I had some interesting responses to my recent observations about class and the church. These ranged from “Yes there is a working class but it’s a small minority in the wider society, so we cannot really suggest that the church is dominated by a minority culture. The culture that dominates is the culture of wider society.” To “class distinctions are meaningless anyway. Can’t we just be all one in Christ Jesus.”
I thought it might be helpful to flesh out my thoughts a bit further. First of all, I’m one of th wfirst to acknowledge the complexities of talking in terms of class. In fact, I’m on record as saying that where I grew up in West Yorkshire, it was les about class identity and more about being prober Yorkshiremen. You didn’t have “working class” you had normal Yorkshire, posh Yorkshire and then everyone else. On a more serious note, to be sure distinctions have become harder, especially as deindustrialisation means that fewer people actually work in manual (skilled or unskilled work). There have been attempts to review and revise classification. However, whilst it may be a crude generalisation, I think it is safe and uncontroversial to acknowledge that in an unequal society, there will be people who have much when it comes to wealth, power, connections etc. There will also be those who have a lot less power, wealth and connections. It goes without saying that others will fall in the middle. And whilst attempts to place people in technically defined strata may meet the challenges of blurred lines, most people have a sense of where they fall in terms of those broad categories.
Secondly, are the working class a minority? Well, I note that some people talking from and on behalf of working class communities seem to think so. I guess that if you define working class in purist terms as those involved in forms of manual labour, then those numbers are shrinking and increasingly a minority. This reflects deindustrialisation, increased technology and the growth and spread of higher education. However, I think that we can observe that there are many people whose roots and therefore attitudes, connections and values are more aligned with working class culture.
Indeed, the big point I was trying to make was that we have a lot of people who are in essence “just normal people” and they probably overlap traditional working class and traditional lower middle class boundaries. Those boundaries are porous. I think of life where I grew up in South Bradford, its similar to life in North Birmingham today. Basically, you grew up, went to school and hung out with people who lived in council houses and people who lived in owner occupied houses. Your school mates included those whose parents worked in factories along with teachers, other professionals and those who owned their own small businesses, shops, plumbers, electricians, builders etc. You also had friends whose parents were unemployed. Even if your parents had professional jobs in the 70s through to the early 90s, there was a high chance that at some point they would be unemployed. So, yes the boundaries between working class and lower middle class were blurred. Yet that is central to my thesis that you have a majority of normal people who share geographical space and similar values and culture. Then you have a distinct culture which we might consider as belonging to the elite, the powerful, the connected, the prosperous and alongside that you have those who aspire to belong to the elite.
It is my argument that it is that broader grouping of people that are underrepresented in our churches in terms of numbers, leaders and culture. Now, not everyone will agree with that outlook. As I note, there are plenty of people who want to identify a minority working class. I have two concerns with that. First I think that often this is narrowing focus onto a specific subsection, those who are considered deprived, those living on the toughest estates, those living in the grottiest inner city slums. Those people exist and they suffer the worst. However, I’m not sure that it’s helpful to conflate “working class” with “deprived”. Secondly, I think that there is a risk that we start to talk about the working class as a minority which feels more like the kind of identity politics at which moder society prevails.
Now, for me, the question is really about whether we are debating terms and categories to be helpful, to move us to action or whether it risks becoming an excuse for inaction, a distraction.
This leads me to the point about “Why can’t we just treat everyone as equal? Don’t they just need a saviour?” Similar arguments have been made when it comes to race. In response Iwould say “I wish that it were so.” However, if we really think of people as equal, then why do more resources go into and stay into prosperous areas? Why is it that if you are at church this Sunday then you are more likely to be a student or graduate, more likely to live in rhe suburbs than on an inner-city estate, more likely to be doing okay economically? If we just want to treat everyone as equals who need the Gospel, then why is it hard work to get churches planted and revitalised in our inner city and estate communities? If it’s Jesus that we ned, then why is it that if you are working class, non-white or female then you are more likely to feel that there are hoops to jump through before you can fit in to an alien culture?
Faithroots 