to remove the protestors and went on the experience of “oh lets use HS as a reason because that’s always worked before”. They may well have been influenced by bankers or by ‘wanting to be pretty’, but tbh we just don’t know.


The trouble is, while one or two troublesome people can be duped by HS reasons face to face(or even the DAC sometimes when you want to remove old furniture), mass media with people reading and then thinking allows people to say “hang on a moment”.
I hope that this may be the beginning of the end for HS being liberally (mis)used in churches, and that then people will actually try and sort out the DAC(s). Sadly I don’t think that’ll happen just yet.

What certainly will happen is that people will see the church as hypocritical and quite childish. Not a good week for Christian witness.

I know I say all this being far removed from the physical reality, but the church needs to remember it is being judged by people around the world right now. The irony of the church dedicated to a tent maker who was often beaten and improsened by authorities having trouble with people in tents protesting against the authorities is plain for all to see.

The Cathedral needs to practice the old art of Christian Repentance (something I see very rarely in Christian organisations) – they should apologise for confusion about how long they thought the protestors would stay, and for the confusion over HS. And be HONEST about wanting them to leave OR be HONEST about being ambivalent about them leaving or not.
Honesty and saying sorry. Something the people have asked the government and the bankers to do for years, but so far they have not managed to do. Can the Christians manage to live out such a great Christian witness or will they succumb to pride?

I know where my (metaphorical) money is, and where my hope is. Sadly the two don’t seem to be aligned.